#my one (1) thing is i will not do just tim (+ someone else)
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trade offer: you give me batfam (preferably dami included or just vague enough) prompts
you receive (hopefully): doodles of said prompts
#shaking the bars of my cage GIVE!!!!#badger.yells#my one (1) thing is i will not do just tim (+ someone else)#if bro was a spice he’d be flour#batfam
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okay so this is an idea I’ve seen brought up maybe once before, but maybe Jason (before the Bats find out who he is) accidentally lets something slip that makes them realize that he’s literally, like, a child (seventeen, sixteen, I’m not sure how old he is at that point exactly, but either works)
and Bruce “adoption addiction” Wayne promptly looks at this obviously traumatized teenager and decides that he should adopt Red Hood.
I just think Jason would be so confused (maybe a little pissed too)
I’ve touched on that a little bit in What you’re longing for (you claim to abhor)!
I think this trope is wayyy underrated. Like, Jason is still so, so young. Basically a child. Even if he died at sixteen and then spent two years with the league (even if we’re counting the time he spent dead as aging). He’s barely even legal when he returns to Gotham. Or if we’re being generous let’s say he’s nineteen.
Doesn’t matter, he’s barely out of his teens (maybe he’s still IN his teens if you bend the timeline of your fic a little) and he’s experienced horrors that would have most people become utterly unable to function. But Jason? That boy takes his trauma and channels it into anger. Which, not exactly healthy, but well.
Anyway, getting off topic:
YES. Jason is still basically a kid when he debuts as the Red Hood, and you know what else he is? A good boy who’s not gonna touch any alcohol until he’s officially 21.
“But why would he do that? He grew up in Crime Alley! Ain’t nobody got time for age limitations!”
Hear me out! Let’s assume he grew up in a household where his father, Willis Todd, drank quite a lot on the regular in addition to his mom’s addiction. Jason experienced the aftermath of this (perhaps domestic violence?) every time his dad returned from a job/jail and he grew to loathe any and all substances, including alcohol. Knowing Jason and his convictions it wouldn’t be too far fetched to assume he’d never touch a single drop of alcohol at all.
So that’s one way he could slip up while taking to his goons (and having the bats overhear) or even straight up talking to one of them where maybe Dick banters a bit and goes “Hey, perhaps you should chill out a bit. Have a drink maybe” and Jason just instinctively goes “Fuck you Dickwing, I’m seventeen/eighteen/nineteen! I’m not allowed to drink!”
And Dick just— bluescreens. And immediately goes to tell Bruce, obviously.
OR
The Bats assume Jason is this old guy (Bruce’s or Drathstroke’s age maybe) and consequently they keep alluding to things that happened way before Jason was ever even born and at first he’s so? Confused??? But eventually it just gets really annoying and eventually he just— snaps.
“How the fuck would I know which Nokia gen hit the market that year? I was born in fuckin’ XXXX, I’m an iPhone kid!”
“Stop referencing the Cold War dipshit, I’m fucking seventeen! I’m glad I remember my own damn birthday!”
“I don’t know, I was like— two back then.”
Bruce, obviously, would take .1 seconds to realize:
“Omg. That’s- that’s a whole child. That’s a whole damn TRAUMATIZED child, killing people and sawing off heads. Omg someone must have hurt him so bad. Don’t worry tho, son, Batman’s got you. You won’t have to hurt anybody ever again. We’re here for you. Would you like the room next to Tim’s or Dick’s?”
Meanwhile Jason: “what the fuck”
#ghost talks#lmao Jason would be so done at this point#like pls spare him all the horrible references he doesn’t understand#he’s gen z#and everyone is suddenly using boomer memes#and he’s so lost#dick isn’t helping#jason todd#batfamily#batfam#bruce wayne#dick grayson#robin#tim drake#red hood#fic#batdad#good dad bruce wayne#brainstorming
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@gilbirda Ok, so you made a snippet of on of your AUs a while back (braindead rejected! soulmate i think) and I haven't been able to think of much else since. So my brain made a little thingy for you!
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1. Tim takes a risk one day by writing back to whoever was doodling on his body, with a glittery purple gel pen, asking them to stop trying to contacting him.
All the person asked was, "Why?"
Tim never answers.
2. Danny faces constant rejection from his peers, authority figures, his parents and sister neglect him and now his own soulmate doesn't want him. They hadn't even met before he was rejected. Jazz finds out about Dannys powers and tries to reach out but Danny rejects her pretty violently due to his own pain. Then the episode where Sam and Tucker ditch him for Gregor happens and he gives up.
The two people in his life that has had pretty much complete control over his life and trajectory just abandoned him and he does not take it well. He ripped the symbol off his chest, disappeared and never came back.
3. Danny zooms into a new dimension/universe/whatever to avoid his former friends and family from being able to track him only to land in a place called Central City and immediately getting roped into helping Captain Cold who gives him a normal domino mask and they end up working together for a while.
4. Danny somehow overhears one of the speedster talking on the phone about his friends brothers soulmate issue at some point and they perfectly describe the interaction that happened between Danny and his soulmate all those years ago, down to the glittery purple gel pen and the types of doodles Danny had made as a kid and the things he said.
Danny learned one of his soulmates belonged to a group of detective vigilantes in a place called Gotham. Unfortunately he was spotted by the speedster and Danny had to bounce.
5. The Flash made reports to the Justice League about a meta teen who hes been having trouble with for a while and can't seem to pin down. He only asked for tips though as he "could handle it himself."
6. Danny leaves for Gotham and learned about Catwoman and Batmans weird Master Thief and Greatest Detective dynamic and decided that's what he wants to do. He was going to make his soulmate chase after him one way or another. Someone was going to want him even if they were wanting him behind bars.
He begins robbing bank vaults and museums, leaving no trace or clue as to what happened until he starts leaving a calling card of sorts.
7. Jason, who's been on the outs with his family lately meets this spunky white haired meta kid running around with a sci-fi mask/visor thing and giving supplies to homeless encampments and keeping the less fortunate alive and befriends him. He learns that this is the guy everyone has been searching for and just...tells no one. Jason is all for a Robin Hood vigilante, and really, its kinda funny to see his family squirm.
8. Phantom and Catwoman rob the same museum at the same time but for different things. They stare at eachother from where they're both still crouched from thier respective landings until Danny breaks the tension with "I didn't see you if you didn't see me?"
Catwoman laughs, amused. "Sure."
9. Danny finally narrowed down which of the batfam is his soulmate and introduced himself to them as Phantom.
The first thing Danny did was hit on Tim. Tim is flustered but otherwise doesn't really respond to it and tries to fight Phantom into submission, so of course Danny ghosts him by disappearing through a roof mid fight. Danny made a big show of his intangibility in that fight and made it seem like it was the only power he had but he was very skilled with it and he wanted to impress him.
10. Phantom becomes well known to the underbelly of Gotham. Mostly the homeless and nightworkers. But Danny was open and friendly. Never judging and always ready to lend a helping hand. Even better. He never came to collect on favors.
Over time, they became loyal to him.
11. Danny gets framed for a series of murders and the whole gang (minus Hood) are trying to capture him, thus, motorcycle chase scene. They use the white of his tires to tell when he's gone intangible due to all the dirt falling off the wheels. Nightwing jumps onto the bike and shocks Danny with his encrizma sticks right before Danny grits out "bye bye birdy~" and makes a big show of taking in a deep breath and holding it.
Nightwing is forced to jump off the bike as Danny runs through the concrete abutment of the overpass and coming out the other side
12. Danny meets Tim and Duke in his civilian form while he was at a Wayne tech conference. Danny had been asked about one of his inventions and was trying to show off the blueprints and explain things and thats why he was there in the first place. Duke of course, was internally screaming because that's the guy thats the guy they've been hunting for nearly a year but can find nothing on.
Red Robin confronts Phantom that night on a rooftop and Phantom laughs at him, "Thats why I was avoiding Signal for so long. He'd see my magical girl form and know instantly."
RR holds out a pair of handcuffs and says "Its over Danny." Phantom smirks and says, "I don't think it is, Tim" before jumping off onto a different roof and disappearing into the night. Tim is shook.
13. Danny over hears Robin berating RR at an old clocktower and intervenes, "Little Wayne, you do realize you were the first person I figured out, right?"
Damian proceeds to lose his mind.
14. Tim accidentally finds a material that Phantom can't phase through and quickly gets to work making things he can use against Danny. What he doesn't know is that Danny can phase through it he just pretended he couldn't because he wanted to see what would happen/what Tim would do.
Danny can sense the material and it feels really wierd to him, but doesn't harm him at all.
15. RR manages to knock Phantoms visor off his face and realizing it was made of tech he swipes it and brings it back to the cave for study.
He wasn't ready for all the information on the computer. Not only was his nemesis(?) from another plain of reality (he thinks Danny is from the ghost zone) but he was once a superhero with his own Rogues Gallery and human city to protect. Which begs the question, why did he become a Phantom thief?
16. The Joker hears about Phantom giving the bats the run around and comes to a misunderstanding about which bat he's been messing with which ultimately ends with Joker saying that he is Batmans ultimate nemesis and Phantom asking what that had to do with him? The misunderstanding is cleared up when Phantom complained about Joker even thinking that he was flirting with Batman because "Ew! He's an old man!"
Joker still got a few shots in for the heck of it but so did our ghost boy but they were no longer enemies.
17. The whole batfam had been freaking out about finally capturing Phantom and celebrating and plotting on how they were gonna get him to keep his mouth shut about thier identities until Jason came in,
Jason: Need help?
Phantom: Please?
Jason: *escapes with Danny*
Batfam: What?! No!!! Why?!
18. The batfam have only a vague idea of the Robin Hood thing going on. They know he's doing it just not to the extent its gone to. They find out later on that Phantom had been working with RH and his gang to sell off the items and most of the profits go to helping people. Other times he strait up gives jewelry and whatnot to children and working girls because "Everyone deserves something pretty, and even if its not your style you can keep it for a rainy day"
Phantom quickly gains a following and Danny doesn't even know about it. Clueless indeed.
19. Dannys main motivation in this is essentially just playing Cops and Robbers with Red Robin. Nothing else really matters to him. Not the robberies, not the fact he's working with a crime lord, not even his own safety matters much to him anymore. Hes readily zooming down the path of self destruction and Hood starts telling his family stuff, but only because he was genuinely worried about "Casper" crashing and burning.
20. No one knows why Phantom is fixated on Red Robin. He refuses to tell them. Red thinks its just because he's the smartest of the bats and he's not entirely wrong.
21. Danny legit started scheduling his heists with Tim to ensure they're both free after one couldn't make it too many times which blew the birds mind. Phantom must have been just that confident that he would always win. The bats eventually think Danny will stop stealing if RR isn't in the city for a long period of time. Danny more or less followed him and stole stuff from whatever city Tim was in. If there wasn't any museums or banks then Danny would steal a local landmark. Tim still wasn't sure how Phantom stole an entire building that one time but it had never been seen since.
22. Hood grows to be very protective of our favorite ghost boy. They bond and are actually really close. Danny admits he always wanted an older brother.
23. Tim goes off world for a while to see how Danny would react and Danny just...drops off the radar. No one knows where he is and after a week or two they start getting worried.
Tim returns after three months and Danny reappears two weeks after him with a tan and keepsakes from the places he visited on his vacation. Tim later screams into his pillow.
24. Tim has made it his personal mission to figure out who Danny really is, why he's fixated on him, where he came from, ect. Hes trying so hard but can't find anything. Its almost like he didn't exist before. Tim suddenly got an idea after Phantom accidentally got hit in the face and got a nosebleed. Tim saw green blood and immediately realized Danny might not even be human. Fortunately for our little ghost, he thinks he's an alien. A Martian specifically. Tim manages to snag a good sample from treating Phantoms wounds. Ghostboy was so focus on his core thrumming and mentally comparing it to his heart racing that he didn't even notice.
25. Tim later freaks out because the meta is freaking made out of Lazarus water.
The entire batfam was not happy to discover this and decided to work together to pressure Phantom into telling them what he was and what exactly he wanted.
#fanfiction prompts#prompts#danny phantom#dp x dc#danny fenton#tim drake#red is so confused#red robin#throughout all of this Danny never confesses to being Tims soulmate#which is hilarious#danny doesnt think tim will care#tim would care very much#braindead#brain dead#motorcyle fights#at least its not card games#danny being a little gremlin#very flirty#batman#robin#damian wayne#batfam#tim drake x danny fenton#rejected!soulmate au#tw: blood#i added more
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Left Behind
ai-less whumptober
day 19- left behind/why wasn't I enough
fandom- dp x dc
TW- abandonment
Summary- The Fenton parents leave their kids at the Gotham Public Library
ao3
ailesswhumptober masterlist
part 1 of TFR
Barbara was working the closing shift at the library. She was putting some books away when she overheard a conversation.
“Do you know when mom and dad are going to pick us up?” said what sounded like a teenage boy.
“No, I– Oh, wait they just messaged me.” said what Barbara thought was a slightly older teen girl.
Silence.
“Jazz?
“They left.”
“What?”
“Someone posted about a possible sighting in Metropolis. They said they’ll be there for a few days.”
There was more silence. Barbara stayed quiet.
“So, they left us behind.”
“Yeah.”
“Again.”
“...Yeah.”
Barbara closed her eyes, thinking of Tim and how he had been left home alone so much. And these kids… their parents had abandoned them too.
“Well at least we’re not helpless.”
“I hate them.”
“Jazz–”
“No, Danny. I hate them. They’re supposed to be our parents. They’re supposed to take care of us.”
“I know. They always chose something else over us. Why aren’t we enough, Jazz?”
“I don’t know.” she sniffled.
“Jazz, hey, look at me. We’ll be okay.”
“I'm sorry, Danny. I'm just so tired.”
“I am too.”
Barbara was about to speak up when they continued.
“At least i have a credit card this time so it won’t be like the time they forgot is in Bridgton.”
“Yeah, that sucked. We were lucky we were able to sneak onto that semi.”
“Well, tonight we can get a hotel room and then get bus tickets tomorrow.
“I could just... you know. Do my thing.”
“I guess, but we should at least get a hotel for tonight. I don’t want to try traveling while you’re exhausted.”
“That’s fair. But–”
Barbara finally decided she should make her presence known. She cleared her throat as she made her way around the bookshelf.
The two teens startle. They looked like siblings. The girl was a redhead with teal eyes, and the boy had black hair and blue eyes.
“Hello, I’m Barbara. I work here at the library. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.” she paused as the siblings glanced at each other, the boy reaching over to grab his sister’s arm.
“What do you mean?” asked the girl, Jazz, if Barbara was correct.
“You need a place to stay tonight? It’ll be hard to find a good hotel at this hour. I’ve got an extra bedroom at my apartment, and you’re welcome to stay the night. You won’t owe me anything.”
“Why?” asked the boy, Danny.”
Barbara considered for a moment. “I have a friend who went through a similar situation as you guys, so I’m familiar with what it's like to have your parents be too busy. And you wouldn’t be the first kids I've let stay the night. I can help you find bus tickets in the morning. I’m familiar with most of the routes and can let you know which ones are the safest and quickest.”
The girl glanced at her brother, who stared at Barbara. There was a moment where his eyes seemed to glow and Barabar felt as if he were really looking at her. She suppressed a shudder at the intense feeling.
Then he turned to his sister and nodded.
“That’s very kind of you. Thank you. I’m Jazz and this is Danny.”
“It’s nice to meet you both. I have to finish locking up so I’ll meet you by the door.”
They nodded and started gathering their stuff.
Barbara went to finish the rest of the closing shift duties.
She also had a call to make.
#ailesswhumptober2023#ailesswhumptober#day 19#left behind#why wasn't I enough#Danny fenton#jazz fenton#barbara gordon#let Jazz break down#fanfic#dc x dp#dp x dc#dpxdc#dcxdp#dp x dc crossover
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Carry you
(steddie | rated t | wc: 4k | cw: drug addiction, hurt Eddie Munson, post break-up, hopeful ending | @steddielovemonth | prompt by @starryeyedjanai "Love is letting someone take care of you" | AO3)
When Eddie opens his eyes, he has no idea where he is.
That should probably scare him, but the only thing he can think in that moment between blissful nothingness and cold, hard reality is "the bathroom at the party looked different." Because he is in a bathroom, that much he can say. There are white tiles everywhere and a roll of toilet paper in front of him and... is that a plastic handrail?
Lifting his head is a Herculean effort, but somehow he manages to do it, even though it makes his stomach turn.
In front of him is a freestanding shower and a bathtub with stairs to get into. The bathroom is huge and sterile, smelling of disinfectant.
As more and more of his senses come back online, Eddie notices several things at once:
#1 He's wearing what can barely be called a gown, cold air hitting his exposed skin everywhere. His back, his legs, hell, even his junk gets more of a breeze than he likes.
#2 He's nauseous, his stomach rolls uncomfortably, and his head is killing him, a sharp pain that's increasing in intensity by the second.
#3 He knows that something is definitely very, very wrong and he can feel the anxiety rising like bile in his throat.
It's that last realization that triggers his fight or flight response and in seconds he's off the toilet he's sitting on, the sudden movement sending him stumbling, his legs wobbling and his head spinning. Everything hurts and he feels so weak. He catches himself on the railing next to the toilet and figures that's what it's there for. Although he has no idea what kind of person would have such a strange bathroom. The last one he was in, at Tim's or Tom's or Terry's party, something with a T, for sure, the tiles had been black and there had been a lot of bamboo furniture and gold accents. It had smelled nice too, vanilla and cinnamon.
He staggers to a door that hopefully leads out of this fucking nightmare. Maybe Gareth or Freak are behind this, to teach Eddie a lesson for ditching them again to go partying when they had to pack up their shit after the show. But not Jeff, he's too nice to do something like that. The next morning, when Eddie arrives with a hangover the size of his ego, to quote Gareth, Jeff will only look at him with disappointment.
Or maybe they just don't care enough about him anymore to pull a prank on him. Eddie can't remember the last time they even talked to him, beyond discussing the bare minimum for their shows.
Leaving the bathroom, he carefully walks down a long hallway with the ugliest yellow linoleum Eddie has ever seen. It hurts his eyes and his stomach gives another unpleasant churning. On his right, he sees a glass door with "Intermediate Care Unit" written in big white letters.
What the fuck?
He turns right and continues down the hall, hoping to find someone who can tell him where he is and why his body feels like it's been hit with a sledgehammer. Repeatedly.
"Mr. Munson, you shouldn't be out of bed," a stern voice calls from behind him, and when he turns around he sees a middle-aged woman in white scrubs looking at him with a stern expression on her face.
Feeling more and more like he has landed in an episode of The Twilight Zone, Eddie looks at her with an incredulous look on his face. "Who are you? And where is everyone?"
She scoffs at his answer, clearly not pleased.
"I am the nurse responsible for getting you well enough to leave this ward as soon as possible, and you would make my job a lot easier if you would go back to your bed." Before he can process the meaning of her words, she continues. "As for everyone else, well, no one else overdosed, so I would assume they're all home by now."
Eddie can only stare at her open-mouthed, disbelief and horror probably written all over his face, because her own face is softening slightly.
"Now come on, let's get you back to bed, you really shouldn't be wandering around."
She gently takes his elbow and leads him to a door with the number 719 on it. As she opens it for him, Eddie sees three beds inside. To the left and right, he sees two old men, both looking directly at him. The one on the right says, "We tried to stop him, Nurse Elli, we really did," in a high, nasal voice that is already getting on Eddie's nerves. "The kid wouldn't listen to us, would he, Harry?"
"Exactly," Harry answered, at least in a deeper, more bearable tone.
Ignoring the geriatric Ernie and Bert, Nurse Elli leads him to the bed in the middle and helps him to lie down again. Only then does Eddie remember that all he's wearing is a thin hospital gown with an open back. Well, he thinks, Nurse Elli has seen worse in her profession than his pale, scrawny ass. Besides, it's not like much of his modesty has survived the last two years of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll that have been his life.
By the time he's back under the covers, his nurse has turned around and is walking back over to the door. A bone-deep exhaustion has begun to seep into his body, slowly dragging him back under, but seeing her walk out of the room gives him a burst of energy.
"Wait! Someone needs to tell me what happened. What am I doing here?"
Embarrassment burns hot under his skin as he hears the tears in his voice, but the sound of it breaking at his question makes Nurse Elli stop. She turns back to him and her eyes are much kinder than before.
"The doctor will be with you shortly. He'll explain everything to you, Mr. Munson. I'll let him know you're awake now."
And then she leaves, and Eddie sinks back into his bed in the hope that the next time he opens his eyes, it will all have been just a bad dream.
It was not all just a bad dream.
The next time Eddie comes to, he's alone in his room, except for a middle-aged man who seems to be the doctor Nurse Elli told him would be stopping by.
Doctor Owens explains that he overdosed on alcohol and coke at a party at some music producer's house and had been in a coma for two full days. They quickly stabilized him, pumped his stomach and gave him fluids through an IV. Eddie is lucky he's still young and his system recovered from the shock quite well. When he showed signs of waking up, they brought him down here from the ICU to free up his bed for someone who needed it more.
"If Mr. Harrington hadn't called 911 and told them to come get you, you'd be dead right now, Mr. Munson. I'm sorry to say this, but from what I've heard, no one at the party even cared, just insisted that you brought your own drugs and they had nothing to do with it. Mr. Harrington has also been your only visitor so far."
His words should make him angry or sad, something, but he can't process them. Not when his brain is still struggling to make sense of the first part of his statement, Eddie’s heart racing in his chest.
"Mr. Harrington? As in..."
"Steve Harrington, he says he's a close friend. He's the one who called the ambulance, gave the operator your cell phone number so they could track your phone and get you to the hospital. He's been visiting you every day since. He also called your uncle, because we are not allowed to give out any medical information to anyone outside of the family. Your uncle should be here soon, I called him yesterday to give him an update on your condition."
His mind is reeling, too many thoughts fighting for dominance and one word screaming louder than any of them in his head.
Steve, Steve, Steve.
How... it couldn't be. Not after their last fight. Not after the things he said to Steve. To his horror, he feels tears burning hot in his eyes at the memory. A memory he had pushed as far back in his mind as he could because every time he thought about that night he wanted to curl up into a fetal position and cry.
"You are a lucky man, Mr. Munson. This man seems to care a lot about you, as does your uncle. You should let them help you. And if you will allow me to be very clear with you: You need all the help you can get. You're young, so your body can take a lot. But it's not in good shape. You have an old man's liver, and your spleen and kidneys are showing signs of the abuse you put them through. The echo also showed some irregularities in your heartbeat. If you continue down the path you're on, your organs will fail and you will die, Mr. Munson. Painfully. So my advice to you is to get clean as soon as possible. We have some facilities we work with, a nurse will bring you some brochures."
Eddie could only nod numbly, tears now falling freely from his eyes, his throat tight and his head aching. Everything hurt. Especially his heart.
"Okay, we'll keep you here for two more days until we're sure you're stable enough to be on your own." Doctor Owens tells him, turning to leave and get on with his day, as if he hadn't just dropped a damn bomb on his head. He pauses at the door and turns back to him.
"And a word of advice from someone twice your age who's seen a lot in his time here: stick with people who really care about you, like Mr. Harrington, instead of spending your time with people who leave you lying in a bathroom in your own vomit."
With that, he steps out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him and leaving Eddie alone with his thoughts.
Eddie doesn't know how long it's been since Dr. Owens left. It could have been hours, days, weeks, for all he knows, too deep inside his own head to spare any thought for the passing of time. Lying in a hospital bed, the nausea and pain raging through his battered body, Eddie finally breaks down and lets the thoughts come.
He's lost in his memories, thinking about everything that led him here, alone and in pain in a hospital bed, after nearly killing himself with things he swore he'd never use. Weed was fine, though he didn't indulge much anyway, preferring to sell it and make some much-needed money than to smoke it himself. But coke? Nah, he knew how epically stupid it would be to even try that shit.
And yet he did.
A party to celebrate the release of their first single. One lapse in judgment while flying so fucking high that nothing could touch him. One bad decision was all it took for him to succumb to the effects of the white powder.
The high he felt after snorting his first line had been magical and he's been chasing that feeling ever since, blind to all he's sacrificed in the process.
It changed him, he knows. Every euphoric high that made him talk a mile a minute, overly affectionate, loud and brash and in love with the whole world would inevitably end in a crash. He became irritable and hostile toward the people he loved, thinking they were out to get him. Whenever his friends or Wayne or Steve so much as looked at him the wrong way about his new habit, he would lash out at them.
He became increasingly angry and accused them of trying to control him, of envying him his success and happiness.
That's when he started drinking, too. He drank himself stupid so that he wouldn't have to think about the way Steve was starting to look at him as if he didn't even know him anymore. To forget the sad look in Wayne's eyes or the way his friends had started to avoid him. When he was drunk out of his mind, he could forget the way the Coffin boys had started talking about him behind his back, could ignore the murderous looks Robin kept sending his way.
Thinking back, Eddie felt like everything had spun out of his control so fast.
It's like one day he comes home to Steve, ecstatic about signing their first record deal and celebrating the start of a new chapter with the love of his life by dancing around their living room barefoot, laughing and kissing each other, promising happiness and forever.
Only to throw that love right back in Steve's face the next day by calling him needy, clingy, and full of bullshit.
He claimed that Steve was holding him back and that Steve didn't love him, that he just didn't want to be alone. He also said that Steve still thought he was better than Eddie, better than the town freak, the fuck-up, the trailer trash.
You don't want me to succeed and finally step out of your perfect shadow, because then what would stop me from leaving you, right?
Eddie regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth. Secretly, he had always feared that his success would cause a rift in his relationship with Steve. Eddie had no desire to leave Steve, because Steve was still the best goddamn thing that ever happened to him, but he couldn't help but feel that he was losing him anyway. Even more so when he had seen Steve's face crumble, when he had seen the exact moment when his heart had broken into a million pieces.
He had wanted to take Steve in his arms and apologize for saying cruel things he didn't even believe. It had been his own insecurities that had caused him to lash out, and he had hurt Steve before he had a chance to be hurt himself.
Instead, in true Munson fashion, he had run away and hasn't seen or heard from Steve in six long months that have felt like years.
Steve looks almost exactly the same as he did the last time Eddie saw him.
That's not a good thing, though. Because Steve had been driving himself crazy with worry about Eddie for months before Eddie had taken Steve's heart and torn it apart right in front of him.
Back then he had the same dark circles under his eyes that he has now. The usually golden skin is still too pale and Steve's trademark hair looks even more disheveled from how often he's run his hands through it. His well-fitting jeans, which once hugged his ass just right, now sit baggy on his too-slim frame and Eddie hates it.
He hates that Eddie could still hurt Steve even after he left. That even from a distance he managed to ruin the only person who ever really loved him besides Wayne. There should be some kind of warning sign on him: Beware, do not get attached, will hurt you.
"You're awake," are the first words out of Steve's mouth, and despite everything, Eddie can't stop his heart from responding to the sound of his sweet voice. Steve sounds tired, weary, but to Eddie's ears his voice is better than any Metallica song could ever be.
He tries to smile at him, but he feels as tired as Steve sounds, so it lacks the usual spark.
"Sure am. From what I heard, I have you to thank for that," Eddie adds, unable to help himself. He still doesn't know why and especially how Steve knew he needed help. If this were a Nicholas Sparks novel, their love would have created an invisible bond that made Steve feel when Eddie needed help.
But this is real life, and no matter how much he loves Steve, there is no invisible bond holding them together. Just an unbridgeable chasm.
Steve is still hovering at the door and Eddie thinks he is fighting the urge to wring his hands. Eddie knows his tells by now and he figures Steve isn't sure he's welcome here. Which is ridiculous, because even at his worst, Eddie will always want Steve around, no matter what crap Eddie tells him.
It takes a lot of effort, but Eddie manages to sit up and lean out of bed to pat the chair next to his bed, his eyes never leaving Steve.
Eddie sees Steve's shoulders slump, some of the tension visibly draining from his body at the gesture, and Steve walks over to him and sits down tentatively.
"So..." Eddie begins, dragging out the 'o'. "What happened?"
Steve looks up from his hands in his lap, obviously surprised by the question. "You don't remember?"
"No. The last thing I remember is sitting on a leather couch with a bunch of people I don't know and don't care about, fooling myself into thinking I was having fun." Eddie has had plenty of time to think about his life and where he went wrong, so he decides to stick with honesty. Steve deserves as much and more. "Someone handed me a bottle of whiskey and I opened it and started drinking straight from the bottle. That's the last thing I remember. The next thing I know, I wake up in an ugly bathroom that smells like disinfectant, my whole body hurts like I've been hit by a train, and I have no idea where I am."
Before he can bring himself to say the next part, it's Eddie who has to look away, his eyes focused on his hands playing with the edge of the blanket.
"They told me it was you who called 911 and helped them find me. They said without you I would have died lying in my own vomit." He swallows audibly, tears burning in his eyes, wondering how he could have cried more in the last ten hours than in the last ten years. "They also said you were the only one who came to see me."
Eddie forces himself to look up and into Steve's eyes as he says, "Thank you, Steve. You didn't... I don't deserve you doing this. Not after..." The words die in his throat and he feels like he's choking on them.
He can't do this. He's a fucking coward, not worth saving. Not even worth looking at someone as good and beautiful as Steve.
There's a crease between Steve's eyebrows that Eddie used to smooth with his thumb and lips every time he saw it, and his fingers itch to do it again.
"You called me," Steve tells him, his own hands playing with the edge of Eddie's blanket. "At the party. You called me from the bathroom. I thought it was a butt call or maybe drunk dialing, I hadn't heard from you in months, Eddie."
Eddie winces at his words, but Steve chooses to ignore it.
"But then you sounded so small on the phone. You called me 'Stevie' and 'sweetheart' and then you started to cry." Steve looks like he's about to cry, too. His eyes are glassy and Eddie gets lost in the way the light breaks in them, gold and brown and green all mixed together.
"You told me you weren't feeling so good, that your stomach hurt and the room was spinning so you had to lie down. Your voice -" And here Steve's own voice breaks, after it had already started to shake badly, and without thinking Eddie grabs Steve's hand and holds it tight.
"I'm here, Stevie. You saved me. I'm okay."
"But you almost weren't!" Steve insists, his voice rising, and Eddie finally understands the depth of Steve's feelings. After all these months, after everything Eddie had said and done, Steve still cared deeply for him.
"You talked like you were dying, Eddie. You weren't drunk dialing, you were calling to say goodbye, asshole. You were telling me all these things that I needed to hear you say for months. But I wanted to hear them with you in the room so I could punch you in the face and then kiss it better. Not like this. Not as your last words over a fucking phone call."
That's when Steve breaks down, the tears finally overflowing and he buries his face on the bed at Eddie's hip, their joined hands pressed against his wet cheek.
"Baby," Eddie whispers, shocked, his own heart aching worse than ever as he begins to run his fingers through Steve's messy hair. "Shhh, it's okay. I'm so, so sorry, Stevie. I never meant to hurt you, but it seems like that's all I did."
Taking a deep breath, Eddie continues. "I don't know what I told you on the phone, but since I woke up I've had time to think about it all. I don't know if I can ever make it up to you. Or to Wayne and the kids, Gareth and Jeff and Grant. If I will ever deserve your forgiveness, but I want to try. I want to deserve it one day. I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but... I will go to rehab. I will quit drugs and alcohol, I will clean up my act. And then, if you let me, I will try to make it up to you every single day for the rest of our lives."
Steve slowly lifts his head from the bed and looks at him, searching Eddie's eyes for something.
"Why?" Steve asks, his hand gripping Eddie's even tighter.
There are so many reasons, so many things Eddie wants to say, but in the end there is only one simple answer.
"Because I love you."
The smile on Steve's face tells him it's the right answer, even more so when Steve presses a kiss into his palm. But then he turns serious once more.
"I haven't forgiven you yet, Eddie. You hurt me too much and I need time. But I need you to stop trying to run away from me. I don't want you to go to rehab and clean yourself up before you come back to me. I want to be with you every step of the way. Do it together. Because if you love me, you have to let me take care of you. You have to let me in, Eddie. Let me carry you for once, like Sam carried Frodo when he couldn't go on. Trust me not to let you fall. Please."
"Did you really just make a reference to Lord of the Rings?" Eddie demands and Steve rolls his eyes.
"Is that what you get from everything I just said?"
Eddie sobers up immediately. "No, it just made me fall a little bit more in love with you, and I didn't think that was possible."
"So what do you say?" Steve asks, chewing his lip between his teeth, and Eddie suspects he's not even breathing.
"It's going to suck, Stevie," Eddie says in a quiet voice, stroking Steve's knuckles with his thumb."Are you sure?"
"Yes." No hesitation, no wavering in his voice. It's the same tone, the same determined look on his face as when he told Eddie "Fuck'em," when Eddie told him people in their small-minded town would talk if Steve held his hand in public.
"There's a bunch of brochures of places to check out. Wanna help me pick the least horrible one?" Eddie says, pointing to the table in the corner of the room.
Without another word, Steve gets up to grab them, and for the first time in a long time, Eddie allows himself to hope.
#steddie#steve harrington#eddie munson#stranger things#steddie fic#rockstar eddie munson#cw drugs#steddielovemonth#day 1#love is letting someone take care of you#my writing
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Since the wave of mass site migrations there is one REALLY worrisome trend I've been noticing: the number of radfem posts I've been seeing ending up on my dash, reblogged unknowingly by people who think they're just base-level feminist statements, has all but gone back to c.2014 levels. Everything seems good on a surface level, but I spot one dogwhistle, or something strikes me as being a little too absolutist, and I check into that...and sure enough, the road leads back to terf city.
So here's a quick PSA:
Please be careful with your Feminism 101 sources.
See, terfs and their close relatives KNOW we don't like them here, so they don't tend to lead with their well-known hatred of trans women. On top of that, there is a problem with a subset of radfems on this site who purport to be trans-inclusive - i.e., they openly support trans women...but DESPISE trans men (often more than they hate cis men, because of the whole "joining the enemy"/"gender traitor" myth pushed by terfs) or any nonbinary person who aligns partially with manhood or masculinity, especially if they're AMAB (they often think they can "save" - i.e., conversion-therapy - the AFAB ones).
Therefore, on a single-post level, it is very, VERY hard to tell the difference between a basic feminist statement that, yeah, patriarchy exists and that means there are lots of awful double-standards around gender where women broadly get the shorter end of the stick and these standards AFFECT every individual in a society and that's something we should work to change, and a statement that these things are absolute and inevitable, either because Biology or because those double-standards are too deeply ingrained to EVER overcome without giving up and starting over from scratch (whichever is convenient), and the only solution is hardline female wombyn-born-wombyn separatism or at LEAST excluding trans people from public life for, at best, making it too hard to tell who's ~safe~. In fact, sometimes on that single-post basis, they could potentially even be identical - though less frequently than many people thought in the heyday of "OP was a terf so I stole this post but anyway all men are walking rape threats and need to accept that any reasonable person will always hate and fear them on sight".
So what can you, random newbie, do to avoid unwittingly passing one of these messages on without turning into some kind of horrible "feminism is cancer" chud?
Well, one of the easiest ways is the Shinigami Eyes browser extension, but I personally don't like to rely on it because 1) you can't use it on every platform (sorry mobile app likers), 2) in my experience it's somewhat common for "trans-inclusive" radfems to be flagged as safe because someone saw their positivity for trans women but not their hatred for trans men, and 3) I just don't like to promote the use of browser extensions as a substitute for learning what radfem rhetoric is and why it is, in fact, anything but feminist; it is very beneficial to terfs if the ONLY thing you know of their rhetoric is "they hate trans women".
The hard but better way is to actually familiarize yourself with what to look out for. Here is an inexhaustive list:
Category 0: Tags to add to your blacklist
Your blacklist filters out posts with the blacklisted tags in the reblog you're seeing, OR in the root post. Therefore, if a radfem post that looks like it's just base-level feminism does breach containment somehow and end up on your dash through someone else, it will still get caught if it's tagged with any of these:
Terfsafe
Radblr
Radfem
Terfs/radfems do interact/do touch/please interact/please touch, etc
Category 1: Terf-ese and dogwhistles
Some of these, especially those near the top of the list, are immediate telltale signs. Others are less certain, but they should at least raise some eyebrows.
"Gender critical" - literally a synonym for terf just used to make the ideology sound more legitimate; they often claim that terf is a slur
"TIM/TIF" - "Trans-identified male/female", a way to delegitimize trans identities
"Febfem" - female-exclusive bisexual woman; a bisexual woman who rejects her attraction to men; essentially a modern term for "political lesbian" (a group which claimed that lesbianism is not a sexual orientation that some people just Have, but a political choice to reject men)
"Butch flight" - the claim that trans men are butch lesbians transitioning to escape lesbophobia and gain male privilege
"Adult human female" - this very simplified dictionary definition of "woman" is something of a rallying cry
"Let girls be tomboys/butch" - some people say this in response to old repressive gender roles in things like dress codes, or even people holding trans women to a higher standard of femininity than cis women, but if that is not explicitly the context it's very likely that this means "stop the evil plastic surgery racket from force-transing every little girl who even looks at a truck, which they're TOTALLY doing"
The inverse, while less common (terfs tend to be very open about not wanting men to be feminine in any way because of "deception" and "false security"), is also one to look out for - sometimes it's a statement against binarism and gender essentialism, sometimes it's basically an assertion of the Blanchard "feminine homosexual man vs. autogynephilic man" model of what a trans woman is
"Compulsory heterosexuality/comphet" - an aspect of heteronormativity whereby it's common, especially for younger people, to try to force themselves to experience heterosexual attraction when they don't. Useful as it may seem, the term was coined by radfems. Most people who are not terfs or other radfems who want to discuss it will discuss it under the umbrellas of heteronormativity and amatonormativity
Hogwarts houses - this is a sneaky one; far from everyone who read those books or even enjoyed them is a terf, but since JKR's full-tilt descent into fascism via the gateway of transphobia, terfs HAVE been using this as a way to seek out their own and mark themselves as safe; let this also serve as a reminder that if you are NOT a terf PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM YOUR BIO; it WILL both draw them to you AND cause you to be immediately distrusted by anyone else, saying "I DO NOT CONDONE THE VIEWS OF JKR" will not help because terfs can and do lie about that too in communities where they have to stay crypto, at best you're granting them plausible deniability
Referring to men and women as "males" and "females"
Usernames referencing "female" reproductive anatomy - may be a good sign if they're attached to trans-positive modifiers like "boy" or "they", but a username like "divine-vagina" or "ovariesofpower" (note these are theoretical usernames, not ones I've encountered in the wild; if someone does have one of those usernames and isn't a radfem I'm deeply sorry) is probably a terf
Hatred of makeup and plastic surgery - look, no one likes the beauty industry, no one is going to dispute that beauty standards are a nightmare, but this is frequently a smokescreen for hating gender confirmation or anything that helps with the "deception" inherent to transness; be ESPECIALLY wary of anyone talking about "TikTok plastic surgeons trying to sell their services to impressionable teenage girls", this usually translates to "gender confirmation surgeons telling young transmascs that there are options for them", and remember that you either believe in bodily autonomy or you don't, there is no third option
Category 2: Ideological concepts to look out for
This is some of the beginnings of crossing the line from feminism to radfem bullshit - if the rest of the post seems cool but starts heading in these directions, don't assume it's hyperbole; get it as far away from you as possible.
Patriarchy, men-oppressing-women, is THE root system of injustice from which all others spawn. Some will acknowledge that other factors may intersect, but will still claim that they are lesser. Bringing up the long history of white women getting men of color, especially Black men, killed via weaponized fragility and false claims of sexual violence, is just a series of flukes and pointing it out to refute this notion that men vs. women outranks all other inequalities is just whataboutism.
Because patriarchy is so far-reaching, it affects every individual, and because it trumps all other axes of oppression, this means that in every interaction between any man and any woman, the man will be the one with more power.
Men, due to socialization, biology, or both, are categorically incapable of recognizing women as full people. This is not only a broad pattern, but an inevitable fact, true of every individual man, no matter how hard anyone tries to change it.
There is a singular Universal Female Experience. According to terfs, this is an external force; trans women don't have this socialization experience, therefore they can never truly know what it's like to be a woman. According to tirfs, it is internal; trans men process their experiences internally as men from birth to death and therefore have no claim to truly understand any experience of misogyny directed at them.
The experience of being a woman is, first and foremost, suffering. It is therefore to be expected that a certain subset of people would transition to try to escape it - but it's the wrong answer, and this practice of either self-destruction or betrayal must be stopped at all costs. Anyone who wants in on the miserable experience that is womanhood, on the other hand, is at best insensitively looking at a burning building and going "wow, that looks so warm!", blissfully but cruelly unaware of the misery of the situation, and at worst is lying to satisfy a fetish.
Women are categorically incapable of abusing men, because patriarchy outranks all, down to the individual level. Some may also say that this is true because of biological differences in physical strength. (Very feminist, isn't it, to say "the strongest woman is still weaker than the weakest man and nothing can ever change that"?)
There is, fundamentally, no difference between a person with some subconscious misogyny problems and an incel mass shooter; both will abuse women, and therefore both must be treated as threats.
Because the power differential between men and women is so great, a woman cannot TRULY meaningfully consent to sex with a man; all sex between a man and a woman is rape.
Because rape is such a common trauma among women, the very existence of men - or penises, for that matter, even fully clothed ones - in a space where a woman doesn't expect them is traumatic and itself tantamount to rape.
Lesbians don't just have their own unique flavor of oppression experience like any other queer subgroup; they are in fact THE most uniquely oppressed and vulnerable of all, because being a lesbian is first and foremost not about attraction to women, but rejection of men (recall the ties to political lesbianism). Some radfems will embrace contradictory labels or slightly varied personal definitions for other queer subgroups - but if you're anything but a Kinsey 6 who would never even consider making an exception, and 100% a binary woman, you CAN'T identify as a lesbian. You cannot identify as a lesbian if you wouldn't dump your partner or try to conversion-therapy "her" if "she" came out as transmasc. To a tirf, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you're on the butch-transmasc cusp, if they're willing to admit such a cusp exists in the first place. To terfs, you cannot identify as a lesbian if you would ever date a trans woman, let alone if you ever have.
Again, this is far from being an exhaustive list, but it covers most of the most common things that set off my own alarm bells. Additions are more than welcome.
Remember, the danger of letting radfem posts slide because they seem okay on the surface is twofold: one, you're directing more people to their blogs and exposing them to more people they may then target, and two, when those concepts that cross the line bleed out into your gender theory, the result is bad for you and everyone around you.
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DC canon isn’t real. At least, not to me. I just slowly go through the things I see from comics and shows and compile the parts I like like one those dragons under the blanket, snatching things and hoarding them.
Like, Duke? I know next to nothing about him. But you know what? In my version of the DC universe, the people of Gotham love him in a way they don’t love the Bats. He’s their friend. Sure, a meta friend but at this point who doesn’t have something funky they can do after years of chemical, biological and just plain old warfare on the streets of Gotham? Signal is the guy you flag down during the day when your store’s getting robbed or if you just wanted to talk to someone. He’s there, present in the daylight and real in the way the Bats aren’t. He doesn’t just fly above Gotham like Superman either. You’d catch Signal helping old ladies across the street and trading tips on knitting patterns and skills. You’d catch him hanging out with homeless teenagers and splitting a giant thing of pizza with them, except he takes a small slice and makes sure the rest of them gets enough to fill their stomachs for the day. Once, a criminal decided to jump Signal while he was helping out a lost kid and traffic just stopped cold because people slammed on their brakes to stop and jump out of the car in order to beat the guy up while Signal got the kid to safety. Then they watched as he turned around, used his powers to flashbang the guy, deck him, and then track down the kid’s parents.
Signal is their bestie. Signal is Gotham’s bestie.
Jason? What rubber bullets? No, no, no. He still uses live rounds. Sure, he doesn’t kill when he doesn’t have to, but Jason is very much capable of refraining from murder and also just putting lead between some asshole’s eyes. He doesn’t kill much anymore because he 1) needs the rep of mercy when warranted, 2) likes his family enough 3) is skilled enough not to need to kill and 4) has enough of a reputation where killing is no longer the first thing he has to do to be taken seriously. Also, he killed the Joker, if someone else didn’t do it first and he should be regarded as a, if not a hero, then someone who did something decent. He beat the shit out of Tim and traumatize the poor kid, and did that whole Under the Red Hood thing because he’s got issues with Bruce, but it never made sense to me that he was painted as a villain for it. Like… there’s a whole city that would be toasting Red Hood.
Anyways the world is your oyster and DC canon makes less sense to me than Marvel’s. So.
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if I lose my mind 2
dream sorter haechan x dreamer fem reader
genre: fantasy/tim burton-esque, romance, smut, angst!!, fluffy moments
warnings: +18, explicit sexual content, jaemin is an accidental voyeur, swearing, wounds
other characters: mark, taeyong, jaemin, taeil
words: 11k
read part 1 here
"I want your fingers inside my mouth," you tasted the words on your tongue.
The place was dark, and you couldn’t clearly see the face of the person you were addressing. Only half of his face was on display - his perfect nose and a pair of plump lips.
What you said was meant to be a mere flirty joke, but the man's Adam apple moved up and down in nervousness as his breath got shaky. The collarbones were on display in his black silk shirt as if inviting you bite down. He took a step towards you before you could do anything, caging you with his arms and you gasped gently. The sink dug into the softness of your ass and your torso leaned back, shy of his sudden closeness.
He stared you down for a moment although you couldn’t exactly see his eyes. You tried to exchange the look, but your gaze fell on his open lips instead. And when he let the water run behind you, little drops hit your bare back making you shiver.
He was as close as to caressing your face with his breath, yet so far away from kissing you.
And then you gasped again, feeling some of the water drops on your exposed bosom as he lifted one wet hand to your face. His two fingers were nudging at your open lips, and you opened your mouth wider. The man slid them inside of it and you hummed.
"Like this?" he murmured, looking at your doe eyes.
You held his wrist with both hands, sucking on his fingers diligently, nodding twice.
"Fuck," he whispered, the feeling of your warm tongue on the underside of them making him get even closer. His thigh pushed between your legs, and you grabbed his luscious shirt with your hands, right when
“Y/N, wake u- ouch!”
You gasped, mouth pasty and brain fried only to see Taeyong’s scrunched face under your palm, whining on your right.
“Sorry, sorry, oh my god, are you okay?”
You took the hand away and your boyfriend massaged his nose with a light chuckle. “I am okay. Good slap. Who were you fighting in your dream?”
The bedroom was dark, and you could barely make sense of his features but his eyes were shining.
“Oh,” you inhaled and exhaled slowly trying to focus. You were having this dream-
Taeyong didn’t talk for a moment then he gently wiggled his thigh, and you realized only in that moment that it was tightly hugged by your legs.
“Oh,” you gulped again, unclasping your thighs. Taeyong didn’t move his leg away.
“I wasn’t minding it,” his deep sleepy voice caressed your ears. “What were you dreaming about?”
You grunted, rolling on your back and hitting the pillow with the head. Your face was on fire and your panties were too damp for your liking. Then you tried to remember what the hell were you dreaming about, to make you start humping Taeyong like that in the middle of the night. Flashes of someone’s jaw and lips danced in your sleepy mind for a moment, then the feeling of fingers on your tongue.
“I just hope the dream was with me at this point,” Taeyong pulled you back by the waist and you chuckled a bit. Honestly you had no idea. But that must have been Taeyong.
“Of course, it was with you. Who else can I have dreams about?”
__________
Haechan thought he’d be able to stop thinking about you, but the habit of waiting every day to meet you, looking at your curious eyes and inviting you to choose a dreaming door, wasn’t something that could disappear all of a sudden. Although he couldn’t dream, the moments he spent with you were the closest thing to a dream he has ever experienced. While moving around like an automaton doing his tasks, his mind wouldn’t stop imagining your face, your eyes, your body. His fingertips could almost feel your skin. Your scent would randomly engulf him, making him stop in his tracks and turn around as if he could suddenly see you appear from behind a corner with your little cunning smile.
But you weren’t there, just random people passing by.
He’d close his eyes to compose himself, head thrown back and deep breaths, then he’d start walking again.
__________
Jaemin looked at Haechan stopping in his tracks and looking around like a hound. Their eyes met for a split second and Jaemin’s breath stopped, but Haechan’s dark pupils went over his figure as if looking for someone else. His shoulders looked droopy as he walked away and Jaemin exhaled anxiously, wondering what to do.
It was completely normal for people to have sexual dreams. That was part of the core training - not weird to see wet dreams, don’t piss your pants. Shame wasn’t something Jaemin’s people ever experienced but somehow, he could understand why the Dreamers were ashamed of their sexual thoughts during waking hours, bringing upon themselves convoluted wet dreams instead.
So Jaemin didn’t think much of your dreams. Some were confusing, some were nightmares, and some were sad. He was ready to see all sorts of things. But his breath stopped, and his spine shivered the moment he saw a familiar man in your dreams as well.
“Listen, this is a top-secret situation, and we need to be discreet. No one must know your Dreamer has been Lee Haechan’s. Got it?”
Jaemin was standing in front of Taeil’s desk and nodded once, taking up his first task after graduating just a few days ago.
“No one talks about their Dreamers in detail so if anyone asks just be vague about it,” Taeil continued. “And if you see something weird going on, you must tell me.”
“Weird like, what, sir?”
Taeil sighed. “I don’t know. You’ll probably understand if something is weird.”
Jaemin and Haechan didn’t know each other well, but he saw him in a few of his classes. Haechan was a genius so he graduated much earlier than everyone else so Jaemin didn’t have time to become friends. But he was sure he was the man you kept dreaming about. The thing is, you should have forgotten him on the spot the moment you changed Dream Sorters. The security classes were fresh in his mind but unless Jaemin missed info because he was asleep, no one ever mentioned such a situation to him before. Was it normal for you to dream about Lee Haechan or was that something weird enough to communicate?
__________
The class that morning was more boring than usual, you realized. The sun was shining brightly and warming your body slowly, making you feel like some sort of rotisserie chicken. The notes you were trying to take were gibberish. In the corners of the pages, there were some doodles. The one you were working on was some sort of flower.
The professor’s monotonous voice just added to the heaviness of your eyes, and you decided to just close them for a second. Just a moment, resting them for a bit.
You did just that, and with a heavy sigh, you opened them again.
But there was no professor or students’ backs. No classroom and no notes.
You were standing in the middle of a dimly lit room. It was minimal but cosy, with a comfortable bed on one side, a soft rug under your nude feet, and a desk against a big window, from which you could see a breathtaking view.
A deep shiver ran across your body from head to toe. Where the hell were you? Were you dreaming? Or having a psychotic moment? Your mouth felt dry, and you felt panic descending into your bloodstream.
A single sound in the silent room made you jump in place, and you covered your mouth with both palms. It was a person, resting their head on their arms on the desk. For a second you thought that was you and you were having an out-of-body experience, but then you noticed the wide shoulders, the veiny hands, and finally the expression of a young man, lifting his head to lock eyes with you.
He smiled as if he could see you and you felt pulled to smile back although you felt scared out of your mind one second prior.
“Pretty face today,” you heard yourself say. Then you furrowed your eyebrows and touched your lips as if not believing you actually said that to a stranger.
“Can look prettier with you sitting on it,” the young man replied lazily as if he was used to this kind of banter.
You felt your breath stop but your feet started to walk towards him as if they weren’t yours. He pushed his chair back to give you space and you placed his hands on his shoulders, slowly straddling his spread thighs. His eyes were deep but bright under his soft hair. You lifted one hand to feel it. It was pink, soft, and a bit damaged. He closed his eyes under your touch and his palms tightened their hold on your waist. They were warming your skin through the silk nightgown you were wearing.
“Be careful about what you desire,” you whispered. The words kept coming out of you as if you were under a spell and someone was moving you like a puppet.
He opened his eyes and stared at you, drinking in your features. “I’ve never regretted anything before.”
Then his expression darkened all of a sudden. You tilted your head to the side as if not understanding. “No,” he added, as an explanation. “Maybe I do regret something. Just one thing. Letting you go,” the young man murmured.
You had no idea what that meant but your body felt painful as if that phrase opened a wound you didn’t know you had.
You palmed his face, gently cupping his cheeks, sliding your fingers right under his jaw.
“I am here though.”
The young man’s lips stretched into a bitter smile. “Are you really?”
He exhaled deeply and let his head fall, burying his face into your chest, wrapping your body with his arms as tightly as he could. You did the same with his head, resting your lips on the crown of it, lulled by the scent of his shampoo.
“I’ll believe it even if just for a moment,” his voice buzzed against your skin. “Nothing wrong with talking to themselves and being delusional in your room, right, Haechan?” he added with a little smile in his voice, as if talking to himself.
You opened your mouth to say he wasn’t crazy because you were there when a sudden loud knock on the door made your heart fall to your guts.
You lifted your head from your arms with a gasp and focused your eyesight. The professor was still talking just as monotonously as before. None of your classmates noticed you falling asleep, so you exhaled and relaxed in your chair. The water on your desk looked delicious and you had a big gulp from the bottle. Then your eyes fell on the doodles you were doing before. You sighed and played with your pen, a weird sensation still lingering under your skin. Under the flowers you’ve drawn, you wrote a name.
Haechan.
__________
Haechan rolled his eyes at the knock on his door. He lifted his head from his arms and stretched them above his head.
Wasting the afternoons fantasizing about you has been a problem for him lately.
This time it felt so real that he had the sensation you’d actually been on his lap just seconds ago.
He rested his hands on his thighs and they felt warm.
Haechan whined feeling like going crazy, but a second more violent knock disturbed him again and destroyed the last remnants of your presence.
“Who’s there?” he asked, getting up and walking towards the door.
Mark opened it before Haechan could grab the handle. His eyes were wide like a deer’s and Haechan was about to ask what was going on before he could see the figure of another person behind his shoulders.
“This is Jaemin. Y/N’s new Dream Sorter. He needs to talk to you.”
__________
That evening you walked home instead of taking any transportation. The cool air should have been able to oxygenate your brain and you desperately needed that. The dream you had during class and the name you basically engraved in your notebook by outlining it for the remaining 20 minutes of class until it tore the page were heavy on your conscience.
Taeyong’s texts were also unread on your phone but you couldn’t see him that day.
Was it normal to have dreams about other men even if you had no idea who the men were? You felt horrible. Not because you felt guilty, but because of the lack of guilt.
You’ve been feeling weird lately, moody, and irritable.
You’d forget so many things, you’d misplace objects. It got to a point in which you’d nod and smile at everything Taeyong was telling you, although you had no memory of anything he was talking about.
You couldn’t talk to him about it. You couldn’t even mention it to Doyoung because he’d definitely snitch.
And it has been so embarrassing and actually humiliating to sit down and go through all of your stuff one night, looking for signs of you dating your boyfriend. You couldn’t remember your anniversary date. You had no photos together. You couldn’t recall any date you’ve been on. And you felt even more humiliated when you grabbed your phone to google early signs of memory loss.
But the worst thing of them all was your lack of feelings.
Was this the reason your brain was feeding you wet dreams with other men? To tell you to break up with him?
You stopped walking and passed one hand on your face with a groan.
Then you looked around and fumbled towards the closest bench you could see. The little notebook you started to use as a dream journal was pretty much empty, safe for the two dreams you had that week. You opened it and felt the pages, looking into your handwriting as if they were a code waiting to be broken. It wasn’t obvious to you before, but now you could tell. The energy of those dreams was the same. You couldn’t remember the man’s - Haechan? - face, but his touch, scent, and tone of voice were so recognizable that you felt stupid for not realizing the two dreams were connected.
Who was this man? Were you slowly descending into madness?
__________
Jaemin grunted when Haechang grabbed his collar and pushed him into the wall. “You smell like her.”
Haechan’s voice was low and cutting. Jaemin tried to smile but it came difficult while being strangled.
“Easy, easy. He’s her Dream Sorter and they’re in the same room every night. It’s normal,” Mark placed his hands on Haechan’s extended arm. Haechan didn’t look like wanting to drop it but Jaemin’s pleading voice made Haechan sigh and let go, patting his chest a few times to adjust the shirt.
Jaemin inhaled sharply as he got freed from Haechan’s clasp and dramatically slid a bit on the wall to rest his hands on the knees.
Haechan’s nostrils flared and then relaxed as if suddenly losing strength. “So it has been you all of this time,” he mumbled.
“He didn’t do anything to her,” Mark explained. “He’s here to help.”
Haechan felt dizzy. All of those times he felt your scent it was just Jaemin accidentally walking past him. He felt stupid for believing he kept having some sort of magical connection with you after you parted ways, but at the same time he was glad he actually smelled your scent and he wasn’t slowly losing his mind instead.
“Wow, that was something,” Jaemin massaged his neck and looked for a chair to sit down on.
Haechan crossed his arms on his chest. “You’ll survive.” If looks could kill Jaemin would have been incinerated already.
Mark rolled his eyes. “Haechan.”
The latter sighed and finally sat on the bed, shifting his weight forward to adjust himself and spreading his legs comfortably.
“Well?” he looked at Mark and then Jaemin. “I’m all ears.”
Jaemin gave Mark a look and Haechan understood they’d discussed the matter between themselves beforehand.
“I am her Dream Sorter now and I can see her dreams,” Jaemin started.
Haechan wasn’t impressed. Of course, he could see your dreams. The jealousy was eating his guts alive, but Haechan chose to not think about the Dream Sorter you might have gotten for his own sanity. Yet, there he was in his bedroom, flaunting it and pissing Haechan off.
“And she’s dreaming about you,” Jaemin finished.
Haechan forgot how to breathe.
__________
Taeyong was already sitting when you arrived at the little cafè you asked him to meet you at.
It wasn’t a date but the fairy lights above his head and the way he was waiting for you made your heart hurt.
“Hey,” you barely said, grabbing your own chair to sit down.
Taeyong lifted his head to look at you, but you didn’t dare to look him in the eyes.
“Hey,” he replied after a few moments.
He probably knew. Your dry “we need to talk” text after ignoring his messages was enough indication of what was going on.
When you finally let your gaze fall on his face your breath stopped. He was legit breathtaking. And so sad that you decided to look at his hands instead.
You were probably completely insane to want to break up with a man like Taeyong.
“You know I’ll sound completely crazy, but,” you started, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and-” you interrupted yourself, “-I don’t know when we started dating.”
You felt stupid saying that.
Taeyong’s face didn’t communicate anything. His deep dark eyes were drinking into your features instead as if he knew it was the last time seeing you.
He opened his lips after gulping once and told you about a random date. It didn’t mean anything to you.
“I don’t remember it,” your voice broke. “I don’t remember anything, Taeyong. I woke up one day and you were my boyfriend.”
The man sighed but he didn’t look surprised. That was even more creepy.
“There’s something going on with me that I need to resolve. So, I am not breaking up with you because you did something wrong or anything. It’s me.”
“I can give you some space. There’s no need to-”
“I like somebody else,” you sputtered on the spot then gasped softly. Taeyong stopped his phrase but he didn’t look shocked at this either. The most surprised one of the two was you. Why did you feel like dreaming? And why were dreams feeling more like reality?
“No. I meant I feel like- I don’t know,” you babbled, one hand to support your head. You didn’t like anybody else. Right? Then why did you feel like you did? Taeyong let you talk then leaned forward for a moment to gently put a strand of hair you messed up back in place.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I tried.”
You straightened your back at his words. He licked his lower lip once and you waited.
“Sometimes we try a lot with people it’s not meant to be. And we’re not meant to be. That’s why you feel that way. I get it now.”
His hand was placed right in front of you, and you wavered at first, but you knew he’d understand, so you just placed yours on top of it. His lips stretched in a tight smile.
“You know how in movies and books people are always meant to be? “
You nodded.
“I’ve always felt like I was surrounded by these couples and I forced myself into them like a third no one is really fond of.”
Taeyong’s tone was light and airy. Yet you could see the heaviness on his shoulders.
“And no, don’t say I’ll meet my own person in the future,” he smiled wider when you opened your mouth in an attempt to comfort him. “I’m alright.”
“I am sorry Taeyong.”
He shook his head. “No. I am sorry, and I owe you my apologies.”
“For what?”
“Haechan,” he simply said. “He’s the man you like, right?”
__________
“Well, that’s completely insane.”
Mark and Jaemin exchanged a worried look before going back to stare at the way Haechan kept pacing around the room, one hand on the hip, the other on his stressed forehead.
“No. That makes absolutely zero sense. It has never been seen before.” the young man suddenly stopped as he did a few times already while going through the stages of grief. So far it was only Denial and Mark sighed, wondering how much they’ll have to keep being there.
“And you?” Haechan indicated Jaemin with one accusatory finger. “You’ve been a fucking sick voyeur all of this time?”
Mark rolled his eyes. Great, he was at Anger already. Maybe it was going to be quicker than expected.
Jaemin huffed incredulously. “I tell you that your fantasies become her dreams and that’s what you're most worried about? Me seeing them?”
Haechan put the extended hand on his hip, staring Jaemin down like some pissed-off mother. “That’s a serious and normal concern. I’ve been-” he started but quickly interrupted himself as a dark shadow passed his eyes.
He cleared his throat looking at the floor for a moment.
Mark has never seen Haechan shy before.
“I’ve been thinking many things lately. The fact you’ve been in my mind all of this time through Y/N is making me feel violated.”
“What have you been fantasizing about?” Mark’s corner of the lip lifted.
“That’s not important.”
“Well, it looks important to you if you’re acting like that.”
“Listen,” Jaemin interrupted the two. “The most important thing is trying to understand how and why this is happening. Y/N should have completely forgotten you after she changed Dream Sorters. She doesn’t remember you but she can sense a connection. That is weird. And the way your fantasies become her dreams has never happened before.”
Mark and Haechan closed their mouths at Jaemin’s grave tone.
“With each dream, she grows closer to you. You also said your own name in the last dream and now she knows that too. She’s probably going to go insane and you said that’s why you separated in the first place. Now, all of that is useless. And I am also in the middle now. I should have reported this but I didn’t and if someone finds out they might take me out too.”
Haechan let his tongue bump into his cheek for a second. He didn’t like where this was going.
“You need to put a stop to this,” Jaemin’s eyes were dark and cold.
“How?”
Haechan knew the answer even before Jaemin could reply.
“No ties. You need to stop thinking about her.”
__________
You didn’t understand Taeyong at first. Haechan sounded like something very important that has been escaping your mind. You felt like that about everything lately, as if you were in some sort of nightmare.
“I don’t understand,” you replied with a tiny voice.
Taeyong’s eyebrows furrowed but he remained silent.
“I thought-”
“You thought what?” you asked when he hesitated. His pupils were wide and dark, looking at you, but he couldn’t see you for real.
His eyes suddenly twinkled and his jaw relaxed. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
You blinked at him, more confused than before.
“No. You have to tell me now.”
Taeyong’s lips went as far as stretch in a secret smile he thought you couldn’t see. You suddenly felt cold.
“We can break up. Don’t worry about it.”
You looked at him as he suddenly stood up and wore his jacket. “See you in class.”
__________
The only thing Haechan had for himself was the freedom to use his head the way he wanted to.
If you weren’t there, he could make you up in his mind.
If he couldn’t kiss your lips he could imagine their softness.
If he couldn’t hold you he could pretend his hands were on your body.
And now he learned he couldn’t even do that.
He skipped Bargaining and was already in the Depression stage.
His room was getting lighter with sunrise, a sign it was almost night in your world, and it somehow made Haechan’s headache worse. So, he just closed his eyes, pillow on his face, to try and drown any sensation.
He might as well just die at that point, he snickered without humour.
Jaemin told him to try it out for just one night, just to test the theory.
But Haechan was so not good at following any orders.
Some time passed and Haechan was still there, unable to fall asleep, unable to relax, unable to stop thinking about you.
He huffed loudly, throwing the pillow towards the window where it stopped against the wall.
“I am trying, okay?” he looked up at the ceiling as if Jaemin was there looking down at him. The sensation of being watched made his skin shiver, but it wasn’t exactly unpleasant. The realization made Haechan shiver again. Was that a common kink?
He scoffed, turning to one side. Then to the other.
The bed creaked under his hard movements and his mind went to the sound of the bed he fucked you on that night- no.
No no. Haechan stop. You can’t. No.
He whined a little and opened his eyes.
He couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t allowed to. Was this how you felt all of that time? It was hell.
I mean, couldn’t he even rub one out either? You had nothing to do with his cock, per se. The important thing was to not think about you while doing that.
Shouldn’t be hard. Right?
__________
Your apartment was dark just like your brain after talking to Taeyong. The walk felt wobbly and you’ve never felt more grateful to touch the pillow with your head. Maybe after a good night's sleep, everything would make more sense. You sighed and tried to relax. Then you huffed on one side.
Taeyong’s words kept rolling in your head meaninglessly.
Haechan Haechan Haechan. The man you liked.
What did that mean? Was Haechan the man you’ve been dreaming? You were pretty sure you’ve heard or read it somewhere before.
In class? Maybe.
In your notes? Probably.
Think.
Notes? Your school notes?
You gasped and sat up, remembering the dream you had and the word you wrote down in your notes, circling it. You looked around, trying to find your bag in the darkness but the outline of the room felt suddenly off. The sun was timidly starting to shine from behind your back and you realized the floor was cold against your knees.
In front of you, there was a bed and a man sleeping on it.
Haechan’s hair was curled and spread on the pillow, just a single strand still on his forehead. It got knocked away as he pushed his head back into the bed, even more, eyes closed as if almost in pain. You could make sense of the silhouette of his plump lips, open in a silent whimper, against the dark purple of the window, and of his Adam’s apple in his extended throat. It moved as he swallowed, and you felt bewitched until you noticed the movement of his fingers instead. They were sliding down his nude stomach and the movements of his lean abs flinching under the touch were so enticing that you couldn’t look away. But then the silence got disrupted by a short groan and your eyes darted back to his face scrunched as if in pain or pleasure. Perhaps both, because from the way he was teasing himself on top of his sweats you could tell he was on edge.
“Fuck,” he whispered but you could hear him very well as his hips bucked upwards against his palm. The pants were low on his hips and the view made you tighten your thighs together. You wanted to walk over, touch him the way he was touching himself, but you couldn’t move for some reason, and the frustration just made you even damper. You just had to watch at the way two veins snaked under his band, and you imagined how they would feel under your tongue. Would his skin be hot? Yes, you decided, as if you already knew, and it would be silky, getting even silkier as you'd go down even more, following the veins with your tongue until meeting the tip of his cock. You wondered what Haechan's voice would sound like. Husky? Deep? Or whiny and breathy? You didn't have to think too much about that, because a grunt filled your years and you realized you missed the moment he took off his clothes. His long fingers were finally on his hard cock, lazily pumping it, reaching for his balls with the other hand, pressing his thumb on the leaking tip. You felt your throat dry as you tried to gulp. Not once in your life you've assisted to such erotic view, Haechan pleasuring himself making you so dazy you had to rest your head on something, but there was nothing around. And when he started to whimper, fist moving up and down faster, his other hand pushing back his hair on the forehead, you couldn't bear it anymore. The heat between your legs got too much and you exhaled shakily, wanting to cum so badly. Haechan looked so fine you wanted to just sink on his cock, feeling those hands on your hips, asking you where you wanted him to cum. You'd say you want him to fill you all up inside and he'd do just that, feeling you clench around him until
until
you looked around your room with a sharp breath. The sun wasn't out yet but your alarm was due to ring anytime now. Winter was coming, you realized. Then you realized the mess you made during the night and the way your legs were squeezed together, shaking uncontrollably. “Shit.”
You inhaled deeply, ignoring the fact it sounded like a whine and you relaxed your legs on the mattress. “Shit shit shit.”
You've never been woken up by an orgasm before. It was still lingering under your skin and on the tips of your fingers.
You ignored the way you were pulsating and grabbed your phone with shaky hands, turning off the alarm before it could ring.
"I had another wet dream" you typed into your notes, on the page dedicated to your dreams. You realized you were writing them everywhere.
Then you stared at the ceiling as if trying to remember anything else. A man, pleasuring himself on a bed. You couldn't move or touch him. He was dreamy and you were pretty sure by now that his name was Haechan.
__________
Haechan was rolling peas on his plate when a hard slap on his shoulder made him cough.
“Are you fucking insane?” he asked when he found his voice. “What’s wrong with you?”
But Mark’s spirited expression didn’t care about Haechan’s tone. “You need to come with me.”
“Whatever is going on there’s no need to beat me over it.”
“Get up right now. I found something.”
Haechan sighed, not in the mood to hang out with anyone.
“It’s about Y/N,” the other lowered his voice.
Haechan closed his mouth. “I made sure to not think about her.”
Mark grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up to his feet.
“I talked to Jaemin again. I know, I shouldn’t get involved but this whole thing made me want to research further. No one knows, so you understand this is confidential, right?”
“As if I would tell this to anyone. Don’t be stupid.”
Mark was talking quietly and fast while walking just as fast towards what Haechan guessed was his apartment.
“Slow the fuck down. What exactly is going on? Is she okay? Is she hurt?”
Mark stopped in his place. “You said it was weird that she was friends with Taeyong, the dude killed over his Dreamer.”
Haechan blinked emptily for a moment before the realization made his whole body turn into mush. He had no time to fully think about that man and, honestly, he really hated his guts.
Mark held onto his shoulders. “Yeah. She was his Dreamer. And she couldn’t remember that. Why? We don’t know yet. But he of course could remember her and he sabotaged you two when he discovered she was in love with you. Now they’re dating. I interrogated Jaemin against all rules oh my god what if they discover-”
Haechan felt his head full of cotton and Mark was talking way too quickly. “Wait, wait. I don’t understand shit. And so, what? She was right. It was not worth it. Dating in her dreams? Absurd. If she’s happy with him then so be it. They’re in the same world. I was ready to go to hell after being killed but she didn’t want me anymore-”
“She got convinced she did it for your sake. Taeyong didn’t tell her there is a way for you two to be together so he could have her for himself.”
Haechan couldn’t process it fast enough. Mark patted his cheek with a little smile.
“I found the way. I’m going to help you get back with her.”
__________
Haechan was sitting down on Mark’s couch. Every time he was there something was going on and he started to grow sick of that place.
“So, a summary of what we know so far.”
“You don’t have to tell-” Haechan started but Mark interrupted. Haechan rolled his eyes.
“You were Y/N’s Dream Sorter and that was your first job,” he taped a picture of you and Haechan on the wall.
“What are you, and investigator?” Haechan cackled but leaned forward to rest his elbows on the knees. He really wanted that photo of you for himself.
“And you both fell in love with each other,” Mark continued, uniting the two pictures with a red thread.
Haechan felt his ears go red so he absentmindedly rubbed one earlobe. He didn’t confirm nor deny.
“Now, this dude,” Mark taped a photo of Taeyong near you. Where was he getting those pics from? “Past Dream Sorter. He fell in love with her but we don’t know if-”
“She didn’t like him back,” Haechan interrupted.
Mark cleared his throat. “Well, we don’t know y-”
“She didn’t.”
“Alright alright,” Mark united Taeyong’s pic with yours with a different coloured thread. “This is nice, isn’t it?”
Haechan rolled his eyes with a scoff. “Is this a game for you? Are you having fun?”
“I am, sorry. Now, Jaemin. New Dream Sorter.”
Haechan was starting to get bored.
“Pressing question, when did you become her Dream Sorter?” Mark asked.
The other man thought about it for a moment. “Right after graduation. Like a year ago.”
“So, it means that’s when Taeyong stopped to be her Dream Sorter. Although in his file it is written it all happened way back in the past. This is why we never thought about him.”
Haechan watched Mark place little year cards to the connections with furrowed eyebrows.
“It will come out as a shock but I’m not following you right now,” Haechan commented, scratching one eyebrow.
“Taeyong must have gotten killed right before you became Y/N’s Dream Sorter for it all to work out,” Mark tapped his face with the index finger.
Haechan’s eyes tightened. “Then he’s supposed to be a titty-sucking newborn if he got killed last year.”
Mark hit the wall with one palm. “But he’s a grown-up motherfucker.”
The other’s eyes widened.
“He wasn’t killed to be reborn. He escaped this place.”
__________
Jaemin stirred the ice in his coffee for the fifth time in two minutes.
“Can you stop doing that? It’s fucking annoying,” Haechan snapped.
The other scoffed. “You’re in no position to give any orders, Hornatron 2000.”
Mark sat up extending his palms. “Okay, let’s calm down. I said I have a plan.”
Haechan groaned, rubbing his face with one palm. “No, you don’t.”
“We just need to discover how Taeyong escaped and make you do the same. This is a brilliant idea.”
Jaemin stirred the ice in his coffee again shaking his head like the most shocked grandma.
“You guys are completely crazy. I said we need to tell Taeil about this and end it here. He won’t kill you over horny thoughts, which by the way, you didn’t bother to try and not have.”
Haechan’s head snapped upwards.
“I didn’t think about her last night, don’t fuck with me.”
“Really now? Rubbing one out? Well, you had spectators. And two of them, unfortunately, one of which not your dear girlfriend.”
Mark made a face as if glad he wasn’t involved.
Haechan was mortified. “I wasn’t even sleeping.”
Jaemin lifted his unoccupied hand in the air and shrugged. “Told you it’s a big deal. Let’s tell Taeil.”
Mark shook his head. “We don’t tell shit to anyone. We’ll make Haechan escape.”
“You don’t even know how that works. Worst case scenario, Haechan dies and he’s born a fucking baby. Is this girl even worth it? Come on now.”
Haechan got up. “Listen listen. This connection thing has to be tested first.”
“Think about her now, then,” Mark lifted one eyebrow.
“She’s not sleeping. It’s day there.”
“Try it,” Jaemin added.
Haechan huffed but closed his eyes against his will. Mark and Jaemin waited in silence as if you could appear like a ghost any time soon.
“I can’t when you’re here!” Haechan’s voice disrupted the silence and the other two men jumped in place. “Have you guys ever heard of something like this? Materializing Dreamers only by thinking of them? Crazy stuff. We’re all going crazy now.”
The two young men assisted to Haechan’s short monologue, but their gazes weren’t on him anymore. Haechan furrowed his eyebrows.
“At least pay attention to me?” he continued. “What’s so interesting behind me that-” he turned around to meet your wide eyes. His hair physically got pushed back by the sheer power of your shriek.
“What the fuck?!”
You were soaking wet in a bathtub, your arms tightly crossed on your chest and the bubbles of the bath slowly descending down your head.
Haechan started at you with an open mouth then turned around briefly to check if the others were seeing you too. From their dead expressions they definitely could and from your furious eyes, Haechan understood you could see them too.
“This has never happened before,” he tried to explain.
“What kind of fucking dream is this?” you asked. “I was taking a bath.”
“I can see it,” Haechan commented. Then realization washed over him. “You look away!” he directed his words to the two, still shocked, guys behind him.
They cleared their throats and looked away.
Haechan opened his closet and frantically looked for his robe. “Wear this. We need to talk,” he handed you the item.
You looked at his hand and then at his face, not letting go of your confused expression.
But you listened to him and grabbed the robe. Haechan turned around to give you privacy and he exhaled. Mark and Jaemin were frantically discussing between themselves.
Haechan felt like drowning in a dream that he couldn’t escape. You came and went in waves, leaving him disoriented. He could wait for you at the bottom. He could also stay away if you wanted him to. He could wait for years. He could do everything.
And you were there.
“Can you just-” he heard your voice, and he turned around again. You were extending your hand for him to help you outside of the tub.
Your skin was soft and still a bit damp and he thought he was going to lose his mind on the spot.
You were there.
“Okay what the hell is going on?” you asked when you were on your feet. Your hand slipped from Haechan’s and he realized he has never been that nervous in his life.
Mark took a step forward to save Haechan from his frenzy. “Hi, I am Mark, and this is Jaemin and you might want to sit down for what we’ll tell you.”
You furrowed your eyebrows and they could see the way you were trying to understand if you were having the most lucid dream of your life or if you were actually there.
They had no idea either.
“And you are Haechan,” you added, looking at him. Haechan nodded, a bit take back.
“Okay, so you know it because he said it himself before, right?” Jaemin asked.
“Yes,” you hesitated.
Jaemin hit his palm with one fist. “Told you guys. Every time you think of her she gets dreams of you and she remembers them.”
“Wait what?” You looked around trying to get more information. Mark grabbed your arms and pulled you towards Haechan’s bed, making you sit down.
“If this is a dream, does it mean I am sleeping in the tub? Because that’s very dangerous,” you added. Mark looked concerned for a second.
“We’ll get to that, I think.”
“Are you really going to do all of this?” Haechan rubbed his eyebrow as if his friends were embarrassing him in front of his crush. Which was basically the truth.
Mark wasn’t listening and took out his pictures and coloured string, starting to put everything up on Haechan’s wardrobe.
Jaemin sat down on the chair near him and took a defeated sip from his coffee.
Haechan didn’t have any choice but to sit near you.
“Haechan.”
The man turned around. It didn’t sound like a question but your tone wasn’t sure.
“Y/N.”
You closed your mouth. Your eyes looked wide, taking in the view and processing. Haechan could almost hear your brain cells trying to piece everything together. The moment your gazes increasingly intertwined, your dream began.
“Is this a dream?” you asked.
“I think so.”
“I finally meet you.”
Haechan’s warm eyes closed for a moment and his fingers twitched. “Yeah, finally,” he exhaled.
“You’d think I am crazy, but I know you somehow. Like some sort of deja-vu. You’re familiar but unfamiliar at the same time. And it’s true I saw you before in dreams,” you added.
“I don’t think you’re crazy at all.”
“Do you know me?”
“Yes,” he simply said.
“How? Are we both dreaming?”
Haechan smiled at the actual deja-vu moment. “Yes.”
You frowned a little but didn’t question him. “Alright.”
The man blinked as if surprised. “You don’t want to know what this place is and what’s going on and-”
You shook your head. He looked at your eyes then lips, then every other feature on your face. His pupils were expanded and his breath was shaky.
“I have so many questions but-,” you stopped to think, “something’s going on. I don’t understand but maybe that’s for the better.”
“Are you afraid to know the truth?”
You felt your mouth tighten in a smile. “Yeah.”
Haechan’s body felt warm as he suddenly pulled you towards it, his arms tight around your waist. You exhaled sharply and felt tears prickle your eyes. You felt the material of his white button-down while sliding your hands around his neck.
As if you’ve been carrying a very heavy weight for years and suddenly it was gone, you felt so light that the tears didn’t want to stop sliding down your cheeks. One of his palms supported the back of your head and the touch of his fingers in your hair made you nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck even more.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, feeling your shaky breaths while caressing your back.
“I missed you,” you heard yourself say. “Where have you been? I feel like I’ve been looking for you for so long.”
“I know. Everything will be clear soon. I promise.”
“I feel like I’ve been slowly losing my mind but I don’t really care.”
You smiled and Haechan chuckled. “You think I’m crazy right?” you asked.
“Okay, sorry guys, here I am,” Mark clapped his hands and you had to let go of Haechan.
You looked at the intricate mental map Mark prepared, and you jolted seeing Taeyong’s face on there too. That was officially the weirdest dream you’ve ever had in your whole life.
“I’ll make it quick,” Mark started, “this is you.”
You opened your mouth to ask how he got your picture but he kept talking.
“This is Haechan. And he was your Dream Sorter. This is Taeyong and he used to be your Dream Sorter before Haechan.”
“What?” you interrupted.
“And this is Jaemin, your Dream Sorter now.”
Jaemin lifted one little hand.
“Dream Sorters are people who, as the name says, sort you into dreams. You and all the people from your world. This fellow,” he indicated Taeyong, “fell in love with you. That’s not good. So, he should have technically gotten killed. After dying we become people like you, or at least that’s what they tell us. If he got killed, he should be a baby right now. But he’s a grown man and he’s friends with you. Meaning, he didn’t get killed, but he escaped somehow. Which tells us that it is possible to go there, and survive, and remember it.”
Mark finished and put his hands together staring at you. Jaemin’s eyes were on you as well and you could see Haechan’s attentive gaze in your peripheral vision.
You felt dizzy.
“Okay. Wait. Why are you telling me all this?”
Mark blinked back as if not expecting that question. “So, you know. Because we plan to send Haechan over to your world too. For you.”
Your head snapped towards him. “Why would you do something like that?”
Haechan’s mouth was open. “You don’t want me to?”
You shook your head. “Wait this is too much information to take in.”
You got up and tied the robe around you more tightly.
“Am I dreaming right now?”
“Technically yes, but this has never happened before,” Jaemin explained. “Usually when you sleep, yes, you come here but it’s controlled under my supervision. Now you just appeared in Haechan’s room because he just thought of you. This is very dangerous, and he can’t just stop thinking about you so we have to do something about it.”
That information made your whole body heat up.
Haechan looked up at you with wide luscious eyes as if he felt guilty.
“I can try to stop if,” he interrupted himself to gulp, “if you want me to stop. I’ll figure it out.”
“What happens when I think of you?” you asked no one in particular.
Haechan’s eyebrow furrowed but Mark looked enthusiastic. “Let’s test it. You need to wake up though.”
“How?”
The young men fell into silence for a moment.
“I have an idea,” Jaemin mumbled.
__________
The corridors of the place looked like a very high-end hotel. You were following Jaemin with Haechan right after him holding your hand, then Mark behind you, in the utmost silence. Your feet were nude, but the floor wasn’t cold.
“Where are we going again?” you tried.
“Shh,” all three boys replied in unison.
“Geez,” you whispered.
Haechan’s fingers intertwined with yours were making you feel timid, but you tried to act cool about it.
Who was he? Your lover? Your boyfriend? Someone you loved in the past and you forgot about it?
But looking at his back it felt so familiar. If your mind forgot something, your body surely didn’t, because your fingertips would be able to model Haechan’s back curve in clay in that same instant, and you knew for sure the spots where he had hidden beauty marks.
You felt hot and dizzy.
You’ve never felt like that with Taeyong. It never felt right with him.
Lost in your thoughts, you didnt’ realize the two men in front of you stopped and you hit Haechan’s back with your nose. Mark hit the back of your head.
“Ouch,” you whispered in unison with him.
“It’s here,” Jaemin looked at you all.
You had no idea what to expect when he said here, but a green and purple room wasn’t it.
A sense of deja-vu filled you, and you walked behind what was a hotel counter. In front of you was the door of an elevator and on the sides of the room were six golden doors, three on each side.
You eyed the pamphlets on the counter and the old-fashioned pastel pink telephone. For some reason, you pulled at a drawer and saw two pairs of white gloves.
“I have one of these!” you exclaimed, searching for Haechan’s eyes, a weird heat entering your body and making your legs feel like jelly.
He nodded as if he knew. “I gave it to you,” he explained.
“What is this place?” you walked around feeling like you’ve been there before.
“Here is where you come every night and I sort you in dreams,” Jaemin replied, leaning on the counter.
“Why do I not remember you?” you asked.
“Because we have no connection. That’s how it is supposed to be,” he replied, the last phrase sounding like a critique as he eyed his colleague.
Haechan scratched the back of his head.
The pieces were all starting to go together in that weird puzzle. You felt frightened but mostly you were just afraid that you’d wake up and realize that none of that was real. You were afraid that the second your life finally felt right you’d wake up in a nightmare called reality.
“What now?” you wondered.
“You need to go through one of the rooms, dream something, and then you’ll wake up. At that point, please try to think of Haechan as much as possible to see if he can-” Mark started then interrupted himself as if he also realized how insane that sounded, “-appear in your reality.”
“What if nothing happens?”
“Just go by your day and go to sleep normally. You’ll be here next time too. We’ll wait,” Haechan murmured. He was close to you, and you shivered.
You didn’t want to go. What if you couldn’t see him anymore?
“Can you come with me in the dream?” you asked timidly.
“That’s dangerous,” Jaemin replied for Haechan.
“I can do it,” the latter said.
“Everything in the dream might attack you. You’re not her Dream Sorter anymore,” the other added.
Haechan ignored him and held your hand again pulling you towards a random room.
“Haechan if it’s dangerous-” you started but he didn’t let you finish.
He opened the door, and the light engulfed you.
You opened your eyes in front of a huge window - your parents’ house. Your nude feet were now on the tiles of the balcony on the second floor and the sun was setting behind the horizon.
“Haechan?” you tried to call, but the silence was heavy, not even a single car making noise down the street.
“I’m coming up,” a voice announced, and you looked down and screamed, seeing Haechan hanging from the balcony rails.
“What the hell happened to you?” you asked, one hand on top of your mouth before you could lean down to give him a hand.
“I can manage,” he replied with a chuckle, and you watched him jump over the rail, and onto the balcony.
Haechan sighed heavily, not looking at you and walking towards the bench instead. You didn’t remember your parents having, a bench on their balcony but you were glad it was there.
It was a warm sunset, and your balcony was lit with orange hues. The thud of him sitting down made you jolt a bit then you sighed too.
“Let me see,” you ordered, placing yourself in front of him, grabbing his chin, and lifting his face up.
Haechan’s eyes were shining as he looked at you from under his fringe.
You gulped, pupils moving to look at his busted lip first then the bloody eyebrow. “How did you get this?”
Haechan chuckled again. “Unfriendly situations. This dream will be destroyed, I’m afraid.”
You felt sorry for him but then all of a sudden, he smirked and moved his head down to catch your fingertip with his mouth, placing a quick soft kiss on it.
“Eye!” you slid your arm away and he chuckled once. His lip cut opened more, and he winced soon after, letting his tongue go over it.
"Shit," he mumbled.
“You look terrible,” you walked away and entered the house to grab the medication. When you passed the bathroom mirror you didn’t want to look at the way your eyes were blown out. Or think about the way your fist was guarding the skin you felt his lips on.
When you exited on the balcony again, Haechan was resting with his head on the wall and with closed eyes. You moved slowly, looking at the way the setting sun danced on his skin until you noticed him smiling.
“You sure love staring at me,” he said in a low voice.
“I wasn’t-”
“You’re talking with a Dream Sorter. We have eyes on the back.”
“No, you don’t,” you placed the stuff on the bench near him.
Haechan opened his eyes right when you leaned down to press the piece of wet cotton on his eyebrow making you inhale more sharply than normal. He smiled a bit but only for a split second because soon after he opened his mouth to inhale too, feeling the disinfectant on his wounds.
“Fuck."
“Just a moment,” you mumbled, going from his brow to the lip, lightly pouting and blowing on his wounds to give him a bit of relief.
Haechan stared at your mouth, and you shivered feeling his hands creep around your thighs and pull you towards him a bit.
“Hey,” you warned him.
“Need to anchor me. The pain is unbearable,” he whispered amused, and the movement shifted his fringe on the forehead again. You lifted one hand and passed it through it, pushing it back to not let it touch the brow. Haechan gulped and closed his eyes for a brief moment at the gesture.
“Y/N, I think I am going to kiss you now.”
His low tone made you gulp.
“You can’t. Your lip is wounded.”
“Then you kiss me.”
You looked down at his mouth then quickly away, fumbling with the plasters in your hand.
“Stop joking.”
Haechan pouted with a loud “hm.”
“But I’m hurt. I just want a little cute healing peck.”
His fingers around your bare thighs got tighter though and the way his eyes shone in the dusk didn’t seem cute to you.
Rolling your eyes to the side you suddenly leaned down and kissed his temple for a moment.
Haechan exhaled, thrilled, and slid his hands upwards on your body, over your ass until reaching the curve of your back.
“On the cheek too,” he ordered.
You scoffed but the tingles on your lips were screaming for more, so you felt his soft skin again. He chuckled at the peck and chuckled again as you kissed his forehead too. When you reached his nose, he lost patience and pulled you down on himself, mouths hungrily on each other. Your knees bent for you to straddle his lap and his hands felt cold as he cupped your face and went around your jaw and behind your neck.
“Haechan,” you breathed out, breaking the kiss. “Your lip.”
He smirked. “What about it?”
You blinked fast and lifted one finger to touch the corner of his mouth where the skin was pristine.
“It’s- not there anymore,” you mumbled. Then you looked at his brow where the wound was slowly closing in front of your eyes.
“You!”
He chuckled delightedly.
“You can do this? You let me medicate you on purpose!”
He shook his head and hid his face in your bosom. “It’s not me healing it. It’s your kisses.”
"You're a brat!"
"And you love it."
"I do not."
"Your heart is beating so fast right now."
"It's because I'm mad!"
He lifted his face from your breasts and looked up mischievously.
"And I can feel your pulse on my thigh. You're throbbing."
His words made you widen your eyes and you tried to pull away from him but in vain.
His crystalline laughter filled your ears as his arms didn't let you budge a centimetre.
"Can I get you off?" he whispered, and you realized too late that you whined back.
"Is that a yes?"
You closed your eyes and gulped. You shook your head. Then you nodded.
Haechan clicked his tongue.
"Words."
"Yes," you breathed out, fingers slowly grabbing his shirt tighter and tighter as if preparing for something.
"Why are you so tense?" he soothed your spine, making you bounce on his leg a few times as if it could help you relax.
"Alright, I can make you soften up," he announced and just like that your core slid forwards on his jeans once and you let out a single silent oh.
Haechan imitated you amused. "Oh?", his hands cupping your ass and guiding your movement.
"Feels good?"
You whined once again, your breathing increasing in pace at each roll of your hips on his leg.
"Yeah," you replied softly.
"Show me how good it feels," he ordered, gripping your body, sliding one cool hand under your shirt until cupping your breast.
You bit your lower lip, frustrated, and propped yourself up a bit, rolling your hips on his thigh every second quicker than the previous.
Haechan's amusement was palpitant and you wanted to make it turn his expression into a mess as well. Leaning down, you attached your lips to his neck, kissing it slowly and reaching his ear where your soft moans could vibrate into his body. You felt his cock twitch near your thigh and your palm descended to it after carefully palming his torso.
It was so sinful that it made you dizzy. There was something so desperate in the way you'd chase your high on him, not even taking your clothes off, as if not having the force to do that. And him too, letting his head back on the wall, looking at you with hooded eyes and breathing out faster under your hand touching him.
As if reading your mind, you opened your eyes to Haechan's whispering.
"I like the way you look like that. So naughty. On your balcony for everyone to see what a needy girl you are. For Jaemin to see too."
"Shut up-," you resorted, your hand quick to cup his balls, making him choke. His hips bucked up into nothing and the slap on your ass was so loud that it probably resonated in all the neighbourhood.
You whined loudly and rested your forehead on his shoulder as his palm gripped the softness of your skin.
"You liked that?" he asked, and you exchanged a messy look, lips brushing against each other, drinking in his breath.
"Yeah," you repeated mindlessly. "I'm close, so close-,"
"Hm, cum all over my thigh."
Like a spell, as if he actually had magical powers, you whined loudly and seized up, limbs trembling as if electricity danced through them. Haechan held you tight against his body, hands rubbing your back and sides, hushed praises against your neck.
"We're not-," you tried to speak as you came down your thigh. "We're not talking about this."
"I will not shut up about this," his smile vibrated on your lips.
You swallowed and helplessly tried to get off his leg without success.
"I think-," you licked your lower lip, "It’s time for me to wake up.”
Haechan hummed and grabbed your chin, making you kiss him deeply.
“Think about me,” he murmured and before realizing you gasped, grabbing at your slippery bathtub, trying to understand what the hell just happened.
__________
It took you a while to get dry and just sit on your bed, thinking back at your dream. It felt so real that you couldn’t have made up all of that yourself. Haechan said to think of him, and you were thinking but nothing really was happening.
You groaned and fell down on the bed.
It was already late in the night and the other option was to fall asleep and supposedly meet them in the weird hotel Lobby to discuss. But the nap you took in the tub got rid of all the tiredness.
“Haechan,” you started to call out then you felt stupid and stopped.
How was it possible that when you were sleeping everything felt so real yet when you were awake it felt like you were just losing your mind?
What did they mean with think of Haechan? You’ve been thinking of him so many times, yet nothing happened before.
You huffed and let yourself fall back on the bed. The dark ceiling would get illuminated by the car lights outside, passing by.
You lifted one hand up in the air.
“Haechan,” you murmured, imagining his fingers gently sliding between yours, from your palm up to meet your fingertips.
You inhaled and exhaled deeply, almost feeling his touch.
But he never appeared, and your hand remained empty.
__________
“Listen, my shift is over,” Jaemin lifted one eyebrow towards Mark who was standing legs wide open and hands on his hips, like some sort of airport dad, in front of the golden door you and Haechan disappeared through.
“Is the dream over? Have you seen it?” Mark asked.
Jaemin shivered. “Not yet. Will see it later. Not excited to do it. But she’s awake.”
Mark crossed his arms on his chest. “Where’s Haechan then? He should be back here by now.”
“Maybe he did it,” Jaemin straightened his back, surprised.
The silence engulfed them both for a moment.
Mark giggled once.
Then chuckled.
Then laughed. A hyena laugh to resonate in the whole Lobby.
“He did it. That son of a bitch.”
_____________
Haechan opened his eyes to nothing, and panic washed over him.
Was he dead?
But he could feel his ass sitting on something and when he tentatively felt around, he could make sense of a shoe. Then he leaned forwards and he hit his forehead on something hard. He yelped and tried to put a hand on it to cool the pain when his elbow hit some kind of box, and something fell on his face.
The closet door opened in an instant with a bang and Haechan could see you, baseball bat in your hands, through the lace of the thongs that fell on his eyes.
“No fucking way,” you murmured. “What the fuck are you doing in my closet?”
Haechan quickly put away the underwear and tried to get up, but his head hit the top shelf this time. “Shit,” he mumbled.
You could just stand there, mouth open and eyes wide, trying to understand if you were still dreaming or not.
When Haechan managed to crawl, one sneaker in half of his foot, and got up in front of you, you exhaled.
“Hey,” he said then winced, touching his forehead where a little bump was starting to grow. “Too many injuries in the past few hours.”
“Can you cure it?” you asked.
Haechan blinked back. “Well, not this time, no.”
You both stood there for a moment as if in a daze, then as soon as you let the baseball bat fall to the ground Haechan’s arms wrapped around your body.
The tears collected in your eyes on their own and your breath went missing.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” you whispered in the crook of his neck. His scent felt so real and his body so firm.
Haechan was real and he was there.
“I know,” he replied, probably as shocked.
“Are you okay?” you pulled away quickly to grab his face with both of your hands and analyse his features. Haechan let you fondle his cheeks and rub on his skin.
“Besides getting a lip cut, an eyebrow cut, hitting my head twice? Yes. I think I’m good.”
“How? How is this-” you stuttered.
“I think-” Haechan started, “like that damned glove,” he inhaled, “you just didn’t let me go.”
__________
The morning felt warmer. You did not know if it was because of the ray of sun shining through the windows or because of Haechan’s - very real and very present - arms around your body.
"Fuck, I slept so much. What did I miss?" you mumbled.
Haechan rubbed his sleepy hands on your back. "This dick."
"Thank God. I thought I missed something big."
He clicked his tongue. “I will tackle you.”
You smiled, nuzzling your face into Haechan’s chest even more. “I can’t believe you’re here. What if I’m dreaming?”
Haechan’s warm palms on your back made you exhale pleasantly. “Would that be so bad?”
You looked up at him, resting your chin on his chest. “No. If this is a dream, the only request I have is to never wake up.”
#haechan#haechan smut#haechan angst#nct dream smut#nct smut#nct dream angst#nct dream fluff#haechan fluff#mark#jaemin#haechan fanfiction#nct fanfiction#nct dream fanfiction#nct fantasy#haechan fantasy#taeyong
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The fear : Jason Todd x fem!reader part 8
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
***
„You good?” Damian asked taking in her pale face and hurt eye expression.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She muttered, obviously lying. Even despite her experience-enhanced skills in the art of deceiving it was impossible to cover up for the fact that unwanted, unneeded and unwelcomed encounter with Jason took a huge tool on her mentality.
And it lasted no longer than an hour.
An hour, that took turn from open hostility to a little unexpected heart to heart that opened old wounds. Reminding of the past mistakes, lost things and casted wounds.
Ruined relationship that was doomed from the very beginning.
But even though-
They fought for it.
They fought to the best of their limited abilities, despite the world that was conspiring against them and throwing obstacles their way.
Damn that tears that started flowing down her face when she started dwelling in the past. There was no denying she still held strong feelings for him, though couldn’t quite define if they were good ones or the bad ones.
“Y/N…”
“I’m fine, Damian. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine…” she repeated as some sort of spell. A lie told a hundred times becoming a reality.
“Let’s get you upstairs first. We’ll watch some silly movies so you could stop telling me bullshit.”
“Hey! Language!”
“I’m 15, you can’t tell me what to do.”
“15 my ass. Still the same nasty little boy as always only with a fouler mouth.”
“It’s good to see you again Y/N.” Damian smirked
“Yeah, you too, kiddo.”
“You do realise you won’t be heading back home tonight, right?”
“What? Huh! You’re gonna keep me captive now or something?”
“You voluntarily got yourself in the house full of vigilantes, the heck were you thinking?”
“I could argue on that voluntarily part but-“
Regardless of what she said, it was evident that Damian has grown during the time they didn’t see each other. Not only in height, but also mentally. And it only made her realise the full amount of things she lost.
Not just the man she loved, but also priceless time with her best friends Wayne boys.
While Y/N was getting drunk and laughed with Dick, Tim and Damian upstairs, Jason refused to step a foot out the batcave as long as she was still in the manor.
Fuck her.
Fuck her help, her words, her gestures, her eyes and hair, her smile and her coming for the rescue attitude. Who the hell she thought she was?! Paw patrol?!
The anger started boiling in him again, threatening to take over.
Anger at everything, but mostly at himself for getting so vulnerable and honest with her, to the point when he asked her to fucking take him back.
Pathetic. Foolish. Idiot.
“Aghghhg!” he jumped from the chair kicking it with all the rage he had, nearly breaking the metal.
Fighting the urge to destroy all that stupid batcave – the real reason of his fucked up life and psyche.
He could have been a normal boy being in a relationship with the girl of his dreams. Instead he had to die (leaving her in tears), come back (leaving her in tears), suffering from the Pit madness (leaving her in tears) and due to this fucking fear gas incident loose her again (leaving her in tears)
“FUCK!” he grabbed the chair and threw it on the floor “FUCK!” he yelled, throwing all the stuff from the nearest desk “FUCK!!!” he pulled at his hair, hard enough he could be left bald.
He had no idea what he wanted.
So fucking angry, horn-mad, charged with hands itching to punch something, someone, to destroy, hurt, kill…
Stop…
“Huh?! Get the fuck out of my head Y/N!!” he yelled in the air, his voice echoing through the empty space.
Stop, Jason…
Right. Stop. He was past his killing days. He was not a monster. Not a beast.
He changed. He grew up, matured, became a man and not a boy.
He had to get a hold of himself.
Move past the past.
If he couldn’t have her he might as well spend the evening with his crazy asses brothers, giving them his attitude, using the bad mood to banter and bicker and pick up on someone else to make himself feel better.
So he emerged from the batcave, almost in the same way he did emerge from the Pit.
Slowly heading upstairs.
To the main room, filled with surprising silence. Deafening silence that formed goosebumps on his arms and immediately put him on alert, searching for some kind of threat.
Vigilante instincts never fail.
There was some movement on the couch.
Two people, a man and a woman judging by the silhouettes.
Girl sitting on man's lap, straddling him, their hands all over each other, their lips moving together, the room filled with soft whines of pleasure and sweet whispers.
“Y/N…” the man whispered.
THE FUCK!?
Jason stomped inside without a care in the world, making the couple break the intense make-out session and look at him with terrified expressions.
“Grayson!!!” he yelled taking in the scene, his fury immediately raising head again. “Y/N!!!”
He was right.
There was someone else in her life already.
And that someone was the fuckboy - his older adoptive-brother.
#jason todd fanfiction#jason todd angst#jason todd imagine#jason todd#jason todd x reader#jason todd x fem!reader#jason todd x oc#jason todd x you#jason todd x y/n#red hood fanfiction#red hood imagine#red hood angst#red hood x reader#red hood x fem!reader#red hood#red hood x y/n#batboys x reader#angst#dc angst#jason todd fluff#red hood fluff#fluff#dc fluff#batfamily#batfamily x reader
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Deciphering Gale's Book (page 2)
I did not have much hopes for the second page of his book. Most of the main text is truly beyond recognition, even after brightness\contrast tweaks. It's like someone had forgotten to hide their extra layer before rendering, actually😅... but those big scribbles in "Ancient Thorass"?? I think I could actually read them. And..gods, it brings up some...interesting things. See for yourselves.
You can notice that T is nothing like what it looks like in the base font, but I just can't see what else can it possibly be. Real T symbol looks ugly in this font, so designer might have switched it just for the looks.. So, what do we have here? Some Latin magic, apparently.
Sapien - wisdom. proin - an dverb, something like "according to" or "hence" depending on the context. In pulvinar vox - the same thing is mirrored on the first page. It would roughly translate as "a word on the pillow/cushion". The 'word' can also possibly mean 'spell', as in 'word of power'.
Now, to the bottom part. InTeger viTae placeraT... it shattered my heart into tiny pieces, and now it's your turn. In this form it means "He invests his entire life".
And it might be totally random and unrelated... but I feel like it isn't...
INTEGER VITAE is also happened to be a poem by Thomas Campion, which I stumbled across in attempts to revive my long-forgotten basics of Latin. I'll just...leave it here, I guess?..
The man of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;
The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude,
Nor sorrow discontent;
That man needs neither towers
Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder's violence:
He only can behold
With unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep
And terrors of the skies.
Thus, scorning all the cares
That fate or fortune brings,
He makes the heaven his book,
His wisdom heavenly things;
Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober inn
And quiet pilgrimage.
There, you have it.
I'm not sure I can untangle the background fonts, but if someone can AI-clear it up somehow, then I can give it another try (or share the fonts for the reference, I'm pretty sure that my version is very similar to the one used here).
ps: Would someone pass that to Tim, may be? Somehow, I think he's going to appreciate it. I'm not doing any of those social medias, because I'm that...asocial. 🤐
Link to page 1 for anyone, who had missed it.
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WIP Wednesday
Part 1, Part 2
This is more of Ghost!Robin haunting Jason. This might not've won the poll (if you haven't voted, it's the post right after this one on my blog. But you'll have to come out in numbers to win against the Dead on Main shippers!), but it will feature in both this week's WIP Wednesday and next, so y'all better be happy.
1,100 words
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“If he’s still in the area, you should invite him,” said Dick. “Alfred’s food is to die for.” Robin was hanging upside down next to Dick nodding solemnly.
Danny tried to stop himself, he really did. He even managed to keep from saying he’d been there done that, but he couldn’t keep from laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe.
From where he was bent over trying to catch his breath, he saw Dick do some sort of spin that ended with him sitting upright on the chair. “Um… Is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” Jazz insisted. “He just thinks he’s hilarious. He had an accident when he was younger with electricity and his heart stopped. But after a few months his condition stabilized and now he’s stronger than ever.”
Through his laughs, Danny gasped, “If— If I hadn’t died… Mom and Dad… And you never, Gotham.”
Jazz turned away from him and hid her face in Jason’s neck. Danny just got himself under control when he noticed her shoulders shaking slightly.
He lost it again, Jazz following just behind.
Someone was saying “I’m confused” but someone else joined in their laughter. Danny looked up and saw it was Jason. And Robin. He liked them both already.
“Sorry, sorry,” gasped Danny once he had enough breath to do so. “Amity Parkers have a morbid sense of humor.”
“Tt, I hardly believe your heart stopping then medical intervention saving your life can count as you actually dying.” Damian had a sneer on his face and Danny already didn’t like him.
But rather than engage, he just shrugged. “It was close enough that the ghosts back home like me more’n most.” He wiped his eyes to get rid of the tears.
“I like you, kid. Great sense of humor.” Jason reached around Jazz to ruffle his hair; Danny swatted the hand away.
“Ghosts?” asked Cass.
“Yes, of course,” said Jazz. “Amity Park, the most haunted town in America.”
“Ghosts aren’t real,” argued Damian.
“Do you really need to play up the tourist gimmick even around friends?” added Tim.
“Tourist gimmick? We hate outsiders.” Danny didn’t even bother responding to the comment about ghosts not existing.
“Why do you dislike outsiders so much?” asked Bruce.
With a shrug, Jazz answered, “It’s hard to explain, but outsiders just don’t fit in in Amity.”
Danny let himself look at Robin who was sitting on the back of the couch behind Jason. “Jason might be an exception, though. Have you taken him home yet?”
“No, but I’ve been wanting to. Just… Jack and Maddie.” Jazz did take their betrayal so much harder than Danny had.
“Fair. Tell you what, give me a list of weeks you two can arrange to get off and I’ll make sure Mom and Dad are out of Amity for at least one of them.”
Jason leaned around Jazz to ask, “Why are you so sure I’d fit in in Amity?”
Obviously he couldn’t say it was because Jason was haunted and liminal, so all he said was, “Oh, you’ve got the vibes. You’ll understand it when you get there. Just… Listen to Jazz? It isn’t really safe if you try and do your own thing.”
Around them, various conversations developed and Danny let Jazz take over describing the places in Amity she wanted to show Jason. Instead, he watched Robin interact with the wider group.
The ghost kept trying to get the attention of someone, anyone, in the Wayne family. But his efforts focused on Bruce and Dick. He was clearly haunting Jason, though, and it feels like they might be sharing ectoplasm somehow.
Danny really wanted to pull out his Ecto-tracker, based off the Fenton Finder but far more sensitive and accurate. Instead, he just moved his bag closer to him.
“We can store that somewhere so you don’t have to carry it around with you,” offered Tim who must’ve seen the motion.
“Oh, that’s okay. Mr. Alfred already offered. I feel more comfortable having my bag with me.”
“What are you carrying around?” he asked.
“Bit of everything, to be honest. Laptop, PDA, chargers, first aid kit, granola bars, medicines, change of clothes, things I need for my job.”
Jason asked over Jazz’s head, “What is your job? Jazz never shares specifics, just that it keeps you too busy to visit or call very often.”
Robin was now staring at him with a grin and making amused trills. It took all of Danny’s self control to not snark at him.
“I do contract work.” It was his default answer on Earth. It was even sort-of true. If he squinted and tilted his head. Robin did not look impressed by his answer.
“I… Don’t know what that means,” admitted Jason. “What field do you work in?”
Danny waved a hand in the air. “Ancients, easier to ask what I don’t do! I build or repair things. I’m good at finding people. I help others get where they need to go. I’ve done babysitting before. I’m called in to deescalate or otherwise resolve conflicts. Basically, if someone needs assistance with something, I do it. Or I know someone who can.”
“Why do you swear by these ‘Ancients?’” asked Damian.
“It’s another ghost thing. But you don’t believe in ghosts, so I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Jazz swears by them, too,” added Jason.
Tim elbowed Damian who stood and actually pulled a knife on his brother. Not only was this kid liminal, he definitely had some ghostly instincts. “Woah, that’s enough, Damian!” ordered Dick as he positioned himself between the two.
Damian allowed Dick to take the blade, though he continued to glare at Tim. “Then tell Drake to not touch me again.”
Tim rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever,” as he moved closer to Danny and Jazz. To Danny, he asked, “So, what sort of things do you build?”
Danny decided Damian’s ghost instincts weren’t worth commenting on at the moment and just answered the question. “Oh, I can build anything.” Pulling out his PDA, he unlocked it and handed it to Tim. “My partner Tucker and I designed these. All the capabilities of a smartphone without the need for a cellular plan. Plus durable enough to survive being run over by a tank. And it gets service anywhere.”
Tim wasted no time in navigating the device’s capabilities. “What is this UI? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Tucker designed it. He’s a genius with software. I’m the hardware guy.”
Tim asked more details on the specs of the PDA which Danny happily answered. The things he built with Tucker were always his favorite inventions.
Tag list!
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Part 4
@addie-lover-of-stories, @justwannabecat, @gin2212, @amercurio, @regonold, @overtherose, @readerzj, @sjrose1216, @echoednonny, @deeterzz, @blu-lilac, @number-one-jew, @rowanaway-fromthisbs, @vythika96, @tired-yet-awaken, @themirrorghost
I think that's everyone! Let me know and I'll add you.
#dpxdc#dp x dc#danny fenton#jazz fenton#jason todd#ghost!Robin#batfam#this section includes my favorite bit of dialogue!#bruce is watching them intently trying to figure out what the fenton sibling's deal is#already planning how to investigate them#and their town#but he's playing head-empty no-thoughts brucie#for the moment at least#so danny hasn't really noticed him#or the rest of the bats exchanging looks#Robin is a good distraction
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I can’t help but wonder where Dick Grayson is in your A Coral Room universe. What happened? Did he get to stay with the circus this time due to pack law or something? That would probably be one of the best outcomes for him I think, I just miss my Blue Bird :(
I’ve been ducking a few similar questions about Dick since I really don’t want to ruin people’s fun ideas/hopes. But the truth is, I’ve been envisioning a pretty different world for Dick in that series.
He and Bruce parted on difficult terms when he was still very young (just around Dick’s presentation) and didn’t ever call each other pack. Dick was Robin until he presented alpha, and he left Bruce around that time for a variety of reasons. Most of them reflect Bruce’s fear of alphas, fear of his own designation, and his need to reject all dynamic from his own life in order to pursue his mission.
Jason and Dick never overlapped. They never even met. By the time Bruce had softened enough to take on another pup, Dick was a young alpha on his own in Bludhaven. He probably read about Bruce’s adoption in the news, and it probably hurt like nothing else. Because Jason was getting what Bruce had refused him — a chance to be pack, to be close to him. To have an omega carrier defend and love him.
But Bruce couldn’t handle an alpha in his own house that wasn’t pack. And by the time Jason was coming around to presenting, we could see those same anxieties surfacing again. From both him and Jason. The same need to keep all pack bonds at arm’s length.
Dick is his own vigilante in Bludhaven, but likely on a much smaller level than someone backed by Bruce would’ve been. He has his own pack. He’s a kind and balanced alpha, despite carrying all this hurt and rejection.
I haven’t written him into the main storyline yet because 1) the first and second fics were about Bruce and Jason respectively 2) I’m still somewhat working off the BVS framework where there was only ever one Robin and 3) people have been really really pushy about it. Like somehow the work I’m putting out isn’t good enough to read because Dick isn’t there. As if Jason’s side of things can’t stand on its own without Dick or Tim even.
Dick will show up, I promise. But I also stand by the plot and characters of the existing story and I think they’re worth reading too. It’s hard to set up a newly healed world with Jason and Bruce without giving them time to be their own characters first. Bruce is technically a bad guy for Dick — but as we’ve seen, he’s been doing a lot of healing. He’s a complex character now.
Okay, whew. Tiny rant over. If you’ve sent me an ask about Dick’s appearance in this story in the last few months, I apologize. I was getting close to 5-6 asks a day about it and it was making me sad. Hopefully this explanation helps a little.
#asks#myfic#theresurrectionist#a/b/o mention#a/b/o tw#a room full of coral#a coral room#a sky of honey#bruce wayne#batman#dc#batfamily#Jason todd#dick grayson
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i've been chewing over the tcf!tim au a lot these past few days and this is what my brain came up with:
1. jack and janet aren't really present in tim's life- not out of choice, but out of necessity: see tim had been affected with a curse (similar to that on the tcf protagonist) that made it so that he would eventually lose anything precious to him
2. after they find out, jack and janet decide to physically distance themselves from him (though they can't bring themselves to do so emotionally) while at the same time going on archaelogical trips in hopes to find a way to solve the curse. this way they would hopefully live long enough for tim to be old enough to take care of himself before the curse took them away from him
3. in the meantime, they plopped him in gotham to hopefully slow down / weaken the curse (due to how cursed the city already is, it probably acts like fighting fire with fire or poison with poison, also you can't convince me that as rich as they were they wouldn't have chosen to settle down in any other city if they had other options) and hire a revolving door of nannies (the good ones tim gets attached to often experience unfortunate circumstances that made them have to leave their post, while the bad ones get found out and fired by his parents)
4. tim still gets attached to dick at the circus (and then dick's parents died, and tim lost dick's smile that he liked)
5. tim gets attached to batman and robin -> dick and bruce fight and the og dynamic duo fall apart
6. tim gets attached to jason -> jason gets murdered
7. tim pulls batman out of his spiral and ironically, bruce's prickliness delayed tim getting attached to him, which meant he got to stick around (until he got better, then he ended up being yeeted through time)
8. that whole lead-up to brucequest where he lost a whole bunch of loved ones in quick succession? yeah, the curses of gotham are struggling against his (quantity vs quality)
i just think this idea is neat. and tim's guilt would be growing out of control once he finds out about the curse (why didn't anyone else notice before? because everyone assumed gotham folks are just cursed in general)
it also means he gets a fun (angsty) new motivation to avoid his family post-regression: he doesn't know if the curse is still active and would target them, so he plays the asshole to ward them off so that nothing worse would happen
Well, fuck.
I do love the Good!Parents Jack and Janet in this. It's a bit hard to make Jack or Janet decent parents to Tim while also affording him the independency his character typically has.
The curse is a cool addition to the tcf!Tim au that adds more reason to Tim being an asshole. Him not knowing if he's cursed or not is a great angst plot point, especially because it would be very easy for him to find out. He knows countless magic people that could tell him. Constantine would do it quietly for a quick buck. If Tim continues to not know despite his ability to, that's because he simply didn't want to find out. Dealer's choice on whether that's because he was scared or he wanted an excuse to self-destruct (i.e. cut himself off from his support groups).
The real shitty part about curses that seem like bad luck (or that cause bad luck) is that you can't be sure what is the curse and what is life being shit. Tim will probably blame himself for every horrid thing that has happened to someone after he entered their life.
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identity crisis part.1 dp x dc crossover
so i saw a clone tim au and im obsessed rn soooooo i wanted to write a bit of my own clone tim au.
so Ra’s wanted tim but he couldn't have him so to counteract this he teemed up with cadmus well he like stole there research to create a clone of tim. they also used some magic bullshit to copy his memories and place it into his clone.
so for 5 months after ‘waking up’ tim and torturing him into submission then proceeding to convince him the batfam is dead. Ra’s had his perfect heir by his side and ‘tim’ not knowing he wasn't tim started questioning things. everytime he thought of ‘his’ memories it felt like he was watching a presentation someone else wrote but he was speaking. it felt to ‘tim’ that something was wrong so he went digging. and he eventually found out he wasn't the real tim and that he was a clone.
he will admit he had an identity crisis for a moment before he said fuck it ,kon was a clone and made it, all ‘tim’ has to do was get the fuck out of here and get to the justice league.
so ‘tim’ waits and waits for the perfect time to leave when batman and red robin break in. ‘tim’ watches the fight from a safe distance till he sees one of Ra’s men go to stab red robin. ‘tim’ runs in and pushes red robin out of the way only to get stabbed instead. red robin and batman stare in horror at ‘tim’ as he collapsed. Ra’s then goes on a long monologue how tim was so perfect he just had to have him, one way or another, and its too bad that this ‘tim’ failed but he can always make more or some bullshit. ‘tim’ couldn't really pay attention he was currently on the floor bleeding out.
the fight drug on and eventually ‘tim’ felt a foot on his back. he opened his eyes to see red robin close to him unconscious on the floor with Ra’s holding a gun. ‘tim’ heard him say some choose one or the other bullshit. without hesitation batman, bruce, the only father he knows even if they aren't his memories, chooses to end him instead of his original.
‘tim’ knows he shouldn't feel hurt, he knows he isn't bruce's tim, but even still that was his father. ‘tim’ felt the bullet go into his shoulder and he feels when his body is kicked into the lazarus pits. he feels like hes choking. he doesn't want to die.
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part 2
https://at.tumblr.com/amaramizuki666/identity-crisis-part1-dp-x-dc-crossover/5gp4ew2tbm12
#dc batman#dc#dc x dp#dc x dp crossover#Tim Drake#Danny Phantom#danny fenton#danny x tim#Braindead#dead tired#writing#My writing
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What do you think would happen in a world where Dick just cuts Bruce and Batman and like everything in Gotham off for good for the Titans pre-Nightwing and/or pre-getting-fired? Like would he take Robin? Would Bruce lose it at some point? Would he still take in Jason and make him, like, Batboy?
If Dick abandoned Bruce forever, there would be no Robin after Jason and Jason would not have become Red Hood.
Okay to backtrack, Jason would still become Robin if Dick cut off Bruce because the whole reason Jason became it in the first place is because Dick left and cut him off. He wouldn't become Batboy or another pseudonym because things would continue they way they did in the original timeline. However, Bruce and Jason's relationship would be a lot tenser. One of the reasons Bruce and Jason's relationship wasn't a wreck of resentment from Jason's side and standoff-ness from Bruce's side was because Dick gave his acknowledgement of Jason and because he reached out to Bruce so Bruce wouldn't crumble in self-hate and hatred to others that Dick abandoned him.
If Dick didn't reach back out, Bruce-I need someone else to manage my emotions-Wayne would most likely take his anger out on Jason as the years passed and their relationship would become fractured. Jason's acting out and getting more violent with criminals leading to problems between him and Bruce timeline would become accelerated.
Since Jason went after the Joker to save his mother, this is a non-changeable separate standpoint from Bruce and Dick's relationship, so he would have died but now there would be no Tim as Robin or anyone else.
One of the reasons why Bruce took in Tim as Robin was he was under the advisement of Dick and Alfred. Because despite Tim's fantastic points why he should become Robin, what reason does Bruce have to listen to him? He's been ignoring Alfred's advise and requests so why should he listen to a random little kid who popped up out of nowhere. It took both Dick and Alfred telling Bruce how smart and right Tim is to get him to calm down and listen to him.
But it goes back farther than that. When Tim was searching for Dick to ask him to be Robin again, Bruce had actually sent Dick a message for help to the Titans Tower.
The New Teen Titans Issue #61
At this point the Titans are all ready to kill whoever it is that's looking for Dick because they think they're going to hurt Dick. They mistakenly think that this person (Bruce) is the same person who asked Kori (Tim).
The New Teen Titans Issue #61
But with Joey's help Raven realizes the second guy is Batman so she drops by Gotham.
The New Teen Titans Issue #61
For why Bruce calls the Titans? Alfred has the answer as always.
The New Teen Titans Issue #61
So Tim wouldn't have become Robin or anyone else after him because Bruce would've been dead.
Actually Bruce would've died during Jason's robin days if Dick hadn't reached out.
Teen Titans Spotlight Issue #14
Alfred called Dick because Bruce had gone missing and Dick tracks Batman down to find him being auctioned off to thugs. He pours acid on the metal chains and they escape from the place.
Teen Titans Spotlight Issue #14
"I knew you'd find me."
Bruce you didn't even reach out.
Bruce just has this unshakeable faith in Dick that he will always be there for Bruce even if they are separated. If Dick completely cut him off two things would've happened. 1 - He would've died. 2 - This was just another manipulation plot to bring Dick back and get him talking to him again which would've again led to Bruce's death eventually.
Bruce's behavior is like someone cutting themselves and then taking pictures and sending it to someone to ask that person for help. He's killing himself to ask Dick to talk to him again. That's how desperate he is for some sort of contact from him again.
So in conclusion, if Dick completely abandoned Bruce, Bruce would've died. Actually you know what I realized with Bruce's behavior? Bruce's reaction to Dick leaving is the same reaction he had to Jason dying. He's grieving as if he lost someone.
He's damn crazy about Dick.
#dick grayson#nightwing#bruce wayne#batman#jason todd#robin jason todd#tim drake#titans as family#alfred pennyworth#cl anon asks#thanks for the ask!
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Okay, thought experiment where we DO fully remove All Steph from the DC timeline and how that changes plots and events (or ‘Steph only ever appears in ‘Tec 647-649, is a one appearance character, retires when she’s told to’).
This is not saying Steph’s a bad character. It’s more an examination of how she is, aside from Batgirl 2009 and Batgirls, very much a supporting character, and under the conceit of “remove a character, what changes in the timeline”, your answer for Steph is “not a great deal”.
Tim might date Ariana a bit longer, but it’s not going to make a huge difference, given they break up during Aftershock and there’s no way this relationship survived No Man’s Land. Maybe they’re on-again a bit more before the end.
Tim then probably dates Star during Brentwood, because Dixon couldn’t leave Tim without a girl for a hot second in case we started getting ideas about him not being completely heterosexual
Tim/Darla probably actually happens or is more flirted with at Louis E. Grieves.
Knightfall – no changes, aside from the fact Tim never gets buried alive with Arthur Brown.
Contagion / Legacy – no changes, Steph doesn’t participate
Final Night – Tim probably is alone, doesn’t have anyone to squabble with
Cataclysm/Aftershock – not a whole lot here. We never get the Huntress/Spoiler team up, which is sad. Maybe we get a Huntress/Azrael team up instead (ahahahahahahahaha can you imagine)
We never get the pregnancy plot (hopefully)
Steph doesn’t feature in No Man’s Land proper. No changes.
Officer Down – Steph doesn’t appear
Steph doesn’t exist, so Bruce never breaks Tim’s trust by telling someone his identity in Robin 87. Bruce probably just sulks about Alfred not being there and waits until Tim pops up. Alternatively, Bruce sends Cass to go look for Tim, which is still the broken trust but less fraught as there’s no background fight over ‘I can never tell you my identity’ and Cass is with Babs anyway.
Early Cass & Steph team ups – either Cass gets a civilian friend before Brenda to be friends with, and/or Cass and Tim get more early on team ups and Tim starts trusting her earlier as Cass knows Tim’s ID, and/or (interestingly enough) timeline would let Dinah introduce Cass to Mia, and we give Cass some more of her own supporting cast/friendships.
Joker: Last Laugh – Cass probably gets Steph’s appearances, rather than Cass being banned from any theme villains, due to the urgency
Gotham Knights #22 – Cass gets this detective training session with Bruce on account of the theme villain thing in J:LL and it’s good because Cass needs more detective training anyway
Batman: Family – Cass or Dinah or Helena get a bit more to do here.
Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive – Helena probably gets Steph’s bits, or Dinah just does more.
World Without Young Justice: it’s Cass, not Steph here, and Cass is still Batgirl. We see the world doesn’t have a Robin (which is realistically what would happen without a 1989 Tim). This plays into later Kon/Cass.
Cass also goes to Zandia.
Steph’s not in Hush.
Now for the big one. War Games.
I think you can go two ways with no Steph in War Games. 1. War Games doesn’t happen (which doesn’t really make sense, the Bat office used Steph as an expendable to kick things off here, rather than this being an outgrowth of Steph as a character). 2. Someone else initiates War Games. Your two best options are either: Orpheus messes up on his gang infiltration and something like the shootout meeting still occurs; Jason reappears JUST slightly earlier and his initial moves for control of the underground initiate the shootout meeting. Probably deliberately to kill off gang heads, rather than accidentally like it was for Steph. His efforts for this may not be revealed during War Games, he’s just a shadowy figure causing problems.
Helena probably also gets to feature in War Games, a plotline about gangs and mafia in Gotham, a topic she’s only JUST SLIGHTLY related to, rather than sitting it out for unclear reasons.
Black Mask May not torture anyone other than Orpheus, but if they still sacrifice a character here to make it ‘real’ I suspect Holly Robinson goes instead. (This then has knock on effects over in Catwoman but nowhere else)
There is no Robin 4 while Tim is ‘retired’. The school shooting at Louis E. Grieves and the gang warfare in the streets are what convince Jack that Tim isn’t safe either way, Tim returns to being Robin on schedule. Alternatively, Tim returns to being Robin after Identity Crisis, under the intense angst of “even being retired didn’t save my Dad (for some reason Tim would still have been out that evening), Dad told me to be a hero”.
War Games still happens – Tim and Cass may or may not move to Bludhaven afterwards. Tim probably still needs that break from Gotham. Babs probably still leaves town if the Clocktower gets blown up, and thus Cass moving also makes sense. Also they wanted a pretty clean slate for Bruce to angst over Jason.
If not, Tim and Cass stay in Gotham, Cass still ends up on her roadtrip, we come to Infinite Crisis the same way anyway.
Nothing bad happens with Leslie. There is no character assassination. She remains in Gotham. YAY!
Babs never shows Charlie Steph’s autopsy photos. Maybe she uses Jason’s. Maybe she just…doesn’t do this.
Cass doesn’t hallucinate Steph. Maybe she has visions of someone else, or none at all, or someone else like Boston Brand turns up.
Fast forward to 2008. No Steph in Gotham Underground (which she does nothing in anyway, it’s just a tease about a return)
We skip the Steph returns plot as no Steph. (This bit doesn’t make a lot of difference, fewer assassins).
Steph working with Ulysses Armstrong to ‘test’ Tim – either Bruce can arrange this nonsense himself, or you know, Ulysses is an annoying villain anyway. Maybe HE just causes problems on purpose. Maybe the back of Tim’s head never gets burnt. That would be nice.
Batgirl Volume 2: Steph does not feature in this.
Battle for the Cowl: Steph essentially sits this out apart from complaining that Tim told her to retire.
Batgirl Volume 3: three big ways this could have gone. 1. Cass gets an ongoing again, after all that character rehab done in Volume 2, instead of being shipped off to exile/Hong Kong. Cass plays Batgirl to Damian’s Robin, which would create interesting dynamics. 2. The slot is used for the Batwoman ongoing that had been in development hell since 2007, Rucka gets 26 issues rather than 10. 3. We get Babsgirl two years earlier. Oracle: The Cure did what the name promised on the tin, follows through on the old Brainiac tumour plot. (Ugh)
Cass PROBABLY still plays Batgirl to Damian’s Robin in option 2, with only sporadic appearances in titles not written by Morrison. Option 3 obviously has some Dick and Babs conflict over the fact she can now walk, Babs probably still runs a Birds of Prey during this time. Cass likely still gets shipped off.
Nu!52 happens. No Steph.
Rebirth. I’m unfamiliar with most of Steph’s appearances from her reappearance onwards, but the thing everyone always says is that she basically shows up as “Tim’s Girlfriend” or “StephnCass”. Cass doesn’t appear as a double feature. Tim’s obviously dating other people. Scanning the wiki entries doesn’t show me much of anything loadbearing that wouldn’t just be written as Cass by herself. Steph apparently talks an OMAC-Tim down at one point? Maybe his favourite, most trusted brother (Dick) could do that instead.
#Steph’s an interesting character!#it’s just when you’re talking about pivotal plot or storytelling moments surrounding her it’s War Games or War Games#and she was essentially a sacrifice to make War Games happen#not everyone needs to be a main character#also the fact that there was a lot of Bat events that used 2 out of 3 of Helena Cass and Steph#makes substituting Steph easy#pop in the character who was sitting this one out
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