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soapskneebrace · 1 year

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gravity

Pairing: John Price x f!Reader Rating: General audiences Word Count: 3.9k Warnings: none Author's Notes: LIKE CHILEAN MINERS (iykyk). I want to express a tidal wave of thanks to everyone for waiting so, so patiently for this chapter. Life got hard and is remaining so, but the kindness I have received has been so incredibly comforting. Please enjoy the longest chapter of Neighbors I have written to date. Also a HUGE shoutout to Lev @yeyinde as ALWAYS for her advice, the pub is a direct result of her guidance. MASTERLIST Now on Ao3!

It’s a cold and windy morning that, as you hover just a little closer to his warmth, you ask him about decent places to eat nearby.

“Fancy pub food?” he asks in response, and it takes you a moment to process what he’s said. Today he’s in a thick, soft-looking knit sweater, which makes it infinitely difficult not to imagine huddling up against him.

You think he’d let you. You’re not sure how you know this. Maybe it’s the way he positions himself next to you, standing at an angle toward you just slight enough to be casual, but open enough to be purposeful. Maybe it’s the way he looks at you, like he’s trying to warm you up with his eyes alone—he asked you once why you always bundled up to be outside, and you told him you were just sensitive to the cold.

Since then, you’ve often caught him checking on you, surreptitiously. Simple once-overs that you think are searching for evidence of discomfort.

What would he do, you wonder, if he found any? Would he send you inside, as he had the first morning?

Part of you thinks that would be better. It would give you an out, open up a path diverting away from whatever this thing is that hangs in the air between you and John Price, this thing that you pass back and forth between the pages of borrowed books.

It’s a thing that breathes with the both of you into the early morning, and you don’t know how to look at it. You don’t understand its shape. It’s a thing you wish you wanted to walk away from.

“Who doesn’t?” you reply, sipping at the cold dregs in your cup.

“How ‘bout tonight, then?” John says, and you swallow a little too quickly.

“W-what about tonight?”

He smiles at you, as if he’s thrown you off on purpose. “Dinner, on me.”

You blink several times. “You—I—I mean—really?”

He shrugs, easy and casual as you wish you could be. “Could show you what’s best on the menu. And I wouldn’t mind having dinner with someone besides m’self.”

You hesitate, because your gut reaction is to say yes, John, I’d like nothing more, and that is not a reaction you want to satisfy. These past several mornings have been nice—nicer than you could have expected. You’ve stopped interrogating yourself as to why you keep bothering, because each time his smile greets you as you step outside is answer enough. The routine has been easy to settle into, even comforting.

You need to protect that comfort, you know, even from the allure of something more.

John does not press for an answer, seeming content to savor the last few inhales of his cigar. You wonder if he’s guessed at your inner conflict, wonder if the quiet he’s giving you is an intentional moment to sort yourself out.

He never presses for anything, ever.

“I suppose I could meet you after work,” you finally say.

The smile that breaks across his face nearly knocks you off your feet. You’re relieved when he says, “Sounds good to me,” because if he’d said it’s a date you think you might have dissolved on the spot.

John texts you the pub’s address, and it’s close enough to walk to. You arrive that evening, in your usual two coats plus a knitted hat, to find that the place exceeds a set of expectations you didn’t know you had. The patio seating is closed in with a white picket fence and hung with strings of fairy lights, and it flanks a red brick building with a large, friendly lantern hanging over the door.

You might have expected something a little grubbier, if you’d given the place any more thought beyond this is John’s pub and he’s having me for dinner here.

Warm air envelops you as you step inside, and your gaze is drawn as if by a magnet to a table further in—John has already seen you, and beckons you over with a wave.

He’s still in the knit sweater, and his fleece jacket is hanging on the back of the seat across from him. He stands as you approach, rounds the table, and pulls that chair out for you when you join him.

You don’t know why the chivalry makes you falter, makes you want to turn and sprint all the way back home. All you know, as you sit down, is that you can practically feel the aura of his presence behind you as he helps push your chair in, can feel it move as he leaves your side to return to his seat. You feel yourself gravitate into it, leaning a little over the table as if trying to keep it close.

“This place is tidy,” you say earnestly, trying for that morning normalcy, as you begin to shuck your layers.

“It’s alright,” he agrees. He’s smiling gently, the cool blue of his eyes vivid in the contrast of warm lamplight.

“Do you—” and then you can’t help but giggle, because it’s such a cliche question “—do you come here often?”

He grins, huffs that little laugh. “Too often,” he says as he sits back in his chair, putting a hand on his stomach. “It’ll start showing soon, probably.”

You look at the flat of his stomach, the broad paw of his hand. Remember the trim waist of that very first morning. “You know, somehow I doubt that.”

He meets you eyes, laughs again, and it warms you to the bone.

Seeing him like this, at night, is an unknown quantity. The John you know how to interact with exists on his front doorstep, painted in the cool palette of sunrise, cold air, cigar smoke. This tableau, composed upon the table between you, might as well turn him into another man entirely. Who is this John, awash in warm light, nearly twelve hours older than the man you spoke to this morning? Who are you, now, seeing him after work and before the end of the night?

You feel a little untethered. Your feet still itch for the door, for the measured, predictable floorboards of your own home.

Maybe John notices, because he takes a menu from the stack of two at the end of the table and offers it to you with a reassuring lift of his brows. “Hungry?”

That question, at least, has an easy answer. You smile a little. “Starving.”

His advice turns out to be necessary—everything looks good, and you both end up ordering too much food. Over a spread of fresh, hot chips, halloumi kebabs, and katsu chicken served liberally with curry sauce, John also has a bottle of scotch brought to the table.

“No, that’s too much!” you protest as the waitress sets the decanter down with two clean glasses. “John, really.”

He sets to pouring, his expression pleased, though you’re not sure what about. “Humor me, love. I don’t get to share very often.”

He hands you a glass, and lifts his own above the food. You acquiesce, and clink the rims.

“Do I take a shot or a sip?” you ask, bringing the glass up to your mouth.

“A sip,” says John, and his expression is genuinely distressed. “Please, don’t ever suggest shooting scotch again. That hurt to hear.”

You smirk, and take a slow drink. It hits your tongue with the prologue to a burn, rolling across your taste buds as the twinge fades and you close your eyes. The flavor opens like smoke exhaled into still air; you purse your lips a little and swirl it in your mouth; nutmeg, vanilla, and even a little apple expand across your palate. When it hits the back of your tongue, a short floral burst surprises you, and you swallow it down eagerly.

You find John watching you when you open your eyes.

“Where did you learn to drink like that?” he asks, and there is a new tone in his voice that you’ve never heard before.

It’s low. Resonant. Almost—purring. The look in his eyes, too, is different, the pale blue sharper somehow. Focused keenly, and with some unknown, honed intent, on you.

It pins you where you sit. John is looking at you. John is seeing you.

“Doesn’t everyone learn to drink at uni?” you reply, trying for airy and light. It doesn’t work. Your voice trembles, just a bit.

He’s still watching you, and you think he sees that. Recognizes, perhaps, a change in your expression, some telltale sign that he has shaken you. He looks away from you, takes a drink of his own scotch, and when his gaze returns the keen edge of it has softened. You breathe, and realize you hadn’t been.

You seek something comfortable, something you can measure and control. “How is Actium treating you, then?”

He smiles, and it’s a little rueful. “Octavian’s being a cunt.”

As talk of the most recent book he’s borrowed carries you into more comfortable territory, the two of you make your way through dinner, which is every bit as delicious as John had promised. The food is hearty, greasy in a way that isn’t too heavy, and pairs perfectly with John’s scotch, which you indulge in liberally.

When the alcohol has outpaced the food that is meant to offset it, you think back to what he’d said earlier, about not often getting to share.

“So am I the first person you’ve brought here?” you ask. “Or do you take every neighbor out to dinner?”

John lifts one dark brow, leans in with a tilt of his head. “Only the pretty ones.”

You give an unladylike snort and swirl a cut of chicken around in curry sauce. “You’re incorrigible, John, really.”

The smile he gives crinkles the laugh lines around his eyes, and you feel yourself want to melt at the sight. It is unfair how handsome he is, in that warm sweater, in that golden light, haloed softly in the haze of your verging intoxication.

“When will you believe me when I compliment you, hmm?” he asks, low and resonant in the depths of his chest.

You shoot the rest of your scotch in answer, stuff the chicken into your mouth, and proffer the empty glass.

John squints at your heresy, but obediently pours.

“I suppose your line of work isn’t really great for your social life, then,” you comment. “Always coming and going.”

“My calendar’s certainly empty,” John agrees. “Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve sat down with someone like this. I suppose I’m out of practice.”

“You’re eating with a fork and knife and not your hands.” You grin. “I’d say that’s pretty good already.”

He smiles back. “Would that chase you off?”

You sip your scotch. “Not if you keep pouring.”

“And she complained when the bottle came out. What about you, then?”

“What ‘bout me?”

“How many blokes have you been to dinner with, lately?”

You scoff at that and wash your food down with a sip. “None. As if they’re throwin’ ‘emselves at me.”

John’s expression changes, and it’s slow grin that spreads across his face, a smile you have never seen on him before. It isn’t the sad smile he’s given you at times, melancholy and resigned; nor is it the one he gives when he sees you in the morning, warm and soft and friendly.

No, this one is—energized. Invigorated. As if someone has given him good news he hadn’t been expecting.

“They’ve got to be,” he says, and his tone is humorous. “You must have your pick of the lot. And none of them have struck your fancy?”

You press your hands to your too-warm face. “John, don’t tease me.”

“Seems I’ve got to count myself lucky tonight, then,” he continues, leaning his elbows on the table. “If you’re as choosy as all that.”

You give him a droll look, and swirl your drink around in your glass. “If you must know, I got out of a relationship not long ago.”

John’s brows lift, and you want to smack yourself for letting that little detail escape you. “Is that so?”

You drink. “That is so.”

“What kind of idiot would let you get away?”

“My head is already spinning, and you’re abusing that,” you protest.

“Sorry, love,” he says, clearly not sorry. “But now you’ve got me curious.”

You sit back in your chair, staring at your plate to avoid his gaze. “I’m afraid it’s not all that dramatic. It just…didn’t feel right. I guess he liked me more than I liked him. We would go out, and I would think, ‘I want to leave him and go home.’”

And you still felt guilty about it. You hadn’t liked him that much in the first place, when he’d asked you out—you’d just said yes, because it seemed like the right moment in your life for something like that to happen. When you’d ended it, your extended social network had scratched its collective head, because there truly hadn’t been any good reason.

You just weren’t happy.

“Suppose I didn’t give it enough of a chance,” you say, downing the last of your glass.

“Hey,” John says, soft and gentle. You look up to meet his eyes—the expression on his face is a mixture of sympathy and resolution. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sure, John.”

“Love.” His brow creases, insistent. “You deserve something you want.”

You press your lips together tightly, and suddenly you’re struck again with that sensation from earlier, that feeling that John’s presence is a tangible aura, something that rolls and settles across your awareness like a physical touch. You realize you’ve been leaning into it again, drawn toward him like a comet into the snag of a planet’s gravity.

“I’m definitely drunk now,” you say, because the only other words that want to come out are an emphatic I want you.

John smiles. He doesn’t press the issue. “Will I be carrying you home, then?”

“Oh, John, really!” You give a scoff, surprised at the sudden humor. “You couldn’t carry me all that way.”

One dark brow lifts.

“No,” you say. “You’ll have to put me down. I’m not light.”

The smile remains.

You hold his gaze, suspicious, and finish the last of your glass. It does not take long to polish off the last of dinner, and when the two of you agree that the last chips have finally gotten too cold to eat, John pushes his seat back and stands.

“Done, then? I’ll settle the tab. Love, put that away.”

You sheepishly lower your half-lifted wallet back into your purse.

Accounts settled, you make it outside the pub, and then you have to lean against a wall as John watches you, amused. The world is swaying, its pendulum arcing near-horizontal at the amplitude of each swing.

“I just need a minute,” you whisper.

John does the worst thing he could possibly do—he gives you his back and kneels down, arms a little open. “Come on.”

“Come on? Come off it, John, really, you’ll drop me!” you exclaim.

He looks over his shoulder at you. “I won’t.”

You don’t know what convinces you to do it. Tomorrow, you’ll blame the many glasses of expensive scotch, but in the moment you know it’s the way the hanging lights limn his silhouette in gold. You know it’s the soft expression on his face that you are already too fond of. You know it’s the quiet confidence in his reassurance, and above all those things it’s the familiar comfort of his kind blue eyes.

“All right, John,” you say.

As you wrap your arms around his shoulders, John scoops your knees up into the bend of his arms, and you can add now the feeling of his strength to your mental registry of his body. He is broad against you, the width of him obliging your thighs to part farther than they have in a long, long time.

It brings a heat to your face that dwarfs the low simmer of your inebriation. When he lifts you, straightens up and hoists you a little on his back, like you weigh almost nothing, you are unable now to shove back and contain what he has inspired since that first morning.

“This feels nice,” you murmur, tucking your chin on his shoulder. The scotch has the reins of your tongue now. There is no stopping the words that come out. “I wondered if it would. This morning.”

John’s reply is low, humming in his throat as he begins the trek home. “This morning?”

You breathe. “You always look warm and soft. You’re so handsome every morning. Even the first. I wanted to touch you back then. I wanted you to hold me.”

He doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’s trying to focus on the walk back and not dropping you in the middle of it. He hoists you a little, cupping his hands beneath your knees, squeezing.

His silence prompts more of your honesty. “I don’t want to go to dinner with anyone else, John. Even if someone did ask. You’re the only one.”

“You’re drunk, love,” John says. You don’t recognize the tone of his voice, why it sounds…pleading.

Your face is very close to his, your chin pillowed in the fleece lining of his collar. You resolve fully to blame what you do next on the scotch, and touch the tips of your fingers to the coarse umber on his cheek.

His thumbs press into the divots beneath your kneecaps. John says your name, low and breathy. It must be the strain of carrying you that shows in his voice.

You lean in. You press your cheek against the bristles of his beard, inhale, take in the ever-present Maduro that saturates his skin. The friction is a million little pinpricks of sensation, and you think in that moment that if his beard doesn’t leave hot, welted scratches on your face, you might fall asleep crying.

“Oh,” you murmur, not recognizing the languorous, almost wanton sound of your own voice. “Feels good, John.”

“That’s,” he huffs, and audibly swallows. “That’s good. We’re—ah—we’re almost there.”

“Okay,” you say, sighing against him, settling fully into the expanse of his back.

You doze, unburdened now by what you’ve admitted. He does not waver once on the walk, makes no complaint of your weight as street lights pass and the night moves slowly by. He is as steady, when he makes it to your front door, as he was when he first picked you up.

“Where’s your key, love?” he asks.

“Oh,” you murmur blearily, “um. Let me down.”

Even after your feet are back on the ground, his steadying hand does not leave you, ballasting your elbow as you dig around in your purse. It seems like an embarrassingly long time before you find your keychain, and when you try to unlock your door you miss the slot twice.

John’s big hand wraps around yours then, engulfing it with long fingers and broad palm, and guides the key steadily into the lock. The slide of the deadbolt is loud in the quiet night. You have to lean against the door, suddenly devoid of the strength to turn the knob as you look up at John’s concerned face.

“Let me help you in, love,” he says, brow creased. “Please. I’m worried you’ll fall and hit your head.”

Your entire body feels like it’s sinking into a glass of champagne, his words caressing you like rising bubbles, little pearls of air tickling your face as they touch you. You openly stare at him, watch his throat work as he swallows again, rest your eyes along the broad tendon that flexes as he tilts his head.

“Sure,” you whisper, too out of breath to speak aloud. “If that’s what you want.”

So John turns the knob, loops your arm around his shoulders, and walks you inside.

It is very hard to focus now, as John sits you down on your couch. There isn’t much you can hold in your mind besides the moment his hands leave you, and you inexplicably want to cry at their loss. You don’t see where he goes, vision going dark and blurry around the edges—you think he might have left until he comes back with one of your glasses, filled with clear, cool water.

He kneels in front of you and proffers it, doesn’t let go of the glass until both your hands are wrapped around it. He watches you as you take a sip.

“Drink all of that, alright?” he says. “You had a lot.”

You hold the glass back out to him. “You did too.”

His brows lift, lips parting. Have you surprised him? He pulls the glass closer with a little tug, puts his lips to the rim and tilts it from the bottom as you hold it. His eyes do not leave yours as he drinks, as he takes only a little, and then he pulls away and gently pushes the glass back toward you. Your gaze falls from his eyes, down to the little droplets of water clinging to his mustache, down again to the steady line of his mouth.

You bring the glass back up and take a deep gulp.

“Good girl,” he says, low and rumbling, and heat floods your body.

You realize then that his other hand is on your knee, the weight of his palm heavy and broad, his thumb rubbing a comforting circle into the edge of the cap. You are washed in the blend of his warm comfort and the sudden, almost violent sear of your own desire.

When the glass is empty, he eases it from your hands and sets it aside on your coffee table. When he turns back to you, your hand comes up, unbidden, to curve itself along the angle of his jaw. Umber bristles are coarse beneath the sweep of your thumb.

“Not soft, is it?” John murmurs, and there is something stormy and intense in his gaze.

You take a deep breath. “Maybe I’m okay with that.”

His hand grips your knee suddenly, vicelike, and you know this is pushing too far. He does not lean in to you, makes no move toward you, but his entire body is a bank of energy that he is holding, holding, holding back. His chest rises and falls rapidly. His eyes pin you to the couch as he works the muscles in his jaw.

“You’re drunk, love,” he says. It is not the pleading assertion he’d given earlier. It is a conclusion—fond, but resigned.

The room has begun to gently spin, with John at its axis. “I’m drunk,” you agree, whispering and fragile.

It breaks whatever has been building since you’d left the pub. John draws back. Nods. Gives you a smile—that smile. The one that had taken hold of you the first time you saw it. Trying, with every scrap of willpower it had, to be happy, to be alright with what little it had. Failing to do so.

Unable to hide how much it wanted.

“You got a spare key?” he asks. “I can lock you in.”

“Key hook,” you say.

His hand drags down from your knee to stroke along your shin, and then he’s rocking back on his heels, standing to his full height. He looks at you for a moment longer.

“Get some sleep,” he says.

When you blink, he’s gone, and the deadbolt is sliding home.

Bonus A/N: Some housekeeping. First, if you see your username on this list and it's struck through, it means you did not come up when I tried to @ you. I will try one more time, but if it doesn't work I'm taking your name off the list. Get right with the tumblr gods if you can. Second, a few people have told me that they did not get the tag notification on the last update, so let me know if that's the case for you and I will see about trying a different format. And third, I've been editing the format for neighbors across all chapters, so sorry in advance if you get notified twice. Tumblr knows even less about coding a website than I do.

Taglist: @yeyinde @guyfieriiii @aduckingpain @jaimiespn @aconstructofamind @trashy-panda777 @lich1 @smoggyfogbottom @cielobgers @antigonusyuki @bubble-dream-inc @monsterhighsblog @so-scarlet–it-was-maroon @itsthetiredstudent @misshoneypaper @wasteland-babe @jxvipike @deadbranch @mildlyhopelesss @yes-music-is-my-religion @shuttlelauncher81 @xback1021 @zero-ice @hailstrum18 @ramadiiiisme @glassgulls @simonea27 @kitty-satan1 @tianotfound @solarslushee @mmmothballz @wiserebelpartypie @randomchick546 @stripeycatt @shurikan17 @staymetalmacie @capt-soaps-bbg @cold-blooded-girls @rdeville

The taglist is closed. Thank you everyone for your interest.

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petrichorthefox · 2 days

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Seat above the rest, offered generously by the Merchant of the Stars

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dontlookforme00 · 2 months

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What if I told you I have never had an original idea ever

FLASH WARNING FOR SPEEDPAINT UNDER CUT SORRY

Speedpaint time !! Never uploaded a speedpaint. Ignore the canvas flipping, this is so so much less than I usually do.

Side note. Yes I changed Heart to be a jester, I'm very sorry, but his fucking lipstick was impossible to get right. Consider it a reference to my Jester!Heart drawing that one time.

I also added (or tried to) little straps on Soul's mask as a nod to a Soul design posted by the original artist of the cccc cover art. Reblogs appreciated

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girlfictions · 6 months

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something i've unfortunately had to come to terms with and urge you all to keep in mind is that there is often no good faith conversation to be had with a zionist — these people are well aware that thousands of palestinians have been murdered in the past month, that the 1948 nakba was one of the most horrific displacements of a human population in history, that israel is currently carrying out ethnic cleansing with full endorsement from the united states — they simply don't care.

attempting to appeal to their sense of morality will not work when these people don't see palestinians as human beings; they have no moral conscience to speak of.

#palestine #usually i'm the loudest proponent of debate as you all well know but in cases like this theres just no amount of proof/evidence that will #change their minds i fear.. the israel propaganda is so laughable and yet some people are just . very very stupid #the only time i engage with zionist rhetoric is on tumblr where at least i can use my platform to show other people how to combat propagand #bc if theres one thing a zionist will be it is loud and wrong #hence why theyre still clinging desperately onto '40 beheaded babies' and other equally made up stories #so yes definitely do call out/dispute zionists where you can #but just remember which battles are worth it #i say this after engaging with one of the most braindead people i've ever seen on this website but c'est la vie !

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squiddlysq · 27 days

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Love is Love is Love & so on & so forth

#electric dreams #edgar electric dreams #miles electric dreams #madeline electric dreams #electric dreams 1984 #guys why isnt tumblr autofilling the madeline tag. we need to love women #Genuinely haunted by gay demons while tryna watch Electric Dreams. Had to exorcise this image from my head #Edgar bisexual king with a hottie on either thigh. He simply cannot lose #Srry I've got a illness called homosexual #Only cure is drawing hot poly makeouts #squiddlyart #I haven't done lineless in a while but this blasts absolute penis I'm rlly into how it turned out

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leefyberrybread · 7 months

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Sad Hot Dog looking at you withf big ole eyes

(Please click on the image for better quality )

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m1d-45 · 1 year

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duality of man

summary: foul legacy only bends to childe’s will, he isn’t fully controlled by him.

a/n: foul legacy speaks in bold, childe speaks italicized. internal/mental speech is quoted ‘like this’ rather than simply italicized for the sake of childe, as tumblr does not have underline capabilities :/

word count: ~2.1k

-> warnings: spoilers for childe lore / liyue archon quest, childe is his own warning (and is frequently bloodthirsty and strange), violence and gore, it/it’s pronouns for foul legacy because it’s childe’s pov and also i said so, imposter sagau things. technically isn’t 100% canon compliant according to wikipedia.

-> lowercase intended!

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky

childe stalked through the forest, the foliage tinted by foul legacy’s vision. this form wasn’t the best for stealth, but it would help him find you faster.

he could hear your heavy breathing from the corner you backed yourself into, and grinned.

“surrender is a valid option,” he purred, voice warped and distorted through the heavy mask. your breath hitched, and his smile only grew. he had you. all he had to do was reach, reach with the clawed hands of his abyssal form and drag you out of wherever you’d hidden and he’d earn his place at his gods side. to be the one to find and kill you was an honor, one he was not keen on giving up.

he could imagine it now. dragging you along with his claws sunk deep into your neck, whatever blood left in your body staining his hands. your corpse would fall, lifeless, at his god’s feet, and he’d be the one to reap the rewards of their love.

you would not escape. he would not leave empty-handed.

he couldn’t.

childe tried to reach for the bush you were hiding behind, but his arm wouldn’t move.

no, not his arm, he realized. it was disobeying.

‘what are you doing?’ he hissed into his mind, pushing with all his might. still, the arm of foul legacy wouldn’t move. it was strange; it had never disobeyed before, and aside from the initial period to get used to piloting a body, he’s never had any issues.

‘i cannot allow you to kill them.’

‘what? why? if you want to have a hand in it, i’ll let you have a while to-‘

‘no. they are not to die.’

his arms moved of their own will, moving aside the branches much slower than he would have.

‘i refuse to allow the death of the one who made me.’

what?

the leaves eventually reveal you, tucked in as small a space as you can manage, holding a broken-off spearhead. your clothes are tattered, leaves caught within the creases. your hand is shaking so badly childe doubts you could hurt anybody but yourself with it.

your mouth opens like you want to say something, but nothing comes out. a thrill runs down childe’s spine at the fact that they’ve scared you from words, but it’s quickly overrun by the concern coming from foul legacy.

wait… concern?

“your grace… how ruined you have become.”

your eyes flick between the pearl of its eye and the hand, likely trying to decide which is a better target, and childe wants to laugh. he wants to urge you to strike, to watch as you fruitlessly spend your energy bashing that spearhead into foul legacy’s armor, blunting the steel against it.

the devouring deep doesn’t let him speak.

“please… i’m sorry.”

normally, hearing somebody beg for their life would make childe’s day, week if they do it prettily enough, but this… some part of his heart, as beaten and rotted it is, hurts.

whatever sadness he feels quickly burns into rage. what right did foul legacy have over his emotions? making him pity this imposter, as if you weren’t fit to die the moment your treacherous tongue claimed you were somebody you weren’t.

“i know, i know.” legacy’s claw extends and you flinch, feet kicking up dirt as you press yourself further against whatever rock you’re against.

“stay away from me!”

foul legacy hums a low note, and childe wants to scream as his hand falls to the dirt. what power did you have over it? why didn’t it just take whatever it was it wanted from you?

‘why are you hesitating?’

‘you wouldn’t understand.’

the first sensible thing it’s said. he didn’t understand.

“it is alright. i am not the one you fear.“

“yes you are! i… i know you, childe.”

childe allowed himself a smile. no matter how much foul legacy pushed aside his commands, it would always have to deal with his reputation. the fact that he disrupted its plans just as it did his brought him a little joy from the situation.

“i am not him, leading light. please… do not be afraid.”

‘leading light’?

childe had heard many names and titles for the divine creator in his time, and knew that that one in particular was favored by abyssal creatures. he’d heard it shouted and screamed, people slaughtered in the name of the light that they claim leads them from the abyss. he even adopted it himself, at one point, for the first few years after he was freed from it himself. he’d killed with the title on his tongue, and ripped out others’ that dared to dirty it.

all of this to say that foul legacy was claiming you were the divine creator.

you. you.

you, who dared to walk with a face that wasn’t yours, to gaze with eyes that didn’t belong to you. you.

he could admit that he didn’t sense the aura of the creator—with a bitter, sour tongue, but admitted nonetheless—due to his time spent in the abyss. his soul was too rotten to resonate with theirs, only able to find solidarity in their violent retribution cast down on those that dared cross them. he acknowledged that he was beyond saving, that even the highest of the high could barely begin to fill the gaping maw of the abyss inside of him. he’d… not accepted, but come to terms with it.

but even he did not dare to call another by their name.

“you’re… you’re what?”

“i can hear him.” foul legacy’s hand extended once more, slower, gentler, with much more care than any other action childe had seen from it. “he is in my mind, but we are not the same. i can promise, while i am here, no harm will come to you.”

you didn’t trust it. good, as childe was starting to distrust foul legacy as well.

“you… you’re saying you’re…?” the spearhead in your hand lowered, some of the fear—regrettably—fading from your eyes. recognition flooded instead, and childe was confused as to how you found comfort in a creature of the abyss. he knew he had a reputation, one stained with violence and blood, and surely that would extend to it as well, right? foul legacy… it couldn’t be more trustworthy than him.

“i am his foul legacy. i am the devouring deep.”

its clawed hand finally reached yours, and you let it close around your wrist even as hesitation shone in your eyes. your lips parted, but whatever you had to say died before it spoke again. “please… can you find it in your heart to trust once more? if only for me, if only for a moment?”

childe tried once more to take over the form, and was again met with the stone of foul legacy’s will. he huffed; it shouldn’t be getting this close to you, and he shouldn’t have to watch as it did. it shouldn’t have even disobeyed in the first place.

“why don’t you hate me?”

foul legacy sighed, the sound warped and roughened by its mask. “this world- no, these people are fools. do not hold the mistakes of the many in your heart. they do not understand the weight of their actions. they are being pushed, puppetted by another.”

‘what are you talking about?’

‘hold your tongue.’

childe was in shock. first it went against him by taking over his actions, then it claimed you were the sacred creator, then told him to shut up?

you were sitting up, carefully daring to come closer, and childe beat at the boundaries of his will with all his strength. he couldn’t let this go on any longer. he could take being disobeyed, he could take his anger out on some innocents with its hand once it was tired enough to give him control, but for it to disrespect his god?

he could not- he would not let that go so easily.

childe pushed at his arm with all his might as foul legacy sat itself on the floor, tugging you closer. he sent the command to move at least a thousand times, begging his own hand to squeeze, to snap the bones in your wrist, to show any sign that he still had control in this body.

the most he got was a twitch of the ring finger.

he refused to allow foul legacy to take him over like this. he could not let it shatter his reputation and attack his beliefs like this. it could not say that you were his god, it could not say that it was in control, it could not say that childe was wrong. it should not hold you will claws that should kill, and you should not gaze so deeply into the pearl of a monster’s eye.

it was almost as if you could see him within it, your searching eyes piercing right into his. he hoped you could, that you could see how much he hated the situation he found himself in. how much he hated you, you for warping his foul legacy’s mind, you for making it think you were it’s god.

“how long do i have?”

“hm?”

“before he comes back.”

childe tried again to assert his presence. he failed.

you shifted closer to foul legacy, sitting against its side. part of childe wanted to laugh at you, at the fact that you dared to lean on a creature of the abyss. part of him wanted to sneer and call you pathetic for it.

the same part that knew it was fruitless even as he tried to follow through on it.

foul legacy put its arm around you, pulling you into its side. the glass of its eye bumped against the top of your head, words of reassurance buzzing in its head.

childe huffed to himself, feeling his anger start to bubble again. there was no reason for this behavior. there was no reason for foul legacy to try and influence him by bleeding their thoughts together, nor for it to subject him to this. even it should recognize the creator, even if by context clues from the people around it.

and if this was all a trick, childe could accept it. if foul legacy had whispered into his mind, told him that yes, it knew, it believed, then he could tolerate the attacks against his god. he could bite back his words and let legacy do what he did best: follow orders.

if this was a ploy, childe would be fine. but foul legacy’s claws never dug into your side, and the whispers it spoke were not of retribution, but of reverence. how he wished it would just obey, even if not his orders but theirs.

follow the orders of the true god, who was in their palace, waiting for their trusted followers to capture and kill you. sitting, waiting for your corpse to be tossed at their feet, waiting for their loyal followers to carry out their word. the true creator, their god, not you. not you, not any other fake that dared to imitate them, and not those that behaved as foul legacy did here, following the impersonators and claiming they were real.

foul legacy hissed in his mind. ‘still your traitorous tongue.’

‘i won’t! if you took a moment to even think-’

‘and if you paused to allow yourself to do the same, you would agree.’

he did think, he had plenty of time to think when foul legacy was- was almost cuddling you, the warp of its voice doing nothing to mask the affection within it. he can’t move, he cant take control, and it has the gall to say he should think? all he’s able to do is think! he could sit here for an eternity, listening to the quiet rumble of legacy’s voice, mulling over every action he has or could taken, and he still wouldn’t be convinced. he wouldn’t agree. all he would be is sore, tired, and angry.

and of all the ways he could spend his time… he could fight for eternity, he could hit at the boundary between their brains with mental fists that never tired, he could give himself a headache with how hard he tried to dig his hand into your side. he could plan out his revenge against foul legacy, he could start to draft the prayer of repentance he’d surely have to raise to his god, he could do so much and yet precious little.

and that beast wanted him to think?

inside a body that wasn’t his, childe screamed.

#sagau #genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #self aware genshin #childe #sagau childe #tartagila #sagau tartaglia #foul legacy #sagau foul legacy #genshin #sagau impostor au #foul legacy x reader #sure why not #‘This power has no relation to his Delusion’ shut the FUCK up wikipedia #it’s MY fanfiction and I get to choose the canon.#foul legacy is somebody he learned to harness through his delusion #i don’t give a shit if it’s a ‘talent’ or ‘skill’ and that legacy ‘isn’t a sentient being at all’ it’s called storytelling #words cannot describe how much i hated editing this shit #let ALONE porting it to tumblr. actual hell.#editing to montero by mr nas x. this is the lgbt experience /hj #fuck it i’ll post this 12 hours before i’m meant to. if god has a problem with it he can kill me himself.#i should not have done that. Regret[TM]#post once every 4 days or twice within 6 hours. this is my curse; this is my burden; this is the eternity i am doomed to face

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mirbaw · 6 months

Text

i HAD to let this one rest, i literally started it a couple days ago in the middle of the night and swora that i was going to make a cool ass illustration, im bored

not any real setting just wants to draw a pose in perspective and ended up as giant kalim catboy waking a passed out jamil up

#🌺my art #twisted wonderland #twst #twst fanart #jamil viper #kalim al asim #twisted wonderland fanart #artists on tumblr #disney twisted wonderland #illustration #digital art #digital illustration #they call me the stuggler why did i drew this

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python333 · 6 months

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HAI! i rlly like your platonic 141 fics and I'm wondering if we could get some more dad price and/or brother gaz sleepy cuddles? :3

stretched too thin — python333

— — — —

synopsis gaz notices you overworking yourself one night and decides to step in before you end up pulling an all-nighter.

relationships platonic!gaz & gn!reader.

characters gaz.

word count 2.05k

warnings 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of pet names [love, darling], usage of c/n [code name/call sign].

note oh my god im so sorry i disappeared for like. a month. ill try my best to not be gone for more than a week at a time, but with all of my schoolwork and just over all stress ive been experiencing lately, i dont know if ill be able to get fics out every week :< ill try my best though! please accept this fic as an apology—its another big bro gaz one!! special shoutout to everyone else who has an older sibling thats very distant with them, you and me are in the same boat fr!! also, last thing—im thinking about making a discord server where i announce when fics are being written and published and stuff, but i dunno if yall would join or anything, so if u would pls lmk!!

You haven’t left your office in five hours.

Recently—just about two days ago—you finished up an assignment fairly quickly and, as a result, had to write a detailed report of said assignment. It went over the mission you’d gone on, and listed off every major detail you could think of, though because you just can’t give yourself a break you were constantly thinking of other details you might’ve missed even though there was little chance you’d missed anything.

The mission wasn’t anything too important, honestly. It was originally going to be a week-long camp-out reconnaissance by an enemy task force’s base, obtaining information on their schedule and what they did throughout the day and whatnot. However, only a day into the mission, the small squad of soldiers that had accompanied you saw another small military group observing the same group you’d been observing.

So, naturally, you observed them as well. Aren’t you just the best multi-tasker?

The task force eventually found out about the other group, just a day later, while your squad was still in the clear to continue your observations. So, your mission had quickly come to a close—but, because of the circumstances under which the mission had come to a close, you were required to write an extremely detailed report on the other group and the group you’d been observing.

It would be an understatement to say you were tired. You’re exhausted.

Between the non-stop writing, the coffee sitting on your desk that’s been microwaved five times and has been refilled thrice, and the uncomfortable chair you’ve sat in that you have yet to replace, you’re extremely exhausted. Your movements are sluggish, your fingers aren’t as swift on the keyboard of your computer as they usually are, and worst of all—you still have more to write.

Your eyes stung and felt dry, your hands felt like they were going to stop working completely at any moment, and you were overall just exhausted.

You look over at the clock on your desk, and it reads 02:28 AM, indicating that you would only have about four hours to sleep if you went to bed now. I’m too far into this report to stop now, You tell yourself, sighing as you blink slowly at your computer screen, If only my vision didn’t keep getting blurry…

Suddenly, you hear a knock at the door. Your eyebrows furrow together in confusion, and for a second you think you’re hallucinating until the knock sounds once more.

Reluctantly, with a voice raspy from not using it almost all day, you call out, “Come in!”

Your voice is softer and quieter than you’d like it to be, but it doesn’t matter too much to you at this moment—at least, not in your foggy mind that still begs you for sleep, even when you have far more of your report to finish.

The door opens with a creak, and in walks Gaz.

“Sarg,” He greets you, not bothering to close the door behind him as he walks up to your desk, “Pleasure to see you for the first time in, what… three days?”

“Two days and eighteen hours,” You correct him, taking a moment to crack your stiff knuckles, not taking your eyes off of your monitor, “And you know you don’t have to call me ‘sarg’ or ‘sergeant’ or anything. We’re the same rank.”

Gaz promptly ignores you, “Right, well, anything over a day is way too long for me to go without seeing you. Why’re you all cooped up in here on your computer?”

“‘Cause I need to write a report on my assignment,” You briefly explain, before lightly goading Gaz, “Not all of us need a shit ton of attention every day like you do.”

“Ehh,” Gaz theatrically makes a thinking face, before shrugging, “Not sure what you mean by ‘us’, but alright.”

“By ‘us’, I mean everyone but you.”

“Surely that doesn’t include you, right?”

“It does.”

Gaz gasps quietly at your reply, before dramatically responding, “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“I absolutely can,” You hum, finally taking your eyes off of your computer screen to look up at Gaz, “Is it so hard for you to believe that I don’t need to talk to you every waking hour?”

“It is, actually,” Gaz scoffs, “Because I know that you do need to talk to me every waking hour.”

“Uh, no I don’t,” You childishly argue, raising an eyebrow at Gaz.

“Uh, yes you do,” Gaz immaturely argues back, crossing his arms, “Look me in the eyes and tell me that the past two days and eighteen hours haven’t been shit because I haven’t given you any attention.”

You open your mouth to form a response but quickly close it, realizing that yeah, actually, I kind of do crave his attention.

Fuck.

“You’re not the only person that gives me attention,” You point out, hoping to find some way to change the subject.

“Sure, but you like the attention I give you the most,” Gaz hums, leaning forward to rest his crossed arms on your desk opposite of where you sit.

“You don’t know that.”

“Then tell me that I’m wrong,” Gaz challenges you.

You narrow your eyes at him, glaring at him for a moment before sighing, “You suck.”

“Maybe I suck, but you look like you haven’t slept for the past week,” Gaz points out, “You look exhausted, by the way. And dehydrated. Actually, you just look like the human embodiment of a headache.”

“What the fuck?”

“I mean that in the most loving, non-offensive way possible.”

“You come into my office, accuse me of needing attention from you, then you insult me by calling me the human version of a headache?”

“It wasn’t an insult!” Gaz raises his hands in surrender, before sighing, “I’m being serious. You look dead, [c/n]. You need sleep.”

“What I need is to finish this report,” You huff out, beginning to turn your attention back to your computer, before Gaz’s hand is quickly placed on your chin and forces you to look back at him.

“No, what you need is some rest,” Gaz argues, more serious this time, taking his hand off of your chin—something you shouldn’t miss nearly as much as you do, the warmth of his hand fading far too quickly from your face—and bringing it back to rest on the desk.

“Maybe you need rest, Gaz.”

“Sure I do,” He shrugs, “But I’m only going to sleep if you do.”

You raise an eyebrow at him, “Really? You’re pulling that card?”

“I am.”

You stare at him for a moment, mentally weighing your options, before sighing and bringing your elbows up to the table so that you can place your forehead in your hands.

On one hand, if you stay in your office you can finish up your report before four and then go to sleep, and hope that you magically feel active even with just an hour or two of sleep in the morning. On the other hand, if you go to sleep now, so does Gaz, and then you both get more than just two hours of sleep.

After another moment of consideration, you huff out a frustrated breath and mutter, “Fine.”

Gaz smiles down at you and walks around your desk to your side of it, holding out a hand for you to grab to help yourself up from your chair and using his free hand to save your report and power off your monitor.

You take his hand and stand up, your legs a little weak and balance iffy from sitting down for so long, but within the next few minutes you’re sure you’ll be able to properly walk. You let go of his hand once you’re positive you won’t fall over, and once he sees that you’re able to walk, Gaz silently walks towards the door of your office. Just as quietly, you follow him.

He turns off the lights for you and lets you walk out of the office first, locking the door from the inside and closing it once you’re out. Once he’s done, he takes the lead again and you follow him down to his sleeping quarters. It’s not too long of a walk there, only two minutes at most.

Once you’re there, Gaz opens the door and lets you walk in first. Once you’re inside and Gaz has closed the door, you shrug off your camouflage patterned jacket and toe off your already loosened tan boots, leaving you in just your camouflage cargo pants and army green undershirt.

You look down at your pants with a frown, knowing from experience that sleeping in them was incredibly uncomfortable and left you regretting your whole existence the morning after, but before you could even look over at Gaz to tell him of your situation, you felt something being thrown at you.

You immediately turn your attention to the item that had been hurled at you—the item in question being a pair of gray sweatpants, some that would probably be a little bit looser than you’d prefer on your figure—and then look over at Gaz with a questioning look.

“Figured you wouldn’t wanna sleep in that,” Gaz shrugs, nodding to your cargo pants in response to your nonverbal confusion.

You hum in appreciation, not wanting to talk too much at the moment, instead waiting for Gaz to look away before slipping off your pants and replacing them with the sweatpants Gaz had thrown at you. The fit isn’t as uncomfortable as you thought they’d be—they’re loose and hang low on your hips, just like you thought they would, of course, but they don’t feel nearly as weird as you thought they would.

Once you’ve tightened the strings on the waist of the pants, you get into Gaz’s bed, pulling the covers up and over yourself. Gaz quickly settles into the bed next to you, quickly getting himself comfortable under the sheets, and pulling the covers up and over his shoulders in one swift movement.

He gets closer to you, so close that his chest presses against your back and you can feel the tip of his nose ghosting over the top of your head. He wraps one arm over your body to pull you impossibly closer to him, and his other arm snakes underneath the side of your body so that both of his arms are wrapped around you.

He hums contently and his thumb rubs small circles into your clothed stomach, the action—despite being small—causing your stomach to warm up almost immediately.

“Comfortable, darling?” Gaz asks quietly, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head.

“Very,” You mumble back, trying to subtly lean your head back against Gaz in hopes of getting at least one more kiss. Noticing your efforts, he huffs out a small laugh and presses another gentle kiss right at the edge of your hairline before pressing one last one to your forehead.

Even with the comforting atmosphere, you can’t find it within yourself to fully relax, your body still tense and stiff underneath the blanket. Gaz, just like he did with your “subtle” movements, notices and frowns.

“Just sleep,” Gaz tiredly mumbles into the top of your head, “You have to get up in three hours. The sooner you sleep, the more sleep you get.”

You don’t respond, instead simply sighing and forcing your eyes closed. You do have to admit, it’s nice being able to actually close your eyes for something other than blinking, and closing your eyes for longer than half a second has made you realize that they were even drier than you thought they were.

Exhausted and ready to finally sleep, you eventually get to a point where you no longer need to force your eyes shut, and as a result, your whole body relaxes for the first time in almost six hours.

“G’night, love,” Gaz murmurs, feeling your body relax next to his. You hum in acknowledgment of his words, not finding the energy within yourself to properly respond, instead finding yourself drifting off into a deep sleep.

And if four hours later, Gaz wakes up and simply lies there, not waking you and instead letting you get some more sleep despite you having to be up soon, nobody has to know.

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starry-bi-sky · 8 months

Text

Childhood Friends Au: Danny's in Gotham Again

when the wool is off your eyes you'll stop counting sheep at night cause you'll eat your fill of them during the daytime

A few weeks after Danny’s visit to Gotham, he buys an apartment in the city. It’s this little thing, a studio apartment on the same street he grew up in. In Crime Alley. When he tells his parents, they protest heavily. They don’t think it's safe. They think he should reconsider. There were plenty of apartments and places to live somewhere else. And what about college?

Danny doesn’t think he’ll go to college. He isn’t sure what he wants to do, now that being an astronaut is off the table. It’d be a waste of money to go without a goal in mind, he thinks. He says he’ll take a gap year and apply at one of the community colleges funded by the Wayne Corporation, possibly. It just wasn’t in the cards right now.

“If things get tough,” He says at dinner that night, “then I can talk to the Waynes. I’m friends with the family, remember?” He ended up getting Bruce’s number in his phone again before he left, and in the process got Tim’s as well. They don’t talk much, Danny isn’t sure what to say. But he sends Tim memes whenever he comes across one and thinks he’ll like. Tim sends memes back in return.

His parents do remember. They remember. They also remember the horrified shriek that echoed through the house when Danny learned of Jason’s passing. They remember running up the stairs and bursting into their son’s room and finding him sobbing into his bed, curled up like a little kid, like he was in pain. He lost his voice that day, stuck between screaming out his grief and sobbing it.

They’re still not sure if they should let him go.

In the end, Danny wins them out, and he lets them help him search for an apartment. They take a break from their lab work to help search for cheap furniture to buy. They may have more money than when they were in Gotham, but that frugal part of you never fully goes away. They all agree that they don’t want Danny to be seen carrying in nice-looking furniture when he moves in.

He ends up with a basic furniture set, all mismatched, and in the warm summer of June, his parents rent out a u-haul and drive him down to Gotham to move in. They meet the landlord when they arrive, a skinny and frail old man with wispy white hair and a wrinkled face. He gives Danny the keys and tells him what apartment number he is, and then he leaves.

His parents help him move in. They help him carry his heavy furniture up to the second floor, where his apartment is. Danny isn’t sure if he wants them to help. His mom and dad are strong, but they are getting old, closer to their fifties now that their children are grown. His dad’s hair is slowly beginning to thin, and rather than the white eating at the sides of his head, it now streaks through his hair like salt-and-pepper. His mom’s hair is graying out too, and there are more lines in their faces than he remembers there being.

When he voices his concerns, his mom laughs spiritedly and says that they may be getting old, but they are still as spry as when they were in their twenties. Danny isn’t sure if he believes them or not. He can see his dad struggle a bit when they return to get his bed frame, and they have to take a break before they go back down for the rest of their things.

Five years ago, his dad could do this without breaking a sweat. It forces a heavy thing in the back of Danny’s throat. (He is less afraid of his own death than he is of his loved ones, and while he has always felt rocky with his parents, he still loves them more than anything else.)

Danny’s apartment is exactly as he would have expected it to be: shabby and worn through. The entire room smells like stale cigarette smoke and weed, nicotine stains the wall with poorly covered bullet holes, and stains in the carpet that are a color he can’t discern. The fridge has a broken light and when he tries to turn on the gas stove, it click-click-clicks before lighting, fire fwooshing out while the smell of gas fills the air. There’s rat droppings in the cupboards and the closet-like bathroom is just as bad.

The ghostly part of him can sense the heavy stench of death in the room; people have died in this room. People have died in every room of this building, he thinks. They have died on the streets outside and in the alleys squeezed between them. He can feel it like a heavy fog in the air.

It is painfully nostalgic, a bittersweet feeling in his chest that he grimaces to.

When the last box is placed in his apartment, his parents offer to help unpack. They are hesitant to leave and Danny knows it, although he doesn’t know if it’s from empty nest syndrome or because it's Gotham. He thinks it might be both. He is their youngest child finally leaving home to a city known for its danger.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay behind, sweetie?” His mother asks, a frown she tries to hide settled in the creases of her face. She fiddles with her hands, a nervous habit Danny has since noticed when she feels truly unsure and doesn’t need to hide it. Hesitancy looms over her like a heavy cloud.

His dad jumps in hastily, splaying his hands and smiling painfully wide to hide the glistening in his eyes. “You’re mother’s right! We can help you get everything set up, champ. I could probably do something with that stove of yours to make it faster!” He says, his voice still booming like it always does even if there’s a stumble in his words.

It makes his heart squeeze, knowing just how much they care. It was hard last summer, telling him that he was the Phantom. Terrifying, actually. They couldn’t comprehend it. He hadn’t felt his heart beat that fast in years when he stood in front of them at the kitchen table and told them he was a halfa, begging them to believe that ghosts weren’t inherently evil.

His parents were people of science, however, and after much, much shock, they slowly came to terms with it. How could they not? The evidence was right in front of them. Their son was dead-alive, alive-dead. Somewhere stuck in the between. The tears they shed that night could fill a river, moving from the kitchen to the living room as Danny explains how he died.

(When Danny tells them that he died after a week Jason did, his mom and dad look horrified. His mom covers her mouth when he adds that it was his idea to go inside it, his dad looks ashy pale, gripping his pant legs so tight that his knuckles turn white. There is a conclusion coming to their minds that he can tell they don’t like.)

(“You’ve always hated our inventions, Danny.” Mom says in a hushed voice, and Danny winces at the wording, sinking into the back of the cushions in shame. He never thought that his parents noticed. Mom quickly grabs his arm, “No, no, there’s nothing to be ashamed of Danny. We were… perhaps too careless with our inventions, too enthusiastic. You had every right to hate the things we made when they had a tendency to… to malfunction.”)

(Malfunction is a delicate way of putting it, when Danny remembers every time they had to evacuate their old apartment complex because whatever half-baked creation his parents made inevitably blew up into ash and smoke. There were soot marks permanently stained into the ceiling.)

(Her hand slides down and grabs his, and she cups it in both of her hands, squeezing tightly. He forces himself to look up, and there is a look like her heart breaking when he looks into his mother’s eyes. “You’ve always avoided the lab after we moved, Danny. And you had every right to, so why on Earth did you ever think about going into the portal?”)

(Danny struggles to come up with an adequate answer, a way to verbalize what came over him that day five years ago. The answer is there, hanging in the air like a knot in a noose. He opens his mouth, and then closes it.)

(Finally, with a tongue made of lead, he shrugs lamely and looks away. “I didn’t know there was an on button inside it.” He mumbles, and despite being the truth it feels like a lie. But that is the truth. He didn’t know there was an on button inside it. So he didn’t care what happened.)

(Something dulls in mom’s eyes, like she thought of something else that Danny hadn’t said. Her eyes shimmer, and she squeezes them shut, breathing in so deep that it shakes. And then she pulls him into a hug, a hand burying into his hair and pressing him close. “It must have hurt so much, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”)

(It is something that Danny doesn’t expect her to say, like missing the last step of the stairs. It startles him so much he laughs this short, bark of a thing. He feels his dad press against his back and wrap his big arms around them, his nose pushed into his hair.)

(Because yeah. Yeah, it did hurt. It hurt more than anything else he’s ever felt before. It had torn him apart and sewn him back together again, only to rinse and repeat. The pain was nothing he ever spoke to Sam or Tucker about, and it was something they never brought up. No, that’s not true. If they ever brought it up, Tucker would call it a zap. As if Danny only experienced a mild static shock. Like it was painless. It’s a pretty lie that Danny lets him and Sam believe.)

(His eyes sting and water immediately wobbles into his vision, coming up with such a force that he doesn’t even need to blink before it spills over. “Yeah.” He forces out, voice unexpectedly rough and cracking. “Yeah, it- it hurt. A lot.”)

He tells them about fighting the Lunch Lady a month later. He tells them about finding Jason. It comes spilling out like a waterfall. “I found him, mom.” He says, holding onto her tight while she keeps him tucked under his chin like a little kid. The secret of Jason being Robin stays hidden under his tongue, it is not his secret to tell. Not his identity to expose. He grips her tighter. “I found him, mom. Right there in the Ghost Zone, and he was my Jason. He wasn’t an echo or a— an imprint of him.”

Mom is silent; quiet and attentive, and so is dad, who rubs his large hands up and down Danny’s spine in an attempt to soothe him. It only works a little. Danny breathes in like a gasp as the urge to cry overcomes him again. He always avoids talking about Jason, his grief is like a never-healing scab that can be picked off at any time. It is ingrained into his core.

“And then I lost him.” He forces out, a sob layering under his words that he chokes on and swallows. The hand on his back stills, and he can feel mom and dad breathe in like a question. He turns his head and pushes it into mom’s shoulder. “He disappeared, mom. Just— just gone.”

“And he didn’t move on.” He says, voice snarling like teeth biting before his mom can ask, because he knows that’s what she was going to ask. It’s what Sam and Tucker asked when he came to them in tears hours after he found Jason gone. It’s what Jazz said when he finally told her about it. It’s what every one of his ghosts asked when he told them about it and begged for their help.

Danny grits his teeth and tries not to dig his nails into mom’s clothes as a fresh wave of tears run down his face. “His haunt is still there. If Jason really moved on it would have disappeared with him. That’s how it works. But it’s still in the zone, so Jason’s out there I just don’t know where.”

(Sam once asks him why Danny didn’t just move on from it a year after Jason’s disappearance. She asked him why he didn’t give it up. Danny nearly saw red, and nearly bit her head off for it. It was incomprehensible to him to just stop looking for Jason, to give up. Not when he was out in the zone somewhere. Because he had to be in the zone.)

(Danny once tried to take Jason through the portal with him, and much like what happened to Kitty, it didn’t work. Jason was too tied to the ghost zone to leave.)

(Some bonds are just unbreakable, he thinks. Bonds forged through blood and time and trust, and when you’re on the streets of Gotham, you hoard what little trust you have in someone like a dragon with its gold. It is scarcely given and fiercely kept.)

“I’ve been looking for him.” Danny whispers when talking becomes too hard for him, when it runs the risk of him crying. “When- when I’m not fighting ghosts or, or in school or with my friends, I’ve been looking for him.” He has explored the Ghost Zone in every reach he can. He has met so many people. He’s met the ghosts of aliens from planets in every corner of the galaxy. He has met gods or god-like beings and their disciples.

He’s met famous scholars and writers (he’s gotten the autographs of all of Jason’s favorite writers). He has found entire cities that have so much life in it that it's been permanently etched into the ghost zone, like a mirror version of itself.

He’s visited the ghostly vision of Gotham so many times, and he avoids the imprint of Wayne Manor like the plague. There are ghostly newspapers that he reads. There are the ghosts of Martha and Thomas Wayne in many of them.

Jason’s haunt connects to Wayne Manor, but it is also the street they grew up in. It is a small brick building with a door that leads to Jason’s room. A ghost knows when someone enters their haunt, it alerts them like a doorbell in the back of their mind. A foreign ecto-signature in a place drenched in your own.

Danny visits it every time he goes into the Ghost Zone. It’s always his first stop.

He tells his parents all of it. He tells them of the ghosts he’s met, of the places he’s seen. And when he feels brave, he tells them about Rath and the terror that his future self brings him. He keeps some details hidden, the ones that he can afford to keep without muddling up the story.

(Rath is a tall, spindly thing, like a funhouse mirror version of Danny himself. He has arms that are much too long and legs that are much too tall, with skinny fingers that extend into claws.He wears his suit the same as Danny does, with it partially undone and the sleeves wrapped around his waist.)

(There is a black hole in his chest that is much bigger than Danny’s own. It takes up his chest cavity and drips the same, viscous black liquid as the tears falling from his eyes. Danny never forgets his voice; a scraping, quiet thing like he’s screamed himself hoarse. Rath has a voice like goosebumps, and it haunts Danny like a bump in the night.)

Danny speaks and speaks and speaks until he can’t think of anything else to speak of. He is tired and sad, and it feels like his heart has been ripped out and rubbed raw again. And yet, he also feels so much better. Like a long heavy weight has been taken off his chest.

Yeah, last summer was hard. His parents walked on eggshells around him, and they forced themselves to unlearn their bias of ghosts. It was more than Danny could have ever dreamed of, and when they felt ready for it, they asked him more about the ghost zone.

He smiles sadly at his dad, “I think fixing the stove can be a priority another time, dad.” He says, watching him wilt and his smile fall. Jack Fenton was always so good at making himself look like a kicked puppy. “I can handle unpacking by myself, I promise.”

His parents still look so unsure, like they want to argue. Danny watches his mom purse her lips tightly, confliction running across her face like a datastream. She takes dad’s hand, squeezing their fingers together despite the droop in her shoulders.

“Oh, alright then, I suppose.” She relents, her hand placing on Jack’s arm. “I guess we could go, we’re just going to miss you so much, Danny.”

Tears seem to have won over his dad, and Jack Fenton sniffs back before he can cry properly. “Our little boy, all grown up.” He says, voice wobbling. It makes Danny laugh, and it makes his heart pang. His smile grows impossibly wider and so much fonder. “You’ve become such a kind, wonderful young man, Danno. We’re so proud of you.”

Danny laughs again, and it cracks. “You’re gonna make me cry, dad.” (He feels a welling of guilt in his gut that he ignores — he doesn’t feel like a kind man. He doesn’t feel like a good one either. Not with what he plans to do.)

His father holds out his arms in hopefulness, “One last hug for your old man before we head out?” He asks, mustering up a smile on his face.

Danny barrels into him, nearly knocking his dad over with an oomph. He’s as tall as him now, but he still feels little in his bear hugs. With arms wrapping around his middle, Danny hugs his father tight and breathes him in one last time.

“Careful there, Danno.” He laughs, patting Danny’s back roughly. “You’ll break my ribs with that ghostly strength of yours!” But he holds on just as tight.

Out of spite, Danny bends back and lifts him off his feet, laughing when Jack tenses up and nearly scrambles out of surprise. His mom laughs with him, stepping back to give them room for the few seconds that dad is in the air.

When it’s his mom’s turn, Danny has to hunch to hug her. Something bittersweet to him as she plants a kiss on his forehead and says that he’ll always be her baby. “Even if you do have that horrid smoking habit.” She adds on with a disapproving eyebrow raise.

Danny turns red in embarrassment, and walks them back to the GAV. Gothamites of all kinds slow to stop and boggle at the monstrous, road-illegal thing that is parallel-parked next to the curbside. In the past, Danny would have died with mortification to be seen with it. Now it just makes him laugh. Before he goes back into the apartment building, he buys a newspaper from a nearby convenience store.

The first thing he does when he gets back up to his room is one: make a mental note to buy a bicycle chain lock for the door. The locks jiggle and there are splinters along the side that show signs of it being broken into in the past. The second thing he does is pull his cigarettes out of his pocket and light one.

Danny starts to unpack with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, placing the newspaper he bought onto the counter. He has a cheap loveseat that he pushes off to the side, and he moves the boxes into the kitchen. It’s a matter of organization that Danny has to think about before he does anything.

It’s as he’s pushing the sofa up against the wall facing the windows that his phone rings a familiar tune: Sam. The phone is fished out before he can think about it and when he stares down at the screen, he realizes it's a facetime call.

He presses answer and walks over to prop his phone up onto the counter. The smiling faces of Sam and Tucker greet him, rather than just Sam. Immediately, Danny grins. “Hey Danny.” Sam greets, smiling a dark-painted lazy thing. From the background it looks like they’re in Tucker’s room. Sam is in Tucker’s desk chair, and Tucker is behind her, leaning against it. “Have you moved in yet?”

Danny pulls the cigarette from his mouth and huffs, a cloud of smoke following his breath. “Yeah! It’s a shithole.” He grins lopsidedly, and his feet carry him off to the side to allow Sam and Tucker view of his apartment. He lets thirty seconds pass, allowing the both of them to really see the rest of the room. And then he steps back into frame.

Sam and Tucker both look like they’re trying not to look judgemental, like they’re trying to hide a grimace that Danny sees anyway with the small turns at the corner of their mouths. He grins wider, mirth filling his lungs. “I know, it looks awful doesn’t it?”

“It’s— it’s not so bad.” Sam says with a strain in her voice, a forced smile on her face that tries to be reassuring. Tucker nods along readily, and he looks just as unsure as Sam does. Danny stifles laughter behind his teeth.

“No, no, it looks bad,” He takes a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head. “You can say it, I won’t get offended. It’s a fucking apartment in crime alley. Of course it looks bad.”

Sam remains silent, a rearing of her stubbornness showing itself. Tucker takes a different approach, and heaves a dramatic sigh of relief, slumping like a weight. “Okay, you’re right. It looks bad.” He frowns, “Sorry, man.”

While Danny snorts, Sam sighs. “Yeah, it looks bad. What even are those stains?” She asks, and both she and Tucker lean closer in tandem to the screen, eyes squinting at the floor behind him. Danny glances at the floor, and shrugs.

“Blood, probably.” He says, and while years in Amity Park have accustomed him to a clean environment, the desensitization of Gotham still remains. Tucker and Sam both make faces and lean away, as if the stain itself was capable of passing through to them. “Yeah, there are bullet holes in the walls.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to be there?” Tucker asks, a furrow appearing between his brows. He adjusts his glasses and leans against the chair. Sam is frowning heavily, and Danny can already see her thinking up of a new way to fix the problem.

“Oh, I never said this place was safe.” Danny tells him cheerily, taking a last hit of his cigarette before placing the dead stick onto the counter. He itches for another one. Instead he walks over to the shelf his parents brought in and starts moving it. “It’s Crime Alley, Tuck. Safe isn’t even in its vocabulary.”

Tucker and Sam look like they’ve both swallowed a lemon.

“But it’s where I want to be right now.” He says, grunting quietly when the shelf is against the wall he wants it to be, near the short hallway leading to the front door. He can push it in front of it if someone tries to break in. “And Crime Alley’s apartments are the only ones I can really afford right now without mooching off my parents, and I’d rather not depend on them.”

He can hear the disapproving hesitance from where he stands. And he ignores it.

Danny walks back into frame, lifting up a box onto the counter. He hums lightly, fingers run over the tape keeping it shut. “Why do you even want to be in Gotham, Danny?” Sam asks, and she sounds genuinely perplexed. Danny stills. “I thought this place only had bad memories for you.”

His blood turns cold, and like a dime being flipped his slow heartbeat fills his ears. “It does.” He replies automatically, before he can think. Shit, shit. He knows that Sam or Tucker would ask that question, and yet he still feels unprepared for it. His heart pulses quickly against his ribcage, knocking, asking him what he’s going to tell them that isn’t the truth.

Danny stammers, “I mean— I just— I guess I felt nostalgic.” He says, and it sounds like a weak defense. He looks away, finding himself instinctively scratching his jaw. A new tick of his when he’s nervous. From the corner of his eye, he sees Sam and Tucker both narrow their eyes at him.

He cannot tell them the real reason why he’s moved back to Gotham. He can’t tell them of the little secret and vow he told himself five years ago, the one that’s been left to fester and burn like an open wound close to his core. The one that, if he thinks too much about it, sends a searing hot electricity through him, filling him from crown to toe top-full of direst wrath.

(Danny was always the angrier one in the duo of Jason and Danny. He was always the one with glass in his mouth, cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world around them. His knuckles had more blood and bruises on it than skin, once upon a time. All because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He has grown from it, that fury has turned to a small simmering candle.) (But sometimes, sometimes it rears its head, and electricity will buzz under Danny’s skin. There is lightning before the thunder, the second before a fist pulled to punch lands, the spark before it becomes a blaze.)

He stumbles over his words, and then sighs long and low, drooping his head. “I… was thinking that I can’t avoid this place forever.” He says, and the best lies always have the truth in it. Because it’s not a lie, not completely. But it’s not close enough to the truth either. “And that maybe if I came back, I’d be able to do something about those bad memories. Make them better or make it hurt less.”

Like wool over their eyes, it fools Sam and Tucker. Their narrowed eyes soften, and Danny feels like a snake is in his lungs as they both adopt their own versions of gentleness on their faces. “Oh, Danny.” Sam breathes out, and the snake squeezes, “Of course, we understand.”

Tucker nods, smiling at him. “Yeah, bro, that’s really brave of you. I know it can’t be easy coming back.” He says, “Maybe you can reconnect with the Waynes again, you always thought well of Mister Wayne whenever you came back from visiting.”

Danny smiles weakly, the gesture cutting into his cheeks like a knife. Perhaps he could. He was still upset with Bruce for hiding Jason’s killer from him. But he doesn’t hate him. Maybe five years ago, he did, when the death of Jason was still fresh in his mind and freshly bleeding in his heart. Now he just doesn’t know what to think of him. He was Batman. Jason was Robin, and the Joker killed Robin.

It would need to be something he’d have to speak to Bruce about in person, he thinks, in order to resolve it. To hear his judgment on it and make an opinion from there. Danny has learned in the last five years, much to Jazz’s smug delight, that talking to people about something he was upset about did make him feel better.

The conversation slips on from there into something more light, more breathable. And while they talk, Danny unpacks. He sets up his bed in the corner of the room, adjacent to the windows, and unpacks his cheap TV and table stand. It’s directly across from the couch, in front of the windows. He puts up knicks and knacks he’s collected over the years on the shelves.

When he puts up the curtains, he notices that more than one frame jiggles loosely. Sam makes a comment on the musty stains permanently dyed into the glass, and Danny talks about getting something to fix the cracks. Gotham winters can get brutal, and even if he can withstand the cold, doesn’t mean everything else in his apartment can.

“Oh, watch this.” He says halfway through unpacking, and pulls out a stick of thick white chalk from a box. “This is something I learned from Clockwork a while back; I think he knew I was going to move to Gotham.” He grins sillily, popping into the camera frame to show them. “I wonder how?”

Sam rolls her eyes, smiling while Tucker huffs. “It’s not like he’s the Master of Time and can see all past, present, and future.” Tucker snarks.

Danny hums lightly, curt like he isn’t sure he believes Tucker, and walks to a piece of bare wall not yet blocked by furniture. He starts to draw on it. The chalk shimmers with faint ectoplasm on the wall.

“Uhh…” Tucker’s voice cuts through, “Are you sure you should be doing that? Won’t you get in trouble for that?”

“There are bullet holes in the plaster, Tucker.” Danny retorts dryly, arching his hand to make a big circle. “I don’t think the landlord is gonna care if I get washable chalk on his walls.” Inside the circle, he inscribes the symbols of the Infinite Realms. “I don’t think he’d be able to see it anyways, he was really old.”

When he is done, Danny steps back to admire his work. It’s not bad, he thinks, for a lack of practice. He tosses the chalk off to the side, it lands on the couch and rolls back into the cushions. Ectoplasm heats under his hand, slowly glowing from his fingertips before stretching down the rest of his palm.

Danny’s fingers press against the wall, into the center of the circle. The result is immediate, ectoplasm is siphoned off his hand and into the circle. It glows, and then swirls. He steps off to the side for Sam and Tucker to watch its transformation. The circle fills with a swirling pool of ectoplasm, like a smaller version of the basement portal, and then it warps and stretches.

It fills out a rectangular shape, shifting like taffy being pulled this way and that, before settling into a solid shape. It solidifies, and instead of a wall there is a glowing purple door, warped in nature and seemingly shifting like a trick of the eyes. He can hear the gentle hum of the zone standing next to it, and can see the carving of the circle in the wood.

He gestures dramatically, grinning from ear to ear. “Ta-da~” He sings, “A door to my haunt! For whenever I feel like visiting it.” He pats the wood, making a strange thunk-thunk sound. “And then watch this.”

Danny touches the circle again, and the door twists and recedes like water going down a drain. The circle flashes bright green, and then fades into nothing on the wall, invisible to the naked eye. “I can hide it whenever I want! So if I ever invite someone over—” which he doubts, “—I won’t have to worry about them asking, ‘Hey Danny? Why is there a creepy fucking door in your studio apartment?’”

He gets a pair of laughs for his efforts, and Danny grins wider.

Sam and Tucker have to end the call when Danny is nearly done unpacking, leaving him alone with only his thoughts and the Gotham ambience outside. There were only a few boxes left, and they promise to call him tomorrow. He tells them that they better keep that promise.

The silence that follows after they leave feels somberly, as if the reality of moving in has finally set in and filled the air with its loneliness. With its change. Finally, Danny lets the strangeness of moving back to Gotham hit him when he reaches the last box, and he stops to take another smoke break to let it settle.

It feels so strange to be back in Gotham, he thinks. He’s all grown up, or almost grown up. He can vote and pay taxes, but he doesn’t feel much older than he was at fourteen. There’s a disconnect that makes him feel sad.

There are cars running outside, driving by. He can only catch glimpses of them, his apartment faces an alleyway. There are dogs barking in the distance, strays he bets. It’s already dark out, and he wonders if he looks out the window he would see the bat-signal shining through the night and staining the permanent cloud that hangs over Gotham.

Bruce would be so disappointed if he learned the reason for Danny’s return to Gotham. But Danny’s not here for him. He’s here for someone far more important. And like that, the simmering anger that has tucked itself into the furthest corners of his heart starts slipping through. His heart has teeth, ready to strike and snarl and bite.

He crushes the cigarette in his hand and throws it away. When he opens the last box, it is with hands that tremble and with a face of stone. With a delicateness he does not feel, he reaches in and pulls a corkboard from the box. On the corner frame is a small, near inconspicuous carving of another ghost rune.

Danny hangs it up on an empty space on the wall, out of sight from the window. It’s plain, and he has nothing to pin to it. He presses the small rune on the corner, pushing ectoplasm into it. Unlike the door, it does not twist and warp and shape itself into something new. Instead it bursts into green flame, eating away at the board and revealing the same thing underneath it, just in dark blue-black-purple.

Now this board, this board Danny has something to pin to it. The newspaper he bought earlier sits abandoned on the counter, and Danny unrolls it with something like viciousness in his chest. On the front page is an image of a damaged street, and above it is titled: “JOKER STRIKES AGAIN, 3 DEAD AND 27 INJURED”

Danny rips out the first page, he rips out every mention of him. His hands shake and threaten to crumple the paper as he turns back to the board, there is hot blood pounding in his ears. There is an impending sense of finally in his chest, like a setting sun giving the stage to a starless night. There is a stern set in his jaw, five years of festering rage rushing forth like a tidal wave, threatening to make his vision swim.

It would be so easy, he thinks, to go out as Phantom right now and hunt the clown down. It would only take a night. All it would take is a night, and then he could sink his hands into the Joker’s chest and rip out his heart where he stood. It would be so easy.

The thought alone forces Danny to stop as he is hit with another rush of fury, really making his head and vision swim. Thorny vines wrap around his throat, making it hard to breathe. He stares at a spot on the wall until the shaking passes.

If he wants to be discreet about this, then he can’t do it now. Even if he wants to. He doesn’t want witnesses. He doesn’t want an audience. He made a mistake, telling Red Hood about his plan. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Perhaps he wasn’t thinking at all. But he can only hope that the Hood hasn’t mentioned it to Bruce. He knows it hasn’t been long since they started working together. He hopes that the Hood has already forgotten about it.

He pins the newspaper clippings onto the black-blue-board, and stands back. It’s bare now, but it won’t be forever.

He presses the circle again, and the pinboard reverts back to its original blank state.

-----

Was I expecting to make a third part?? No. No I was not. I was also not expecting to make an entire google doc filled with summaries for short story ideas about this au that all tie into each other so that way if i DO continue this i have a skeleton pathway to follow rather than making everything up from scratch and potentially cornering myself

you can find this on ao3 or on tumblr 1 2 :)

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dpxdc crossover #childhood friends au #cw swearing #cw smoking #im calling them short stories bc if i call them chapters i might intimidate myself #fun fact every single chapter will have a crane wives lyric on it i am DETERMINED #i hope yall are subscribed to this on ao3 bc i almost didnt post this on tumblr #the fentons being good parents were a surprise to me too but also i never really planned on them being BAD parents #okay so they appear as negligent in the first post but we'll just call that a plothole #i had the idea that danny was the angrier one out of the duo earlier today and it felt like an epiphany #there's no guarantee of a next part but yk immm kinda hoping there is #on the docs the ending bullet point for this chapter was #'make it feel like a tv show where the seemingly inconspicuous and friendly character has something sinister up their sleeve'#WE know that danny's not inconspicuous in the least he's been thinking of this murder for the last five years. but nobody but red hood know #i had to come up with a in-story reason why danny doesnt kill the joker NOW but my out-of-story excuse is: there'd be no tension otherwise #its about the BUILD UP. Its about the RISING TENSION. Its about KNOWING that danny is planning to kill the Joker but you dont know WHEN #its about knowing that something is going to explode but never knowing when #i made the doc yesterday and spent my entire pluralism for educators class going thru the crane wives albums and looking up the lyrics and #matching them to the *checks doc* 18 short story prompts i have prepared #i am still missing one :((#its the tim and danny story and i have NOTHING PLANNED FOR THEM. i cant think of a thing for them to bond over :(( so i cant match a CW son #even DICK has a story and that was also a surprise #my favorite lines: He was always the one with glass in his mouth cutting his teeth and tongue so that he could spit blood at the world #aND danny slapping his door like a used car salesman and going 'now people wont ask why i have a creepy fucking door in my studio aptm :)'

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