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greatunironic · 1 month

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eddie wakes up in a strange room. this was not particularly unusual for him, historically: he’d spent most of his twenties waking up in new and interesting places (including a handful of jail cells). but after eddie, the label, and the los angeles superior court system decided it would be best if he stopped drinking and doing blow, it stopped being such a regular occurrence.

so it’s almost alarming to him, now, to be blinking up at an unfamiliar cement ceiling with the raging bitch of all headaches and generally feeling like he got hit by a truck, got whiplash in a crash with the way his neck aches. he’d think he was hungover like all those times before except for how sharp the pain is, bright.

he worries, briefly, he’s relapsed, or someone’s slipped him something. but he remembers what him and the boys had been up to, before this, and he thinks it’d’ve been a strange night indeed if someone roofied a c-list (b-list if he’s feeling charitable) musician at a fucking frozen four game.

because yeah, eddie remembers: they’d been third row, watching the wisconsin ladies clean up and cheering for jeff’s kid sister like she was about to get olympic gold. (she probably would, someday. her and that mayfield girl who played defense were looking down the barrel at a 2026 run apparently.

eddie’s been to a handful of games over the years, when touring and recording allows them to go. he’s resolutely never been a sports guy but he’ll admit, when pressed, that live hockey is pretty dope. to say nothing, of course, of how jeff would probably murder them all in their sleep if they didn’t rep the red and white for lottie.

(and also — and this is between eddie and his god alright — but lottie’s coach? standing back there in his suit, hair styled and dialed, snapping his gum, yelling at the refs? kind of doing it for him, okay. worth the price of admission, even if the tickets weren’t free.)

when he thinks harder — which hurts too — the last thing he clearly remembers was someone from the beavers scoring, bringing their lead to 5-1, and a slapshot from the other team getting out over the boards and nearly taking out some lady’s popcorn. someone behind them in the seats said, “jesus they’re getting desperate, eh?”

then shit goes dark on him, not even a fade to black, but a full on smash cut, roll credits black, and the post-credits scene is where ever the fuck eddie is at the moment. it smells like human and cold and icy hot, so obviously, he thinks, he died and went to hell like all the church ladies said he would back in hawkins, or probably just a locker room. what the fuck?

he blinks at the ceiling, at an interesting water stain on the cement texturing. he’s in the middle of wondering where the rest of his band has gone if he’s here alone, fucking abandoners, when a sweaty redhead with the bitchiest expression he’s maybe ever seen enters his field of vision.

“you’re alive,” she says.

eddie blinks again. “why do you sound so disappointed?”

“yo coach!” she shouts, already on the move away from him. “he’s alive!”

he tries to sit up, but that makes the pain in his head worse, and also draws attention to the fact that his back also hurts. he squeezes his eyes shut and makes a truly embarrassing noise of pain — if pressed, he’d call it a whimper — and a pair of big hands land on his shoulders.

“out, out ladies i got this! hey!, hey, man, don’t move just yet,” says big hands.

“yeah, no problem, i don’t want to anymore,” eddie says. he stirs up the will to open his eyes again and very nearly slams them back shut. because of course the person staring down at him is fucking coach hottie snackycakes himself. he’s even better looking in person, too, big droopy eyes, lips as pink as his bubblegum, and shiny, jesus christ. he’s still got eddie by the shoulders, hands warm through the thin cotton of his flannel and tee — because eddie’s always been more fashion than sense, wayne always said, and it’s even worse now that the paps are on him—

“oh, fuck this is gonna be all over tiktok later, isn’t it?” he moans.

“maybe not.”

“don’t lie.”

“listen, eddie — it is eddie, right?” asks coach hottie. “i’m steve. coach harrington. faughnsie — lottie, i mean — she said you’re eddie. her brother’s guitarist? what do you remember?”

“more like he’s my singer,” he says, “but sure. and not much.”

“well, you’re gonna be okay,” says coach hottie — steve. “it really wasn’t that bad, and it was probably too fast for anyone to get it, unless they already had a camera on you. you took a puck to the head when one popped up. i’d apologize but it wasn’t one of my girls who did it, so. anyway — you weren’t out for long, which robbie says is good — she’ll get a look at you in a second — but you got your bell rung pretty good. and you’re gonna have quite the shiner, trust me.”

“speaking from experience?”

“oh, yeah. closer and faster too.” he gently raps his head with his knuckles. “too many concussions too early ended my nhl days, in fact.”

“oh. oh shit, sorry, i—“

“don’t worry about it, man, it happens,” he says. “and if it hadn’t, i wouldn’t be here.”

“at the frozen four.”

“yeah, sure, that too.”

“what?”

“what?” steve waves him off. “anyway, i’m just glad to see you up, ish, and talking. looked pretty scary, from the bench.”

“i really don’t remember,” says eddie. “but i’m sure i’ll see it on tiktok later, like i said — at least, my unconscious, bleeding form.”

“i got up there pretty fast, so i doubt it,” says steve.

eddie blinks, twice. “you—?”

“you were behind my bench, and you. well,” he says with a shrug, but he’s clearly a little embarrassed, finally putting those hands away — weapons of eddie destruction, he thinks — and shoving them into his pockets of his tight slacks. “i should be getting back out there.”

“do you? you’re murdering them pretty good, unless i black out and missed them getting four more goals,” eddie says.

the corners of steve’s eyes crinkle when he smiles. eddie thinks he might just pass out again. “no, we’re still gonna cinch it, i think. looks bad, though — first time coach missing the final period so’s he can hit on the cute musician who got his clock cleaned by the biscuit.”

“oh,” he says. swallows. “uh.”

steve’s crinkly, smiley eyes go wide. “unless—“

“no less!” eddie shouts and then immediately winces. at a better, less damaging to his more than slightly concussed noggin, volume, he says, “more, actually. because pretty sure i shouldn’t be left unsupervised, and i’ve clearly been abandoned by the band, so—“

“so,” says steve.

“coach, two minutes!” someone calls.

“so, i was hoping maybe i could keep hitting on the hot hockey coach back at his?”

“i’m at the ramada inn,” he says, “and i got tape to watch for the finals.”

“i live for room service,” eddie tells him seriously. “and i’m suddenly very into wisconsin sports teams.”

“coach! go time!”

“yeah?” he asks.

“yeah.”

“COACH!”

he jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “i gotta — but, uh, later?”

“pick me up in twenty?”

“probably more like half an hour, with stoppage,” he says.

someone bangs on the door. “COACH!! let’s boogie!!”

with one last look, wide eyed and smiling, steve leaves. eddie watches him go. he’d heard hockey players were caked up but lord — eddie is about to convert to a new religion, or maybe found one, over the stretch of those slacks.

“damn,” he says quietly.

“gross,” a woman says. eddie startles and looks to the side, where a lanky brunette with a bob and an undercut is staring at him, unimpressed. she’s in some get up that screams athletic trainer, and there’s a white board in her hand.

“how long have you been there?” he asks.

she raises an eyebrow. “long enough, and honestly, i don’t know if that counts as a you rule for him, or a you suck for you,” she says and does not elaborate when he asks. “also don’t look at him like that. it’s steve. he’s basically my sister.”

“yeah? any tips then?” asks eddie. “i promise i’ll only use them for good. well. mostly.”

“god,” she says with an expansive eye roll. “you’re gonna be a nightmare, aren’t you?”

a cheer goes up outside the room as the teams, presumably, take the ice again. eddie, head throbbing, concussed, embarrassed, grins. “sure hope so,” he says.

#stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #steddie #rockstar au #hockey au #two great tastes that taste great together tbh #cross posted on twitter #might clean this up later + pop it on ao3

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desertduality · 3 months

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gigs phasmo but the ghost is just confused mumbo jumbo

physically unable to write a snippet so here's a whole oneshot AKJSDKJ I hope you like it!! Personally I had a ton of fun lmao

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The house was nice, as far as haunted locations went. The flowers out front were dead, sure, but that was probably on account of their caretaker being dead as well.

The neighbors had been the ones to call this address in, claiming that although the owner of the property had died quite some months ago, lights frequently turned on and off in the house. The police had been by several times to check for intruders, and had come up empty every time. Finally, some desperate neighbor had given in and called paranormal investigators.

So there they were, Impulse pulling up on the curb just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Prime ghost hunting time, for some reason; Scar hadn’t really paid attention to the science and research when he’d signed up for the job. Besides, the other three had all that handled quite nicely. Scar was just along for the ride.

“Scar, you know what you’re doing?” Impulse asked, grabbing a flashlight off the wall and clipping his walkie onto his belt.

“Sir, yes sir!” Scar quipped, scanning the gear for his usual fare. “One paraba-dolical microphone coming up.”

“Grab a thermometer, too,” Impulse suggested, clapping him on the shoulder on his way out of the van. “Let’s try to keep this one clean! The company is running low on cursed items with resurrection abilities.”

“I know for a fact we’ve made the biggest dent in that,” Skizz’s voice crackled out of the walkie, changing to a slight echo as he presumably walked in the house.

“Why do you sound proud of that?” Grian asked, speaking into the radio as he grabbed a salt canister. Scar snickered, reaching over him to grab the thermometer.

“We’ve got a record going, man! No one can stop us!”

“You have to admire his positivity,” Scar said brightly, clicking his flashlight to make sure it worked.

“Yeah, I guess he’s got that going for him,” Grian replied, giving a short wave as he left the van. “See you on the inside, Scar.”

Scar gave a jaunty wave, doing one last check on his equipment before starting after him. A voice cut him off before he could leave.

“Did anyone check the name?” Impulse asked, and Scar turned around to squint at the corkboard, eyes catching on the top.

Huh. Interesting.

Scar clicked the talk button on his walkie. “Looks like… Mumbo Jumbo?”

There was a long pause, and Scar almost thought they had missed it somehow. Then the response came.

“Scar,” Grian said, sounding tiredly amused. “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t just make something up.”

“No, It— It literally says Mumbo Jumbo,” Scar replied, glancing up to double check. “Don’t make me waste a photo to prove it. I will, you know I will.”

“Don’t, Scar,” Impulse jumped in, so quickly that the start of his sentence cut out. “We believe you.”

“Get in here before I come and drag you, Face,” Skizz chimed in, and Scar rolled his eyes with a chuckle, stepping out of the van.

The house was warmer than the air outside, so Scar took that as a sign that someone had gotten to the fuse box. He wandered around with the paradabolic microphone for a few minutes, watching closely for big leaps in the readings. Eventually, Impulse called out from upstairs, claiming that he’d found the room. Scar hurried towards him, making it there just in time to watch him set up the video camera, fiddling with the tripod and muttering complaints about its stability.

The room was a bedroom, a large bed against one wall and a shelf full of dead plants on the other. Everything was covered with a thin layer of dust, but that was pretty usual. Obviously no one had been keeping up with the cleaning.

“Anyone done spirit box?” Grian asked, and Scar jumped and whirled around, finding him in the doorway. Grian giggled, and Scar huffed.

“Not yet,” Impulse said, finally getting the tripod to settle. He looked over at them. “Want us to leave?”

“Not really,” Grian grumbled, starting to power up the spirit box. “But yes.”

Scar walked out of the door and Impulse followed him, closing it and leaving Grian in the room alone. Immediately, they heard the telltale singing introduction of Grian beginning to ask questions. The rest of the house was quiet. So far, everything had been entirely unremarkable.

“I’m going to go grab D.O.T.S and a book,” Impulse spoke suddenly, starting to walk away. “Maybe you could start grabbing some stuff for a polty pile?”

“Sure, will do,” Scar said, and started picking up objects from the table in the hallway. A lot of picture frames and spare wires, for whatever reason.

Grian opened the door to the room just as Scar arrived with his arms full, and Scar tilted his head at the odd look on the other’s face. His eyebrows were furrowed and he was wearing a faint frown.

“What’s wrong?” Scar asked, curious. Normally, Grian came out of a spirit box session with wide eyes and immediately ran to the van. This was out of character.

“I think…” Grian started, contemplative frown getting more pronounced. “I think the ghost apologized to me.”

“...huh?”

“I asked where it was,” Grian said, spirit box slack in his hand. “And then it said something, and then I screamed, and then it— I could have sworn it said sorry. Like, for scaring me.”

“Oh,” Scar said, tilting his head. “Has that happened before?”

Grian shook his head slowly, staring at the spirit box for a minute before exhaling forcefully. “Let’s just keep going,” he said, shoving the device in his pocket. “We still have a job to do.” Then, into his walkie: “We’ve got spirit box, guys. One thing down.”

They kept doing their jobs like they normally would, but none of them could quite shake the sense of something being different.

Usually, the haunted locations they visited had a foreboding sort of feeling to them. They get in and out of those places as soon as possible, the feeling of imminent danger settling on their shoulders like a heavy jacket. There was none of that, here. It was obviously haunted, but it still just felt like... a house. It didn’t feel malicious at all.

Impulse put a book down, and writing appeared a few minutes later. Just a single sentence, asking if they would water the plants on their way out.

They laid down D.O.T.S and stayed out in the van for a while, eventually seeing a tall, hazy figure pass quickly through.

They caught ghost orbs on the video surveillance.

Impulse took the Ultraviolet flashlight and found fingerprints on the side of the video camera, like the ghost had been curious about it.

The salt Grian had placed on the ground was smeared and scattered, almost as if the ghost had slipped on it instead of stepped in it.

“If we discovered some new type of ghost,” Grian said eventually, muffled through his own hands covering his face, after hours of pouring over the conflicting evidence. “I am going to be upset.”

“None of this makes sense!” Impulse complained, flipping through the research journal that Scar had never touched. He was scowling at the pages like they’d personally offended him. “It won’t even hunt!”

“He seems kinda friendly,” Scar said, staring at the steady line of the EMF reader on the screen. “The poor guy just wants his plants watered. I don’t even have the heart to tell him that it probably wouldn’t help. Those things are dead dead.”

Impulse’s head thunked down on the table in front of him. “We’re so fired.”

In the silence following that statement, Skizz burst into the van, holding an object aloft in celebration.

“I found it!” Skizz yelled triumphantly, the wrinkly figure of the monkey paw clutched in his hand. “It fell behind some boxes. I told you it was here.”

“Oooh,” Scar said, rushing over in excitement. “What should we wish for?”

“A quick death?” Grian said flatly.

Scar waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve had too many of those. It gets kind of boring, believe it or not.”

“Let’s just wish to see it,” Impulse said, heaving himself up from his hunched position by the monitor. “We’ve done everything else we could do, let’s just do it.”

“Sure, why not,” Grian said, shrugging. “Let’s go out in a blaze of glory, then.”

“That’s the spirit!” Skizz laughed, and together the four of them marched back into the house.

The room was exactly as they’d left it, and Impulse took a moment to turn off the D.O.T.S. Then they stood in a loose circle, tense and determined. Whatever was happening here, it would be over soon. One way or the other. Maybe the company wouldn’t even bother to bring them back, this time.

Skizz held the monkey paw aloft, dim light casting dramatic shadows on his face. “I wish to see the ghost!”

A finger on the monkey paw cracked and groaned as it bent down, and a chill swept across the room, quick and encompassing. Their flashlights flickered, and then died, leaving them in complete darkness. For a long moment, the only sound was their chorus of quick and shaky breathing.

When the lights turned back on, Scar was face to face with a ghost. A ghost that looked equally as startled as he was.

Scar yelped and stumbled backwards, tripping over the open book on the ground and hurtling towards the bed. The ghost — a tall man with dark hair and an absolutely wonderful mustache — lunged forward and reached out as if to catch him, eyes wide and panicked. To be fair to the dead man, it absolutely would have worked if his hands were still a tangible thing; As it were, his attempt at grabbing Scar to keep him upright was rather rudely foiled by his outstretched hand passing right through Scar’s flailing arm.

Scar hit the bed with a grunt as various cries of alarm sounded out around him, light bouncing around the room haphazardly as the sound of clattering reached his ears; someone had dropped their flashlight, apparently. Scar laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling, dazed.

“Oh gosh! I’m so— I didn’t mean to pop in like that, I—”

Scar looked up just in time to watch a crucifix fly through the air and pass harmlessly through the ghost’s head, hitting the wall with a thud and falling gracelessly to the floor. The ghost yelped and ducked — much too late, not that it mattered, anyway — and Scar’s gaze next landed on Grian, still standing there with his arm extended in a throwing motion, hand empty and eyes wide.

“What was that gonna do, G?!” Skizz asked hysterically, fumbling for his camera, accidentally snapping a picture of his own face and swearing when the light blinded him.

Impulse had knocked over the tripod in all of the chaos, and was now frantically attempting to set it back upright. The ghost — Mumbo Jumbo — turned his anxious eyes on Scar, who for once was struck speechless, jaw slack.

“Are you alright, mate?” Mumbo Jumbo asked, hands fidgeting together. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but— Well, you summoned me. There’s only so much to be done for that.”

With everyone else still scrambling about the room, Scar allowed himself a few seconds to process things. Most ghosts they’d come across — all of them, actually — had been nothing less than murderous and bloodthirsty. The cordial ghost of a perfectly normal man was not something they had been trained for, but that didn’t exactly mean that it was impossible. Sure, maybe it had come way, way out of left field, but Scar prided himself on rolling with the punches. He pushed himself up from the bed with a sheepish, charming smile.

“It’s all good,” Scar said, bright and friendly. “For sure our fault, we summoned you and got surprised when you showed up. Kind of rude of us, I think. Your mattress is super comfortable, by the way.”

Mumbo Jumbo blinked, as if surprised by the onslaught of words, a confused little furrow appearing between his brows. “Thank you?” he said, glancing behind him at the bed. “It was…expensive.”

“I mean, hey! We spend a lot of our lifetime in a bed, right? Might as well shell out some cash for quality.”

“What are we doing?” Grian asked quickly, almost like he was talking to himself, hands pressed to his head in utter bafflement. “This is insane, what is happening.”

“Grian! Don’t be rude,” Scar admonished playfully, then turned back to grin at the ghost. “Mumbo Jumbo, right?”

The man nodded faintly. “Just…Mumbo is fine.”

“Sweet! I’m Scar,” Scar said, and then started pointing to his friends, all standing stock still in various stages of shock and confusion. “The rude one who throws stuff is Grian, that’s Impulse by the window, and over there is Skizz!”

“Nice to meet you?” Mumbo said, glancing around nervously. “I would offer to shake your hand, but…”

“God, this is weird,” Skizz blurted, eyes still wide but starting to relax his stance. “You do know you’re dead, right? We never actually get to ask any of the ghosts we meet.”

“Oh, I— Yeah, I’m well aware,” Mumbo said, laughing a little. “You’ve met other ghosts, then?”

“We’re ghost hunters,” Impulse said, and now that the shock was fading, Scar could see a spark of excitement in his eyes. “But I mean— We’ve never met any like you.”

“Mostly they want to kill us,” Grian said, stepping up next to Scar. “Are you sure you don’t want to kill us?”

“I don’t think I know how, much less want to,” Mumbo said, glancing out the window. “Did someone call you to find me? I’ve been trying not to scare anyone, but I suppose the lights might’ve done me in.”

“Yeah, that was pretty much what tipped them off,” Scar said apologetically. “A few too many weird things happen and boom, here we are.”

“What happens now?” Mumbo asked, chuckling nervously. “I mean, you found me. Job done, yeah?”

“Usually we figure out what type of ghost it is and the company sends out a specialized team to evict it,” Impulse answered, brow pinched in thought. “But normally that’s for safety reasons. You don’t seem like a threat. No offense.”

“Oh, none taken.”

“Can I ask how you died?” Skizz asked, eyes alight with curiosity.

“Skizz,” Grian hissed. “You can’t just ask people how they died!”

“I was just wondering!”

“No, it’s— it’s fine,” Mumbo stuttered, and Scar had a feeling that if ghosts could blush, he would be doing it. “I… fell down the stairs.”

Scar nodded solemnly. “Could have happened to anyone.”

“So what are we actually going to do about this?” Grian asked, vaguely gesturing at the room. “It feels like it would be wrong to kick this guy out of his own house. He’s not really causing trouble.”

“Yeah, I— I do like my house,” Mumbo interjected, awkward smile on his face. “I’d rather stay, if that’s alright.”

“Someone’s bound to move in eventually, you know,” Skizz said, pitying frown on his face. “There’s already a for sale sign in the yard. The new owners might not be super ghost-friendly.”

Mumbo’s shoulders slumped, a dejected look on his face as he frowned at the floor. Scar felt a pang of sympathy grow in his chest, and he glanced out the window at the rows of houses down the street.

It really was quite a nice neighborhood.

“...You know,” Scar started, gaze drifting over to Grian, a slow smile forming on his face. “Our lease is almost up.”

Grian looked over at him, eyes already resigned, and sighed.

Scar laughed, grinning, and Mumbo slowly smiled back.

#this let me practice my ability to write silly fun things AKSJDKJ it was a blast actually :]#thank you for the prompt anon!! I hope i brought your vision to life aksjdk #goodtimeswithscar #gtws #grian #skizzleman #impulsesv #mumbo jumbo #my writing #writing request #now that this is finished i am going to go to bed <33 #might post this on ao3 later but rn i'm tired <3

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redwinterroses · 3 months

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There’s a cherry tree in the middle of the redwood forest.

False isn’t sure what to make of that. She shifts her grip on the staff in her hand, its pale glow reflecting faintly off the fresh snow. She’s come out here for resources—the vault altar is demanding logs, and these giant trees are an easy source—but the incongruous sight of an enormous, blossoming cherry tree sending pink petals wafting on the frozen wind…

She wonders if this is what fish feel like, when they see a lure.

“Hello?” she calls, her voice echoing off the trees. The world stands in permanent semi-twilight here, and the deeper shadows hide the mobs that will venture out come nightfall. A sneak of creepers is bedded down in a sweetberry bramble just on the other side of the clearing, and False tenses when the lead boar lifts his head, but he apparently doesn’t deem her worth stalking so early in the day.

There is no other reaction to her call.

False is of half a mind just to head back home and farm her own dang trees. It’s not like the vaultar is picky about the kinds of logs—she could just as easily grow up a bunch of birch and throw those in there. But that will take so much longer… not to mention she’s not sure if there are even enough saplings in her storage.

She unhooks her enchantment-glittered axe from her belt and pauses to mentally poke at her mana reserves. Plenty high. Whatever’s lingering near this tree, it can hardly be worse than what she deals with on the daily in the vaults. Overworld dangers are barely a challenge anymore.

The logic of that doesn’t change the uneasy feeling that buzzes over her skin though.

Venturing further into the clearing. False’s gaze traces up the trunk of the cherry tree, following its branches to where they terminate in lush bursts of pink and white blooms. A sweet smell drifts on the wind. She wrinkles her nose, reminded of compost piles and fermented spiders’ eyes.

The tree’s branches stretch long and low—a canopy of their own, heavy with flowers and dark, glossy leaves. The space underneath is filled with falling flowers and a fog of pollen, the air moisture-thick like a lush cave.

Lifting one hand, False catches a falling petal on her fingertip.

It sizzles as it touches her skin, stinging and buzzing like live redstone.

She hisses through her teeth, shaking her hand and letting the petal fall to the forest floor. “What the heck?”

Another petal tumbles past her face, and she watches it with narrowed eyes—right until it fizzles out of existence a few pixels above the forest floor.

“Glitch,” she mutters. “That’s… not good.”

Iskall needs to know about this—it could be a bug from one of the new updates, or it could be something deeper in the code, but either way: this glitched tree is a problem. She’s probably lucky it just stung her.

She reaches for her communicator, raising it to take a pic of the cherry tree.

“Oh, hi there, False!”

False yelps, spinning around with her axe ready to swing.

Gem is standing behind her, a wreath of cherry blossoms tangled in her hair and antlers, leaning casually on a tall staff of blooming cherry wood. Her smile is wide, and sap flows over her fingers, pale golden, dripping down her arms to leave dark spots on the faded denim of her overalls.

“Gem!” False lowers her axe. “Oh my gosh, you scared me. I didn’t know you were doing Vault Hunters.”

“Hm?” Gem raises one eyebrow, and for a moment her eyes flicker to red and then purple before settling back on green. “Oh—I’m not doing Vault Hunters, False.” Her voice is amused, almost chiding.

“Oh.” False feels unexpectedly small—which is impressive, considering she’s nearly half a block taller than Gem.

More of the glitched petals fall, resting on Gem’s hair and slowly melting into it like snowflakes. The brief moment of relief when False had seen Gem’s familiar grin is fading into something like the sensation of freefall.

“What’cha up to?” Gem asks, and her face blinks from one expression to the next like a bad video message. Her clothes are blue—no, green—no, bloodstained and grey—no, blue. They’ve always been blue.

False takes a step back.

“Uh, not much…” she glances up at the redwoods. “Just doing some… resource gathering. You know.”

“Cool!” Gem giggles, and stands up straight. False tenses, but Gem only spins around her staff and waves a hand at the glitched tree. “I didn’t realize this was an occupied server—are there many people here?”

There’s a buzzing in False’s skull, and she blinks rapidly. A muscle twitches under her eye.

“Um…”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter.” Gem lifts one hand and grabs one of the lowest branches of the cherry tree. She really should not have been able to reach that.

Swinging herself up with the lithe, effortless strength of a cat, she perches on the limb and stares down at False. The grin is gone from her face now, and she looks down at False with bright eyes.

“Etho’s not here, is he?”

False opens her mouth to answer, the words yes, of course he is, I can take you to him heavy on her lips… And with effort, she swallows them back.

They taste of sweet rot.

“Why... why doesn’t what matter?” she asks instead.

Gem stares at her for a long moment, expressionless. The flowers woven through her antlers are growing of their own accord, twining up to caress their brethren in the branches overhead.

Then she smiles broadly, flashing teeth that nearly glow white in the dappled shadows. “Oh!” she exclaims. “No reason! I’m only passing through, is all.”

“You’re not… you’re not sticking around?” False tries—and mostly fails—to sound disappointed.

“Naaaaah…” Gem stands and walks along the branch, as secure and balanced as if it were a stone floor. The flowers in her hair flow along behind her, sliding from the branches and falling like a cape down her back. “Worldhopping is easy. Staying in one spot is way harder.”

False watches the flowers move and swirl, their smooth, strange motion ensnaring her attention. The buzzing is back, too. Like bees, drunk on honey and sleepy in their hive.

“World hopping…?” she manages. “With admin commands?”

Gem’s laugh is as brilliant as a knife and as sharp as a spark. “False!” she crows. “You say the funniest things.”

False laughs. It seems appropriate. She isn’t sure why.

“Anyway,” Gem continues, fading into one patch of blossoms and reappearing on the other side of it. Her eyes are sprays of cherry flowers now. Her antlers are branches. “Anyway, cherry trees are all the same. They make it easy to get around.”

“That…” doesn’t make sense, False wants to say. But her lips are heavy, and coated in sticky sap. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.

“Oops! Behind you, False!”

Gem’s chirped warning is flaked in glee, and False turns around, as slow as if her feet are buried in soul sand.

The creepers she had seen—the entire sneak—are standing behind her, pink flowers blooming from their eyes.

“Oh no.”

The boar’s blinded head snaps toward her voice, hissing. He starts to aggro, bioluminescent streaks flashing from his snout to flanks in increasingly-swift pulses of light.

“See ya in season ten, False!” Gem cries out cheerfully.

The axe drops from False’s nerveless fingers, trailing strings of sap. She smells the inescapable stench of burning gunpowder, overlaid with rot.

“...Dangit.”

[FalseSymmetry was blown up by a creeper]

~*~

Jerking upright in her own bed, False swipes wildly at her face, trying to smear away tree sap that isn’t there.

“What the heck, Gem?” she exclaims at her empty base. Her voice falls flat, swallowed up by the sky that surrounds her builds. The clock above her head ticks impatiently, and she huffs in frustration, pushing up out of her bed. All her tools, gone—her levels, gone... and after all that she still needs those logs for the vault.

Grumbling, she starts pulling backup gear from various chests, trying to cobble together something that can get her back to the redwood grove before her items despawn—assuming they hadn’t all been obliterated by a second or third creeper explosion. She glances at the vaulter, and freezes.

It’s been completed. The crystal floats gently atop the stone pedestal, gleaming with an inner light.

And, tumbled at the base of the vaulter—abandoned, more than was needed to fill the crystal’s requirements:

Half a stack of cherry logs.

#falsesymmetry #geminitay #red said eldritch gem rights #let her be cheerful and scary too she deserves it #also there needs to be more Vault Hunter fic in the world. and more False content.#this was inspired by a post of some enormous redwood trees I saw the other day with teeny tiny people at the base of them #along with Gem's tree building -- the cherry trees in her hardcore and s9 builds #and the headcanon from hc8 and empires that she's a worldhopper #anyway this is the first thing I've really written in (over?) a year so... I'm quite happy about it.#might polish and put it on AO3 later but for now it's just for the hellsite <3 #redwinterwrites #oh also excuse for creeper/minecraft worldbuilding yaaay XD

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too-much-tma-stuff · 11 months

Text

Mutually Assured Disaster

How I imagine the first meeting from @the-b1ah AU here. I plan to write Danny’s first patrol with Jason and maybe the training as well.

This isn’t edited so if you see any errors please let me know.

------------

Danny skidded around a corner, his shoulder slamming into the brick wall but there was no time to worry about that bruise and it did stop him faster. He took off again down this ally, a energy blast slammed into the wall just behind him and he gritted his teeth, flinching but not making any noise or slowing down, he needed all the air he had to run. He was already so weak from what the GIW had already done to him but this was his only chance, the transfer to their facility in Gotham. He could sense that the city was a never-born in its own way and it was closing ranks to protect him, walls shifting in perceptible ways to open up passages for him, guiding him towards something and slowing the agents down.

He was so weak and the cuffs still on his wrists stopped him from phasing through anything, all he could do was run, feeling the blood and ecto pumping through his veins quicker with each step. It stained the white pants and scrub shirt they had given him, he was getting dizzy, his quick breathing rasping over a dry throat and his legs burning but he couldn’t stop. Not when he had just now started to sense what Gotham was sending him towards.

It was a signature like his own! Another undead, someone who could help him and hopefully would. Gotham felt to warm to be sending him to someone who would hurt him or be taken too, he trusted her as one of the never-born ancients, she wanted what was best for the city that was hers. He tried to turn another corner, fell, rolled and managed to stagger back to his feet though it sapped his momentum and tore open a few more old wounds. His eyes landed on a tall, broad man wearing a red helmet that completely covered his face. That was him!

“Help me,” Danny gasped desperately, “Please.” He hadn’t even noticed there was a gun trained on him until it snapped to the opening of the ally. Danny scrambled behind the strange man, making himself small as the guys and white came sprinting around the corner as well, blasters pointed at them.

“Return the fugitive!” They demanded as Danny’s abused legs finally gave out and he sunk to his knees with a soft whine, praying that this man would be enough to keep them both safe.

“Fugitive? That’s a whole ass child, why are you chasing a child with guns?” Red Hood demanded furiously, his own guns trained on the two agents.

“They might look like a child but their an extremely dangerous meta. We know Batman doesn’t like metas in Gotham, so we’ll just take him and go.” The agent said starting to approach only for hood to fire a warning shot at his feet making the man step back.

“Fuck what batman wants, this is my territory and I don’t let anyone hurt kids. Meta or not,” He snarled.

Danny heard the sound of one of the blasters charging up and gasped, looking up frantically. “Look out,” He yelled, lunging forward just in time to accidentally take the blast to the side instead, well he had meant to push hood out of the way but this worked too he supposed. He didn’t even have enough air to scream, whining through gritted teeth as he collapsed to the ground, curling in on himself and shielding his head as the air around him was filled with the sound of gun shots. It felt like forever that he lay there curled in on himself defensively as his head swam and blood and ectoplasm seeped out the new hole in his side, joining the dozens of other injuries he had.

Then it was quiet, and after another second there was a hand on his shoulder, Danny flinched violently away from the touch. “Hey kid, it’s just me,” the robotic voice assured and in that moment Danny had never found anything more comforting. He looked up and around, seeing that he and the man in the red hood were the only things left alive in that alley.

Danny gasped and nearly threw himself into the older man’s arms, he gave a startled sound but caught Danny as he trembled and clung, tears running down his cheeks as he struggled to catch his breath. “It’s alright kid, I’ve got you,” Red assured, shifting his hold on Danny so he could pick up the teenager when he stood. “Let’s get you to a hospital huh?” He asked, only for Danny to choke and frantically shake his head. “Alright, no hospital, will you let me patch you up then?” He asked, nodding firmly when Danny sniffled and nodded as well.

“Alright, I have a safe house near here,” He said, turning away from the small pile of bodies he’d left in the alley and carrying Danny towards, hopefully somewhere safe. The way that Gotham curled protectively around them seemed to say it would be. “I’m Red Hood, what’re you called kid?”

“Danny Phantom,” The kid whispered against Jason’s chest.

“That’s an odd name,” Hood said blandly and Danny might have laughed if he had the breath, if it wouldn’t have hurt to much to do so.

“So is Red Hood. I had another name, but I can’t use it anymore,” he murmured brokenly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jason asked, and only received a little shrug in return. “Alright fair enough,” Jason said with a shrug, shifting to hold Danny with one arm so he could jump up and drag down the fire escape, climbing up so he could duck through the window of one of his many apartments scattered through his territory.

He carried Danny through into the bathroom, putting him down on the edge of the tub carefully before flipping on the light. “You up to having a shower before I look after your wounds, just to rinse off the blood? I’ll grab you some clean clothes, my little brother left some stuff here that should fit you.”

“Sure,” Danny agreed softly. “It’s not as bad as it looks, I’m pretty damn tough. But, before that could you.. try and take these off please?” He asked, holding out his arms to show Hood the cuffs still around his wrists, the suppressors. There had been a chain between them but it was broken, he’d managed to snap it during the chase.

“You’re not going to cause any problems for me or my city are you? I know suppressors when I see them,” Jason asked, low and dangerous. Danny’s eyes widened and he shook his head vigorously, slowly pulling his arms back and hugging himself.

“No, I know what they said, but I’m not actually dangerous I promise. I mean I probably could be dangerous if I wanted to be, but I don’t, I’ve only ever wanted to protect people but they-, they just didn’t see that.”

Shit the kid was crying again, Jason hadn’t meant to do that, but he had needed to know and Danny’s answer was obviously true, kid wore his heart on his sleeve. Jason sighed and dug in his pocket for his lockpicks before holding out his hand for Danny’s. “Alright, I believe you, let me get those off for you,” He agreed.

Danny reluctantly let Jason take one of his wrists, watching as Jason struggled a little with the cuff, muttering a little about paranoid people. The second one was faster, Danny rubbed his wrist and murmured thanks. “No worries,” Jason said as he stood. “Now you shower, I’m going to grab you some clean clothes.

Danny watched Hood leave, taking the cuffs with him before quickly stripping off the bloody clothes and getting into the shower. He flushed out the worst wounds before icing them over and scrubbing the blood and filth off of him from weeks of imprisonment. Jason knocked to make sure he was alright a couple of times before Danny finished and got out, wrapping a towel around his waist and sitting back down on the edge of the tub. “Alright, you can come in. You don’t have to worry about the cuts really though, I’ll heal.”

Jason let himself in, pausing for a moment when he saw the ice, or maybe the extent of Danny’s wounds which were… well they were pretty damn bad. At least they hadn’t gotten around to fully vivisecting him yet. “Whether you’ll heal or not you’ll heal faster and with less scarring with some proper stitches. Can you melt the ice as well?” Hood asked and Danny nodded. “Good, you can melt it as we deal with them then. Do you want a painkiller first?”

“No point, they don’t work properly on me,” Danny said with a shrug making Jason wince.

“That must suck,” He sympathized as he got out the first aid kit and set up what he’d need to clean and suture the wounds. Danny shrugged again, he didn’t seem talkative but he was very cooperative as Jason asked him to melt the ice on various wounds to let him check them.

“So did those guys do all this to you?” Jason asked and Danny blinked at him.

“You don’t know about them?” He asked, already knowing the answer when Red hood gave him a pointed look Danny could sense even through that helmet.

“Nooo,” he drawled, “Should I?”

“They’re a government agency called the Ghost Investigation Ward,” Danny told him softly. Jason snorted only to realize Danny was completely serious. “They’ve been hunting anything with a high enough ecto-signiture for years, so you need to be careful Red. Gotham is hiding you, but especially after they see how they helped me they’ll be after you too.”

“Ecto-signiture?” Jason asked blankly, what the Fuck was that?

“Anything like us. People who died, and didn’t come back, or came back wrong,” Danny explained and Jason let out a soft startled sound.

“How the fuck did you know that?!” he asked, defensive on instinct, only calming down a little when Danny lifted his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“Like often recognizes like,” Danny said with a little shrug again.

“Fine,” Jason grumbled, letting it go for now rather then thinking anymore about his own death, or Danny’s for that matter, the kid didn’t look any older then Jason had been when he had died, younger maybe. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” Danny said, sounding relieved. Grabbing the clothes that Jason had brought for him since they were done looking after his wounds now. “Those idiots wouldn’t believe I actually needed to eat no matter how many times I told them I did. They just punished me for pretending to be human,” Danny said making Jason freeze as rage flared inside him, breathing through the green flickering on the edges of his vision as he thought about how Danny had been treated. “Hood,” Danny said softly, and Jason felt a hand on the vigilantes arm.

Danny started to hum, an odd purring sound that didn’t sound particularly human, and to Jason’s surprise after a moment something within Jason started to resonate to the sound. Jason calmed quickly as the place reverberating inside him sent waves of calm the way the pit usually radiated rage. “Okay now?” Danny asked with a smile and Jason nodded, blinking out of the slight daze before he cleared his throat and turned away abruptly, heading to the kitchen to start cooking, Danny following him like a silent shadow, his feet not making any sound on the floor.

“You just lay down on the couch and rest, any allergies?” Jason glanced over and Danny shook his head, Jason nodded, made a choice and took off his helmet, glad he’d warn a mask under it tonight. He wouldn’t exactly be able to taste the food or eat with the mask on after all, and he had a feeling that he was going to be spending more time with Danny, at least until he was healed.

“Do you have anywhere else to go?” He asked, just to confirm his thoughts. He decided to make omelettes since they were quick and it was fun to have breakfast for dinner sometimes.

“No, my sister doesn’t have a place of her own, and my parents would either sell me back to the GIW or dissect me themselves. I can look after myself though, now that you’ve got the cuffs off and the GIW off my tail I can avoid them from here. Something to eat and a little sleep and I can be gone by morning,” he said with a determined set to his jaw.

“Absolutely not!” Jason said, pointing the spatula at Danny and lowering it quickly when the boy flinched. “I’m not leaving a kid alone on the streets, let along one who’s not from Gotham! You’ll stay with me till we find you somewhere else safe to go,” Jason said firmly and Danny hesitated for a moment before nodding.

“Okay, but once I’m healed I can help! You’re one of Gotham’s vigilantes right? I’ll fight with you.”

“Also no, I’m a vigilante but I’m no Batman, I don’t do kid-heroes, you’re to young for this life,” Hood insisted, flipping the eggs.

“You’re about two years to late for that,” Danny snorted and Jason nearly dropped the food, cursing softly when he messed up the omelette. Oh well it would still taste good it just looked a bit more ugly.

“Excuse me? How old are you?”

“I’ll be 16 in a bit more then a month,” Danny said sounding sulky. “And I’m not going to stop helping people no matter what you think. I have these powers, I want to use it for something good.”

“You’ve been acting as a hero on your own since 14!?” Jason demanded, and the look of shame on Danny’s face was all the answer Jason needed. “Fine, you can come with me. But you have to hang back, stay safe, and fucking listen to me. Got it? I’m not having your death on my conscious!” Jason insisted and tried not to be pleased by how Danny immediately brightened and grinned at him.

“Thank you! It’s going to be so nice not to have to do all this alone! To have a proper mentor, maybe?” He asked, getting softer and more uncertain at the end.

“Sure, sure. The bats are gonna have a heart attack when they find out. They’re probably going to try to steal you,” Jason joked and Danny snorted.

“I don’t want that, they’re too goody goody for me thanks. Besides, you’re like me and I was able to calm you down wasn’t I? I can help you more,” Danny said, and Jason decided not to suggest Danny might be better off with the bats. Maybe it was selfish, but he did want the help Danny offered, and he was already attached to the kid.

“Fine, but you’re not going anywhere until you’re completely healed, and you’ve showed me what you can do. We’ll practice together and once I think we’re a good enough team then you can come out with me. And I want to know everything you know about the GIW and whatever laws enable them to get away with this bullshit, because we’re going to have to do something about that too.”

“Of course!” Danny agreed and Jason could see him practically vibrating with excitement, he had to suppress a smile so Danny wouldn’t catch on to how cute Jason found that. He really shouldn’t, but it was to late now.

“Good. Now come eat,” Jason grumbled, transferring the first omelet onto a plate and handing it to Danny.

Part 2: here

#jason todd #danny phantom #Jason becomes a dad #dc x dp #the GIW #Red Hood #Danny Fenton #tw violence #this isn't edited #might edit and post on AO3 later

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mortiferumsomnum · 2 years

Text

Burgers are How You Summon the Almighty Ghost King

EDIT: MASTERLIST

***

Look. Bernard didn’t think it would actually work.

But, there he was. The Ghost King! In all his.... teenager glory...

“You are the Ghost King... right?” Bernard asked, handing the teen a ham sandwich he just put together.

“Oh, thanks,” said the teen, accepting the sandwich. “And, yeah. But I haven’t had my coronation yet, so a friend of mine is overlooking some things until I’m ready.”

“Cool,” said Bernard. Then, he gave the teen an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry for summoning you, dude. When I read in the pamphlet that you needed ketchup and mustard drawn in the constellation of Corona Borealis, I really didn’t think it would work because it involved condiments and not... you know... blood sacrifices?”

The teen nodded. And after swallowing, he said, “It’s cool. I’m just surprised that the summoning requirements changed that fast across realms after a few jokes I made. It seems some ghosts just don’t leave things be. They probably worked this fast to tick me off...” The teen snorted at what he said, before continuing with a casual wave of his sandwich, “I should change the requirements again, into something more complicated maybe.”

“I could give you some ideas!” Bernard said. Then he gasped. “My boyfriend is REALLY good at contingencies and plans! He could give you some ideas, too!”

The teen frowned worriedly. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

Bernard nodded, a bit enthusiastically because his bangs were hitting his eyes. “He’s amazing like that! And this isn’t just bias talking! He’s really good at almost everything, it’s insane! He’s a dork, but-”

“Okay! Okay,” the teen laughed. “I get it, he’s amazing.”

“Hell yeah, he is!!” Bernard said, hoping his smile isn’t too dopey.

O_O_O_O

Tim blinked. He blinked at the evidence of the summoning. He grimaced at the black ants that’s marching towards the mess.

Then he blinked at the white-haired teen in some kind of hazmat suit that blinked at him with eyes that reminded him too much of Jason. But Danny’s face looks kinda... familiar...?? Nah, no it doesn’t. But the green eyes does make Tim internally theorize that neon green is associated with death.

Then, he blinked at Bernard’s excited smile.

“Okay, first off, this summoning ritual is insulting,” Tim said, gesturing to it. “There’s barely any drama.”

The white haired teen ducked his head in embarrassment. “I was joking with some of the ghosts in charge of changing the summoning rituals... I don’t exactly understand why it’s important to have something that can summon me when the Ghost Realm and the Living Realm should be kept separate but... well... they insisted. And I was annoyed. And hungry. So, I said the next best thing that came to mind.”

Tim nodded. If he were less tired, he would be snorting in amusement and making some kind of joke Kon would be proud of. But right now? Tim had been awake for the last 71 hours and 45 minutes, a quarter of an hour before the hallucinations sets in, and the only thing keeping him going is coffee and Bernard’s promise for a sandwich. And Bernard, bless his boyfriend, is REALLY GOOD at making sandwiches.

“Okay,” he said, sitting down at the table and taking a bite out of his sandwich. “What if the ritual involved making sandwiches?”

Bernard frowned at his boyfriend. He rubbed Tim’s back, which was heavenly because Bernard’s hands were pleasantly warm. “Are you okay, Babe?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “But like you said, we’re just putting together ideas, so I’m also just spouting everything that comes out of my head.”

The teen nodded in understanding. “Right? Food’s just that powerful!” Then, his face turned serious. “I want it to involve making a burger. Not bought, but made from scratch from the summoner.”

Tim nodded, bringing out a notepad and wrote down what the teen said in the most illegible scribble Bernard’s ever seen. Hmmm, maybe Tim needs some rest.

“What should be the ingredients?” Tim asked, not looking up from his notepad while twirling his pen.

“We need to find the best burger there is in this world,” the teen said. “And then, we write down the ingredients for it, the step-by-step process of how it should be prepared, and what kind of soda it should be paired with.”

Tim nodded, jotting down what Danny said.

Bernard was honestly amused and worried. “Are you sure this is the kind of summoning that you want?”

The teen nodded. “It shouldn’t just be a burger bought from some fast-food burger joint. It has to be a Burger that I would be HAPPY to eat when I get summoned and have to listen to some creepy person’s plan for world domination!”

“Not everyone who will summon you will want to dominate the world,” Tim said.

The teen crossed his arms. “Then they should have no problem inviting me to a meal over a talk about how to save the world or whatnot.”

Tim circled some... scribbles and then closed his notepad with a snap, clicking his pen with finality and nodding towards the teen.

“By the way, what should we call you?” he asked the teen, who blinked at him. “I get the ‘names hold power’ thing, but I thought that only applies to the fae?” Tim asked, looking to Bernard for confirmation. And when Tim has to look to Bernard for confirmation, you KNOW that the young man is that badly sleep-deprived.

The teen laughed. “Don’t worry! You guys can know my name,” he said. Then, with a grin, a silver light circled around him and transformed him into a regular looking teen with black hair and blue eyes while wearing a Nasa shirt and a pair of jeans. He then held a hand out, and introduced himself, “I’m Danny.”

Tim blinked. Danny looked... a lot like Damian. Which should be concerning because his skin was just as dark as Damian’s a while ago... maybe Tim was too focused on the glowing green eyes? Damian also has green eyes... Huh. Does being a ghost make other people unable to recognize you when you’re being one?

Tim looked to his watch. It’s also 4 am. Oh...

Then, Tim looked to Bernard. “The hallucinations has set in.”

“Dammit, Babe!” Bernard screeched before catching his idiot boyfriend.

_______________________________

*loud cackling* I’ve been drowning in Danny Phantom and Batman crossovers for days!!!! It was only time until I contributed something to the fandom! XD

Unfortunately, I’m not that good with multi-chapter fics, so I’m going to share the ideas I have for this AU!!

So:

- It’s a Danny and Damian are twins AU! Danny was an unnamed baby. He was weak and he was close to dying. Ra’s wanted him dead. Talia faked the baby’s death and tasked a loyal subordinate on his way to another mission in another state to drop the baby off somewhere safe. If the child were going to die, he should die in a place where he’ll feel love and care as a final gift from his mother.

- That love and care comes in the form of a two year old red head named Jazz who was out on a stroll with her giant father. It was sisterly-love at first sight on the baby left on the doorsteps of some old man that hated kids. Jazz wanted to keep the baby. And Jack, unable to say no to his princess, picks up the baby with such care, it was fatherly-love at first sight for Jack as well. Once the baby was brought home, cleaned and put into the yellow onesies Jazz once owned, Maddie had arrived home from shopping for some parts. One look at the baby, and it was motherly-love at first sight, too. When things start going wrong at their home, and the children are left to their own devices, Jazz would always care for her brother first.

- (I really didn’t think much about how they separate because I didn’t focus on that)

- Now, other than the explanation Danny gave, the importance of having a summoning ritual for the ghost king in this AU is in case the world truly is in danger and requires the ghost king’s help. Of course, while Pariah Dark was king, the summoning rituals were made difficult for the very reason that Pariah was an evil tyrant and shouldn’t be summoned because he will destroy the world rather than save it.

- Now that Danny is King, the ghosts know that the kid won’t be abusing his powers, not even in the human world. So, even if it were a joke, it was really alright for his summoning ritual to be easy. Plus, they really did want to tick him off and make him learn the hard way that he should take what they’re trying to advise him seriously. Clockwork even told them it was okay!

- Thankfully, it wasn’t the Guys in White or, Ancients forbid, his parents that summon him! It was someone who’s like Wes, but chiller. Danny Really Does need to make it more complicated.

- But having his summoning ritual involve Making Burgers?? That’s the only easy part. Danny wants to also put in them being able to imitate the Mona Lisa Portrait, the Chicken Dance - SCRATCH THAT! MAKE THEM DO THE COFFIN DANCE!, and---

- Tim is looking at him with JUDGMENT. And Danny is offended because it was Tim that suggested Sandwich-making in the first place! And then, Tim AGREED to the burger making!!

- Tucker thought it was a great idea when he returned to attend school! Sam doesn’t really care as long as the Burger doesn’t involve killing a cow by their hands and instead involves ground beef processed in the market.

- Tim tells him that they can make it complicated, but they are REMOVING THE MONA LISA AND COFFIN DANCE IDEA, and, like, Fine! Maybe having art and dance skills shouldn’t be a requirement!

- Tim then suggests that maybe the summoner should know the true value of ghosts, or, have knowledge that ghosts are sentient beings.

- Because Danny gives them a whole run-down on the laws involving ghosts that’s kept hush-hush by the government but is really there and hasn’t been changed. Tim wonders if Jason is really a zombie like he claims to be, or is actually half-ghost like Danny. But pushes it aside, because right now, researching on the internet on different burger recipes is confusing the fuck out of Bruce and Tim is thriving on it.

- But, to test Tim’s theory, Tim invites Jason to help them cook the different burger recipes. He advises Danny to be invisible while Jason does it, and he agrees. So, he transforms and turns invisible. But the moment Jason is there, Danny drops his invisibility, walks up to Jason, who’s in a daze, and cries while hugging the man.

- The Ghost King has many powers. And seeing how a ghost had died is one of them. (A headcanon for this au, because why not? I think it’s pretty angsty and cool! But also, it’s like after defeating the previous Ghost King, the powers associated with being Ghost King is also passed on? For now, Danny is still training on how to get a hold of these powers. But in the future, he’ll be able to control his powers, so he won’t be seeing the past of every ghost he meets without their consent. Consent is sexy, guys.)

- While Danny is hugging Jason, the corrupted ectoplasmic energy was getting purified. But Danny can only do the purification in small doses. And, well, he doesn’t need to hug Jason to purify him, but Danny doesn’t want to tell Jason that because the big guy looks deprived of hugs. So a daily dose of purification hugs is recommended for our resident undead.

- Jason grumbles, but assents to it because he hasn’t felt this light in years. He also helps them make the burgers.

- “We should just say ‘Get Jason Todd to cook your burgers, buy some root beer, and draw the constellation with melted chocolate’” Danny says, enjoying the burgers.

- Bernard nods, licking a finger clean of ketchup and mustard. “You gotta teach me how to make burgers like this, man,” he says to Jason. “The only burger patties I cook are the ones already packaged.”

- Jason smirked. “I’m still a student,” he said. Bernard and Danny were in disbelief. But Tim only nodded. “Alfred is the real master. He’s British, but the only food he messes up are the waffles and mashed potatoes. Everything else, he’s excels.”

- “But... anyone can make mashed potatoes???????”

- “We have a bet going on that he messes them up on purpose because Bruce likes them that way.”

- It’s when Danny de-transforms that Jason blinks and goes, “Whoa, you look like the Demon Brat!”

- Which then just proves Tim’s theory that maybe being a ghost has something to do with people recognizing them as humans. Maybe there’s an instant glamour when you’re a ghost for strangers to be unable to recognize you? Maybe when the ghost allows it, you’d be able to recognize them even as they appear or transform in front of you? Do all ghosts have the ability to appear human? Or is it just Danny? Can Jason transform?? But is Jason even half-ghost???

- (In this au, I’m having the glamour only working on halfas., but only because they assume two identities. When you’re a full ghost, you don’t have a different identity just your ghost one. Jason is not a ghost, he’s mostly human, not fully, because even as a human there is ectoplasmic energy running in his veins. Jason’s eyes will be glowing when he’s experiencing strong negative emotions, but these negative emotions are now more manageable. So, Jason is a human with ectoplasmic energy running in his veins. He doesn’t have two identities to switch with. No glamour for him, but being purified does make him a little bit stronger. Not superman strong, but the kind when you’re on an adrenaline high.)

- But also, yep, Tim wasn’t imagining it. Danny did look like Damian.

- It was then Bernard takes out his board full of red string and shares his theory on why Danny could be Damian’s long lost twin brother. Tim was probably asleep when he put this board together.

- “Assassins? Really?” Danny asked, amused. “I mean, I know I’m adopted, but why would I be associated with assassins? Wouldn’t the assassins be watching over me and keeping a closer eye on me in case my twin can’t take over as heir and they’d need a placeholder??”

- And so Bernard goes on, on how Danny was the weaker one of the twins. And maybe the boss wanted only the strong one, and maybe his mother had some ounce of motherly sympathy for him to be brought into a loving family before he eventually died. And there wasn’t any assassin assigned to him because they were so sure he’d die. Danny did explain to them that he got sick easily when he was younger. But after the accident that killed him, he didn’t get sick anymore. (Danny didn’t tell them that he’s still alive, though. He just told them he died, while he’s in the ghost world, he defeated the previous ghost king, and now he’s the ghost king).

- Cue Tim and Jason sweating in the background. Bernard could be right, because he mostly was right about Damian being associated with Assassins. But Danny doesn’t look convinced, just indulging, so thank goodness for that!

- So, it goes to a question on whether he wanted to meet Damian. But Danny tells them that he’ll think about it.

- So, they get on with choosing which burger “felt right”, but Danny decides to bring a burger he loves. From Nasty Burger. And asks Jason to try and make a better version.

- “Timmy, look for the recipe, will ya?”

- Danny is amused at the illegal hacking that was going on, but even if the recipe for Nasty Burgers might be a well-kept secret of the burger joint, he has no doubt these nerds will be able to find it.

- Tim downloads the recipe, Danny brings over the Nasty Burgers, they taste it and comments that it goes on par with Bat Burgers, to which Bernard arrives with his own batch for Danny to try.

- And, they were right. They are on par with each other. They both have their own distinct flavors for their patties, it’s unreal!

- Danny then decides to let both be a requirement for the ritual. A better version for both Bat Burger and Nasty Burger as improved by Jason Todd.

- After a full week of trying to make the perfect nasty burger and bat burger, Danny has to include all the other requirements for the ritual (like the root beer and how the constellation will be drawn, and that one requirement Tim suggested of the human having to have understanding of ghosts being more than just ghosts... Does Jason make a poem for Danny about it? Yes, he does. But nobody but Danny knows about this.)

-Finalized, The summoner has to read the poem out loud, draw the constellation with barbeque sauce, and place the ready-made burger by the summoner in the middle.

- Once Danny has put everything together, and tells the ghosts to update the summoning ritual, he asks Bernard to test it out (Jason ended up taking Bernard as a student in cooking).

- Danny appears in all his Ghost King glory, complete with a Nasty Burger Crown and Blanket Cape, with some cool neon green light show and some cool fog.

- It was a success! And they eat pizza as a celebration because they were sick of burgers already.

- They say good-bye to Danny. Danny tells them that he’ll still be visiting for Jason’s daily purification hugs, and they make plans for meeting up together.

....

- One day, Damian as Robin catches Jason in his safe-house watching a movie with Timothy, Bernard, and... a clone of himself? But that’s a story for another day.

#dc x dp #dp x dc #danny fenton #bernard dowd #timothy drake #tim drake #jason todd #timbern #goddamn this is long what the fuck #do i know anything about these two franchises other than what i read on tumblr and ao3?? NOPE!#i haven't revisited danny phantom nor read the dc comics and it shows #might post later on ao3

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beskarfrog · 8 months

Text

Din leaned against the door to the school house, his boots muddy from having walked through the streets of Sundari. The door was left open as usual to let cool air and the occasional frog in. It was officially monsoon season on their part of Mandalore and not for the first time, Din wondered why the Jedi couldn’t have built his school on ground that was a little further out of the floodplain.

Inside the little school, the Jedi was sitting on one of his weird little pillow mats with all the children crowded up around him. Grogu was sitting in Ragnar’s lap, Rey and Finn on each of his sides. Paz had been infuriated when Ragnar had first asked to go with the jett’ike for lessons after regular training. He had been won over eventually when the Armorer suggested it would be a good opportunity for Ragnar to learn how to fight against a Force-user.

“Alright, how about a story for our history lesson today?” the Jedi asked and got a positive reaction from the kids. Din let the soft drone of his voice wash over him as he considered the scene before him.

He hadn’t expected to see the Jedi again after Grogu had come back to him. Much less had he expected the Jedi to show up two months after they’d retaken Mandalore and Din was trying to figure out how to run a planet. He’d arrived in a beat-up pre-Empire ship with a handful of children. They had all been brought before Din and his newly formed council.

“The school was attacked. The New Republic isn’t safe for us anymore. They have…expectations for how the Jedi should benefit them,” the Jedi had explained, his face impassive and cold. The children lingering in the shadow of his dark robes looked both nervous and defiant. Din wondered if that was how the Jedi felt too.

“Why come to us?” Bo-Katan asked, a few chairs down from Din.

“What is that saying you have? A Mandalorian is both hunter and prey. Your people understand what it is like to be hunted for what you are,” the Jedi said, gaining a thoughtful nod from the Armorer. He had looked at Din as he said it and Din knew that there were layers to that statement. Yes, all Mandalorians knew what it was like to be persecuted for their allegiance to a nearly dead Creed, but Din specifically understood what it was to be hunted for having a child with strange powers.

Paz and Bo-Katan had gotten into a rather vicious argument about the situation, but the Armorer had been of the same mind as Din. Children in need were children in need, even if they came with an ominous wizard attached to them. Paz had wanted to kill the Jedi and keep the children, but eventually he had been convinced that the kids would need training for their magic. Din was relieved because he was becoming concerned that, be it Bo-Katan or Paz, his council was about to become one person smaller if the argument dragged on any longer.

In the end, Din had told the Jedi, “We will let you build a school here, but you’ll live as we do. The children will be raised with the other Mandalorian ade. No one will be required to swear the Creed. That is not the Way, but we are trying to rebuild our culture.”

“I understand,” the Jedi had grimaced, “The Jedi used to live in community too. We had a similar sense of culture once from what I am told, but that was before I was born.”

“I…I will do what I can to make sure your children are safe here,” Din had said and that was the end of the matter.

The only person who was completely satisfied with the arrangement was Grogu. Din was shocked to find out how much the kid liked the Jedi - Luke, as he’d introduced himself. He had expected some animosity since Grogu had left, but Luke had been surprisingly happy to see the womp rat again. At first, Din had been reluctant to let the kid join the other little sorcerers in training, but they all seemed to like him.

That was the real problem. The Jedi and his jett’ike liked everyone, even Paz. Luke was always willing to accept ade or even adults into his weapons training sessions at his little school. He brought homemade uj’alayi to all the community meetings, complete with little paper wrappers the kids had decorated. His sister and her smuggler husband visited often enough that it was obvious that the Jedi cared about his family. Luke was a better Mandalorian than half the people Din had met on Mandalore and he hadn’t even sworn the Creed.

It made it incredibly hard for other Mandalorians not to like the strange little sorcerers back and there had been a lot of talk about adopting the Jedi and his children into a clan. He was a proficient warrior, good with children, and after the first month, it was clear that he cared about the community they were trying to build. He was the perfect riduur, but it made Din want to grind his teeth any time anyone talked about challenging him for his hand.

It hadn’t taken him long to figure out why. It was made all the worse when the Jedi had started to befriend him in earnest. At first, it was just mutually commiserating about the problems of raising Force-sensitive children, but it slowly became something more. Luke opened up, shedding the persona he seemed to wear like his billowing black cloak. Din caught glimpses of the darkness that lurked within him, the turmoil he went through to fight back against those impulses. Din knew how painful it was to peel off your armor in front of another, even if you wanted them to see you as you really were.

And Luke let him see.

So, now Din leaned against the door to the nursery as the children ran out past him to play in the yard. Grogu was too enthralled with the game Ragnar and Rey had started to even notice him in the doorway.

“Here to pick up Grogu?” Luke asked as he rose up from his mat. Din nodded but waved his hand in dismissal as Luke went to call for him.

“He can play. I don’t have anywhere to be for a while,” Din said as Luke walked over to join him in the doorway. “The story you told. It wasn’t very happy.”

“The story of the Jedi has never been a happy one,” Luke said, his smile soft and touched with sadness. His hair had a little extra wave in it due to the humidity. Din wanted to reach out and run his gloved hand through those waves, “But it is full of hope. Foundlings are the future, right?”

“This is the Way,” Din inclined his head, which pulled a more genuine smile out of Luke. Something sharp twisted in Din’s chest and he swallowed, thankful for the millionth time that his helmet obscured his face.

He needed to get this over with, to do what he actually came here to do.

“Do you…Would you want to spar? Not right now, but some time. Maybe tonight?” Din asked, tamping down the impulse to twist his hands together. He was a Mandalorain. He should be bold with his feelings, not the awkward nervous thing that Luke seemed to turn him into.

“Mand’alor,” Luke's smile turned blinding as he pressed his gloved hand to his chest, mockingly scandalized. His blue eyes were sparkling, even in the grey overcast light of the rainy day, “If I didn’t know better that sounds like a date.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Din mumbled, his heart sinking. He knew it was unlikely for Luke to reciprocate his feelings, but the Jedi’s sister had made some comments last time she visited that had given him the courage to at least find out.

“I’d like it to be, Din, if that's alright,” Luke said and gently reached out to catch Din’s hand. He threaded his fingers between Din’s, giving his hand a firm squeeze. Din returned it, a flash of hope rising back up in him. If this went well, he was going to send Senator Organa a whole case of tihaar.

“We’ll have to find someone to babysit, though,” Luke continued, tugging on Din’s hand to pull him a little closer, “You’re my go-to person for watching the kids, but you’ll be busy, obviously.”

“Paz said he would. Ragnar’s been wanting to have everyone sleep over at their house,” Din said, grateful that he’d planned ahead for that problem.

In the yard, the kids had gotten into a mud fight next to the frog pond. Grogu was practically a brown blob while Finn was doing his best to avoid the mud that Rey and Ragnar were slinging at each other. Din knew he really ought to intervene, but if Paz was watching the kids for the night…

“The Force bless that man,” Luke shook his head, squeezing Din’s hand again.

#dinluke #ficlet #text post #the mandalorian #clan of three #I haven't really been writing much lately but i wanted to do something quick and cute #might put this up on ao3 later who knows

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smolbonbon · 1 month

Text

I will take care of you

Solar/Moon fanfiction

The prequel from Whether you like it or not you're stuck with me.

Compared to the Sequel this is a cozy fanfiction with shenanigans.

I hope you enjoy it <3

On the same night, Ruin was saved from the prison. Moon's steps echoed through the lobby while he was heading to parts and service. He wanted to see if he could track Eclipse's magic in a way before he called it a night. Eclipse always had a way to distract them.

Moon had to focus on so many things at the same time. Moon didn't know where to start and who to trust aside from Solar and Sun. Sure, he trusted Earth and Lunar but the last thing he wanted was to scare his smaller brother. Moon knew how easily Lunar gets locked up when it comes to Eclipse. And Earth didn't need to be more involved in their problems than she already was.

Then there is Ruin, the crescent Lunar animatronic who doesn't know what to think of them. Solar and he were quite confident about the fact that they could have been behind in making Eclipse. It's weird, Solar got knocked out and the footage of it was just gone. Ruin was the only one who was near him. But then again, there is no reason he could think of why they would do that. Maybe it was when Ruin was still infected?

Moon sighed as he moved his hands to his face. "One at a time, Moon." He muttered to himself. He can't start to spiral when he has to keep track of so many things. Moon focused on his to-do list and saw Solar send him the details of coding that he needed for the bodyguard. Well, that's for later.

Solar and he parted the tasks, the dusk animatronic mostly doing the mechanic details and Moon focused on doing the coding part. Solar is capable of programming but it's not his strongest suit. Also, it feels unfair to him if Solar does all the work.

Moon opened the door to the entrance from Parts and Service and sat down to start the computer.

Even if he's more than willing to do so. This fucker is a work alcoholic and if nobody stopped him, then Solar would work himself to the bone.

The blue crescent animatronic didn't know what he would have done if it wasn't for Solar's help. He had done so much for them even if he never had to.

A soft smile appeared on his face but before other thoughts came to his mind he shook his head and sighed. No time for that, the blue animatronic thought to himself. He stretched before he got up from the weird computer.

Parts and service were not his favorite place. It was cold, the room was always bad lighted and it gave him a weird gut feeling. Speaking of the cold, it was more chilly down here than usual.

He walked over to the locker and pulled out his key. Moon kept his tools in the locker since anyone could come down here and just snatch his stuff. As he opened the locker, he took an old keyboard out of it and went back to the weird computer. There was no way he would start looking for Eclipse with the three-button keyboard.

If you could even call that a keyboard. Moon looked at the time and it was 11 p.m. Maybe he would work until 3 a.m. and then call it a night.

Moon groaned as he walked to the daycare. He found nothing! No hints, nothing the computer could pick up, how is that possible? Eclipse didn't seem like himself, he was more clumsy and confused. The crescent Lunar animatronic didn't believe Eclipse was focused enough to not make any mistakes.

Moon opened the door and watched Solar drinking his coffee.

"Hi, Solar." The crescent Lunar animatronic mumbled and Solar raised his brow as he faced Moon. "Well, you sound happy." He sarcastically vocalized "No luck?" Solar questioned while setting his mug down.

"Nope, nothing." Moon sighed and let himself fall into the chair next to his companion.

Solar was about to say something but got interrupted by squeaks from the chair. Solar saw Moon spinning in his chair.

Solar watched him amused and waited for him patiently to spin it out from his system.

"Having fun there?" The dusk animatronic asked while the chair kept squeaking until Moon stopped.

"Sorry, I'm listening now." Moon said while getting comfortable in the chair. "You're good I think you needed this." Solar rasped out and the Lunar crescent animatronic watched his mug.

"I wanted to make myself a coffee." Moon mumbled. "Well, then go make yourself coffee." Solar suggested and Moon leaned lazily back in the chair. "Nah I'm too lazy."

The dusk animatronic thought for a moment and then handed his mug to him. "You can have the rest." Solar told him and Moon took it. "Are you sure?" Solar shrugged and grinned. "I had more than enough and besides If I drink more I might run around like Lunar when he had sundrops."

Moon cringed at the memory and then drank his coffee. It certainly wasn't the first time Solar and Moon shared a mug. There were times when Moon accidentally grabbed Solar's mug instead of his own while working. But it didn't bother them.

Their bond grew strong, especially after Moon and Solar worked on the satellite together. The things they went through together in a month were unspeakable. Side quests the celestial animatronics had to do for British Monty so they worked along which resulted in Solar tackling Moon so he didn't attack the British gator.

The amount of times they end up falling asleep on each other while they took a break from working. But that never changed, Lunar and Sun could prove it with the pictures they took for blackmailing.

Moon tasted the sweetness and licked his lips, he remembered how much of a sweet tooth Solar was. Which was ironic who would have guessed a grumpy animatronic like him was actually a sweet tooth? The blue crescent animatronic also liked the sweetness but not as much as Solar did. "Thanks, Solar." Moon rasped out.

Solar shrugged again. "I don't mind." The Solar bot spoke out.

"Anyways the computer was not able to find anything, don't you think that's weird? Eclipse was completely out of it even Ruin thinks so." Moon mused as he continued. "How is he able to hide his magical signature so well?"

The Solar bot thought about it. "Maybe it's Eclipse's creator who is hiding all the evidence?"

Moon moved his hand over his face while letting out a groan of frustration. "That could be it." He mumbled. "We still have zero process of who made Eclipse."

Solar leaned his hand on his shoulder and the crescent animatronic gazed at him. "How about we focus on our other project and come back to Eclipse's creator later?" Solar suggested. "Yeah, you're right. We should make sure Lunar is safe." Moon replied.

It was around 4:30 a.m. when they finally decided to stop. Both of them could barely keep their eyes open, they didn't want to mess something up and possibly destroy their process.

Moon headed to the theater. He saw Sun was cuddled up in a pile of pillows with his cats sleeping right next to him.

Moom yawned as he pulled the donut-looking pillow to a dark spot and a blanket. If he just laid on the ground again then Earth would scold him. He cringed at the memory when Earth found him lying faceplant on the ground. She sure gave him a fifteen-minute lecture on why it's bad for your back to sleep on the ground. Let's not forget about how Sun started to continue lecturing him about how many germs there were on the ground. Sun literally forced him to watch a documentary of germs.

Moon woke up his head was buzzing, and his wires felt all twisted and messed up. His fans were on full blast like he was overheating and yet he was shivering like a leaf.

Moon groaned and pulled himself up but he had to take a second before getting up, everything was spinning.

Oh boy, he probably caught something. Moon groaned and laid back on the donut thing as he pulled the blanket over his face. His joints hurt and felt like they were locked up. The crescent Lunar animatronic knew he wouldn't be able to work if he felt like this.

His vision was blurry and for some reason, he felt very anxious. But there was no reason to be, it wasn't the first time he caught a virus or something.

"Hey, computer, what time is it?" The grumpy Lunar bot asked. "It is currently 12:40 p.m., Moon."

Moon sighed, the theater would open soon and the last thing he wanted was to interact with Karen's. Also, Solar send him a message to come to the daycare.

So he made his way slowly to the daycare, there was a ringing in his ear and the light made his eyes hurt. Solar was already glued to the computer as he opened the doors.

The room was filled with kids and they were running around and screaming, like usual. Lunar was having a tea party with the other kids while Earth was comforting a child and Sun was preparing for snack time.

Solar drank his coffee as he tipped something on the keyboard. "Hey, Moon." The Solar bot spoke.

"How are you doing?" Solar asked while watching him. Moon sat down on the chair next to him and squinted over to Solar.

"Actually I'm not feeling good. I think I caught something." Moon rasped out.

"Yeah, you really don't look good." Solar said bluntly and Moon grumbled "Thanks, Solar."

Solar grabbed another mug and handed it to him. "So does Ruin."

"Geez Solar why so rude today?" Moon replied drowsily. "Huh? Wha- no that's not what I meant. He's also sick."

Moon took the mug and looked into it and tried not to grimace. Coffee was the last thing he wanted to drink. "It's tea, it should make you feel a bit better." Solar replied as if he could read Moon's mind.

"Thanks, Solar." Moon shivered as he drank a bit. "So Ruin is also sick?" Solar nodded. "They woke me up earlier and asked if I could do a diagnostic check on them."

Moon leaned in the chair as he listened. "Don't you think it's a bit weird that you both got sick right after our rescue?" Solar asked and Moon thought about it.

It was weird, maybe there was something in that prison that made them sick? "What do you have in mind, Solar?" Moon tilted his head as he asked.

"Well since I didn't get sick, despite being right beside you. I believe the barrier which kept Ruin in there was infected with some malware." Solar stated.

"I think you're right. " Moon spoke while placing the mug down and Solar shrugged

"So you believe the barrier infected us through the electric shock?" Solar nodded.

"Where is he anyway?" Moon questioned while looking around. "They're in the room beside mine, on the couch." Solar replied.

Moon coughed as he shivered and the dusk animatronic looked at him quite concerned. "You know you kinda look worse than they do." Moon deadpanned him. "Yea, you don't say, Solar." He mumbled.

"Moon, you know I don't mean it like that." Solar spoke amused as he pulled a blanket out from the drawer.

His frown turned to a grin. "Yeah, yeah I know." Solar stood up and wrapped a blanket around his shoulder. Solar moved his hand to his forehead.

"Computer can you do a diagnostic on Moon?"

Moon coughed into his elbow as Solar stood in front of him. The computer scanned him and then stated: "His temperature rose to 39,6°C"

Solar smiled fell and started to think.

"I recommend taking off his coat and pullover, so his fans on his back can work better." Spinard continued.

"I prefer not to take off my clothes here though." Moon mumbled and Solar looked at him. "Why? You used to walk around shirtless all the time."

Before Moon could answer him they heard Sun walking towards them. The bright animatronic could tell immediately Moon didn't feel well.

"Hey Moon are you okay?" The crescent Lunar animatronic nodded. "Hi Sun, yeah I'm okay, just caught a virus." Sun took a huge step back and distanced himself from them.

"Wuss." Moon verbalised and Sun pouted. "Hey, I have to take care of kids, I can't get sick. You know how many kids we get and I can't leave Lunad and Earth alone!" He did have a point but Moon just shrugged.

"Don't worry, brother I'll get out your rays in a minute." Moon uttered as another shiver struck his body. Sun smiled softly. "If you need something I can make Lunar get it."

"Thanks, Sun." Moon replied drowsily. "I'll look after him." The dusk animatronic spoke and Sun tilted his head. "That good I honestly was worried to leave him alone."

"Sun you don't have to worry about me" Moon mumbled and Sun's smile twitched. "Sure brother. " Sun spoke and before the crescent Lunar animatronic could ask him what he meant, they watched the bright animatronic turn around as he announced to the kids. "It's snack time!" They watched the kids running to the table and sat down enthusiastically.

"I guess I'm heading to the Parts and service." Moon mumbled, he felt the same anxiety as when he woke up. The thought of being alone made him nervous. Solar tilted his head. "Parts and service? How about we go to my room?" Solar recommended. "Like I said before I'll take care of you."

"I thought you meant checking up on me. Don't you want to keep working?" Solar shrugged. "I can work later. I wanna make sure you're doing okay." He spoke softly and Moon felt his cheeks lighten up. He looked to the side and hoped Solar didn't see his red face.

Solar moved to the door Moon followed but his head was spinning and his vision blurred. There was a loud ringing in his ear again and he then realized his vision was turning black. Moon grabbed on the chair and called out for Solar.

He couldn't hear anything but the ringing. Solar turned around to Moon's call, he saw him fainting, and before he hit the ground Solar animatronic caught him.

"Moon?!" Solar spoke alarmed, Moon's body fell limp against the dusk animatronic. He started to shake Moon and slapped his face softly. Solar realized he was shutting down since his fans were going quiet "Computer! Diagnostic Moon right now."

Solar picked Moon up as the computer stated. "His temperature has risen to 40,3°C. Solar you have to cool him down immediately."

Earth jogged towards Solar since she saw Moon fainting. "Solar? What happened?"

"Moon fainted, he has a high fever and I'm bringing him to my room. Send someone with icepacks." Solar rushed explaining while opening the door after Earth nodded he sprinted out of the daycare.

"My gut feeling was right to not leave you alone." He mumbled grumpy while running to his room. As he opened the door Ruin was sitting on the couch and looked at Solar a bit startled.

"Hi Solar-" Solar climbed through the tunnel with Moon. "Not now, Ruin. Moon passed out."

Solar felt his fans blasting and tried to stay calm as he took off Moon's coat and pullover.

The panicked bot pressed the button on Moon's chest to open his chestplate, Solar grabbed cables from the Arcade machine which is a working computer and plugged them into his chest.

Soon after Lunar climbed through the tunnel and brought icepacks. "I'm here, Solar!" The smaller jester yelped. "Okay do me a favor and put them on his forehead." Lunar nodded as he climbed quickly up on Solar's bed and leaned it on Moon's forehead.

Solar pulled Moon's pants up where his ankles were. "What are you doing, Solar? Is he going to be okay?" Lunar asked concerned. "He is going to be fine if I do this right. I'm freeing all his fans so he can cool down."

"I connected him to the computer so I can see better what is going on and it alerts me right away if something changes." Solar continued explaining.

Lunar nodded as he held the ice packet on his forehead. Solar glanced over to the monitor and then looked back to Moon.

"Computer can you do another diagnostic on him?" The arcade machine made a noise as the computer scanned him. "His temperature is going down his current temperature is 39,8°C. He should shortly turn back on."

Solar sighed relieved as he sat down next to Moon. Ruin then climbed through the tunnel as well and fidgeted with their hands. "Solar? What is happening to our companion?"

"He also got infected with the same virus but for some reason, he caught it way worse than you." Solar stopped for a moment and then turned to the computer. "Hey, Spinard can you do another diagnostic on Ruin?"

"Yes, of course, Solar. Ruin is currently okay, his temperature is still at 38°C but his fans aren't overheating." Solar let another relieved sigh out and leaned back to the wall.

"Well, that's rather weird." Ruin spoke. "I honestly thought you would have it worse since your body was fixed recently," Solar said thoughtfully.

"What does it have to do with that, Solar?" Ruin questioned out confused and tilted his head. "Well your body got fixed recently and your firewall could be distracted by that." Solar tried to explain but when a quiet click was heard, Lunar kicked him in the back.

Solar flinched and turned around to him grumpy. "Lunar-" The smaller bot smiled innocently. "I can hear his fans turning on," Lunar told them.

"He is actually rebooting." Spinard affirmed and Lunar shrugged. "The same thing."

The celestial animatronics waited for him to wake up but nothing happened after a while they could hear Moon snore. Lunar sighed and slapped him. "Wake up!" Moon groaned. "What the, what happened?" Moon rasped out. "You passed out because of overheating. How do you feel?" Solar questions concerned.

Moon pulled himself up and Lunar took the ice packet from his forehead. "I still feel like shit but not as bad as before," Moon mumbled and looked down. "Why am I shirtless?"

"Your fans were suffocating." Solar vocalized and Ruin side eyes the wall. Moon trembled and rubbed his arms. "Am I really overheating if I'm freezing?" Solar grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around Moon's shoulders. "Yeah, it's normal."

Lunar looked worried up at Moon. "Are you going to be okay?" He asked and Moon glanced down to his younger brother. Moon smiled softly at him. "I will be all right, thank you for your help."

Lunar shrugged "It's whatever. Please stay here you scared us." Moon leaned back on the wall. "Oh, I'll definitely. I'm not going anywhere. I prefer not to pass out again."

The computer cleared out its non-existent throat to get their attention. "Solar, I have found out why Moon overheats so quickly."

The dusk animatronic gazed to the arcade machine.

"It seems like Moon didn't clean his fans in a long while and they're not working completely anymore."

Solar turned slowly his head back to Moon and the dark crescent animatronic suddenly felt like he was in danger.

Moon let out a nervous chuckle and looked at the three animatronics staring at him. "Oh boy." Ruin spoke while dramatically covering his mouth.

"Moon.." Solar scowled and before he could say something Lunar pushed a pillow directly on his face.

Ruin fidgeted with their hands as they watched the interaction. He yelped as Lunar suffocated his older brother with the pillow. "Before you overheat I'll strangle you!" Lunar hissed.

"Lunar!" Moon muffled while he tried to pull the pillow away from his face.

Solar picked up the smaller animatronic and pulled him away from Moon. "Lunar you gonna make him faint." Solar muttered and he blew raspberries at them. "Rightfully deserved." Lunar mumbled.

Moon sighed annoyed by his younger brother's shenanigans but he had a point. There was a ping and Lunar checked his messages. "Let go of me, Solar." The dusk animatronic let the small animatronic down.

Lunar brushed his clothes straight and crossed his arms.

"Earth and Sun are worried and it's about naptime so I'll go and help them." He said unamused while looking directly at Moon. "You better sleep with an open eye if you don't clean your stupid fans."

Moon put his hand to his chest. "I promise I'll clean them." Lunar squinted at him and pointed his finger at him dramatically. "You better clean them before the others come up here." Then the small animatronic turned around and left.

Solar looked at Moon pissed and the British animatronic glanced between them amused.

"Okay, I get it! I will clean them up." Moon defensively spoke while fighting a smile. "You better."

The dark crescent animatronic moved around and remembered that his chest plate was still open. Moon cringed at the feeling.

"Do you still need the cable plugged in?" He asked while covering his chest with the blanket. The situation made him feel exposed.

Solar thought about it, he was still worried that it might backfire. The fact his body overheated and he was unconscious for a few minutes worries him. "Hey, Spinard can you alert me if his body temperature rises or if there are other problems?"

"Of course, I shall alert you if there are any concerns." The computer agreed. "Thanks."

Solar moved his hands to Moon's chest, the dark lunar animatronic felt his face heaten and then Moon glanced over to Ruin. He realized they had been watching them the whole time. Ugh, he hoped Ruin didn't notice his bright faceplate. Solar pulled out the cables and Moon sighed while closing his chest plate.

"Are you just gonna stand there or will you sit down next to us?" Solar asked while looking over to the smaller jester.

"O-Oh, no, no I'm fine. I'll rest my eyes on the couch over there." They clumsily pointed to the yellow couch in the balcony room. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, I'm sure. It was entertaining to watch but um.. you see the sickness makes me feel very woozy so I'll take a small nap!" Ruin fumbled with his words and smiled.

"Whatever suits you." Solar shrugged. "But you two have a wonderful afternoon. Ta ta." The silly jester hummed as they climbed out through the tunnel.

Moon and Solar glanced at each other.

"Entertaining to watch, huh?" Moon repeated and Solar huffed.

"Well, we deal daily with a lot of shit. I guess from an outside view it's very entertaining." Solar grumpy mumbled.

Moon groaned and leaned back as he cuddled into the blanket. Solar sat down next to him and watched him.

"Solar aren't you worried you will get sick as well?" Moon questioned, the dusk animatronic thought about it and then shrugged. "If I get sick then so be it."

"Besides I have to make sure you don't get strangled by Lunar." Solar teased, Moon rolled his eyes and smiled softly.

When Solar moved his arm back to the wall, his hand accidentally touched Moon's hand but neither moved their hand away. The dark crescent animatronic felt his faceplate brighten up, usually he didn't mind Solar's touch but for some reason it felt more.. welcoming?

Moon drew circles in his hand while looking to the side.

Moon felt like butterflies were stuck in his wires, it was not unpleasant, far from it. The dark crescent animatronic knew he had been feeling like this a while around Solar.

He remembered when Monty asked him if he was still AroAce but Moon didn't know.

Is this what romantic love feels like? Is it just a crush? Do Aromantic people experience crushes? Aside from gray and demiromantic people. Does he like him in a queerplatonic way? Maybe he's demiromantic, he the feelings didn't instantly start more after their bond grew.

Solar grabbed his hand and the dark crescent animatronic let out a strangled noise. Then both of them hear a loud whirr. Moon pulled his hat down with his other hand, how dare his body work against him?

Solar turned his head to the glowing animatronic, he immediately let go of Moon's hand and cleared his non-existent throat.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have done that." Solar spoke nervously.

"No, you're fine. Just startled that's all." Solar watched him. "I don't mind." The dark crescent animatronic mumbled and Solar smiled.

There was a moment of silence.

"But we should really clean your fans." Solar mused. "Now?" Moon asked.

The dusk animatronic shrugged. "I prefer if we do it now before your cables melt." Moon grunted embarrassed and crossed his arms. "Alright, we will do it now."

Moon felt the weight of the matress lift and he watched Solar getting his tools. He didn't realize he was staring at him until the dusk animatronic spoke. "So with which one do you want to start? We got one on your back and then on your ankles.

"I guess we can start with my ankles." Moon grumpy mumbled and Solar grinned at him. "Oh c'mon Moon, I'll be quick."

"Just let me do it myself." Moon groaned and covered his face. The dusk animatronic shook his head. "Not gonna happen I have the feeling that your vision is blurred."

Moon raised his brow. "How did you know?" Solar laid his tools on the desk and went towards the grumpy animatronic. "Moon, you're squinting a lot. It's not hard to tell."

Solar helped him to get up and walked to the desk. Moon sat down on the desk and sighed.

"Besides it's better if we do it now before Lunar comes back and strangles you." Solar teased and he rolled his eyes.

"So you wanna do this while being asleep or awake?" Solar asked and Moon thought about it. The thought of being shut down made him shiver but not because he doesn't trust Solar. Far from it, Moon trusted his friend with all his heart.

Heck, Solar could even do experiences on him and Moon would trust him completely. The blue crescent animatronic knew Solar was more than capable of taking projects in hand and making the right decision. Moon fought the urge to smile and shook his head.

"What does that mean?" Solar questioned confused. Moon perked up and realized he didn't really answer his question. "I want to stay awake."

The motives was due to his memory loss. Moon still feared to shut down only to wake up with no memories. Many accidents happen while being fixed and that gave him more anxiety.

Solar pulled the cables from the Arcade machine and cleared his throat. "So if you stay awake I'll have to connect you to the computer again."

Moon groaned and opend his chestplate. "Because you have to turn off the fan which you are working on." Moon spoke annoyed and Solar nodded.

After the dusk animatronic connected him to the computer and he tipped something until there was a beep sound. Moon felt his fans on his left ankle turn off, Solar then grabbed the screwdriver and pulled his pants up. He unscrewed the vents and gently pulled it out.

Dust instantly met Solar and he coughed. "Geez Moon when was the last time you cleaned it?" Moon didn't response his question. Solar raised his brow while glancing up to him. "Maybe a few months ago?" Moon mumbled and Solar frowned.

"No wonder you passed out." Solar scowled and Moon chuckled nervously while fidgeting with his hat. "I clean mine at least twice a month." Solar continued.

Moon let out a little: "Oh."

The dusk animatronic shook his head and started to clean out his fans. Both of them didn't say anything and the noises from the daycare of kids screaming and talking filled the silence.

"Doesn't it get annoying to work in here when the children are screaming?" Moon wondered out loud and Solar hummed. "It does but I have this function installed. Basically like noise cancelling headphones, so I can easily blend it out."

Moon glanced amazed to Solar, this animatronic has numerous smart ideas. "That's really clever, Solar." Solar shrugged and looked to the side. "Not really. I just got inspired when I saw a kid walking around with headphones."

Moon raised his brow and clung onto the blankets. "So? You still managed to build it."

Solar felt his faceplate heaten up. "I guess I did." He smiled softly while trying to focus on cleaning the vents.

After Solar cleaned the last vent on Moon's back, he got awfully quiet. The blue crescent animatronic was sitting backwards on the chair so it gave Solar easier access to his back.

Solar stopped and moved to the lunar animatronic. He noticed Moon's eyes were closed and his head was resting on the cushion from the chair.

"Hey Spinard, is Moon okay?" Solar whispered. "He is fine, Solar. Moon is currently sleeping." The Solar bot let out a relieved sigh.

"If there was a problem I would already have told you, Solar." The computer spoke out sassy.

When Solar was finally finished with cleaning he picked Moon gently up and moved towards the bed. The blue crescent animatronic clung onto Solar while he tried to lay him down.

The Solar bot let out an amused chuckle. "Moon.. let go off me." As he glanced to Moon he was looking direct at the dusk animatronic. "Join me?" Moon asked carefully and Solar raised a brow. "Are you sure?" He questioned while feeling his cheek lighten up and Moon only smiled at him with half lidded eyes. "If you don't mind?"

Solar felt flustered and let out an amused huff. "I don't mind."

The dusk animatronic moved in the bed and wrapped the blanket around them. He felt Moon arms wrapping around his back and Solar hesitantly hugged him while leaning his chin on his head.

The dark crescent animatronic didn't take long to nod off and Solar followed soon after.

"You're really great you know that, right?" Moon mumbled and Solar smiled fondly. "Moon, just go to sleep." He muttered light-heartedly.

__________________________________

Sun and Earth checked up on Moon.

Earth: "Aww look they're cuddling again!"

"They sure are."

Sun chuckled as he took pictures for blackmailing and Lunar followed them.

Lunar: "Ew cooties."

#solarmoon #solar x moon #I might change the Title from this fanfic #moondrop #I'll post this later on aO3 (if I figure it out)

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riacte · 8 months

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All the routes Renchanting could go in Life Series 5:

(Self sabotage along the lines of Ren burning his tower in Last Life, swearing, angst with a happy ending, 2k)

Ren moves on, and Martyn pretends he moved on too, but he really never left. Ren forms a partnership with different people, he declares himself as best friends with someone, but when Martyn strays into his path, Ren can't help but take notice of him. Can't help but trust him once more, can't help but to offer him a deal, can't help himself.

Ren's a seasoned veteran now; he understands that war is inevitable and he has to keep his friends safe in an impenetrable fortress. He's not as naive as he was the first time, when he freely let people into his enchanting emporium. If Martyn offered to be his marketing manager this time round, Ren might not have let him (but deep down, he knows he'll always let him in). Maybe Martyn's the chink in Ren's armour. If that's the case, then so be it.

Martyn's not jealous. He's really not. Of course he's glad Ren's found new partnerships and new allies this time round. Of course he knows you can't repeat the past. He's just relieved that Ren is here this time, and he finds a little guidance in him. Something is better than nothing. Even though he has his allies, Martyn's still a wanderer, but he makes his rounds back to Ren periodically, in search for something that he's too scared to ask.

It's not his place anyway. Ren belongs somewhere. Martyn's not in the equation.

So Martyn patches up the fragments of his soul, tucks away his puns and oneliners, packs up his monologues and vows, carefully puts the memories of Third Life back in that little part of his heart, and continues to roam across the world. Walls, corners, edges. Nothing has changed.

(Still, when an unexpected mob strikes, Martyn grabs Ren in a panic, their hands find each other instinctively, they run and they run, and for a single precious moment, it's them against the world again.)

(And when Ren inevitably dies, Martyn stands and blankly stares at what's left of his not-ally, not-partner, not-king. He wonders if it would've been different if he was Ren's Hand again. Probably not. They're all doomed anyway.)

Ren and Martyn ally, hands shook in a new agreement. It's not Dogwarts, but it's something.

They have new allies and new enemies. They're close, but not too close. They have a learned sense of self preservation. They crack their jokes, tend to their crops, enchant their gear, but it's not serious, right? Treating it seriously only results in more pain later. No one wants that.

Ren understands nothing good comes out of declaring himself as king. He always gets overthrown, his beloved defenders always get killed by the masses, his kingdoms always go up in flames. It's best to keep a distance from everyone. It's for the greater good.

This is a temporary alliance. They are all temporary alliances. It's just for fun. Once the end is near, it's time for them to drift away. Ren can't bear getting people getting hurt for his sake.

"We used to be something, don't you think so?" Martyn once asks Ren.

They're both thinking about Dogwarts. About a life a long, long time ago. A doomed life. A beautiful, wonderful, yet catastrophically painful life.

Is it better to have loved and lost, or better to not have loved at all?

They seem to have came to the conclusion organically. It's out of self-preservation, after all. Don't get too close. The story of the King and his loyal Hand is over. Let the dust settle on their storybook. Let the pages turn yellow. Let it wither. Let it die.

It's awful, isn't it? How they've finally found each other, after trials and tribulations, but they're too scared to try again. Where's that defiance against fate? Where's "give me a shield and I'll follow you to the ends of the world"? Where's "this is us now, this is us"? Where's the passion, the reverence, the reckless devotion? What beat it out of them?

"... We could be something, don't you think so?" is Ren's reply.

But they don't. They don't try anymore. Too tired, too drained, too timid now.

Somehow this feels worse than being separated. Not trying at all.

Ren's not here.

Martyn builds his own walls, builds his own tower, wraps the tattered scarf around him once more, the Hand frozen in time, sits and stays right where he's been left. Third Life never ended for him.

Ren showed him life, didn't he? Where is he now? Where's the life he promised him?

Martyn dimly remembers Ren sitting himself on fire when he was lonely in Last Life. Back then, Martyn had dropped everything to rush to Ren's aid. Ren's the one inflicting damage on himself, the prince locking himself in his burning tower, and Martyn, ever the firefighter, puts out his flames with a bucket of water.

In that life, Martyn leaped to Ren's defence. How could he not? Logically, Martyn should've left Ren. Stopped his damage from damaging Martyn himself. But Martyn's never been logical about Ren, has he?

Is Ren watching him, this time? Is his king out there, somewhere? Does he care? Does he care at all?

... Martyn reaches for the flint and steel.

3.5

(Someone— it does not matter who— knocks it out of his hand. It kicks Martyn out of his stupor. He blinks. His head hurts. What the heck is he doing there, mooning about a lost king? Why the fuck does he even care, when everyone moved on?

This has gone on for too long. If he can't pull himself up from the abyss, he'll have to go cold turkey. There's no other way. It's for his own good, Martyn convinces himself.

In a violent, swift move, Martyn rips off his scarf. He watches it burn.

... He swears he's only crying from the smoke.)

Martyn moves on. Ren thinks he moved on from Dogwarts and everything, but once he's back on the server, everything comes rushing back to him, as easy as running water.

He misses having a faction to protect. He misses being loyal to his people. He deeply misses his friends. He misses having Martyn by his side. He misses Martyn.

But Martyn's back to being a wanderer, cheerfully involving himself in everyone's business yet not staying with anyone, because he's permanently more selfish now, and nothing's going to stop Martyn once he's fallen off that edge. He's a cannonball, a tornado, a wild card. He's everywhere, but he's nowhere.

Martyn is cunning, devious, sharp as ever, still funny as fuck, but there's a wild look in his eyes now. He's untamed. He doesn't give a shit about anything. He lies. He backstabs. He's a nuisance. Thief. Plunderer. Shit-stirrer. And it's all for the heck of it.

Whatever happened to the loyal knight Ren once knew? Was Martyn always this way? Was Ren the only exception? Or has Limited Life broken him?

Ren still tries, with his kind smiles and elaborate gifts and offers of working with him, but Martyn seems to be avoiding him on purpose. What worked in Third Life doesn't work anymore.

Ren knows he should distance himself considering Martyn doesn't give a shit anymore, but a part of him can't help but look back. Maybe he can change Martyn. Show him life again. Maybe, maybe, just maybe.

("We can be allies again," he offers hopefully. Martyn laughs, and it's such a familiar sound that Ren can't help but perk up, but it's a harsh laugh. Twisted. Warped.

"No thank you," Martyn replies. Ren thinks Martyn's holding back calling him "boss" sarcastically. At least there's a line that he's not crossing.)

Ren knows he should let it go. It hurts, but dragging it only hurts more. Martyn doesn't want him, not even a little bit. His friends convince him. So Ren loyally sticks to his own circle of allies. He tries to forget about the permanent chink in his armour.

But when Ren carelessly steps into a trap, he thinks he hears an achingly familiar voice scream, "Ren! No!"

The world explodes in red and yellow. Fire. Dynamite. It's just like his first death, the one that turned him yellow the first time, the death that eventually led to his beheading, the one that started it all.

Now it ends. Now it all ends.

Ren's bleeding. He's on the ground. He thinks he hears Martyn's voice. That's nice. It's nice even if it's a hallucination. As his consciousness fades, he hears Martyn's voice,

"... If only you were there last time. If only I care about you as much as I did then. But the universe never lets it align, does it? You got over me when I didn't. Now I'm over you when you're not. I’m too early, you’re too late.��

Ren smiles. Oh, he sees through Martyn's facade. He sees it now. His lips part weakly.

"... Liar."

(Martyn's untamed. He doesn't give a shit about anything. He lies. He backstabs. He's a nuisance. Thief. Plunderer. Shit-stirrer. Liar. Liar.)

In response, Ren feels a squeeze on his hand. Comforting. Regretful. Apologizing.

"I don't deserve you. Don't forgive me, Ren."

I always do, Ren thinks. But by that time, he's already gone.

There is a simple rule to the Life series— everyone is doomed from the beginning. No matter who wins.

Ren is doomed. A kind, gentle man can't survive till the end. That's why Ren had to kill himself and let the Red King take over. Is that why Martyn won the season without Ren? Is that how Martyn won, without Ren holding him back, without Ren to guide him?

You either die a hero, or live long enough to be the villain.

Yet, none of it is pointless. The seasons are filled with joy, laughter, genuine connections are formed, and while it can be tragic, it can also be soul-shatteringly beautiful.

It's worth it. It's always worth it.

Once, Ren showed Martyn life. Because all Martyn knew back then was how to survive, not how to live.

But now, Martyn doesn't just want to survive. He wants to thrive. What good is surviving if everyone dies at the end, including his king? What good it is anyway, when Martyn ends up falling and falling again? What good is conquering the world when every tiny bit of it reminds him of Ren?

So when the new season dawns, Martyn decides to throw all of it away. His angst, his inhibitions, his self-pity. Sure, everything goes up in flames anyway, and this fragile world is temporary, but is that any way to live? To live without living, to live without trying at all?

They're all at spawn. Everyone's enthusiastically greeting each other and Martyn does the same, but he's frantically searching for someone, eyes wide. He's waited months and months for this. He can't take it anymore.

And then—

(A familiar chuckle, a flash of brown hair, eyes turning to meet his—)

Martyn remembers the precious vow they made in a parallel universe, under the moonlit sky, blood splattered on the altar, those bygone years and bygone lives, and he runs—

"REN!" Martyn screams like he's never screamed before.

Martyn's hands reach out. He doesn't care if Ren has moved on, doesn't care if Ren doesn't want him anymore. He only cares that Ren is here. Alive. In front of him.

And so he embraces Ren tightly, so very tightly.

"Martyn!" Ren sounds surprised by the intensity. "Dude! I missed you!"

And with those simple words, the shattered pieces of his world start falling into place again. Martyn laughs, a pure, genuine laugh from his heart. Everything's alright now. They can begin again.

"Welcome back, my liege."

#renchanting #rendog #inthelittlewood #treebark #trafficblr #ria.fic #this was meant to be short. like a tumblr post. it's 2k now soo 👍#if you recognise song lyrics. yes. it's probably intentional. i want to live not just survive (not just survive)#might put this on ao3 later #this is originally meant to have a sad ending but i couldn't bear it. renchanting forever and ever [explodes] 🔥🔥🔥🔥

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the-eldritch-it-gay · 6 months

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Returning from camp after dealing with the gnolls and the fire at Waukeen’s Rest, Majexatli dropped their pack and staff at their tent and immediately went off into the trees without looking back.

Their muscles ached, not just from exertion, not just from the flames that had licked their skin, but from something unnamed, a painful restlessness, a hunger to have their bones snap and reshape into something else, anything else.

Ash and blood still stuck to their skin, their hair, their horns. They needed to clean themselves off, as they were certain their companions were also doing, likely at the water's edge closer to their camp.

While Majexatli walked, they pulled the tie and ribbon from their hair, combing their fingers through and undoing their braid, wincing as they pulled at knots and strands matted with blood.

As they began stripping off their leather armor, laying it out on a rock near the river’s edge, they heard a twig snap behind them. Majexatli froze, the warm, electric feel of imminent wildshape enveloping them, the tension radiating off them as time nearly stood still. Their ears twitched as they analyzed the sounds of the forest around them, holding themselves on the precipice there, as they listened for information, warning signs.

“Apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you,”

And suddenly Majexatli was pulled back from the edge, a chill washing over their body even as they stood in the sunlight, an emptiness settling inside them even though they could still taste—

Majexatli looked over their shoulder to see Wyll, standing on the path a little ways away, hands half raised as if to show he meant no threat. Part of them hated how they believed that.

They couldn’t remember the last time someone had seen them with their hair down.

“It’s alright,” Majexatli said, even as the tension didn’t leave them, “My reflex would be to wildshape, not attack,”

Not a lie, but Majexatli didn’t know what the truth would be. Would they have run? Would they have tacked Wyll to the ground, snarling and pressing bloodied teeth to his throat? Would he fight back? If it came down to it, would he drive a rapier through their heart? Could he bring himself to? Did he already know? Did he plan on this, has he been waiting to get them alone like this so he could—

“Majexatli?”

They blinked, coming back to themselves, seeing Wyll’s face look at them with concern that cut them more deeply than a knife.

“Sorry, it’s been a long day, I’m a little… out of it,” They smiled politely, forcing their shoulders to relax as much as they could.

Sitting down on the rock, they began unlacing their boots, mimicking nonchalance, all the while watching Wyll out of the corner of their eye, every nerve in their body focused on the weight of the dagger on their hip. Wyll took a few cautious steps forward.

Is he afraid of me, or is he afraid that I am? In his eyes am I wounded prey or a predator?

“I just wanted to make sure you were alright, as soon as we got to camp, I turned around and you were already gone.”

“Apologies, I just…needed to get away,” Majexatli said, leaning back on their hands with a sigh, now stripped down to their breeches and laced tunic, rumpled and stained with blood, “I’m not used to… this. People. Before the Nautiloid I would go weeks without seeing other people, now there’s countless every day.”

Part of them wondered if he would take the bait, if his face would twist in confusion, finally piece together the lies. Don’t ask me a question where I can lie, I can’t speak the truth aloud, don’t fall for the mask, please.

“You’ve been doing quite well, if you ask me,” Wyll smiled, stepping a bit closer, “Genuinely, you’ve gone out of your way time and time again just to help people with no promise of reward. Today was no exception.”

Majexatli nodded. They could still taste gnoll blood in their mouth, the adrenaline buzzing in their veins.

Did you see? Did you watch me snap the neck of that hyena? You were horrified by the sight of the gnoll transformation, by the mindless consuming hunger. Did you condemn that hunger and politely look away from mine? Did you avert your eyes so you didn’t have to watch me tear out throats with my teeth? Rip open flesh and stain my maw red? Does it scare you? When I lifted that burning beam off that man in Waukeen’s Rest, did you know I still had raw flesh between my teeth? In my stomach?

“It hardly seemed a choice, it was the right thing to do,”

“Not everyone would see it that way,” Wyll smiled, “But I didn’t mean to intrude, I can let you be,”

Wyll bowed slightly, stepping back. It shouldn’t bother them, like they said, they were used to being alone, they didn’t like being around people, they had come this far from camp to get away from everyone. So why did their stomach drop, blood run cold as Wyll moved away?

“It’s alright, I was just going to clean myself up in the river, I’m sure you could use a dip as well, and I’m hardly standoffish about something as trivial as nudity,”

It wasn’t quite a lie.

They hoped they didn’t seem too quick in turning away, beginning to unlace their shirt and breeches. Their own heartbeat was loud in their ears, the warmth of the sun paling in comparison to the shame and anxiety curling in their belly uninvited. While they avoided looking back—not wanting to meet his eyes, not wanting to let him see the scars, not wanting to let him see the fear in their eyes—they tried their best to listen, hear if Wyll was walking away or not.

I am unarmored, I can show you which ribs you should drive your sword through. You win, show your true colors and I’ll show you mine. Please. I am the monster you are supposed to slay, don’t look at me like you are the selfless knight and I am the prince who needs saving.

Folding their clothes and placing them neatly next to their armor on the rocks, Majexatli tried to force a relaxed posture, tried to force the knot in their stomach to release.

The river's water was refreshingly cool as they stepped into it, it might have even felt nice

“You make it look easy, not catching your shirt on your horns. I suppose you have far more experience with them, though,”

They heard movement, a rustle of fabric, a disturbance in the water behind them. If they were someone else, they might not have been able to tell how far away Wyll was, a respectable distance, as though he was trying to respect their privacy, their space. Majexatli didn’t look back at him, but they glanced at the riverbank out of the corner of their eye. Wyll’s rapier lay next to his armor and clothes.

The metal of the dagger in Majexatli’s hand burned.

“It happens to everyone. They weren’t always like this, they betray my age. When I was 20 I think they were barely even starting to curve,”

You would have liked me back then, when I would giggle and blush like a schoolboy and braid flowers into my hair and sing songs of Silvanus and peace. You want them, not me.

“Really? It seems hard to picture you without the beautiful horns you have today,” There was a fondness in his voice that felt misplaced, Majexatli could hear Wyll’s smile and they hated that they wanted to turn and see it.

“You’re not alone, that was a lifetime ago,”

“I suppose I’ve never thought about it, do horns continue to grow over time?”

“Somewhat. They start to come in when you’re quite young, and usually by the time you’re an adult they’ve grown into their full shape. But they still grow a bit,”

“Yours weren’t grown in when you were 20?”

Shit. A slip, careless.

“It—it can depend. Growth can be stunted in plenty of ways,”

“Apologies, I didn’t mean to pry, you needn’t tell me anything you don’t want to share,”

Oh, he sounded so genuine, an alien feeling welled up inside Majexatli at his voice. A feeling so tender that Majexatli felt their nails digging into their palm hard enough to draw blood, their grip on their dagger turning their knuckles white as they fought an urge to rip and cut and tear into their own chest and strangle whatever was budding in their chest before it could take root.

“I don’t suppose you have any tips for caring for horns, or tails for that matter?”

“I— someone else probably has better advice than I could give. I didn’t grow up around tieflings, don’t think I even met another tiefling until I was already an adult. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong with them,” Majexatli said, another slip, a careless truth falling from their lips.

“You must be doing something right, you’re quite handsome,”

He probably even meant it.

“For the horns, a little soap and water works well, doesn’t have to be anything special. If I want to do something special, I have a balm of sorts, easy to make. You only need a bit on them, sometimes I use something to sand off the driest outer layer beforehand,”

They shrugged.

“I might have to ask you for the recipe then, sometime,” Wyll paused for a moment, Majexatli could feel him considering something, “I—as I said before, I don’t mean to pry, and you needn’t answer if you don’t want to—”

Here it comes, Majexatli thought, here’s where you drop the kind facade.

“Yes?”

“You said earlier you didn’t grow up with tieflings, I can’t imagine that was easy…”

There was a beat of silence before Majexatli responded.

“It wasn’t. For a while, I considered cutting my horns off. Same with my tail. Not that it would have changed anything, but I couldn’t stand looking in the mirror or seeing the way people looked at me like I was a monster,”

They should have lied, they knew, but the exhaustion that seeped through them was from more than just the physical.

“How did you make it through?”

I didn’t survive. Not in any way that’s meaningful. I let it consume me. If I didn’t look like this I would have been married, had a home, maybe had children. I didn’t find any meaningful lesson from my suffering. All I found was that the world is cruel and so many gods are indifferent. I spent years cutting my teeth on the bones of animals that still squirmed and cried out as I ate them raw. I’m no different than that hyena in the road, infected by hunger and reshaping my bones into something feral and monstrous.

He wouldn’t want to hear that, he didn’t want the truth, Majexatli knew. He wasn’t asking advice from them, he was asking for advice from the the gentle sage druid that they wore the skin of. He didn’t want a tragedy, he wanted a happy ending. Wyll wanted to see the light at the end of the tunnel, wanted to know things ease with time, that bodies and worries eventually settle like houses and dust. He wanted advice from the other side, not realizing Majexatli was in the dark, miles behind him.

“I realized how rare and beautiful existence can be, that I am the fruit of a tree planted centuries ago. And though it’s never easy, I remember that the hatred in my heart when I look in the mirror was not my own, is not a truth or some innate part of me, it is an echo of words spoken by others, and I should not offer those people a hoe to sow their seeds of hatred in my mind,”

There was a beat of silence, the only sounds were the water of the river, the distant chirping of birds, the rustle of leaves in the wind.

“Do you believe that?”

A soft question.

“...Sometimes,”

A half-truth.

They finished bathing in silence, Wyll returning to camp soon after.

Under the moon, hunched over an elk carcass, maw dripping red, bones crunching beneath their teeth as they split open ribs to feast on its heart, Majexatli’s eyes fell on a patch of wild lavender growing nearby, swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. They weren’t sure what gripped them when they dropped wildshape and carefully picked the flowers, trying their best to keep from staining them with the blood and bits of viscera that stuck to their hand. Nor were they sure what motivated them when they returned to camp to clear off a space on their makeshift table with their herbalism and alchemical supplies.

Majexatli had told the truth to Wyll earlier; it was a simple recipe. Even simpler mixing it with the lavender and a touch of cedar oil, carving a small wooden jar to place it in.

The moon was still high in the sky when Majexatli placed it outside Wyll’s tent as he slept inside. He would find it in the morning, knowing Majexatli left it for him. The thought was discomforting. It would be easier to slip into his tent, get him to draw his blade, bury it in their chest, let him kill the monster in self-defense. The kindness, the vulnerability felt too much, too raw, but they swallowed it down, at least that was familiar. Majexatli was used to eating things raw.

#eldritch it speaks #salam plays bg3 #oc: majexatli #wyll x tav #hiiiiiiiiii i finally finished this please clap #I might post this to ao3 later as well if ppl prefer reading things there. ill add a link when that happens

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kanrix · 9 months

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I hate hate everything

#anyway #someone posted a danielle/clay fic on ao3 some hours ago #I'm eating well #mumbles #might delete later

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minhxiao · 7 months

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from wangshu inn to the fleuve cendre xiao/aether | rating: G | 1.6k words Xiao reads of Aether's journey in Fontaine in The Steambird. He realizes that in Aether's absence, he's picked up the habit of collecting little pieces of him everywhere he goes.

Adeptus Xiao never used to keep track of the days of the week, but now he knows that it is a Sunday.

And it is precisely because it’s a Sunday that he now stands before Verr Goldet’s desk, arms crossed and waiting at the earliest sliver of dawn.

“Morning, Adeptus Xiao,” Xiao can’t understand the hidden meaning in Verr’s smile, but lately he’s been wondering if she’s teasing him. “The courier came early today.”

Xiao knows. He had heard him arrive just ten minutes ago to deliver the mail at the foot of the Inn.

“Paper?” Xiao tries not to look too impatient. Wei meows and nudges her head along Xiao’s wrist and this time, he doesn’t flinch.

Verr flashes him that unknowable smile again. She slides the freshly pressed newspaper across the counter before hiding a yawn with her palm.

“Looks like he’s solved some cold case this time after getting roped into standing trial for that Fatui member,” Verr mumbles. “But well… that’s Aether for you.”

Xiao snatches the latest edition of The Steambird from the counter, the paper crinkling in his hands.

Washed Up Mysteries Brought to Light: Spina di Rosula Brings the Longstanding Serial Disappearances Case to a Close

Golden Haired Traveler Unearths Key Evidence Amidst Trial

Xiao quickly skims the front page and that ever present anxiety in his chest loosens just a fraction. He releases his grip on the paper.

He’s alright.

When Xiao turns the page, his eyes widen. The Steambird always included photos in their features, but every so often, when Aether did something big enough to make the headlines, they would sometimes include a photo of him.

And this one did.

It was a clandestine, but striking picture of him standing inside a large courthouse, speaking to a man sitting upon a high dais. Aether appears to be in the middle of a speech, his arm raised upright as he holds some kind of book in his left hand. His face looks uncharacteristically grave.

Even through the photo, Xiao catches the tired line of his body, the hard set of his brow. The adeptus’ heart aches with a restless worry.

He stares at the photo long enough to bore holes in the paper. Verr clears her throat.

“Was he injured?” Xiao asks bluntly because he can’t be bothered to slowly read through the flowery, sensationalist paragraphs right now. He would, later. He would read them over and over again until he’s committed the series of events to memory. But at present, Aether’s safety is his most immediate, pressing concern.

“I don’t believe so,” Verr blinks at him slowly. “All they said was that he rushed into the Opera House to deliver the key piece of evidence against the criminal behind this case. It was… really harrowing stuff.”

Xiao frowns slightly at the ambiguous answer. He knows by now that the papers only cover the most noteworthy and relevant details to the story. But any number of unknown and unseen dangers could have happened behind the scenes.

Xiao exhales through his nose. There is so much he may never know about Aether and his own lack of knowledge frustrates him.

“What is Spina di… Rosula?” Xiao points to the words. Verr peers over the counter.

“Hmm, like an organization of private investigators. They were the ones that Aether was working with on this case.”

“He is safe with them?” Xiao’s brows furrow. Verr’s expression softens into something unreadable as she gives a gentle sigh.

He knows exactly what Verr is going to say but he wants to hear it again anyway.

“Aether is a very capable traveler, Xiao,” Verr says, as if she hasn’t told him this ever since he started reading the paper. “You don’t need to worry about him.”

“… Right,” Xiao folds the paper neatly under his arm and nods to Verr.

“Thank you, Verr,'' he turns to leave, but this time, Verr calls out to him before he can disappear.

Her voice is hesitant, “You could write to him, you know.”

Xiao pauses, turning slowly. “Write?”

Ver nods. “A letter. In the mail. I know he’d appreciate it.”

The adeptus actually considers it, for the briefest of moments, before he gives a small scoff. How would you send a letter to someone without a home? And what could Xiao possibly tell Aether that would be of value to him in his journeys in distant, foreign lands?

Writing a letter would be useless. Xiao would hate to distract him from his duties.

“No need.”

***

Xiao is aware that he never used to be like this.

He never read newspapers. He couldn’t have cared less about current affairs or the latest fashion trends in other nations. Up until a week ago, he didn’t even know the meaning of things like “pressing charges” or “court cases.”

But now as he unfurls the latest Steambird in his chambers alongside his copy of the Updated Teyvat Idioms Dictionary, he wonders if his behavior is perhaps more than a mere idle fixation on Aether’s whereabouts and safety.

In his chambers sits a stack of various newspaper cut-outs forming a timeline of Aether’s journey across Teyvat from the time that he first stepped foot off Liyue. Everything from the grandiose to the mundane― the traveler seemed to make headlines wherever he went, not that Xiao was particularly surprised.

“... evidence dismantled the defendant's prior defense…” Xiao mumbles to himself.

Once he’s finished thoroughly reading the article, he reads it again, then crosses his arms deep in thought. A sharp pang of admiration and pride warms his chest, alongside an uncomfortable, aching kind of pain.

He picks up the page with Aether’s photo on it.

It’s been two seasons since Xiao’s last seen him in person at the last Lantern Rite.

Before the traveler, Xiao never thought about things like seasons and dates and couriers and newspapers.

But he has never felt the pull of time and distance so strongly as when Aether leaves him. He finds his mind drifting in between his duties, conjuring up images of him meeting new people, seeing new sights.

What is he doing right now? Xiao would wonder in the morning. Has he rested well?

Is anything troubling him? At noon. Has he eaten? Is he safe? In the uneasy quiet of the night.

Xiao would sometimes even find himself staring at the sunset and imagining Aether is watching the very same one, in some city far out of his reach. It seems that every waking hour, Aether finds his way into Xiao’s thoughts but all that he’s left with are scattered newspaper cutouts and stolen, eavesdropped conversations from passersby.

Verr voice echoes in his head. You could write to him.

If he wishes to hear from me, he’d call, a small part of Xiao thinks firmly.

But Aether rarely calls Xiao’s name.

“I don’t want to use you in that way… You are more to me than just a weapon, Xiao,” Aether had said.

Xiao hadn’t understood it at the time, but now he’s deduced that Aether merely doesn’t want to trouble him―although that doesn’t make his absence feel any less total.

All he can do is wait. And perhaps it is this waiting, though unbearably heavy at times, that has also colored Xiao’s world with meaning. Each day is now filled with the possibility of him everywhere and Xiao finds himself watching for a speck of gold in the distance.

He only wishes he were able to make sense of the strong tug inside his chest that threatens to steal his breath every time he sees Aether’s photo. Or the steady ache he feels when he sifts through his memories of Aether one by one like precious stones.

It wasn’t pain, but the ghost of it. He sets the photo of Aether aside and turns away, feeling the feeling right now, in every pulse of his heart.

Perhaps he should write a letter. Perhaps he shouldn’t.

Regardless, until he sees him again, Xiao would wait. Someone like him had nothing but time, after all.

***

The next morning, Verr Goldet spots a sheet of paper on her desk, the page filled top to bottom with loose handwriting. A letter, she realizes. For the Traveler.

Of course Adeptus Xiao would have no concept of secrecy and had simply left the open letter on her desk with the trust that she would send it to the right place. Verr smiles a little to herself, scanning briefly over the letter. She wonders how many tries it had taken the adeptus to write it properly before settling on the one before her now.

It reads as follows:

Aether,

I read of your deeds in Fontaine.

Once, you referred to myself and my fellow Yaksha as “heroes” but to me, there seems no one else more fitting for such a title than you. You are admirable, honorable, and above all, kind.

Lately I have taken to reading “The Steambird.” This is how I have come to know about your actions in other nations. I hope you do not mind. As you know, engaging in mortal pastimes is new to me, but I have found the activity to be rewarding if only because it has made me feel a little closer to you.

Although, I think that… I would much prefer hearing these stories from your own lips, in your own voice.

I know well that you are adept and capable of fending for yourself but I still worry about the dangers you face. You have a habit of intentionally putting yourself in harm’s way. The stories in the paper can only tell me so much. Tell me that you are alright.

And… if you have the time, I would love enjoy your company. Come and tell me about your time in Fontaine, I will listen.

If you don’t have the time… I will wait.

Xiao

#ficlets #genshin ficlet #xiaoaether #aexiao #xiaother #genshin impact #fontaine #minific #might post to ao3 later cause this ended up longer than a drabble but idk

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sasanka-27 · 1 month

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It’s real

| Fandom: supernatural | Pairing: Dean/Castiel | Words: 7k+

| Type: oneshot | Rating: Teen and up | Author: Sasanka27

Summary: Morning of his birthday Dean wakes up alone doubting if he hadn’t dream the good parts of his life.

Link:

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puppetmaster13u · 8 months

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You may regret this @phoenixcatch7 lol, what if I start spamming you /j

Less cryptid Batman in this particular WIP since it's semi-outsider pov lol (one of two outside person not unnerved by them lol)

🦇👻🪆🦇👻🪆🦇👻🪆🦇👻🪆🦇👻🪆🦇👻🪆🦇👻🪆🦇

Clark knew Batman wasn’t human, even before that disaster of a mission where he had let it slip to the others.

He’d known for a long time, from one of their early meetups, when Batman had first referred to him as Clark Kent instead of Kal-El, and he had panicked. He hadn’t ever lied to his teammates when he said that the cloak prevented him from seeing his body, but his ears still worked.

He’d tried to listen to a heartbeat, to see if his at the time temporary ally was lying when he stated he wasn’t going to tell anyone and… Nothing. There was no heartbeat, no breathing, nothing even remotely human, and if he didn’t know any better, nothing even remotely alive about the silence.

He couldn’t help but to pay attention more, to seek out the strange almost silence-feeling that accompanied the Gotham vigilante each time he felt it. It was… almost comforting, like the swaying of branches and the rustling of cloth over stone. Familiar, compared to the hustle and bustle surrounding him in the city.

The first thing he had noticed, physically that is, was Batman’s ears. Previously he’d thought the man unemotional, what with the rough voice, expressionless white eyes, cloak-covered body and the gas mask covering a good chunk of his face.

Yet the longer he watched, even idly, the more he noticed that while the man’s face or body didn’t show much, his ears did.

While Batman could stay silent and still for hours, the long ears twitched and swiveled, catching on the hood that he’d always wear around them. They’d pin back sometimes, a near silent sound he couldn’t quite place accompanying the movement, while other times they’d twist a near full three-sixty, as though searching for whatever sound it had caught.

Sometimes, when he’d startled the other vigilante, there’d be rattling noise, like wood and metal clacking together before it was cut off. It was a strange sound, one he’d not heard anywhere else, except with his… friend.

Were they friends? He’d like to think so.

The next time he was reminded that his friend wasn’t human was when he saw him get injured. It hadn’t been a bad injury, even if the Gothamite’s head had hit the wall with a very loud cracking noise, but he’d still smelled what he’d eventually come to recognize as blood. There was an almost pickle-like scent to it though that wasn’t quite it either.

Honestly the closest he could think of describing it was some sort of formaldehyde. And once he focused, he could pick out other things beneath it. Maybe not flesh and blood in the traditional sense, but still.

There was always that scent of cloth and wood, but he could smell the black liquid, paint, a metallic thing underneath like iron and steel. No heartbeat, no breath, but life all the same. It was honestly beautiful in a way, like a part of the city the other vigilante called home had come to life.

And it wasn’t like Batman minded whenever his own human mask slipped. Clark may have been raised by his Ma and Pa, whom he loved, but it didn’t make his body any more human in nature. There were just some things that he couldn’t change, and it took effort to move like one all day as a civilian when his body wasn’t designed to do so.

So he stayed quiet for the most part when their group of three grew, and people started to speculate. He diverted the conversations whenever it turned to him, lightly admonishing over the various rumors.

It didn’t matter if Batman wasn’t human, he was still his friend, their ally and teammate. Was he curious? Oh of course, he’d gone into journalism for a reason after all, but it was still his friend. If he wanted to tell, he’d tell, and Clark wouldn’t break his trust.

#possessed doll au #possessed puppet au #This is pretty much the start of the doll reveal I did art for from Clark's and Diana's pov lol #batman au #cryptid batman #clark kent #superman #writing wip #Bruce when Clark first bends an arm in a way a human can't: I shall take note of this to see if I can do this later #Clark: Wow I have a friend who doesn't mind me doing weird things yay!#I like to think that the dolls start getting black veins through the wood like a mimicry of human arteries the longer they're in use #It's a symbiotic relationship that starts semi parasitic but turns mutually beneficial as the bond grows stronger #Diana who is made of clay probably also has a bit of a reveal to her teammates at some point I just realized #Maybe add my kintsugi headcanon for amazons in this oneshot lol #Might post the finished oneshot in AO3 if you'd be fine with it #Absolutely love this AU so much <3<3<3 #Bruce is unaware of how expressive his ears are when he doesn't have them tucked down to not hit them on ceilings lol #Clark isn't aware that half the time Bruce is not listening for sounds but listening to comms and for vibrations #Pfft oh I can't wait for Constantine or another magic user meets the batclan for the first time #Just chanting “what the fuck” over and over because *wtf is up with that*#It's like a wooden homunculus thing mixed with a sacrifice and willing possession and so much that *Should Not* be a single creature #How many tags until Tumblr has the munchies and eats them #random thing but wasn't there one series of games or comics or whatever where the batfam had a robotic dog or two #I am *just saying*-#Clark: He don't bite #Batman hunched over like some sort of predator about to pounce with spikes out and rattling/clattering angrily:#Goons & Future JL members: YES HE DO #batman #bruce wayne #dc

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