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gretavangroupie · 9 months

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Vigilance (Chapter 21 Part 2)

Word count: 20.3k

Pairings: Jake x Reader, Jake x OC

Warnings: Alcohol, Cursing, Dramatic Themes. Angst Including: Talks of Infidelity, Toxic Themes, Arguing, Yelling, Extreme Portrayal of Sadness, Crying, Abandonment, Heartbreak, Talks of Illness, Extreme Illness, Fainting, Hospitalization, Hospital Procedures and Protocols, Mentions of IV, Needles, Talks of Death and Dying. Fluff.

This story is a collaboration with my best pal @gretavanmoon.

JAKE POV

A knock at the door caused your eyes to flutter open from the in and out sleep you’d been in all day. The medicine they were giving you, keeping you constantly fighting off sleep. You were breathing better, but still in an incredible amount of pain, and feeling worthless to boot. You turned your head to look at your mom, who was already standing to open the door.

As it swung open you saw Y/N, standing in the door, like your own personal angel. Your eyes widened as they focused in on her; wavy hair and red eyes, her favorite sweatshirt that always smells like her. She was upset, that much was obvious. Well, to you at least.

“Oh sweetie! I am so glad they finally called you!” your mom said, pulling her in for a hug. You watched her wrap her arms around your mom, wishing, praying it could be you instead.

“Jakey, it’s Y/N. Can you sit up?” your mom asks.

You press the button on the remote and the bed sits you up, and you're positive that in your entire life you’d never felt more pathetic, as she watched you come to eye level with her. As your eyes met hers, you could see them tearing up. You hated for her to see you like this, but seeing her is the only thing you’ve wanted since you got here, and you weren’t giving it up for anything.

You looked over to your mom, who was gathering her things with a knowing grin, “I know, I know, I’ll give you two some time. I’ll be downstairs if you need me honey.” she said, walking out and closing the door behind her.

You watched as Y/N pulled a few items out of her bag, and placed them on the counter. It looked like a change of clothes, but it was so far away you couldn’t really tell. You hoped that meant you were getting out of here soon.

She walked over to the side of the bed, sitting on the edge near your feet. “Hi…” her voice rang out like music.

“Hey…” you breathed. “I’ve been asking for you…”

“I know, they wouldn’t let me come up until they got my negative test…” she replies quietly. “You scared me Jake.”

“I know, I know. I was so stupid, I just thought it was a little cold, and that it would just go away, but it didn’t. I was fine, and then… I don’t know, it happened so quick, and then I was here and you were gone…” you stammer.

“I was scared and Sam and Danny were scared, Josh was scared. We had no idea what was going on. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong. I thought you were dying or something and I couldn’t even come see you…” she said, as a single tear slipped from her eye.

“I was scared too. Scared this was it…I think I almost lost a lung last night.” you admit.

“Jake…” she says, another tear falling.

“Don’t cry, please…” you beg, “I’m okay now, I think…I’m feeling a little better.”

She puts her hands over her eyes trying to conceal her tears and sniffles.

“Come here. Come closer to me.” you ask, watching her slowly shift her body closer.

You lay your hand on her thigh, as her eyes meet yours. “I’m sorry you thought you were going to lose me. I promise I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

She nods, and continues to blink away her tears.

“I missed you. All I could think about was you.” you admit.

“Jake, you don’t mean that… You shouldn’t– you should be mad at me, hate me, just two days ago you told m–”

“I know, I remember what I said. I do, and I am mad. But I’ve been laying here, just staring at the ceiling, thinking… of all the things I’d rather be doing than laying here. Wishing you were here…” you say.

“You have…” she questions.

“Yeah. Remember, the other night, you told me all the things you miss about me? Well, I have a list too. I’ve always had a list. I should have told you that night. I really should have, but you’re here now. So now I’m going to tell you, because if I don’t, I think I might burst.” you answer, a smirk crossing your face.

Her eyes search yours, “Jake, no… you need to rest, you shouldn’t even be talking. It can wait…wait until you’re thinking clearly.”

“No. It can’t. Just let me tell you, please.” you ask.

She nods her head as you move your hand higher on her leg, letting your weak hand squeeze into her thigh.

“I miss the way your mouth subconsciously sings along to the songs I’m practicing when it’s late and I’ve been in my study playing all night…songs you’ve learned just from hearing me play them over and over without even a single complaint…I miss laying in bed and arguing over what show to watch, and me finally caving and letting you pick, only for you to fall asleep on my chest five minutes later…the fuckin’ best…” you see a small smile form on her lips, as you continue.

“I miss hearing you hum along to literally any Beatles song in existence while you cook or while you’re cleaning. It’s always the Beatles. You love The Beatles white album the best…I miss your pancakes… god I would kill for those right now…and yeah, I know it hasn’t even been that long, but it feels like years. I hate it…I miss walking around town with you when the weather is pretty, watching you furiously dig around in your purse looking for cash to give to the buskers. I can’t think of one time that you haven’t given money to someone playing music. Always smiling at me and reminding me ‘that was you once’. You’re right, it was, and even then I loved you.” you go on, feeling her hand rest on top of yours.

“I miss how you get road rage so easily, but immediately apologize after you say it. I miss taking you and seeing how you are always so nice to servers at restaurants even if they mess something up, because they ‘might just be having a bad day’…I love how much you love your parents, shit and mine too. I love how much you love the ocean, and that we both find the same tranquility on the water. But I really miss the look on your face when you’re watching us play, and knowing that I wouldn’t even look at you when I played your song the other night....I can’t take that back. But just know, next time it's for you.”

You watch a tear fall down her cheek, as you reach up to swipe it away, pushing her hair over her ear.

“I swear to god I don’t deserve you, Jake.” She mumbled out.

“Shhh, stop with that shit.” You said, your already shaky breath catching in your throat as you notice the glint of the silver necklace around her neck.

You let your hand glide over it, seeing the side of it being held together by a small piece of black tape.

Oh no.

“You found it…” you breathe.

She nods defeatedly. “I know you told me not to wear it anymore, and I know I shouldn’t but… I can’t. I feel naked without it. I have been trying to not wear it around you but I saw it in my bag today and…I don’t know I just needed to.” she admits, too nervous to look at you.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” you confess.

“The chain was broken when I found it on the floor, but when you left for Michigan I tried to fix it. It was so small and I could hardly see what I was doing. I think I cried out of frustration more than anything. I just wanted to fix it. Fix one thing. I eventually found some electrical tape in your desk drawer and decided it would have to make due.” she says.

Oh my god, what did you do?

A new pain had crept into your chest but not from your sickness. She was hurting, you knew that. But you had been cruel. Mean just to be mean. You ripped it off of her neck…

“I’m so sorry.” was all you could manage.

“I deserve everything you’ve said and done.” she whispered standing up and walking away from you to look out the window.

“You think you can bust me out of here?” you ask, trying to lighten the dreadful mood.

She smiled a little, and shook her head. “No, I think you need to stay. Get better. I brought you some clean clothes though..” she said pointing to the counter.

“Thank you, though I am enjoying this hospital gown. Very breathable. Might start wearing them for shows.” you smile.

Finally a genuine smile crossed her lips, the most beautiful thing you’d seen in days.

“Come here.” you asked, reaching your hand toward her.

She sat in the chair next to your bed, and placed her elbows on the edge of the bed.

“Why did you want me to come so bad Jake? Why were you asking for me? We aren’t…I thought…” she asks.

You paused, turning on your side to look at her for just a second before you answered.

“Because…even after everything…You make me feel safe. You feel like home. You are home.”

A knock at the door startles you both, ripping you away from the moment.

Carson comes in with her laptop cart, ready to do her check of your vitals.

“Oh my gosh! You must be the girlfriend! He has been talking about you all night!” she says.

Damn Carson, give me up why don’t you…

“Oh. No… we aren’t together…” she says, letting her face fall.

You immediately grab her hand and lace your fingers with hers giving her hand a tight squeeze.

“Well, he gave us quite the scare last night!” she says, as Y/N stares off into space.

“Wait, Y/N? You… you were in Sam’s class right?” she asks, catching Y/N’s attention.

“Yeah! Yes, sorry!” she says, refocusing on her.

“I know we didn’t talk much but I remember you. You and Sam were best friends! I remember you two watching me kick Jake’s ass on the practice fields.” she laughs, tapping on the monitors to check your levels.

“Oh yeah, I guess I do remember that. It’s nice to see you again.” she smiles, pulling her hand from yours.

“You’re looking good Jake. You’re looking really good. Drastic improvement since my last round. She must be your lucky charm.” she smiles, “You might even get out of here tomorrow if you keep it up.”

“She is.” you smile, looking over at Y/N, who has blushed a deep red.

“I’ll be back tonight. Keep resting!” she says, letting the door close behind her.

You recline the bed back a bit, letting out a deep breath as the pressure dissipates from your chest.

“Maybe you should stay laying down. I want you to rest so you can get out of here like she said.” she says, putting her elbows back on the bed.

“I will… but, I don’t want you to leave yet.” you admit.

“I know, but Josh is here. Do you want to see him?” she asks.

God, Josh…

“Yeah, I need to. But just stay for a few more minutes…please?” you ask.

She nods her head and settles back into the stiff hospital chair, as you turn to your side to face her.

“I do think you’re my lucky charm you know…” you say.

“I guess I just don’t feel very lucky.” she says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask.

She took a breath and rested her chin in her hands. “I don’t know, it feels like I’m more like your bad luck charm. So much has happened since I’ve been around, I’ve caused you a lot of unnecessary pain, Jake. And I take responsibility for that.”

You thought about that for a minute. It wasn’t completely untrue, she had issued you some heartbreak. But knowing what you know now, about everything that happened in Vegas…your intentions with Elle, you felt pretty shitty. And she didn’t even know the extent of it. It was eating you alive not telling her the truth, especially after everything that just happened. But you couldn’t find the right time, she deserved to learn about that when everyone’s worlds weren’t so hectic from you being in this godforsaken hospital.

“You deserve the world, Jake. And all I’ve done is rip it out from underneath you time and time again. And I’m feeling really horrible about it. Like a really bad human. I’m…working on it. I’m working on myself. I’ve realized some things lately, and I have you to thank for that. I need to grow up a bit, take responsibility for my actions and make better choices.”

She reached and grabbed for your hand, squeezing it tightly as you took in her words. “Listen, I want you and me to work. I want us to really work out. Okay? Do you get what I’m saying? I know we’re not together at this point, but. I want to make myself the person you need again. Someone you deserve to be with. And to make that happen, I know I’ve got some shit to work on. I’ve got some baggage to unload. I’ve got to get my shit together, Jake. For you. And for me. I know it’s going to take a while, and I know you’ve been saying all these sweet things, but I’m aware of my faults that you don’t need to patch up. I’ve got to. They’re my burden. And it’s time for me to learn how to take care of you now.”

Wow, what in the world… who is this woman?

You nodded slowly, unable to form a response. Honestly, how do you respond to that?

“So, I’ve decided since you’re on the mend now and in better than wonderful hands, I’m gonna head back to Nashville since the next few shows are canceled…I hope that last part isn’t news to you…” she said, standing up from the chair.

“Nah, I figured as much. Fucking pisses me off, I hate cancelling shows more than anything. But, why are you leaving? Why are you going back? We’re all here..” you said.

“You don’t need me, Jake. Everyone’s going to go home when you’re better, I don’t need to do my job while you’re home with your family.” She went on.

“Hey listen, Y/N. I know I’ve been so shitty toward you lately. And…I honestly hate myself for it. But I don’t want you to think you’re just an employee to us…did you not, read my text? You are my family, always will be.” You said, sitting up a bit in the bed.

“Go stay at my parents house. Stay in Michigan, please? Don’t leave…” you reached your hand out for her to grab. She glanced at it, taking it slowly in hers. “You’re not my bad luck charm. You’ve brought me some of the greatest gifts I’ve ever known. I don’t want to be without you when I finally break out of here…okay? Please?” She nodded again, wiping a tear from her cheek. You didn’t want to bring up the fact that Andy was still on the loose, too, and she needed to be with people who could protect her, if need be.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll go stay with them, if that’s what you want.” she whispered.

“I do…” you said, giving her a look that said a million words.

Just then there were three knocks on the door, and Josh was peeking his head inside. “Hey guys…”

You felt her squeeze your hand and look to you with excitement. She was overjoyed you finally got to see your brother now.

“I’ll see you later…” she said, pulling away. You squeezed her hand harder.

“Hey, Y/N…” you muttered. She turned back, eyes questioning. “Take care of our family while I’m in here.”

She smiled wide with her eyes. “I promise.”

You watched as she passed Josh on her walk out, taking him in her arms into a big bear hug. “So good to see you up and at ‘em, Joshy! You okay?”

He nodded. “Better than yesterday, will be better tomorrow.” He said, rubbing her arms as she made her way to the door.

“Heyyyyy asshole. How did I end up in here and you didn’t? Not fuckin’ fair…” you said, voice still gravely.

He walked over and took the seat Y/N had just been in, kicking himself back with his hands behind his head. “Guess it’s because I’m the more powerful twin, obviously.”

The two of you laughed and caught up with each other, you only being attacked with a few coughs along the way.

“I’m sorry we had to cancel some shows, it’s my most unfavorite thing on earth.” you admitted.

“I know, mine too. But it’s okay, I know you wouldn’t have made it through. We aren’t mad at you.” He went on before leaning forward on his elbows. “Jake, ahh. You know your road to recovery isn’t gonna be a short one, right? You had a very serious illness, and it’s not just gonna go away overnight.”

“Yeah, I’m aware. What are you getting at?” You answered.

“Well, we were all talking, me Sam and Dan, and Richard and your doctors and everyone…we think maybe we should take some time. Step back and let you heal like you need to.” He said, voice stern.

“NO, Josh. I’m fine. We have like, fifty shows this tour, we can’t start canceling them already. I will be fine, I’m already feeling so much better.” You argued.

“I talked to Jay from Rival Sons, we tried to come up with a solution to even maybe play together, take some of the main effort off of you, but then we all agreed that wouldn’t work either.” He said, grazing his mouth with his hand.

“No, not ‘that wouldn’t work’. I would never agree to that! It’s all or nothing for our shows from now on, remember? And I can give it my all, I promise Josh. I can do it. I can’t let everybody down. You guys, the crew, the fans…god. They’ve all already got tickets and planes and hotels–”

“Jake, listen. It’s already done. Sam, Daniel and I had to make an executive decision. I’m sorry. We’re picking back up in Brazil.”

“Brazil?! That’s in like, over a month! I don’t need that long, Josh! Tell them nevermind. I can be there.”

“Jake, stop. Listen, you’re going to be healing for weeks, you’re going to have debris in your lungs for a long time. You’re still gonna have all these side effects…tiredness, a cough, dizziness, all that. And they said it could come back if you don’t allow yourself time to heal completely. You have to allow yourself that, or else…you could end up worse and we have to cancel the rest of the tour. Okay?” He said. “And I don’t need you worse, I need you better. 100%.”

“I will be, I swear. I’m already getting there. Don’t worry about me…” you spat, feeling aggravated.

“Don’t worry about you?! Really Jake? All I’ve done for the past three days is worry myself sick about you. Hell, I could hardly breathe myself and I wasn’t even half as bad off as you were! Laying in that damn hotel bed not able to leave or call you, no one had answers and no one knew what was wrong with you. Do you know how that felt for me? Telling me not to worry about you, fuck off. You know I feel all your shit, too.” Josh said, bringing his hands in for animation.

“You didn’t need to worry about me, Josh, damn. I’m in a hospital in good hands…they–”

“Yeah no shit! And the doctors didn’t know what was wrong with you for a good bit of time! Sam kept us up on your state, and he didn’t tell me, but I think something really bad happened to you. I can just tell he’s not telling us the whole story. Am I right?” He went on.

You swallowed. Your memory was fuzzy, but yeah…you think something did happen. And Sam was here for it. You stayed quiet, truly unsure how to answer, because you didn’t remember much. So you just nodded.

“I thought so. I was worried sick, Jake. I was so scared you weren’t gonna…no one was telling me anything cause they didn’t want to upset me, make me feel worse…I thought you might not make it back to me.” He said, completely vulnerable.

Shit.

“Brother, you know I wasn’t going anywhere, hell. They were taking good care of me here. You know I’m not going anywhere without you, we’re going out the same way we came in, remember? You shoving me out of the way to get there first…but I’ll be following you close behind.” You said, trying to offer him some solace.

“I know, I know. But you know how your brain works when you’re helpless and sick, it wanders off to scary places. I was trying to communicate mentally with you, begging you to please stay… I just, started thinking how fuckin’ scary that would be, if you weren’t here with me anymore. In my fever dream state it felt real, and it was shit. Okay?” He rambled.

You laughed a little.

“What, asshole?” He barked.

“You really love me, don’t ya Josh?” You teased.

“Of course I love you, you idiot.” He smiled. “Just don’t ever fuckin’ scare me like that again, understood? I’m not dealing with Sam’s shit by myself for the rest of my life.”

You laughed again. “Alright, damn. I promise.”

“Where is Y/N? I figured she’d be back by now…” he asked, looking at the clock on the wall.

You shook your head. “I don’t think she’s coming back tonight, Josh.”

“What? Why?”

You took as deep a breath as you could. Might as well break the news now. “Things with us are…delicate right now. I fucked up. Well, we both fucked up, actually.”

“You’re kidding me. I knew something felt weird. What happened?” He asked.

You nodded your head to the bedside table. “Gimmie my phone.” He did, and you unlocked it, scrolling to the text thread with Elle, “Just read this.”

You watched as he silently scrolled, his eyes growing ten times in size every few seconds as he read. “What the…what the fuck?”

Finally he handed you your phone back. “What the hell, Jake? You were going to sleep with Elle?! When did this happen? Why didn’t I know about this?”

You decided to lay the entire story out for him, beginning to end, detail by detail. He was going to find out the hard way, anyway. What you were left with at the end was his face in utter disbelief.

“God damnit, Jacob. What kind of fuckery…”

“I know. It’s a shitshow. But, things are alright, I guess. I just had to get pneumonia before I could really kick Sam’s ass. But Elle doesn’t know they slept together, so please, let Sam deal with that on his own. We’ve all done a lot of soul searching these past few weeks, I can tell you that.” You told him.

“All this time, you’ve known? And you’ve been okay being around Sam?” He asked.

“Yep. Y/N and I have been lying to all of you. I had to hang it up, put it away for the sake of the band. It’s been fucking terrible.” You relented, feeling a cough coming on.

“I’m fucking furious, Jake. At him, at Y/N…all of you. You and Elle? Really?” He seethed.

You nodded. “I almost did it, Josh. I really did. It almost fucking happened. And Y/N was okay with it. Wild, I know. But then your drunk ass called me to come rescue you.”

“Saved by the bell?” He said.

“Hah, I guess. Fuckin’ always cockblocking me since we were teenagers...” You clicked your tongue. “I never did that shit to you.”

“You never had to, jackass!”

You continued your normal conversation, going on about life and what the fuck you were going to do with it. You told Josh that you told him all of that in confidence, and as mad as he was, he agreed to go along with the act until things went back to normal.

He left, leaving you in your bed to rest a while while he went back down to the lobby. You laid there for a long time, running over everything that had occurred in the past couple of hours. Y/N, telling you she wanted to work on things. Wanted you to work out for real. It gave you a little bit of hope that she didn’t hate you like you thought she would. But still you knew deep down that you both needed time apart. It had to happen, whether you wanted it to or not.

The canceled tour was ripping you apart. You felt the need to apologize to everyone, tell the fans you were so sorry. You decided that when you got home, you would. And you knew exactly how you’d do it.

You grabbed the remote from behind your head and turned on the tiny TV across the room, flipping through the channels to find something, anything to take your mind off of being in here. Carson came in a while later, startling you from a sleep you didn’t realize you were in.

“Hey, hey! Sorry I woke you. Just gonna check some things out. Can you sit up for me?” She said.

You pushed through every ache and pain your body presented you with while you brought yourself to sit, the weight of your lungs still heavy.

She pressed her stethoscope to your chest and back and had you breathe deeply a few times.

“Definitely getting better, you don’t sound nearly as raspy as you did. I’m going to give you your next dose of antibiotics through your IV now. And when you’re all through these next few doses and your levels stay up, we can remove the IV. Sound good?” She said while she recorded your blood pressure. “Then you’ll move to a round of them in pill form.”

“Sounds great. Just lovely.” You said, defeatedly.

“I’m surprised you even found somewhere to put my IV in that hand, busted up as it is.” You said, lifting your right hand and inspecting it.

“Yeah, you were so dehydrated I couldn’t find a vein in your arms at all. Hand to resort to your hand. I noticed it’s been through some things…” she said, noting all your scars.

“Yeah, my other arm has scars from both times I broke it, but these…all these little ones…”

She looked closer, seeing all the little places that shards of glass had ended up that night so long ago at the bar.

“Geez, there are tons. What did you do?” She asked.

“Shattered glass beer bottle. Had a rough time fending off some jackass one night.” You said. “Still hurts sometimes.”

“I’d say it does. I hope you won…” she said, flicking her eyes to you.

“I like to think I did.” You smiled, huffing loudly and readjusting yourself.

“You hate it in here, don’t you?” She asked.

“Eh, I’d rather be on my way to our next show right now, that’s for sure. But thank you for taking care of me. You’ve really been a light during my whole stay here.” You relented, feeling thankful that she ended up as your nurse.

“No problem, Jake. You’ve been an excellent patient. And it was good catching up with an old friend again. I don’t get to do that much.” She said, smiling as she pulled a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Did I really give you a scare last night?” You asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, you did. Your vitals started crashing kinda fast. You weren’t knocking on heaven’s door or anything, but. It could have gone south fast if you weren’t here already.” She clicked a few times on her computer. “We had to call in the respiratory team. You tested my training after we left this room, and your brother's sanity, that’s for sure.”

Damn, Sam must have been just as scared as you were…

You smiled at her sudden nervousness. She leaned over you to fluff your pillow behind you. As she pulled away, your hands brushed together on the bed sheets. She decided not to move it.

Your eyes quickly flitted up to meet hers. “Did you save me, Miss Carson Neely?”

She giggled, shyly looking away. “No, Mr. Jacob Kiszka, me and my team saved you.”

You felt a strange wave of something sweet fly through your body, a new, light, buzzing sensation that your brain hadn’t felt in a long time.

She gathered her things onto the cart and began to walk away. “Just think, only a couple more days in here, and you won’t have to see my face everyday anymore.” She opened the door and began to back out. “And how did you know my Instagram name?” She left, winking secretly as the door clanked shut.

You were left stunned. You quickly grabbed your phone, opening the app and typing in the search box.

misscarsonneely

Follow.

HER POV

As you step out into the lobby you see the family sitting in the same place you left them, although this time they look a lot happier, with smiles on all of their faces. As you approach they wave you over as excitedly as possible.

“Were you up there when they told him?” Karen asks.

“Told him what?” you ask.

“His doctor just came down here and told us that if he continues to improve overnight they will release him tomorrow or the next day!” Karen says.

“Oh gosh. I hope so. I know he is tired of being here.” you reply.

“So I was talking to Kelly, I think we are gonna checkout of the hotel and head home in the morning. I want to wash his sheets and clean up the house some. Oh, and go to the grocery store…” she pauses. “Do you want to ride with us, or?” she asks.

“Oh, um, yeah I can ride with you guys in the morning. I just need to pack up our stuff tonight I guess.” you reply.

“We’re going to head back to the hotel now, do you want to come or stay here?” she asks, placing a hand on your shoulder.

“I drove here, so I will follow you guys.” you answer.

“Me and Sammy and Danny are gonna stay here and wait for Josh, then we will probably head back too.” Elle says, trying to reassure you.

“Okay. Just…text me if anything happens, I guess.” you smile.

She winks at you and you wave bye to Sam and Danny as you follow Karen and Kelly out the doors.

—

Tapping your keycard to the door you step into the hotel room, grateful that you already cleaned up a little bit earlier in the day. You tossed your things onto the dresser and flopped down onto your bed. You grabbed your phone and rolled to your side trying to catch up on all of the calls and texts you’d received in the last few days.

You click on your thread with Karen, confirming plans to leave in the morning, and realize that you need to finish packing everything up. With a groan you roll off the bed and drag yourself over to your suitcase, setting out fresh clothes for tomorrow and collecting the rest of your things.

As you zip your suitcase, you make your way over to his, opening it and beginning to refold everything and trying to organize it better than it currently was. Bringing a couple of his shirts to your face you breathe him in, a smell you miss desperately. A tear pricks at your eye as you remember everything he said today. He misses you too.

Collecting his toiletries you walk them back to his suitcase and place the bag inside. The tiny white bag catches your eye again, and you try to ignore it. Pretend you never saw it. But, you did. You grabbed it, and pulled it out, walking over to the desk and situating yourself in the chair. You slide the ring out of the bag and in an act of pure insanity, slid it onto your finger.

You held your hand out, admiring how perfect it looked on your finger as a hot tear rolled down your cheek. You stare at it, and again wonder if he really was going to propose. When he would have done it. How he would have done it…where did this ring even come from?

You pull yourself up from the desk and continue packing his suitcase, the extra weight on your finger feeling like a thousand pounds. When everything was packed away you walked back over to the desk, giving your hand one last look before sliding the ring off and putting it back in the bag. You tuck it away at the bottom of the suitcase, hoping he would think you never even saw it. But you did. And now you’d never forget.

—

As you slid into bed later that night, you grabbed the TV remote flipping through channels, hoping for something that would take your mind off of him. But instead you found yourself settling on The Food Network, because you know that’s what he would have picked. Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives lights up the screen and you suddenly feel as if you’re back home with Jake.

You grabbed your phone from the nightstand and opened your texts looking for your last message with him. You open the camera and snap a picture of the darkened room, with just the TV as the focus, hoping he will see what you’re watching. You attach the photo to the text and press send.

You

10:44pm: *Attachment*

10:44pm: It’s not the same without you…

You set your phone down on the nightstand, knowing he is probably asleep, or just wont respond. You wouldn’t blame him. You watch for a few minutes as you learn about a Mexican restaurant in El Paso, silently wondering if you’d ever go to El Paso…

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand and you grab it as quickly as you can, hoping it was him.

Jake

10:56pm: *Attachment*

10:56pm: I know…

Tears fill your eyes not only because he did reply, but his response, which included a photo of his view from his hospital bed, where he was watching the exact same thing.

You swiped your hand over your eyes as you replied.

You

10:59pm: Do you think we’ll ever go to El Paso?

Jake

11:00pm: I think we have to now...

You snapped another photo, of his suitcase zipped and ready next to his guitar case as they laid on his bed.

You

11:04pm: *Attachment*

11:04pm: Ready for you to come home.

Jake

11:06pm: Me too baby

Baby? You feel your insides practically melt away reading the simple text again and again.

You

11:10pm: See you soon…

Jake

11:11pm: Not soon enough.

You fall asleep that night with a warm feeling in your chest. Maybe there was hope. You knew you both needed time, and you’d gladly give him that. It was the least you could do. But you knew you would also give him every drop of love you had, and maybe, just maybe that would be enough to help the two of you weather this storm.

JAKE POV

It was late when your eyes shot open, still blurry from the sleep filling them and the dim light of the room. You rolled over on the hard plastic-like pillow, the sheets scratching you as you twisted. You glanced at the clock, 2:20am. Blah. Only a few more hours until they come in to check your vitals and give you more antibiotics. You flipped to your side, hugging the extra pillow they’d given you, when something sitting in the chair caught your eye.

What the hell is that?

You flipped the overhead light on, illuminating the room with a buzzing fluorescent glow.

It’s…a guitar?

You sat up, reaching hard to grab the neck of it, noticing a small note tucked between the strings. You unfolded it, turning it toward the light.

Congratulations on beating bacterial pneumonia!

Thought you’d like to borrow this to get through your last day…

Don’t beat her up too much ;)

-Carson

Holy shit, this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you. You tucked the note onto the table beside you, and laid back down on the bed. You grasped the old acoustic, feeling its weight in your hands sit just right. You positioned your hands just so, and strummed a light chord. My god, the joy you felt. This was probably the longest you’d gone without holding a guitar in your hands since before you were a teenager. You tilted your head back and let out a tiny howl at the sound of it, before tuning it up just a tad.

You had no idea how much you missed it, the feeling of your absolute favorite object in the world in your hands. Your means of communication. Your way to make an honest living. Your tool for storytelling. One of the only things that was constant for the entirety of your life so far. She’d never let you down.

And Carson had given it to you. Well, let you borrow it, at least. You continued playing quietly until the sun was peeking through the curtains, giving the room a dull blue tint. Your fingers were starting to ache from being out of practice for the past few days, but you welcomed the feeling. The true attachment you had with this instrument was unending.

You grabbed your phone, opening Instagram to your direct messages. You found Carson, sending her a quick message.

You: Thank you for the loan, I haven’t been this happy in days

To your surprise, she answered.

Carson: Not a problem at all. How does she play?

You: Perfectly. Could use a new set of strings, though ;)

Carson: Ah, I bet it does. I haven’t picked it up in quite some time. Promise, I’ll get some new ones asap

You: See you soon?

Carson: I’ll be there to sign your discharge papers :)

You locked your phone, letting your mind drift as your fingers grazed the strings again. You closed your eyes, watching as the music floated from your fingertips directly along with the colorful waves behind your eyelids.

Oh, shit…

You grabbed your phone again, sending Josh a quick text.

You:

5:48am: Hey, when you come pick me up later, can you have Sam get you a new thing of acoustic strings and bring them with you? Thanks please don’t forget.

Right as the sun began to hit your face, the warmth making your skin tingle, you began to think about Y/N asleep by herself, probably still worried about you. You thought about everything she’d said, how horribly you’d treated her lately…your heart started to ache. The guilt of not telling her about Elle began pulling at your insides. You were tearing yourself up, you’d waited all your life for her, and right when you both were in a perfect spot, twisted fate came in and ripped it away.

But she had been there all day. All week. By your side. Your fingers began to play a tune you’d never heard before, never played before…light and solemn, but happy at the same time. You memorized it, writing the notes down mentally. This sounds good… You promised yourself that you’d make it work this time. You had to, you didn’t have any other choice. You hoped to god that she intended to stay this time.

You drifted off to sleep still playing that tune, letting the guitar slip from your hands as you slept, dreaming of finally seeing your girl tomorrow.

HER POV

The ride from Saginaw to Frankemuth was short, only half an hour at most, and you spent most of the drive laughing with Kelly and Karen about the funny things your parents got into with them before you were born.

You knew all you could do was laugh, otherwise you’d all cry about how scary things were with Jake. You hadn’t received any updates about Jake since yesterday afternoon before you left the hospital. You hoped that no news was good news, but still, another word of reassurance wouldn’t hurt.

As you pulled into their driveway, Kelly unloaded your bags and brought them up to Jake’s room. You and Karen made a plan for the day of the things you knew you both wanted to get done before you picked up Jake tomorrow, god willing.

You spent most of the day assisting Karen in cleaning up, doing some of Jake’s laundry, and putting fresh sheets on his bed. You two also made a trip to the grocery store, picking up a few of his favorite things.

It was weird being in his house without him, let alone his bedroom surrounded by his things. But you embraced it. You loved him, and all you wanted was for him to come home to you. Even if it was in a different way than before.

Around 5:00 Karen got a call that he would be discharged tomorrow, and to pick him up around noon. The house was filled with happiness and joy, but also, a bit of nervousness as none of you knew what to expect with his recovery.

You helped Karen make a huge batch of chicken noodle soup, and later that night the three of you sat around the table testing the recipe.

“Perfect as always, my love.” Kelly said, grabbing Karen's hand.

You felt a shock shoot through your body. Your mind flashing to a memory of Jake saying those exact words, and sounding the exact same. You wondered if you’d ever hear those words again.

After dinner you excused yourself to bed, ready to take a shower and get a good night's sleep before your long and emotional day tomorrow. You took extra time in the shower, letting the hot water soothe your tired muscles, and relax you enough that you would fall right asleep.

You pulled on your favorite t-shirt and a pair of his old sweatpants and slid into his bed, wishing so badly he was there next to you. You thought of him, alone at the hospital and sighed. You hadn’t heard a word from him all day, so with the rest of the courage you had, you grabbed your phone and sent him a text.

You opened your thread with him, and hit the camera button, snapping a picture of you curled up on his pillow, and hit send.

You

9:47pm: *Attachment*

Jake

9:49pm: My shirt, in my bed? That’s just mean…

You

9:50pm: Clean sheets too. All to myself…

Jake

9:51pm: *Attachment*

9:51pm: This is what they are calling a pillow.

You smile as you open the photo to see Jake, laying on a flattened out piece of cotton wrapped in plastic.

You

9:52pm: Lol, don’t worry, tomorrow you can have all of these to yourself…

9:52pm: *Attachment*

You laugh, sending him a photo of both of the pillows on his bed, looking fluffy and full.

Jake

9:54pm: Then what will you sleep on?

You

9:55pm: I don’t know, one of the pillows on the basement pull out couch.

Jake

9:56pm: No, I can probably share. Just this once…

Jake

9:57pm: What are you doing?

You

9:58pm: Rifling around your room looking for treasures…

Jake

9:59pm: Hmm, want to go on a scavenger hunt?

You

10:00pm: Okay…

Jake

10:01pm: Alright, get out of my bed and walk over to the desk

You

10:02pm: Okay I’m here…

Jake

10:03pm: Okay, open the second drawer from the bottom.

You

10:04pm: Done

Jake

10:03: Okay in the very bottom of the drawer there should be a little brown cardboard box

You

10:05pm: Yes, I see it.

Jake

10:06pm: Look inside.

Pulling the box from the drawer you open it and see it filled with CD’s. You pull one of the jewel cases out and smile. Their very first CD. You grab the next one, different from the first. Flipping through four of five untitled CD’s before getting to one you recognized, Oh, Live from Detroit, I remember that…I think I was there…

You

10:10pm: Wow, is this every single one?

Jake

10:11pm: Yeah, should be. I’m pretty sure some of those are like, the only copies in existence anymore.

You

10:12pm: Is there a CD player in here? I have to listen to these.

Jake

10:13pm: Nope. Ready to see my most favorite treasure?

You

10:15pm: Yes

Jake

10:16pm: Okay, walk over to my dresser

You

10:17pm: Here

Jake

10:18pm: Ok you see all the photos stacked in the corner?

You

10:19pm: Yes

Jake

10:18pm: Okay, ignore those. Instead, look up.

You look up and are met with your reflection in the mirror. You. You are his treasure. You aren’t even sure what to say. You just stare at the screen of your phone as you feel your heart flutter.

Jake

10:20pm: It’s true. You are my most favorite treasure.

You swallow back the lump in your throat and walk back over to the bed, sliding in once again and snuggling up to his pillow.

You

10:22pm: You know you’re mine too, Jake…

He doesn't respond and you figure he probably fell asleep, and you weren’t too far behind him. You place your phone on the nightstand and turn off the lamp, ready to let sleep take you away when you hear it buzz again.

Jake

11:01pm: Remember when we used to sneak out of my window and sit on the roof and smoke so my parents wouldn’t know?

You

11:03pm: Lol yes and I was always afraid we were going to get too high and fall off.

Jake

11:05pm: You know I’d never let anything happen to you.

You

11:07pm: I know…

Jake

11:09pm: Wish we could go back.

You

11:07pm: There’s a lot of things I wish I could go back and redo.

Jake

11:11pm: All part of the journey babe, good or bad.

You

11:13pm: More bad than good…

Jake

11:14pm: And I’m still here…

You

11:16pm: But it’s not the same.

Jake

11:18pm: Not yet.

You

11:20pm: But maybe?

Jake

11:21pm: Definitely maybe

You

11:23pm: Then maybe I can make you pancakes and sing Sam Cooke with you?

Jake

11:25pm: God I fuckin’ hope so baby.

You

11:27pm: Me too.

Jake

11:30pm: Enjoy that bed to yourself while you can…

You

11:31pm: Like it better when you’re here.

Jake

11:32pm: Me too. Goodnight babe

You

11:33pm: Night Jake ❤️

You placed your phone on the nightstand, hugging his pillow tightly to your chest, letting out a breath it felt like you'd been holding in for weeks. And as you fell asleep, you let yourself believe that things might actually be okay.

—

You tapped your fingers nervously on the arm of the couch, you were ready to go, and you had been for nearly two hours. The clock ticking by slower than it ever has. The hospital called again this morning to confirm Jake’s discharge, and Josh was planning to meet you there and ride back with the three of you.

“You ready to go get your man?” Karen asked jokingly.

You laughed nervously, “Yeah, I think he did his time.” you replied as you followed her out the door.

The ride to the hospital was nervous but hopeful, you and Karen chatting about the weather and anything else you could think of, but the closer you got the more the nerves set in. Things between you and Jake had taken a drastic turn in the past two days, talking more than you had in the past few weeks.

As you stepped into the hospital and made your way to the elevator, Josh greeted you with hugs and ‘hellos’.

“Have you been waiting long?” you asked.

“No, not really, had to come up here earlier actually, Jake needed guitar strings? I don’t know. I didn’t ask, came and brought them up and they were getting ready to start his discharge. Checked out of my hotel room and just got here a few minutes ago.” he said.

Guitar strings?

The three of you rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and you took a deep breath as Josh knocked on his door.

Seconds later the door was opening, and for the first time in days you saw Jake behind it.

“Wow, honey you are looking better!” Karen said, pulling him in for a hug. As he hugged her back his eyes met yours, looking much more lively than just a day ago.

“You ready to get the fuck out of here?” Josh joked.

“Hell yes, what took you guys so long?” he laughed.

With Karen and Josh looking to you now, you stepped forward towards him as he reached his arms out to you. He wrapped his arms tightly around you like it was the only thing tethering him to earth. His face buried into your neck breathing you in as he pressed a kiss to your cheek.

“God, I am so glad to see you.” he said. Part of you wondering if he meant it or if this was part of his act.

He pulled away quickly as a cough shook through his chest, not nearly as bad as it was, but still not great.

“Alright alright, let's get you home and back into bed. You’re not healed yet, son.” Karen said playfully.

He nodded and grabbed his few items, before stepping through the door and grabbing your hand in his.

“Hey, thanks for the serenade all night, that’s a story I’ll be able to tell my grandkids one day.” The guy at the nurses station said, saluting Jake as you left.

“Tell them you listened to me write a new song in a hospital bed!” he responded.

“Did you really write something new?” Josh asked, leaning in close.

“Sure did. It’s pretty sweet…think you’ll like it, too.” he said, looking over to you, his sweet grin filling your stomach with butterflies as he squeezed your hand.

You were completely unaware that the emotions he came to terms with while laying in that bed inspired something beautiful and brand new.

The two of you walked hand in hand to the elevator, taking the short ride down to the lobby with Karen and Josh.

As you loaded into the car Josh joined Karen up front and Jake sat in the back with you. Each of you sat on your respective sides of the car, casting glances at each other every few seconds. You could hardly tear your eyes away from him, dressed in your most favorite item in the world. You wondered if he really meant it all those days ago when he said it wasn't his favorite. That he was going to donate it. You hoped he wouldn’t, and thankfully he didn’t.

He talked to Karen and Josh most of the drive home, but still he would look at you, the color back in his face and a small smile on his lips.

He stretched his arm over the headrests, letting his hand fall at the nape of your neck. His fingers gently dusting the skin there as he continued to talk. Your mind began swirling with the memory of the last time you felt his touch this way. So soft and gentle. You looked over at him meeting his eyes as his thumb pressed into your skin letting you know he was thinking the same things you were.

Minutes later you were pulling into the driveway and making your way up to the front door. Sam and Elle had arrived while you were gone and were happy to see Jake in better condition. You ushered Jake upstairs, knowing he still needed tons of rest and that it was almost time for his next dose of antibiotics. He agreed, slowly making his way upstairs to his bedroom as you followed behind him.

JAKE POV

She shuts the door behind her and leans against it as you walk over to your suitcase, laying open on the floor. You pick up a t-shirt noticing its soft texture and folded state. You pull it to your nose breathing in the scent and feeling your body physically relax.

“Did you wash my clothes?” You ask, looking over to her still leaning against the door.

Her eyes flick up to yours nervously, “Oh, um yes.”

You bring the shirt to your nose again breathing it in. Smells just like her.

“How does it– it smells just like you?” you question.

“Your mom and I went to the store yesterday. I picked up the laundry soap we use at home, thought it might…I don’t know, make you feel better or something.” she answers.

You stand up from your suitcase, throwing the shirt over your shoulder and walking over to her. You grab her hands and pull her into your arms, wrapping them tightly around her. Her arms snake around your back, her hands gripping into you as the two of you stand there breathing each other in.

“Thank you.” you whisper.

“You’re welcome…” she replies.

You release her, stepping back and just looking at her. Really looking at her. You can tell she is nervous. After the way you’d treated her the last few weeks, you’d be nervous around you too.

You pull off the flannel and toss it into the suitcase, pulling the black t-shirt over your head and pulling on the one you’d grabbed from your suitcase. You kicked off your jeans and threw your phone onto the bed, as she turned away.

You sat down on the edge of the bed, as you turned your attention back to her. “Hey, c’mere…”

She walked over to you, as her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She pulled it out, and looked at the screen before her eyes flashed to you.

“Time for your meds…” she said.

“Oh, are you my nurse?” you asked playfully.

“For now, though I am probably not as qualified as Carson.” she laughed.

Shit. Did she know?

“Your mom and I made chicken noodle soup for you yesterday. Do you want some? Then you can take your medicine?” she asks.

“You made it?” you ask.

“Well, yeah. Me and your mom. It’s your moms recipe, I just helped.” she admits.

A smile crosses your face, “Yes. Please.”

“Okay, stay here. I will be back in a few.” she says, disappearing through the door.

Just ask her when she comes back. It’s just Y/N. Why are you so nervous?

A few minutes later as you’re laid back on your pillows your bedroom door opens and you see Y/N and Elle carrying in all kinds of things.

“Brought you lunch! And snacks! Heard they were starving you in there!” Elle says.

“I think prison food would have tasted better.” you laugh.

“Well this should be good, especially if Y/N made it.” she smiles.

“I just helped! I swear I didn’t do anything special!” she interjects.

“Sure you did. You made it for Jake right?” she asks.

A puzzled look crosses Y/N’s face, “Yeah?”

“So it was made with love. That makes everything special.” she says, scampering back through the bedroom door, shutting it behind her.

Y/N places the bowl of soup, crackers, and water for you at your desk, motioning for you to come over. You stand up from the bed and walk over, mouth already watering just from the smell alone. You sit down and turn to her, as she places the two white pills in your hand.

“I will be downstairs if you…need anything. You can just text me or whoever…” she says, backing up towards the door.

“You’re leaving?” you ask.

“Well, I figur–”

“You figured wrong. Stay…Hang out with me for a little bit?” you ask.

“Are you…sure?” she asks.

“Find a movie for us to watch?” you offer.

A smile slides across her face and she tries to stifle it back. She kicks off her shoes and grabs some clothes from her suitcase, running off to the bathroom to change. Minutes later she is walking back into your room in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. You swallow nervously as you take her in. Your favorite girl.

She grabs the TV remote, climbing into your bed and nestling herself into the blankets. You have a hard time keeping the smile from your own face, knowing it would be mere minutes until you were there next to her.

—

You were nervous to crawl into bed with her, but you knew once you were there everything would fall into place. It always did. You slid into the bed, pulling the familiar blankets up over your body, as she hit play on the movie.

You rolled to your side looking up at her, deeply invested in the movie starting on the tiny screen across the room. You had no idea what movie she picked and honestly you didn’t care. The medicine you had to take made it hard for you to keep your eyes open for longer than five minutes at a time. It had been too long since you were able to just relax with her. Not a care in the world, just you and her and that's it.

“You want this, or do I get to use it?” she smiles, offering you the pillow behind her.

You smiled back, “You can use it, but I have the freedom to change my mind at any moment.” you say playfully. She lays down into it, closing her eyes as she breathes you in. Her eyes reopen and look at you as her hand suddenly comes up towards your face.

Her fingers gently glide over your top lip, “I kind of like the mustache Jake. It’s…I don’t know…It’s hot.”

“I couldn’t shave in the hospital, been a few days. You like it?” you ask.

Her fingers run over it again, lingering for an extra second, “Yeah. I do. Maybe you should try it out.” she smiles.

“I don’t know, maybe.” you reply, rolling to your back.

A cough rips through your chest as you turn away from her, but you feel her hand press to your chest, warm and soft even through your thin t-shirt.

You roll back with a sigh, wondering how long this cough will stick around.

“You know, I kind of feel like this is partly my fault.” she said resting her face on her arm.

“What? No? Why?” you question.

“The other day, in the hotel room, you were kind of out of it, coughing here and there, kept getting headaches…I asked you if you were sick and you said no, but I knew you were. I should have made you go to the doctor sooner.” she says quietly.

You roll towards her, letting your feet graze against hers, “I shouldn’t have pretended that I was okay. Just, with everything that was going on, I couldn’t deal with that too. It caught up with me though. I was stupid for thinking it wouldn’t.”

“Thank you, for taking me to the hospital though… I…am glad you were there, in the room with me. I’m glad I didn’t move you to your own room.” you admit.

Her foot slides against your leg, sending a shiver through your body, “I did. I changed all the rest of our hotel bookings for the rest of the tour. I got my own room so you didn’t have to be near me.”

“Why?” you ask, unsure you even wanted to hear the answer.

“Because you’ve spent the past two weeks showing me that’s exactly what you wanted.” she says, driving a dagger straight through your heart.

You grab her arm pulling her to lay on your chest as you wrap your arms around her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know I was mean. I didn’t want to be, I was just…hurting. I shouldn’t have said those things. They aren’t even true.”

“No, I deserved it. I still do.” she says, cheek to your chest.

“Will you just, lay here with me?” you ask, into her hair.

“Am I allowed to touch you?” she whispers.

“Of course you can touch me, baby.” you answer, completely shocked that she thinks she needs to ask.

Her hand snakes up under your shirt, resting on your chest. You can tell by her urgency that she had probably been thinking about it for a long time. You knew laying with you like this was one of her favorite things in the world. Her fingers rubbed small paths over your skin, almost like she was re-familiarizing herself with your body. You missed the way her skin felt on yours, and if it was up to you, you wouldn’t move from this spot for the next three days.

It was quiet between the two of you for a while, just the gentle rise and fall of your hand on her shoulder as she breathed. The movie continued to play across the room, but neither of you were watching it. You knew that both of you had fallen into a deep spiral of what exactly had happened between the two of you that you’d ended up here, together, but not at all.

—

The two of you later found yourselves seated around the kitchen table as your mom finished cleaning up dinner, finding that the extra long nap earlier had you waking up feeling even better than you had this morning. Part of you wondered if it was because Y/N was wrapped around you, or maybe just the new medicine you’d been given. Either way, you were starting to get into better spirits, even given your current situation.

“Our flight is leaving tomorrow, Daniel’s too.” Sam said, leaning back in the old wooden kitchen chair.

“Sammy do not lean in my chairs, the rules have not changed!” your mom yelled from across the kitchen.

You lifted your middle finger, flipping him off with a shit eating smile as he rolled his eyes and sat back down. He scoffed and flipped you off with both hands cutting his eyes at you.

“Samuel Francis!” your mom yelled, peeking her head around the corner seeing Sam with two middle fingers in the air.

“No! That was to Jake, not to you!” he said, trying to explain. You let a small laugh leave your chest as you watched him get scolded.

“Don’t let me see that again…” she said pointing at him and returning to the kitchen.

“Fuck you Jake…” he muttered under his breath.

“No, fuck you, Sam.” you replied with a grin.

“Annnnyways….I’m probably gonna stay here with Jake, someone has to drive his ass home, and I’m not making Y/N do it.” Josh says.

“What! I can do it!” she interjects.

“I know you can, but I need you to watch him while I’m driving. I can't be chauffeur and nurse.” he laughs.

“When do you think you’ll be ready to head back?” he asks.

“Probably, like…another day or so? I am feeling way better. I could probably drive, honestly.” you say but are met with a resounding ‘No’ from everyone seated around the table.

“Jake, you can barely keep your eyes open.” she smiles.

“Okay, so tentatively the day after tomorrow…”Josh says.

“Yeah, I think so. Y/N?” you ask.

“Yeah, whatever you guys want.” she answers, as you slide your hand to rest on her leg. You feel her hand grab yours and give it a tight squeeze before she stands up and walks into the kitchen.

Sam and Elle follow after her, leaving you and Josh to sit at the table.

“I think I would kill a man for a beer.” you say.

He laughs, and pats you on the shoulder, “Damn, you are feeling better, huh?”

You nod and send him a smile.

“I’m glad. Was scared there for a minute.” he admits.

“You can’t get rid of me, fucker…” you laugh.

Y/N walks back in with a glass of water and another handful of pills, handing you both, as she watches you take them.

“Gonna go take a shower, don’t stay down here too long or I’m starting the next episode without you.” she says, with a smirk.

“I’ll be up in a bit.” you say, squeezing her hand as she walked away and disappeared up the stairs.

“So, are you two like…good now?” he asks.

“I mean, no. I haven’t even told her about Elle yet. Gonna wait until we get home. I just… I spent the last two weeks being a complete dick to her. Hated her, or– what she did to me. Said some really fucked up shit to her, then I found out what happened with me and Elle, and knew I fucked up. Knew I overreacted. That morning I was going to try to start being nice to her again, but then, next thing I knew I was in the fucking hospital. I spent the entire time I was in the hospital thinking about her. I fucking love her man, that shit doesn’t just go away. As much as I wanted to hate her and never talk to her again, when that alert thing started going off and I couldn’t breathe…when I thought I was about to fuckin’ die… It was her. I know it’s always going to be her.” you pause as he nods his head.

“So I wake up and she's in my hospital room and she’s just… god, I don’t even know. Just so attentive and wants to listen to me, and be there with me. How could I not want to forgive her? I put her through hell, and I know, she’s no angel, but even after all the shit I said to her, she still came. I know I hurt her, but I know she still loves me too.” you finish.

“She does Jake. But what her and Sam did is a far worse offense than what you and Elle did.” he says.

“I know. I know that, but…I feel just as guilty. I was planning to do the same thing. I just…how can I stay mad at her when she all but gave me free reign. The only difference is that I didn’t give her permission.” you say.

“Would you have given it?” he asks.

“No? I don’t know? Maybe? That whole night is a fucking blur, I barely, barely remember it. It was like a movie, man. Wild shit and bad decisions happening everywhere. Way too much alcohol. We were having fun, we all felt really free, I guess. One of those once in a lifetime nights, ya know? Do you know that I came and slept in your room that night?” you ask.

“What? No.” he replies.

“Yeah, after I told her we were done, I left the room. I didn’t know where to go, so I slept on the couch in your room. Left before you got up. Tried to talk to her again, went pretty fucking poorly, so I went to the bar and drank myself stupid.” you confess.

“I just feel like…I got really lucky that she was in the room with me the other night. I don’t know what would have happened if she wasn’t. I got a second chance, you know? So why shouldn’t I give her one, too?” you finish.

“That’s your call brother. I know she loves you. I know you love her. But sometimes things aren’t that cut and dry. I know you’ll make the right call though. You always do. I’m glad you are feeling better and I’m glad you told me about everything. You know I will help you any way I can.” he says, standing up from the table.

“I realized while I was in the hospital that I don’t tell you guys that I love you, nearly enough. You know I’m not an emotional kind of guy, but… I do, love you.”

A smile crosses his face at your confession, “I love you too Jakey. And for the record you might be the most emotional guy I know.”

You smile and pat his back as you walk away up the stairs, trying to keep your heart rate down and avoid a coughing fit. You twist the door knob, and as you step inside you see Y/N squatting down in front of her suitcase looking for her pajamas, her towel twisted on top of her head.

You’d missed seeing her like this. Sure you’ve been with her nearly every night in the hotel room, but something about being here was different. You pulled your shirt over your head and tied your hair up at the base of your neck, letting your sweats fall to the floor before sliding into your bed with a groan. Your body was sore from all the coughing you’d done the past few days, and your muscles were extremely tight as a result.

Y/N flipped the towel off of her head, dragging her brush through it, and tossing it back into her suitcase. She had on her normal pajamas of an oversized t-shirt and panties, though she’d been opting for shorts as well more recently. You were interested to see what she would choose tonight.

She looked over her shoulder as you watched her make the decision, and as she shut her suitcase you couldn’t help the smile on your face. She turned off the overhead light, leaving the room lit by the TV, as she crawled over you into the bed.

“You gonna turn it on?” she asks, positioning herself under the blankets.

“What?” you ask.

“Our show?” she answers, so normally.

“Do you want me to?” you ask.

“Well yeah. Don’t you want to know what's going to happen to the cigarette smoking man?” she asks.

You turn to her and pull her into your side, letting her cuddle up to you in her favorite spot as you hit play on the remote.

About halfway through the episode you feel your eyes starting to get heavy, thanks to that damn medicine. You have been lazily running your fingers through her still damp hair, and halfway paying attention to the show on the screen as you just enjoy the feeling of her draped over your body.

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand causing both of you to turn your heads. You reach over and grab it, pulling it out in front of you to see who it is. You and Y/N both squint at the brightness of your screen as you quickly turn it down.

You click on the notification letting it open your Instagram DM’s and seeing Carson's name appear at the top.

Carson:You changed my strings? You didn’t have to do that! You’re a sweetheart. 💕

Your heart starts to race as you quickly lock your screen and place the phone back on your nightstand, hoping she didn’t see.

“So that’s why you needed strings…” she says, laying her head back down on your chest.

“Just trying to be nice. She practically saved my life you know…” you say, hoping to play it off.

A few minutes pass and it's silent between the two of you. You swallow nervously as you grab the remote and pause the show, before turning off the TV. She turns to look at you, resting her chin on your chest.

You turn onto your side, letting her fall beneath you, as you cup her face in your hand.

“For three days that woman had to listen to me ask for you. Beg, really. Were we good friends in highschool, yeah, sure. But I haven’t talked to her since graduation. She did something nice for me, so I did something nice for her. If anyone knows how I feel about you, it’s her.” you say.

“How do you feel?” she asks.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Josh. When I was scared to death, thought I was about to die, your face was all I could see.” you reply.

“Really?” she breathes.

You lay your face onto hers, letting her lips lay against your cheek, as you force yourself not to show her exactly how you feel. “Yeah, baby.” you whisper.

“You wanna go to sleep?” you ask.

“Will you hold me?” she asks, the tone in her voice nervous that you might say no.

You roll her to her side and pull her into your chest, letting your head settle into your pillow as you twist your fingers with hers. It feels so, so good to be with her like this. Your missing piece.

You breathe in deeply and let it go, finally feeling the weight lift from your chest as you let your eyes close. Suddenly you feel her turning in your arms, her face centimeters from hers.

“Hey Jake?” she whispers.

You open your eyes and see her looking back at you, “Yeah?”

“It’d be you, too.” she says.

You send her a puzzled look.

“If I was dying. It would be you, for me. It always has been.” she breathes.

You grab her face with your right hand, cupping her cheek as you press your lips to hers in the kiss that has been dancing between the two of you all day. Her lips are soft and full, and warm, and everything you thought about for the past two weeks without her. Her hand snakes up your bare chest, resting on your neck as she kisses you back; her lips like velvet as they move against your own.

After a minute you force yourself to pull away from her, just looking into her eyes for a few seconds, before you pull her body back into yours and lay down on your pillow. Though this time you are holding her closer, and holding her tighter, knowing you can’t let her go again. Not ever.

“Goodnight, love.” you whisper softly into her ear.

She rolls her neck to the side, letting you place one soft barely there kiss to her skin as she whispers back to you in her perfectly sleepy voice, “Goodnight, babe.”

HER POV

Evening was drawing near again; you’d spent almost the entire day at your parents’, soaking in the hours you had with them and explaining everything that had been happening the past few days. They were devastated to hear about Jake’s health and the cancellation of the next shows, but they agreed it was in his best interest.

After dinner and more sweet goodbyes, you told them you were off to play nurse again, and you’d call them when you got back to Nashville.

You crept back into Jake’s house, the smell of leftover dinner aroma filling your nose. It seemed though mostly everyone had gone to bed, until you heard laughing outside on the back porch.

You waltzed to the sliding door, peeking through the blinds and found Jake and Josh sitting and talking, bundled up with jackets and scarves.

You slowly opened the sliding door, and poked your head out. “What are you two doing? It’s freezing out here!”

“No it’s not, Y/N, you’ve just gotten accustomed to the warmth of Tennessee.” Josh laughed. Normally you would find them out here having a beer or sharing a joint, but both of those things weren’t allowed in the house for quite a bit yet.

“Yeah. Both our doctors told us fresh air would do us some good, so here we are…” Jake said. “I’ll be in in a minute, though.”

“Take your time, get all the fresh air you can! I need you both well.” You closed the door quickly behind you, stopping the brisk air from entering the house. You wondered if Jake had told Josh about anything, and you wondered how he was going to react when he finally did. You weren’t looking forward to that.

You’d been cuddled up in Jake’s bed reading a book when you heard his door squeak open. You turned sleepily to find him pulling off his scarf, hat, coat, and all the layers he had bundled up in.

“Hey, whatcha been doing today?” You asked.

When he was down to his boxers, he climbed in bed beside you, pushing his chilled body against yours. “Missing the hell out of you, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“God, Jake! You’re so cold, quit!” You laughed and pulled away as he placed his cold hands on your stomach.

“But I need you to warm me up!” He complained as he grabbed you again, pulling you closer. His freezing cold face was buried in your neck, his hot breath a contrast to the frozen nose pressed into your ear. You felt your whole body tingle, feeling him this close again. Mmm, slow down Jake. But also please don’t…

You let your body roll over against his, sucking up the fact that he was almost frozen solid and giving you chill bumps. “Ahh, that’s better…” he said as he shivered into you, letting out a low growl as he thawed out. Your lips traveled on their own, slipping down the curve of his cold neck, laying tiny kisses as you trailed down to his shoulder, your body begging you to keep taking it further.

But you couldn’t. You had to go slow, keep your feelings at bay. You weren’t together…but then you saw his deep brown eyes flick up to yours, his eyelids heavy already. His hand grabbed the back of your neck softly, pulling you to meet face to face. Your lips fought to reach out to his, connecting again like they had last night.

“We shouldn’t be doing this…” he whispered.

“No, we shouldn’t.” You answered, as he pulled your neck again, letting you stop just millimeters from his lips. You let your tongue sneak out, brushing it into his mouth before pressing your lips to his in a flurry of hitched breaths and grabbing hands. His kiss was hurried and hot, pulling you over on top of him. His hands buried in your hair, and yours cupping his head. It was fast and frantic, like you’d been starved for one another for years upon years. Finally, so perfect. Your Jake…

…but wait. Suddenly you pulled away, disconnecting the two of you as you wiped your lips off with your hand. You shook your head quickly from side to side. “This isn’t right Jake. We can’t…” you laid back down beside him.

“Fuck you’re right. You’re right you’re right. We can’t. I’m sorry, I just–”

You leaned in and kissed him again, the pull to him overtaking your entire mind, body and soul. He kissed you back, this time slow and sweet, the kind that set your insides on fire. You couldn’t help the whimper that escaped your lips at the overwhelming feeling of passionate want for him swimming through your body.

“Mmm, gotta stop making those noises baby, driving me crazy already…” he whispered between deep, engulfing kisses. “We can’t be doing these things…breaking our own rules…”

You rolled him so you were on your back, him hovering over you. His hand instinctively reached down and pulled your leg over his, hitching it and burying his hand in your hip.

“Truly not the best idea…we should really stop while we’re ahead…” you breathed into him, tongues searching into each other’s mouths again. “But we never came up with any rules though, did we?” You stated more than asked.

“Mm, nope. We should have laid some down.” He said, gritting his teeth together, flexing his jaw and moving his eyes from your lips down to your breasts. “What’s rule number one, baby? Tell me what we can’t do…” he said, kissing you hard again.

Your mind was swirling, fighting between wanting to say fuck it and sleep with him, and deciding that you needed to stop. Truly stop. And show yourselves that you could do it. It was time to grow up…but god…his hands on you…

“Rule number one is no kissing.” You said as he brushed his hand down your neck, pulling your tit into his hand and squeezing it, the touch alone making you want to moan obscenities. He pulled his mouth away from yours.

“Okay, no kissing. Got it.” He breathed, chest heaving.

“Rule number two, no touching, like that…” he firmly gripped your tit again, pulling and twisting your nipple just the way you fuckin liked.

“Okay, no touching like that. And three?” He asked, body buzzing.

“Rule three is… I still get to tell you I love you every single day, how much I care for you, and how sorry I am that I hurt you so badly. How much I want to make this work. And how much I want you to be the person I wake up next to every single morning for the rest of my life.” You spit the words out before you could think about them, and they took him by a little bit of surprise.

He sat back, admiring you. A small smile crept to his lips as he brought his lips to your forehead, kissing it hard. He nodded. “Okay. Okay baby.”

You let yourselves calm down, settling into a state of relaxation again after getting so worked up.

“So, you never said no sex, though. So we can still do that, right? Just no kissing or touching?” He said after a few minutes. You rolled up and smacked him across the chest.

“Jacob!” You laughed.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Lay back down. Go to sleep.”

“Gonna be hard to go to sleep after feeling you like that again…” you said, laughing.

“No shit, I already wanna break those rules so fuckin’ bad.” He laughed too, both of you realizing how much you turned each other on.

“Jake, I wanna tell you something.” You sat up on your elbows. “We both know we’ve got to give each other time, right? We owe it to each other.” He nodded.

“I talked to Logan, and he and a couple friends have a big house, and they’re looking for one more roommate. I told him that I’d take the room. I think it would be best for us, right now. So we can truly have our space away from each other.” You went on. You watched his face fall. “Things feel okay right now, but let’s be honest Jake, I hurt the hell out of you. And I still harbor that guilt. I’ve got to have my time, and I have to give you yours.”

He sighed deeply. You could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t like the idea, but he understood where you were coming from. You thought back to how horribly he talked to you just a week ago, how awful things were…you didn’t want to end up there again.

“Can we talk more about it tomorrow?” He asked. You could tell his meds were kicking into overdrive.

“Yeah, babe. Tomorrow.”

You both ended up cuddling again, each of you falling asleep with the love of your life. And you promised yourself right there that you’d spend everyday proving it to him.

——

The next morning you woke up early to head back home, Jake finally having more strength than he had all week. It was good seeing color in his face again and you knew he was anxious to get back to Tennessee.

You made your home in the backseat while Josh hopped into the drivers seat, and Jake manned the copilot seat. You’d made yourself a little bed in the back, ready to curl up with your book.

You’d been on the road maybe an hour or so when you got a text from Jake.

Jake

9:12am: Please don’t move out

You

9:13am: Jake, you know we need our space right now

Jake

9:15am: Yes, we do. So I’ll just go to the guest room. You can have our bedroom again. Just… please stay. Don’t go away.

You looked out the window at the passing trees, knowing in your heart that you truly didn’t want to move out. But could you make it work? Moving away from him seemed like a good idea, but also, what if it wasn’t? What if it drove you even further apart? What if so much time passed, that you never ended up coming back?

You

9:20am: Okay. One condition.

Jake

9:21am: Tell me

You

9:22am: The guest room is mine.

——

A while later, you’d made it to somewhere deep in Kentucky when you felt your stomach rumble.

“Do you guys wanna stop for food soon? I’m starving.” You said, closing your book.

“Hell yes I’m starving too.” Josh said, bringing up his GPS. “Jake, you’ve had nothing but jell-o and hard boiled eggs for 4 days, you pick where we go.”

“Do you guys really wanna know what I want?” Jake went on. “You can’t say no…”

Josh nodded. “Yeah okay I guess…”

“I want fuckin’ Dairy Queen. Chicken strips, and honey mustard, and french fries, and a giant turtle blizzard.” He said, making weird mouth sounds as he talked. “My mouth is literally watering right now. All I could think about in that damn hospital bed was fucking up a blizzard bigger than my face.”

You and Josh erupted with laughter. “Of all the places in the world, and you want Dairy Queen?” He laughed at his twin.

“What do you have against the Queen of Dairy, Josh?” Jake said blankly, his British accent coming back full force. “Shit’s delicious and that’s where I want to go, got it, damn it?”

You were laughing hard now. “I love Dairy Queen. Sounds good to me babe.”

Josh raised his eyebrows. “Oooookay then, find the closest one.”

——

Jake was still eating his ice cream on the walk back to the car, a giant smile planted across his face as his red spoon hung from his lips.

“I’m gonna sit in the back with you. I’m getting tired.” He said, going around to the back door of the car.

“Meds kicking in already?” You asked.

“Yep. Big time. Plus I know if I lay down in your lap you’ll play with my hair.” He said, raising his eyebrows in question.

“I don’t remember making that deal, now.” You answered, knowing that yes, you would play with his hair if he laid in your lap.

Josh started the car up again and rerouted the GPS. “Josh, I didn’t even see if you needed a break, want me to drive any?” You asked.

“No no, you coddle him. I’m good to go. Had me my strawberry sundae so I’m ready for the next 200 miles, baby.” He said, placing his sunglasses over his eyes and pulling out of the lot.

Jake finished his oversized blizzard and put the cup in the door, curling his legs up underneath him as he laid his head onto your lap. He then fished around behind him for your hand that was once again holding your book, grabbed it, and threw it on his own head. “Pleeease?” He whined.

You giggled, knowing he wanted you to play with his hair. So you obliged, holding your book in your left hand and pulling through his long silky strands with your right.

You didn’t even notice him on his phone at first, but your eyes inadvertently popped down to his screen below your book. You saw the name Carson, and immediately your stomach fell. They’re still talking? What could they be messaging about? But you couldn’t say a word. It wasn’t your place.

“Ya know Jake, with your peach fuzz mustache growing in and your hair getting longer by the day, you might actually turn into a pirate by the time we get back home.” You laughed.

“Mmm, you’d like that wouldn’t you?” He said flirtatiously look up at you.

“Uggghhhhhh…gross.” Josh said from the front. “Don’t make me turn the music up louder cause I will.”

“I’m thinking about cutting it. I miss how bouncy it was. Now it just sticks to my face when I sweat. I hate pulling it off my neck during shows.” Jake went on, his voice getting sleepier.

“But that’s what they love, Jake. Haven’t you seen all those crazy people on your TikTac or whatever that things called? Wanting to collect your sweat in fucking vials and shit?” Josh yelled.

“Oh my God, Josh!” You laughed hard.

“What? I can’t help it that I’m a super fuckin’ sexbeast on stage! It’s not my fault…” Jake laughed, obviously feeling himself from the medication and overload of sugar.

“My god, you two are insane. And don’t call yourself a ‘sexbeast’ ever again.” You mumbled, going back to your book. You rode on for a little bit, feeling a bit drowsy yourself. Your eyes kept flitting open and closed while the words began to jumble.

Suddenly you saw a finger flick down onto your page. “Ya like it so far?” Jake asked through a yawn.

You smiled. “Yeah, I’m really into it. I hope you don’t mind I borrowed it…” you said, realizing you never asked.

“What’s mine is yours, babe. And that is one of my favorites.” He said, tucking his hand between your thighs, and curling up on your lap again, letting himself drift off into a much needed slumber. You traced the plains and curves of his face with your fingers, letting them drag over his eyebrows and down the slope of his nose. Even in his sleep he would whine at the pleasant feeling, leaning into your touch. You loved him. More now than ever before. The thought of losing him, showing you everything you already knew, in a whole new light.

An hour or so passed and you somehow manage to stay awake, the upbeat lull of Josh’s quirky playlists keeping your mind piqued.

“Almost home, you wanna drop Jake off at the house then take me to the office to get my car?” Josh asked, turning the music down.

“Yeah, that sounds good to me.” You said, placing a dog ear on your page and setting the book on the floorboard.

A bit later you pulled onto your street, the sun beginning to dip low in the sky. You jostled Jake awake as best you could. “Hey Jake, we’re home. You wanna go ahead inside? I’m gonna take Josh back to his car.”

He stretched, rubbed his eyes, and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll get the bags and stuff out.” You all slinked out of the car, stretching your legs after the long ride.

“Ahh, feels good to be back in the non frigid temperature, eh guys?” Josh said, helping to pull your suitcases from the back of the car. “I’ll get it brother. You don’t need to get winded.” He handed him a small bag, and wheeled his larger one up to the door.

“I’ll be back in just a bit.” You told Jake as you placed your suitcase inside the front door.

You switched Josh out to take the driver’s seat, adjusting the chair and mirrors a bit to fit your liking. This was going to be your first time alone with Josh, and you wondered if Jake had mentioned anything.

You’d been on the road just a few minutes before he spoke up.

“You know, you guys don’t have to keep the charade up when you’re around me, right?” He asked, breaking the ice.

Fuck. Of course Jake told him.

“Ah, Jake had a little conversation with you, didn’t he?” You said, flipping the blinker to turn into traffic.

“He did. I’m still not very happy with you, Y/N. I hope you know. Sam either.” He said blankly. Ouch. Would you ever stop hurting Josh, too?

“I know you’re not, Josh. I wouldn’t be happy with us either. Hell, I’m still so mad at myself I can hardly see straight.” You were both quiet for a bit before you decided to keep going.

“I know there’s nothing I can say to fix it, except that I hope you know that Jake and I have talked through everything, for the most part. He knows and I know that I made a huge mistake. I can’t go back and change anything, so I’m just going to take my mistake and grow from it. I’m really ready to grow up now, Josh. I have to. I have to be the person he needs, and the person that I need. I’m going to start working on myself, fixing my faults and moving toward better days.” You were quiet again.

“I hope you know how much I love him.” You mumbled, wishing that Josh would say something. Anything.

“I do. And I know how much he loves you. Even though I can’t believe the shit that went down, with Sam and everything, I know that you guys will figure it out. You have to.”

You nodded. “Thanks, Josh. Remember you can stay mad at me for as long as you need. But I’m still going to keep being here for him. And for you guys.”

“I know you are. You’re family, remember?” He muttered.

You glanced at Josh, a tiny smile on his lips.

“Yeah, family.” You smiled, holding your hand out to hold his. He grasped it back, squeezing it tightly, and placed a tiny kiss to your knuckles.

“I have a question, though. Well, a condition, maybe. An option?” Josh said.

“Ha ha, yes?”

“Start coming to yoga with me. Take some classes. You said you wanted to work on yourself, what better place to start than right here?” He said, reaching his hand over and touching the spot right below your breastbone.

“No, Josh, I can’t! I’ve never done yoga…” you went on, surprised at his proposition as you put the car in park in the lot.

“So? That doesn’t matter. Yoga is an actual journey, and I’m telling you right now, it’ll help you get in touch with yourself quicker than any self-help podcast or whatever. Come with me. I’ll even go back to beginner classes with you.” He said.

You considered it, biting your cheek into your mouth. “You really think it would help me?”

“I know it will help you. I promise. And, it feels good. Every single time you leave, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner. And you’ll get to hang out with me, and what’s better than that?” He joked.

You giggled, punching him on the shoulder. “Okay, I guess I could try it out. Yeah, let’s do it.”

“Perfect! It’s settled then!” He leaned over to kiss your cheek. “I’m still very disappointed in you, but I’m also excited. When we go back on the road, I have some great classes on YouTube I use.”

He climbed out of the car, letting the cool rush of air cut through the blowing heat from the vents. “See you later!”

Hmm, you, a yogi?

JAKE POV

Walking back into your home after the past few weeks felt eerie. The walls felt warm and welcoming, but the darkness is what got you. After lying in a hospital for days, all you really wanted was to be back in your home, with Y/N, a fire going, music playing, and life happening all around you.

You walked yours and Y/N’s suitcases to your bedroom, switching on all the lights as you did so. You lifted the suitcases, placing them on the bed so you could unpack a little later. A cough rattled through your chest, sending tiny shooting pains into your lungs, but not nearly as bad as it hurt a few days ago.

You could still feel the lethargy, the exhaustion, and the body aches hanging in your body, and you knew they were right. You needed rest. No way you could go back out on the road right now.

You walked around the house, ready to pick up the little messes you’d left behind before you left. But there were none. In fact, the place was so clean you could eat off the floor. The floor…had the wood been shined? You walked to the bathroom. Spotless. Shower scrubbed, laundry done, bedsheets changed with folded extras in the closets…what the hell? It almost felt sterile…

You decided you’d talk to Y/N about that when she got home. In the meantime, your fingers were itching to play something, so you decided to go into the study and turn on the fireplace, drifting away playing that new tune you had written in the hospital until Y/N got back.

You walked into the study, finding that your acoustic wasn’t in its normal place. Oh, you’d taken it upstairs to hide away forever in the closet. Back when things were bad. Back when the guitar held horrible memories.

You ran up the stairs and pulled it from the closet, also in a different place than you’d left it.

Fuck.

You made your way back downstairs, completely winded, and sat down in your leather chair to check the tuning. It felt so perfect in your hands, your old faithful. Always there when you needed it. You glanced to the desk, as something out of place caught your eye. Small and red…

Wait. Your notebook. The one you’d given to Y/N for Christmas. Sitting right here on your desk. And…a flower laid perfectly on top? Dried and wilted and brown, with only one petal.

——

You aren't sure how long you'd been sitting there staring at the notebook, it had to be at least an hour. Flipping through the pages reminiscing on all the memories it held. Finding it on the desk felt like someone had ripped your heart out of your chest. Why would she leave this? Did she not want it anymore?

You sat back in your chair twirling the flower stem in your hand. One last petal. One last she loves me. Or maybe she loves me not and that's why she left it?

You hear the front door open slowly, and seconds later she’s stepping into the house. You continue to sit there, twirling the brown stem in your fingers, just waiting for her to find you.

“Jake, what are you doing babe, you need to get in bed.” she says, tossing her things on the table by the door.

She steps into the study, and as she gets closer she spots the notebook on your lap at the flower in your hand. Her face goes white as she makes the realization.

“You don’t want it anymore?” you ask.

“No…Jake…” she says, fighting off tears.

“You left it…were you not… were you not going to come back?” you ask, your voice shaking.

“When I left here, we weren’t even speaking Jake, I– I didn’t think you wanted me back here. I thought we were done, over, all of it. I couldn’t take it. I could hardly look at it. Just reminded me how badly I betrayed you. What I did to us.” she admits.

“The flower. You left one petal…” you question.

“I just…wanted to tell you I loved you one last time.” she replies quietly.

You run your hand over your face. It’s time. You have to tell her.

You stand up from the chair, and reach your hand out to her, letting her clasp her hand with yours as you lead the two of you to your bedroom.

You lead her to the end of the bed, and she sits as you kick off your shoes and flannel. You join her on the edge of the bed, taking a deep breath. “I need to talk to you. I need to tell you something. I’ve needed to tell you for a few days, but… I just couldn’t find the right time.” you say.

Her face drops, and you wonder what she's thinking.

“You know that whole night… it’s kind of a blur to me. I really don’t remember much of it. I think I was just so mad initially about you and Sam, that I kind of blocked out everything else. My brain was only focusing on that hurt.” you start.

She nods her head as you continue, grabbing her hands in yours, “I don’t remember much of what happened in that hotel room with them. Part of me tried to just forget the whole thing ever happened, but a few days ago, Elle texted me.”

Her eyes widened at her name, “Yeah?”

“Yeah. She, apologized for kind of pushing the limits, so to speak. At first I had no idea what she was talking about, so I told her that. And well, she told me what happened.” you say, pulling your phone from your pocket. You scroll to your messages with Elle and hand the phone to her, to let her read for herself.

You watch as she reads the messages, her brow furrowing and relaxing a few times over before she reaches the end. She looks over at you, a confused look on her face.

“You don’t remember any of that?” she asks.

“No, well, I didn’t but, now I kind of do. Bits and pieces.” you confess. “I’m so sorry. I…I wouldn’t have been such a dick if I had known that… I don’t know… that I was probably going to do it too. How could I be mad at you if I was going to do the same thing? I– I don’t know what to say other than I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“Jake… It’s not the same. I went behind your back. There was no conversation between us where you said it was okay for me to do that... I cheated on you. It’s different because I knew you two were probably going to hook up and I was okay with it. Do you not remember our conversation about it, either?” she asks.

“Not much…” you breathe.

“Jake, I told you right as you got that phone call from Josh. I told you it was okay. I told you I knew things with you and her were looking like they were heading that way. I gave you a free pass, I told you I trusted you both. I’m not mad baby, I gave you permission.” she says, rubbing her hand up your arm. “I thought you knew that…”

“Did I…tell you, you could…?” you ask, hoping she knows what you’re asking.

“No. We never finished the conversation. Your phone rang, and then you left. Part of me thought maybe, you kind of had? We never spoke the words, but we both sort of acted like we were going to…ya know. Switch, I guess. But I don’t know, the second it happened I knew what I was doing was so wrong. The biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I shouldn’t have stayed. I should have left with you. I know that now. But I had to learn the hard way.”

“Y/N…” you say, running your hand over her shoulder.

“Why aren’t you mad baby? The guilt has been eating me alive for days…I feel like you should be mad at me.” you say.

“Because Jake, I knew that you two were probably going to. I came to terms with it the second the two of you started making out. It hurt a little, but I knew it was just a one time thing. I knew you loved me, and you were coming home to me. You promised me that. What did I have to worry about?” she pauses. “But… the weed, the alcohol… it got to me. I took things past where they should have gone. And I ruined it. I ruined everything we built.”

“You had every right to do what you did that night Jake. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, but…I hope that maybe one day…” she trails off.

You twist your fingers with hers as you bite your lips together. “One day.”

“That’s why I feel like we need space from each other. So that you can process and have time to figure out what you want. So maybe you can forgive me. It’s easy for us to fall back into our same pattern if I am here everyday, and around to tempt you. If I’m gone, maybe you’ll realize that this isn’t what you actually want, or maybe we will both realize it is. I don’t know, do you know what I’m trying to say?” she says. “None of this makes sense, it’s like there’s not a correct road to take.”

“Y/N…I completely understand. But, can I ask you a question?” you ask.

“Yeah…” she breathes.

“Do you love me?” you ask.

“Yes, I do.” she replies.

You nod, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?” you ask nervously.

“Every single second.” she replies.

“So why would you walk away from that?” you ask.

“I…I just want to give you space to figure out if that's what you want, Jake…”

“Baby, I have known that since the night you picked those glass shards out of my hands. There’s nothing left to figure out.” you reply.

“So please. Don’t go because you think it’s what I want, or what I need. What I need is you. Always you. I know I need time to forgive you, but that’s something I am willing to work on together. I want you to have your space though, so I am fine with you staying in the guest room, as long as you want. We can follow all your rules, and shit, I don’t even care if you add ten more. I’ll follow them. All of them. I just… I know what I want, and it’s you and it will always be you.” you finish.

She wraps her arms around your neck and pulls you into her. You wrap your arms around her and pull her down to lay back onto the bed. You hold each other there for a few minutes, just feeling each other closely as your bodies melt into one.

It’s quiet, just the sounds of your breathing filling the air in the dim room. Your room. The room you hoped to share with her again one day. You would. You just knew.

Her phone alarm began to echo through the house, bouncing off of the walls and into your ears as she pulled away from you. You held her hand as she pulled away walking towards the door to grab her phone. The alarm stopped and you heard her make her way into the kitchen before returning back to the bedroom with a glass of water.

She came back to the bed, standing between your parted legs, “How about you take a shower, and get in bed, while I find something for you to eat before you take these pills.”

“Is it time already?” you ask.

She grabs your hand and pulls you up from the bed, shooing you off to the shower, as she disappears through the door.

You had to admit the shower felt good. As much as you hated postponing the first leg of tour, there was nothing quite like being home. You ran your towel through your hair and pulled on a pair of boxers before making your way back to the bed, and pulling back the duvet. Sliding into your own bed felt like heaven. You opened your side table to grab the TV remote and stopped when you saw her photo.

Fuck.

You had forgotten you took it out of your wallet. You pulled it out, tattered around the edges and looked at it. You looked into the drawer again, finding the pick, right where you left it. Thank god. How could you have ever been that mad?

You quickly got up, finding your jeans on the floor, and fishing out your wallet. You hastily put the items back where they belonged, and jumped back into bed before she came back.

You grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, seeing it still paused on the documentary you started a few weeks ago, but at the end, not the beginning where you left it. Did she finish it?

Seconds later Y/N walked back into the room, carrying a plate.

“Best we had. We need to go to the store.” she laughed.

“We can go. Do you want to go tomorrow?” you offered.

“I will go. You need to stay in bed and rest.” she says.

“But I want to go do something…I’ve been in bed for days…” you whine.

“Okay, maybe.” she concedes.

“Make sure you take those after you eat, okay? Almost done with them. Two more days I think.” she says, pointing to the pills on the nightstand.

“I will.”

“Okay…I’ll see–” she says, slowly walking to the door.

“Wait! Are we…not gonna see what Scully’s solution is?” you ask, hoping she would come back.

“Jake…” she groans, leaning into the door frame.

You nod towards the TV, bringing up the episode you stopped on.

“Let me change, and then we can watch one episode. But I’m staying on the other side of the bed, then I am going to the guest room when it’s over.” she says.

“Yes Ma’am.”

—

A few minutes later she is walking back into your room in a blue silky pajama set, your mouth positively watering as she releases her hair from her bun as she walks to the other side of the bed.

She pulls back the duvet and slides into the bed, sighing as her head hits the pillow, “God, I forgot how comfy this bed is…”

“Mmhm….” you smirk, biting your lips together as you look at her.

She turns to look at you, you still examining every inch of her body that she was willing to show you.

“What?” she scoffs.

You smile and shake your head, “Nothing. You’re just…gorgeous.”

“Jake…” she warns.

“I’m not breaking any rules.” you quip.

“Just hit play.” she says, turning back to the TV.

You finished your food and took the pills like she said, and within minutes you start to feel drowsy. You turn off the lamp that was lighting the room, and roll toward the center of the bed to keep watching.

When the episode ends and she doesn't make a sound, you turn to look at her, only to realize she's been asleep the whole time. You just look at her for a minute, taking in the subtle part of her lips and the way her chest is rising in falling in her deeply content sleep. How could you possibly dream of waking her up?

You pull the duvet up over her shoulders and brush the hair from her face before quietly rolling out of the bed and bringing your dishes to the kitchen. As you place the items in the sink you spot her phone on the counter, and decide to bring it to the bedroom for her. You grab the phone charger she keeps in her purse and quietly plug in her phone and place it on the nightstand next to her head.

You return back to the bed, and let out a sigh, ready to finally sleep in your own bed. As your eyes close you feel her body move closer to yours, cuddling into your side before going still once again. You wrap your arm around her, and gently kiss her forehead, closing your eyes and finally feeling like things might turn out okay after all. Just you and her, right where you should be.

—

Your eyes open slowly, adjusting to the light of the room as you blink away the sleep. You let out a huge yawn, noting that your deep breath isn’t nearly as painful as it has been. You reach your arm to the other side of the bed to feel for her, but all you’re met with is cold sheets.

You sit up on your elbows looking around to see her phone gone and her side of the bed made. What the hell?

You roll over to your side to grab your phone but see a folded note sitting on top of it. You grab it and rub your eyes before opening it and reading it.

Jake,

Went to meet Logan for breakfast.

Will be back soon and we can go to the store.

Next dose of medicine is at 9:45, don’t forget.

You fold the note and set it on your night stand, laying back into your pillow. Logan?

You roll out of bed and into the kitchen, seeing the coffee pot still on and half full, your favorite mug waiting by the machine. You smile to yourself, knowing she took extra time to do that for you. You pour some coffee into the mug and make your way back to the bedroom, rummaging around for a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, finding everything you’re looking for simply because she did all your laundry. While you were a total asshole to her. While you left her here alone. While she thought you hated her.

God, I fucked up.

You pull the clothes on and make your way to the front porch, settling yourself in the wooden rocking chair as you enjoy the sun on your skin. You scroll aimlessly on your phone for a while, wondering what time she left this morning, and how long you slept after.

After draining your mug you returned back inside, deciding that if you were going to be banished to your house for a few weeks you would at least be productive. You made your way over to your record cabinet and pulled the entire stack. You made piles by letter and began organizing each one into the appropriate pile, by artist name.

You must have lost track of time, because the next thing you knew your phone was ringing alerting you that it was time to take your pills. You pulled yourself up from the floor and made your way into the kitchen, grabbing the medicine and a glass of water and following the rules laid out for you.

You returned back to your study and finished putting the last of the albums into the cabinet, very satisfied that you’d completed a project you’d been wanting to do for a long time.

You drug yourself into the bedroom to start unpacking your suitcase, taking out the clean items and putting them away until it was time to pack again. As you reached the bottom the tiny white bag laid there just staring at you. Shit. You had almost forgotten about it. Where should you put it?

You grabbed the bag, sitting on the bed and dumping it out into your hand. You held the tiny piece of circular gold metal between your fingers letting the small diamond glint in the light. You imagined what it would look like on her finger, tying her to you forever. You wanted it. You wanted it more than anything. You wondered if you would ever get back to that point with her. You hoped and prayed you would, but for now you needed to hide this away. Somewhere she would never ever find it.

You stood up and walked into the hallway, spotting your guitar case leaning against the wall. Perfect. You bent down and unlatched the locks, opening it up to see your guitar sitting perfectly nestled in the red velvet confines. You opened the tiny pick slot, and slid the white bag inside, shutting the small slot, and reclosing the case. Safe and sound. You knew the crew guarded this case with their lives. No one was getting their hands on it other than you. You walked the case upstairs to the music room, putting it there with the others, just waiting for their time to play.

You made your way back downstairs, positioning yourself on the couch for a while flipping through TV channels as your stomach rumbled. Shit, you hadn’t eaten yet today.

You drug yourself to the kitchen and began pilfering through the pantry, looking for anything you could eat before you went to the store today to restock. Finding a lone granola bar you scarfed it down, hoping she would be home soon so you could go.

You took a quick shower and shaved for the first time in days, hoping Y/N wouldn’t be too sad to see it go. As you dressed yourself in fresh clothes, you heard your phone chime on the dresser.

Danny

11:14am: *Attachment* (4)

Danny

11:14am: I know it’s probably nothing, but didn’t want you to randomly see these scrolling through socials. They’re eating her alive in the comments…

What?

You opened the attachments seeing screenshots from social media of photos of Y/N and Logan, from what had to be this morning. Comments about her being with someone else, or speculating on her cheating on you. People wondering who that guy is since she wasn’t with you… Photos showing them walking together with his arm over her shoulder, at what seemed to be a farmers market. Photos of them eating this morning. To be fair, it didn’t look good, but after everything last night, surely it wasn’t what it seemed. You had a nauseous feeling in your stomach, but you pushed it away, knowing that she loves you, and only you. She told you. Right?

You

11:18am: Thanks dude.

You tossed your phone on the bed, pacing the room for a second as you tried to let the negative thoughts leave your head. In a split second decision you decided to call Josh, grabbing your phone again and hitting call.

The line rang out until you were met with his voicemail, groaning and throwing it onto the bed once again. You carried yourself to your study, turning on the TV again and starting a documentary knowing she would be home any second.

Your phone buzzed on the couch next to you, picking it up, you saw her name.

Y/N

11:27am: Hey, Wanda from next door just called me. She was confused why we were home early since she was going to keep our mail for us until the end of April. Anyways we were talking and I told her you got sick and we came home so she wouldn’t need to get the mail anymore – all that to say she is making you ‘get well soon’ muffins. So check the porch in a little bit. Be home soon!

You

11:29am: Thanks baby

When another hour passed and your stomach continued to growl, you snatched your keys off the counter and drove to Publix, buying any and every item that looked even remotely appetizing. As you walked the aisles you dreamed about the sandwich you were going to make when you got home, piling it so high that it might be physically impossible to eat it.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket as you perused the wine selection, needing to refill your stash with her favorites. You placed them into the cart as you pulled your phone out, seeing her name on the screen once again. You swiped your thumb across the notification, expecting to see that she was on her way home, but instead you were met with the opposite.

Y/N

1:10pm: Running longer than I thought. I’ll be back soon! ❤️

Right.

You shoved your phone back into your pocket and headed towards the checkout. You swiped your card and made your way back to your car, filling the trunk to the brim. As you pulled up to the house to see that she still wasn’t there, you felt your face grow warm. You spotted the muffins on the porch, smiling and telling yourself to walk over and say ‘thank you’ as soon as you could. You carried all the groceries and the muffins inside and put them away, finally able to make yourself that sandwich and of course have a muffin.

The day continued to tick by and Y/N still hadn’t come home. Part of you started to worry if she was okay. Around 2:45 you took your next dose of pills, retiring to your bedroom for a much needed nap. Even the simplest of tasks were exhausting you. You knew the guys made the right call postponing the shows. There’s no way you could have played a show in a few days.

You scrolled on your phone for a while, eventually falling asleep as the TV played in the background.

The chime of the security system woke you up, and you sat up instantly knowing she was probably home. You looked at your phone. 4:03pm. Damn.

You stood up from the bed and walked over to the bedroom door, leaning into the frame as you watched her kick off her shoes and coat, arms full of various paper and plastic bags and a bouquet of flowers.

You crossed your arms and looked at her as she finally saw you standing there, dropping most of the bags and the flowers as she stared back at you.

“How was your breakfast date…”

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enlightenedrobot · 9 months

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On Harry Potter Syndrome

Whenever there's a milquetoast protagonist surrounded by infinitely more interesting side characters and is easily overshadowed by their actual sidekicks, I call that "Harry Potter Syndrome" and tbh I think it should catch on. Here's some examples.

Fandom(!) Danny is so much more interesting, and tbh, a kid growing up with ghost hunting parents shoulda turned out a lot weirder. Perfect example of Harry Potter Syndrome.

I love you Sora. I love you and your simple/ clean mind. I love how you tear through eldritch abominations with the power of both Love and also blunt force trauma. I also love how you objectively have the least amount of personal trauma and drama out of all of the playable characters in the games you started and I hope the lovecraftian terror of the circumstances surrounding your story never truly register as anything other than a fun adventure to your untainted, rarely used twink brain.

And yet everyone else in the series including the fucking mouse has enough backstory and angst to fill up an entire library with journals of badly written emo poetry or better yet thirteen games with the audacity of pretending to be a trilogy.

Yes, Kingdom Hearts suffers from Harry Potter syndrome, but it's also proof that that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

You guys, Madoka is so good. I swear it's a lot more than just an edgy Magical Girl show. It has amazing art that makes use of mixed media in a really creative way. It's also dark and surreal and surprisingly reminiscent of movies like Donnie Darko and Carrie. It's also incredibly gay.

And Madoka is likable enough, I guess. But also... if I had to nitpick anything about the show, it's that she's also kinda sorta boring? I mean, it is kinda funny seeing an adorable pink haired teenager earnestly talk about desiring "more power". But still.

A New Hope is probably the movie that inspired thousands of other cases of Harry Potter Syndrome, including Harry Potter himself, though I feel the need to point out how deliberate it is with it.

Luke is the Protagonist of the movie, unambiguosly. That's him front and center of the poster, and he's the guy who follows the hero's journey and ultimately comes out looking like the hero in all of this. But he's also not the sole viewpoint character of the film, and I think it's pretty telling that the first third of the movie takes place from the POV of a pair of gay married robots.

Depending on the scene, we take on the POV of either Luke, R2-D2, C3PO, Han Solo, Tarkin, or Princess Leia. Of these characters Luke undeniably fills in the role of milquetoast hero, but George Lucas understood the power of a good ensemble cast from the movie's inception.

And finally

Let's face it, this movie suffers so hard from Harry Potter syndrome, the marketing guys just said "fuck it" and put Johnny Depp on the poster instead.

#Harry Potter syndrome #harry potter #film critcism #film theory #language #Danny Phantom #Kingdom Hearts #puella magi madoka magica #Madoka #Star Wars #Alice in Wonderland #George Lucas #JK Rowling #Tim Burton #Johnny Depp #Editorial

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little-pondhead · 2 months

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The Folly of Men -

Chapter 2: #78866B

AO3 - MASTERPOST

[GENERAL TW: Swearing, lukewarm violence, lots of POV changes, and mild body horror.]

[I sacrificed Damian's POV for more time of Jazz, and everything jumps around a little, but I refuse to feel regret. Notes on the timeline are at the bottom.]

Two hours went by way faster than Jazz thought. Between gathering the emergency bags, counting cash, and raiding the lab, she barely managed to herd her parents out the front door on time. Luckily, the two doctors didn't put up a fight, so she still had ten minutes to lock up. Like she said, Jazz hadn't touched the portal besides locking it down. The portal's power supply had been re-routed to an emergency shield, blocking anything from getting in or out. As long as it was still on, that shield would hold.

Jazz blew a strand of hair out of her face as she sat on the front porch for a moment. The door was locked, she had everything, and her parents were waiting like scared kids for her a few feet away. All she had to do was arm the security system using the bug Tucker had sent her. It was relatively easy; she had to take off the casing to the alarm next to their doorbell and use a connector to plug her phone in. It took her a moment, admittedly. It wasn't easy to mash tiny buttons when her hands shook with adrenaline.

While she waited for the virus to load, Jazz glanced at her parents, watching them. They looked lost. A little guilty, perhaps? They both looked gaunt and had unshed tears in their eyes, looking positively miserable for all the world to see. They hadn't said a peep after she had stormed off. Not even when she came back to clamp 'Shade Shackles' onto their wrists, hissing something to them about behaving. The shackles were heavy and bulky, restricting them from their wrists to their elbows and locking their arms together.

The shackles wouldn't hold Jack for long, she knew. Not if he was actually trying to escape. But honestly, the man was probably worse off than his wife. He just kept staring into space, dissociating.

Jazz thought they deserved it. After a few more seconds of fiddling, her phone finally beeped, indicating the upload was complete. She unplugged her phone, packed the cord into one of her bags, and stood again to close the alarm casing. Shutters slammed shut over every entrance into Fentonworks. Maddie flinched at the loud noise.

"And now," Jazz muttered, picking up her bat. "We can't go back." The redhead swung like a professional, slamming her weapon into the alarm, setting it off like a loud pig. She took her anger out on the plastic, smashing the buttons and hardware to bits, sending wires flying. Even the brick beneath the alarm was chipped in many places. Well, if there was one thing her parents did right, it was make a decent bat. The creep stick didn't have a scratch when she finally stepped back.

Wiping sweat from her brow, Jazz took in her handiwork. Getting some extra aggression out of her system slightly cleared her head, and she smiled at the ruined building. The alarm was going off at max volume, and some of the floodlights her parents had installed a few years ago lit up the whole neighborhood with flashing red. If the Fentons hadn't had people’s attention before, they sure as hell did now.

"What'd you do that for?" Maddie said, horrified. Guess she was breaking her silence.

Jazz scoffed, turning to pick her bags up and sling them over one shoulder. "Because while I'd love to burn this place to the fucking ground-"

"You can't!"

"Shut up. It's not up to you, Maddie." Jazz spat. "And it's not up to me. Danny gets to decide what happens to Fentonworks. Whether you like it or not, this is his final resting place. I'm not going to rob him of closure."

Maddie snapped her mouth shut.

"Final resting place?" Jack finally returned to himself as he cried at his daughter's words. Thick tears dripped down his face. Jazz had never seen her father so distraught, not even when Vlad moved away to Europe last year. He looked heartbroken.

Jazz sneered, poking her father in the chest with her bat. "You heard me. That fucking portal, your goddamn pride and joy, is what got Danny killed in the first place. That lab is where he died in front of his friends because you two are idiots who refuse to follow any sort of rule."

"No, that's not-"

"Not what?" Jazz rounded on her mother, who shrunk back in the face of her fury. "Not right? That's not what happened? Is that what you were going to say?"

They were attracting a crowd. People were being drawn out of their houses by the alarms and shouting, staring at the two Fenton parents with mild distaste. Everyone knew their children put up with a lot, even if the doctors were well-meaning. Did they finally cross the line?

"It was hard for us too!" Maddie insisted. "All those late nights, his avoidance of us, how he looked at us! It was horrible."

"THAT'S BECAUSE YOU KILLED HIM!" Jazz roared. She was as red as her hair now, and the little ectoplasm that ran in her veins made the edges of her form blurry. As if she was a heat mirage. "YOU KILLED HIM, AND NOW YOU'RE KILLING HIM AGAIN BY HANDING HIM TO THE GHOST INVESTIGATION WARD!"

"Th-they just wanted to study him," Jack sobbed. "T-to avoid and prevent any ghost disease breakouts."

"BULLSHIT!" Her voice echoed down the street. It boomed unnaturally, drowning out the sound of sirens that were a few blocks away. A few neighbors were going pale as they realized the severity of the situation. "You two are doctors! You know how science works! You two built and sold weapons to them! Don't pretend to be ignorant and blame it on the fucking ghost flu."

"You disgust me," Jazz continued. She descended the steps and shoved past her parents. Maddie landed on the ground with an oof! "I hope I never have to see you two ever again." She adjusted her bags and started marching toward Nasty Burger, cutting through the crowd like she was fucking Moses. The police were a block away now. She didn't want to be there when they got to the house.

"Where are you going?" Her mother called. Pleaded, really. "We can talk this out!"

Jazz ignored her calls and walked on. When they spotted the murderous look in her eyes, everyone on the sidewalks quickly got out of her way. She had two minutes now, but the others probably wouldn't mind her tardiness. Her phone buzzed, and she snapped it open.

From: TheFuck

4:12pm yo ms evie just blasted ur rant 2 myspace and yt

4:13pm for an old lady she sure has quick fingers

4:13pm dani just showed up at nb we just waitin on u

Rather than replying, Jazz pushed the door to Nasty Burger open and beelined towards the trio's usual table. Tucker was glued to his phone while Sam and Dani mumbled, pouring over several sheets of paper. She tapped Tucker on the head, making him jump.

"I'm already here."

Tucker spun around. "Nocturn's starry underwear, Jazz!" He whined. "You could have just texted me!"

"Didn't feel like it," she shrugged, suddenly feeling very tired. The restaurant was mostly empty, so she threw her stuff into the booth beside them and slid in next to Tucker. The Fenton creep-stick was rested against the edge of the table, acting as a warning. The others had already set aside their bags and weapons in the other booth. Not a single Nasty Burger employee came over to tell them they couldn't have swords at the table, so Jazz didn't bother thinking about it.

Danielle, her free-spirited youngest sister, glanced up at her with a weary smile. She looked rough. The wind had tangled her shorter hair, and her clothes seemed horribly displaced and damp. (She'd passed through a tropical storm half an hour ago.) Dani was swaying where she sat, desperately trying to stay engaged with Sam even though exhaustion was no doubt clawing at her mind.

Jazz felt her mood soften. Sometimes, she had to remind herself that Dani was only a few years old by human and ghost standards. While Danny was also a baby ghost, he had a lot more stamina as a human to make up for it. Flying from New Zealand had taken its toll on the girl.

"Here, Danielle, switch me." Jazz stepped out of the booth, guiding her little sister to sit next to Tucker, who wouldn't mind if the girl fell asleep on his shoulder. Dani didn't protest and conked out almost immediately, soft snores being the only indication she was alive. Sam nodded her greeting and shuffled some papers Jazz's way.

"Here's everything so far," she stated. "We're doing this on paper until Tucker can set up a server."

Jazz flipped through the pages. Each one had a little tab in the corner sticking out so things wouldn't get mixed up. The pages were even color coordinated, just how she liked it. She scanned through sheets of numbers, reports on agent activity, stolen research, manufacturing contracts, and so on. Everything she saw was dated back at least a year, and Sam had taken the time to highlight the discrepancies between all the paperwork. It was the very definition of thorough.

Time for business, I guess, she thought. "To start with, how's the town?"

Tucker got right into it. He turned his PDA around to show her the screen. A tiny map of the town was displayed, with red dots pinned to random spots. "All the monoliths Danny set up are primed and ready. They'll tap into the ley lines in the area to power the ghost shield we set up. I'll set it off when we leave the city borders."

"I called Cujo and Wulf," Sam added. She had a paper version of the town map with more random spots marked in green. "They are rounding up the ghost animals, and I got Grandma Ida to scare a few more human ones into helping. Some of the A-listers are doing a sweep to drive out anyone who stays behind."

"What about the GIW equipment?"

"Dash is getting his football and baseball teams together. Wes is going to load them with a virus before they smash it all to bits."

"Teenage boys are always destructive no matter the species." Jazz remarked dryly. Sam gave her a Look, but she ignored it. Yeah, she was being hypocritical. Who cared? "How's the tracking going?"

Tucker patted the sleeping Danielle on her head. "Thanks to a little miss, I got a lock on his ecto-signature much faster this time. But his aura is big, and we'll still need to raid at least four locations before I can pinpoint him."

Jazz sighed in relief, tilting her head back. Everything was falling into place, and soon, Danny would be safe by her side.

Danny woke up with a knife in his chest.

He choked, breathing in the air for the first time in a while. He couldn't feel a heartbeat, but the knife was too close to his core. It was too close to his fractured core. The weapon twisted, digging itself deeper, and he screamed silently in fear. His limbs spasmed, knocking into whoever was standing over him and throwing them across the room with a thud.

Free of the pressing weight, Danny rolled to the side, dropping to the floor and scrabbling at the knife still in his chest. Fabric was tangled with his legs, making it difficult to stand. Had he been placed in a bed? He jerked the knife out, letting it clatter to the ground.

Danny keened as precious ectoplasm leaked from his chest. From his core. Flaps of skin that hadn't healed yet tore back open, ripping fresh scabs and making him lightheaded. Half-formed organs were trying to slip free of his body, and he could barely scoop them back in. His fingers felt thick, and the task seemed endless. What if his core slipped out? How would he know? Could he catch it?

Was this how Dani felt when she was melting? He briefly wondered. A sob tore its way out of his throat. God, everything hurt so much. He tried to inhale, to breathe through the panic attack, but his lungs were either shriveled from disuse or missing. He couldn't breathe. Oh god, he couldn't breathe. The fabric felt like shackles against his legs, stiffing and trapping him further as ice crept through the room. He couldn't feel his lungs, he couldn't feel his heart, he couldn't feel his core. His core was here; he knew it. Where was it? Where was his soul?

Danny curled in on himself, letting go of his skin in favor of shoving a hand into his chest, searching for his tiny core amongst all the ectoplasm and body parts. It was like trying to find a ping pong ball in a pool of Oobleck. The base of his head felt heavy, and he just wanted to cry even more than he already was.

where is it where is it where is it

His body shuddered as Danny started folding in on himself. The heavy feeling got worse. Bones slipped from his joints and pressed oddly against his skin, making it poke out in strange positions. He screwed his eyes further shut as he kept reaching past his ribs. His fingers were ice cold and sent shocks up his spine, making him spasm again. Flimsy organs were slipping past his arm; he tried not to pierce them as they landed back onto the floor with an ugly splat.

Danny kept crying, even as he felt the tips of his fingers finally brush his core. It was ice cold, colder than his skin. He could feel a deep crack in the surface, and he mourned for himself as he pulled his arm back out of his body. He wanted to scream so bad. To yell. To wail. To call for his family and friends and heal in his haunt surrounded by love.

But he didn't have any of that right now. His parents had given him away to the GIW, saying he just needed help, that he just needed to be fixed. That he needed healing. His haunt wasn't safe anymore, and Sam and Tucker had to stay behind to protect the other ghosts. Jazz wasn't even home the last time he checked. And now he was somewhere new, having a meltdown as he lost more blood than he cared to think about. He felt so goopy.

Danny's ears twitched as footsteps rushed towards his room. Was he underground? Everything was echoing. The person he'd tossed sat patiently against the far wall, probably staring at the mess he'd made. He was still whining in a high-pitched kind of way, which was his version of a ghost sob. The door burst open, making him flinch, but he was too weak to defend himself with ice. Danny could only lay there and try to pull himself back together.

"The boy is awake."

One of Ra's messengers bowed deeply to him, eyes cast to the floor. The papers he'd been going over were forgotten as he shoved them aside and focused on the messenger.

"I heard he was not due to wake until his organs regrew." Ra's commented lightly.

The messenger's frame tightened up a fraction. "The Demon's Thumb has returned," they intoned. "And has decided to greet the new Demon's Heir."

Ra's hummed, standing up. "I suppose I should have expected this. News does travel quite fast these days." He gestured for the messenger to lead the way, and they stood to do so. The walk from his main office to the medical wing was short as more of his retainers gathered around him. Dr. Vanessa, a thin woman with a vicious fire in her eyes, rushed to join his little circle as they passed the research hall.

"I apologize, sir." She seemed harried, if not a little ticked off. "My calculations must have been off. I-"

"It was not your fault, doctor." Ra's cut her off. "My granddaughter seems to have stopped by for a visit and wanted to pay her respects to the new heir, it seems."

"Ah." Dr. Vanessa's anger at herself vanished, and her face was carefully blank. "In that case, I shall adjust the boy's treatment plan accordingly."

They said nothing else as they approached the boy's room, admittedly at a quick pace. The bind around Ra's heart was urging him forward, to be faster and be by the boy's side when he awoke. The mere knowledge that the boy was in danger made his blood boil as his body revolted against this mind. By the heavens, he couldn't wait for this contract to be fulfilled. He hated magic so much.

Turning the final corner, a loud, keening cry assaulted everyone's ears. Dr. Vanessa flinched. A few guards pulled out their weapons, adopting a more defensive position. Ra's could barely stop himself from rushing through the group during the last few steps. He grits his teeth as another opens the door.

They were treated to the sight of a frost-covered room. The boy was on the floor, tangled in his blankets as he tried to shove unfinished organs, which was a gaping hole that led to nothing. Lazarus water was leaking from his body in copious amounts. His skin was practically translucent, and Ra's could spy his bones shifting unnaturally underneath it all, creating strange angles and planes that did not belong to a human. The boy's eyes were screwed shut, and he was crying even more Lazarus water, but Ra's would bet that his eyes were glowing that same bright green. The keening noise seemed to be coming from him, even though his mouth was shut tight.

Ra's glanced around again. A knife was on the floor next to the boy's head, covered in his blood. Mara al Ghul, his granddaughter and leader of the Demon's Fist, was sitting against the far wall with thick sheets of ice covering her from the neck down, trapping her in place. She was still wearing her mask, so Ra's couldn't see her face, but he knew she wasn't happy. Foolish girl.

Dr. Vanessa glanced at him. "May I approach the patient?" She asked. Ra's nodded his approval, and she cautiously stepped forward, trying to avoid the puddles of bodily fluids.

The doctor knelt, and she adopted a soft look to soothe the boy. "Hello, young man." Her voice dripped with honey. She reached out to tap the boy on his shoulder. "My name is Dr. Vanessa, and I'm-" She got cut off as soon as she made contact. A flash of light blinded everyone, and suddenly, Vanessa was encased with ice. She was essentially a statue now, still with a sweet look on her face.

Interesting. Ra's thought. One of his attendants moved the frozen doctor out of the way so he could walk forward, stopping right at the edge of the Lazarus water.

"Boy," he ordered. "Listen."

The boy's cry petered off at the sound of a human voice and he cracked his eyes open, staring straight at Ra's unblinkingly. He warbled something in a language that grated on everyone's minds. Ra's understood him, though, and switched tongues as easily as he would clothes.

"Boy," he repeated. His voice cracked, and Ra's could feel his granddaughter's burning questions engraved into his back. No one had heard him speak like this before. However, the boy finally opened both eyes wide, which he counted as a win. His interest was piqued. "Boy, listen to me."

The boy's mouth didn't move as he replied, "Hurts..."

"I know. But you are hurting others, and hurting yourself. Let us help."

The boy shivered. "Hurts. Can't. Pain."

"My people will not harm you," Ra's promised. The weight of the promise hung in the air like a bird, and the boy's eyes widened. Making promises in the tongue of the dead was a serious thing. "Calm yourself, and let us help you into bed. You are losing lifeblood. We cannot help if you freeze my people."

A humorless laugh was his reply. "Already dead." The boy informed him. "Almost dead again. It hurts. Please?"

Ra's motioned for the assassins to pick the boy up. He squeezed his eyes shut as hands touched his body but relaxed as one of them handed him his liver like it was a stuffed toy. The ice in the room started melting, releasing the two ladies from their bonds. The attending nurse quickly got to work collecting all the extra things that had fallen out of his body and placing them gently back inside the boy's gaping chest like he was playing Operation.

Once he was situated with all his goopy organs back in his body, the boy tried apologizing to Mara and Vanessa. "Sorry for the cold." He rasped.

Mara glanced at her grandfather, who didn't bother to translate. "I will be informing Mother Soul of this development," she said stiffly before turning and marching out of the room, two assassins at her heel. Dr. Vanessa was likewise escorted out to be taken care of.

Ra's stepped closer to the boy's bed. He didn't pay any mind to the blood, Lazarus goop, and now melting ice that stained his robes; they could be replaced. But he needed answers. He needed to figure out how to get out of this deal with the Gardener. And he needed to know how much power one child could offer him.

"Child." The boy looked lazily up at him. The effort of being awake was taking its toll. "I am Ra's al Ghul, the leader here. May I have your name?"

"Mmm." Some of the boy's bones shifted as he wiggled around, trying to relieve the weird pressure pressing against his skin. Ra's reckoned his whole skeleton might be out of place. "Call me Phantom," he eventually hummed.

Ra's knew that wasn't the boy's true name, but he'd work with it for now. He simply inclined his head in acknowledgment, watching as Phantom started nodding back off to sleep. Oh dear. He couldn't let him rest yet; Ra's needed answers.

"Do you know why you are here, Phantom?"

The boy licked his cracked lips, but still couldn't use his voice. His words were just echoing into the air like he was projecting his thoughts for everyone to hear. "No..."

"You were given to me. By a being who called themselves the Gardener. I am to take care of you."

"In exchange for what?" Phantom was struggling to stay awake. But he instantly caught onto the double meaning, which proved he had a brain somewhere.

Ra's considered his words. "Power," he said simply. "I care for you as if you were my own, and in exchange, you would be the key to granting unimaginable power and knowledge."

Phantom wrinkled his nose but seemed to accept that answer. "Undergrowth is so shady sometimes. But I'll acknowledge the deal between you two. Let me take a quick nap, and then you can let me know what you need..." He trailed off as sleep finally claimed him.

The Demon's Head wasn't pleased that the conversation was cut short, but the bind around his heart had loosened its noose, and he felt it was unavoidable. Now that his foolish granddaughter was out of the way, he would leave and return later. Phantom, while boyish in nature, seemed quite mature once he was lucid enough to talk. Perhaps Ra's wouldn't regret making him the Heir.

Jazz was getting antsy. It had been weeks, and they still hadn't found Danny. Raiding GIW bases with just the four of them took a toll on the group, especially since they kept losing supplies (like her beloved creep-stick, RIP). A few times, Danielle had to fly off and keep the peace in other cities, as the ghosts were finding different ways into the mortal realm now that Amity was shut off from the world. She'd taken up Danny's name as Phantom and was exhausted from flying across the country constantly. So, really, it was mostly the three of them.

Luckily, Kitty and Johnny showed up recently, and Dani got them to spread the word about Danny's disappearance and the group's country-wide manhunt. No ghosts had shown up since then.

"We're here," Tucker snapped her out of her thoughts, pulling her to an instant stop. This was one of the four bases Tucker had narrowed their search to. They'd destroyed the other three, gathering evidence and doing what was necessary to defeat the agents inside. And now they were standing in front of the final one, deep inside Yellowstone National Park. It looked like a rest stop with a bathroom, but Jazz knew that the compound was actually underground and most likely ten times the size of the shack.

Sam wrinkled her nose. "This place looks abandoned," She noticed. "At least the others had a front going on. I don't want to ride in a dirty bathroom that's really an elevator. I'd rather go back and fight those creepy clown performers from the pizza place."

"I can just phase us down." Danielle offered.

Jazz shook her head. "Nah, you need to save your energy, kiddo. Who knows how deep this one is."

Tucker crouched, fiddling with his PDA. "This spot does have a front," he told Sam. "It's a rare geocache spot. The only hint for it online that I can find is a shitty riddle that was posted, like, last week."

"Oh, what is it?"

"Uh, here. It says:

Below the keep, just six feet deep, lays a weathered path, born from wrath. A white beast rests, who troubles his guests, so find the key, and beware the banshee."

Danielle snorted. "You're right. That riddle sucks. Who wrote that? Skulker?"

Jazz smiled but considered the words seriously. "I mean, it seems pretty literal if you know the context behind it. Why not search for the cache and see if it has a key?"

"Good idea."

With that plan in mind, the four split up to scan the terrain. None of them had ever been geocaching before, but it was a popular tourist activity around Amity. It shouldn't be that hard, could it?

The answer was yes, it was. The group searched for an hour before Tucker finally gave in and sat on a log to take a break. The log promptly crumbled in half, and Tucker shouted in surprise as he landed ass-first on a hard tackle box.

"Oh, come on!" He groaned. "This log isn't even made of plastic! It's cardboard! Who makes a geocache out of cardboard?? It literally rained last night, my ass is wet now!"

Danielle giggled for the first time in weeks. Jazz ruffled her hair, earning a swat of protest, and then walked over to help Tucker to his feet. Sam swooped in to claim the first dibs on the box as soon as he was clear.

The lock was no issue for her as she simply bashed it open with a sharp rock. Sam seemed eager to find more clues and crowed triumphantly when she dug out a key card still attached to a GIW lanyard. "Fucking finally!"

"Good job, Sam." The four gathered around the tackle box. The card seemed legit, right down to the near-invisible security numbers engraved on the back. Their enhanced eyesight allowed them to spot that detail, which was a blessing when sniffing out fake leads.

Dani shot up excitedly. The fact that they were so close to finding Danny renewed the spark in her eyes. "I'll go look for the entrance!" She sped off, turning invisible to avoid any inside cameras. She found it within minutes, and returned to share the good news.

It was, indeed, in the tiny bathroom.

Sam groaned. "I need to learn to keep my mouth shut."

"I'm fine with that, honestly. You loud-mouthed mother-OW!" Tucker stumbled through the doorway to the bathroom, too slow to avoid the whack Sam had given him.

"That's 'loud-mouthed BITCH' to you," she scolded playfully.

The eldest shook her head and ignored them. The bathroom truly was tiny, and hadn't seen the loving touch of a mop in years. Spiders were making webs in the corners and Jazz was pretty sure something had been using the toilet as a litter box. It looked awful and smelled even worse. A smug look from Danielle told her that the girl had simply stopped breathing, and therefore didn't have to deal with the scent of actual bear shit.

She ignored Danielle, too. Jazz could feel her little sister's smugness radiating as they searched everywhere for the secret card scanner. Jazz couldn't stop her organs at will yet, and the twins always took full advantage of that to mess with her. They eventually figured out that the empty soap dispenser was what they were looking for, and the scanner beeped when they swiped the card. The whole room started to shake as they moved down.

Sam and Tucker stopped their petty back-and-forth as they heard the grinding of the elevator cable. "When was the last time this was used?" Tucker sounded alarmed.

"Probably when they built it." Sam grimaced at the sight of the dirty toilet water moving and pointedly moved to stare at the wall. "I want to set myself on fire right now. This is so gross."

"I'll hand you the match."

"I will douse you in gasoline, Tucker."

"Not the time, guys!" Jazz glanced at the ceiling, where she imagined the cable would connect. It squealed and screeched, but eventually, the world's worst elevator trip came to an end, and the one wall with nothing attached to it split open to reveal the pristine tunnel of a GIW facility. All four of them bolted for the hallway, and not just because they were eager to start trashing the place.

"Danny better fucking be here because I do not want to ride that thing ever again." Gasping, Sam rested her arms on her legs, breathing in stale, underground air. At least it didn't stink.

Danielle giggled again (that was twice now!!) and changed forms. "I'll go scout ahead," she informed them. Jazz bid her good luck before she faded from visibility. She wasn't too worried about the girl. Dani had her radio and knew to avoid GIW sensors as a ghost.

Tucker lay on the ground, staring into nothing while they waited. "My ass is still wet," he commented after a few moments of silence.

"No one needs to know that, Tucker."

"Too bad. I might get a rash from this. Did you know I ran out of underwear last week? I'm on my last pair, and now I'm gonna get a fucking diaper rash from them."

Sam gagged. "That's disgusting. Don't tell me this shit. I'm cursing your bloodline just for that."

"You gotta tell me these things," Jazz chided. "I would have gotten you a new set."

Tucker waved his arm in a 'whatever' motion. "Eh, honestly, it isn't that bad right now. I've done worse. Danny and I once tried to see how long we could go without showering or changing in middle school. I went two weeks before my parents hog-tied me and hosed me down in the front yard. Danny managed to go a full month before you did the same."

Realization struck Jazz and her eyes widened. "That's what that was about? Oh my god, he was yowling like a cat when I caught him, and it took three rounds of shampoo just to wash his hair! He's never forgiven me for it!"

"Sounds about right." Tucker shrugged. "I promised him a ticket to the observatory if he won, but you caught him the day of the showing, and he missed it."

"Why don't I remember this?" Sam demanded.

"It was right before y'all moved to town. It's the incident that caused the 'Fenturd' nickname."

Jazz put her head in her hands and groaned. Sometimes, she really wanted to smack her brother.

Danielle popped back into existence, making all three of them jump. Her mood had drastically changed, and she seemed really uncomfortable. "As interesting as that story is, and I definitely want to hear about it later," she said nervously. "This whole place has already been raided. There's no one here except a couple of soulless bodies. And an open portal. Someone was here before us."

All three shot up. "Lead the way," Jazz demanded. Everyone ran down the still-pristine hallway. Barely any dust had settled, and none of them smelled blood. Who had gotten here first?

They slid to a stop before a big metal door. Dani ducked through it to open it from the other side, and everyone was assaulted with the smell of rotting bodies and days-old blood as soon as it started moving. The door was literally so thick it had trapped everything inside. Including some agents, it seemed. A few bodies were pressed against the door and fell toward them when it opened. Tucker screeched and jumped back.

Sam, a true crime girlie at heart, crouched to examine the closest one. "Their fingers are worn through, almost to the bone," she noticed. "I bet if we closed the door again, we'd find scratch marks."

Dani floated above the corpses. "Yeah, it looks like something cut off all the exits and hunted them one by one."

"But what killed them?"

Sam toed a body until it flipped over. The eyes of the agent had been ripped from their skull, and frostbite warped their skin so bad she couldn't tell what their original features were. Danielle floated closer to Jazz, looking highly uncomfortable. "Danny's ecto is all over the place," she whispered. "He was definitely here."

"Right." Jazz hardened her heart. She was here to find her brother, not feel sorry for brutally mutilated government agents. "Let's get going. Stick to the battle buddy system, and keep your comms on."

They proceeded cautiously, only touching a body if it blocked their path or to find a key card. Tucker remarked that if this was a horror game, he probably would have played it, but living it was so much worse. Every single corpse had its eyes removed, and it was starting to wear on Jazz's mind. Dani mentioned their souls were gone, too.

Eventually, after some detours and backtracking, they reached the labs where Danny would have been held. Rage filled Jazz's chest as she saw ectoplasm mixed in with the bloodstains. A table had been set up to restrain a ghost with specialized handcuffs that had FENTONWORKS printed across them in bright green letters. Shattered glass was scattered across the floor and a few organs were decaying quite rapidly. A scientist was slumped across the table, a small knife still in hand. Jazz kicked the corpse.

Without Danielle telling her, she could feel it. This is where Danny had been tortured. Probably vivisected, too. Those were his organs that were rotting on the floor. His blood stains the ceiling. She was seeing red. She wanted to scream. Her baby brother had been tortured by these horrible people, and she didn't even get to kill them??

Danielle tugged on her arm, quietly bringing her back to herself. "The portal," she reminded Jazz. "It's in the next room."

"Sam, Tucker, see what you can recover from in here." Jazz gritted her teeth and let Dani guide her away from that room. "Dani's gonna show me the portal. Scream if you need us."

"Be careful!" Sam called back.

They left the room, going two doors down to what looked like a near-perfect copy of the Fenton's lab. She stiffened as she spied the portal. It wasn't set into the wall like the original but rather floated a few feet in the air in front of it. It looked like a tear in reality, similar to something Wulf could make, but on a much larger scale. She felt dwarfed by it, and dreaded to think about what could come through a portal this size.

Dani pointed out some blinking computers, the only ones still with power inside the entire compound. "They were working on a new portal," she said. "The Fentons sold their research. I'm not sure how we missed it, but they were really close to getting it figured out."

"This isn't from the GIW?" Jazz asked, gesturing to the behemoth of a disaster still swirling next to them.

"No, I don't think so," Danielle zoned out. Her eyes glowed, and she looked at things Jazz couldn't see. "This was opened from the other side. I think someone broke in, took Danny, and left after killing everyone."

"Someone from the Ghost Zone?" Jazz frowned. She bent over the computer, trying to click around for security footage. "But who do we know that is strong enough to kill everyone so physically? Vlad swore to never interact with us again, even if it was life or death. Undergrowth would have left plants behind, Nocturn doesn't like killing in the mortal realm, and Vortex can't sustain himself underground. None of the normal rogues are strong enough, either. Unless they got Desiree to help?"

"Nah, she may be a bitch, but she refuses to participate in murder of any kind. Plus, she's a neat freak. This isn't her work. It isn't Ghost Writer either; he doesn't like writing horror stories."

"What about Frostbite or Pandora?"

Dani wrinkled her nose. "Maybe? Frostbite is a pacifist who is more likely to rescue Danny without killing anyone. And the portal is too small to let Pandora through. She could've sent her warriors, though."

"It was Danny."

Jazz glanced up from the computer. Sam and Tucker were standing in the door, looking pale.

"We pulled recordings from the labs dating back two months. Danny was the one who killed everyone."

"...Pardon? It's only been a few weeks since he disappeared."

"I don't know." Tucker frantically typed away at his PDA, pulling up the downloaded footage and shoving it in Jazz's face. "But it's definitely him. I pulled their files, too. They were looking into time travel, Jazz. The day Danny showed up in their records, Operative K and Operative O were also logged in, even though they were 100% still in Amity during that time. They suddenly added on the time travel stuff a day later."

Jazz zoned out, numb to Tucker's near-hysterical rant. She just watched the tiny screen blankly as Danny was tortured over and over again but refused to give up the secrets the agents were asking for. Every time he refused, he was punished by having his organs taken away and put into jars for study. Then he'd be pumped full of pure ectoplasm, and just like Prometheus, he was back the next day with fresh organs for harvest. The dates in the recording went back weeks. Way before Danny disappeared.

Dani sobbed and looked away from the screen. Jazz couldn't even blink. The turning point in the experiments was when they brought in a little girl, a human girl, in front of Danny. The girl was about five, probably homeless or kidnapped, with pretty blonde hair done up in pigtails. Jazz noted she had been crying and had the number '27' pinned to her shirt. Danny was wary, sure it was a trick until he spotted something off-screen that they couldn't see. He jerked forward, straining to reach the girl, panic in his eyes.

But he couldn't reach her. Two scientists simply wrote down some observations before nodding in the same direction Danny was looking. Without asking a single question, the agents killed the little girl in front of Danny.

Jazz's hands shook as tears filled her eyes. Danny, her sweet baby brother, looked on in horrified shock as the cameras switched. Agents dumped the girl's body in a barrel of ectoplasm and waited patiently until a blue wisp rose from it. Then, using a Fenton peeler, they zapped the child's soul without mercy. Normally, the peeler stripped the disguise off a ghost to reveal their real form. But to a fresh soul as weak as that?

Her soul was burned into nothing.

Danny started screaming and imploded in on himself like a star.

The camera blacked out for a few moments, flickering between glimpses of her brother and blackness. She barely recognized him. His form had warped into something unrealistic. Something straight out of a movie. He was impossibly large now, barely able to walk on two legs when he stood amongst his broken restraints. His chest was a gaping cavern, and when he turned towards the camera, she could spy his tiny core exposed to the world. It was acting like a black hole, pulling at Danny's own skin and flesh like it was trying to suck him in. It was beautiful and strange in a horrible way.

He was too fast for the camera to really keep up with, but Tucker had doctored it to slow down each frame. Danny's face was splitting in two from a silent scream. His hair was flowing wildly, falling over his body, so it looked like he had a white, shaggy cloak.

His hunt never stopped. He didn't slow or hesitate to pounce on everyone he saw. His body was stained red from the gouging of people's eyes, which was the fastest way to reach a human soul. The group watched in horror as Danny leaned over his victims, opening his splitting maw even wider and devouring every soul he could, ensuring that they wouldn't even get peace in death. The churning of his core was getting worse, and at some point, he was spreading ice with every step he took. It looked like he was really struggling to stay standing by the time a few scientists were the only ones left in the compound. Jazz was afraid of what would happen if he collapsed completely. Would his core devour him?

At some point, the cameras really did die, and the screen went dark. Jazz realized she was crying, and moved to give the PDA back to Tucker.

"There's more," he shook his head. "But we didn't watch that far ahead because an outside force added it when I downloaded everything."

Like he said, the screen crackled back to life after a moment. The group realized it was from Danny's point of view. All the agents were dead, and he was stumbling through the halls in a daze, unable to keep his bigger form. He finally made it to the room they were in now, probably drawn to the familiarity of the lab layout. Before he could reach the unfinished portal, however, the freestanding one opened and out stepped a very familiar figure.

"Clockwork?" Jazz muttered, surprised.

As if hearing his name, Clockwork looked directly through Danny, straight at her. "The flow of time has been disrupted." He said softly. "I'll take our young Guardian here to a safe place. We have much to talk about, Miss Jasmine. You, too, Samantha, Tucker, and Danielle. I'll see you soon."

Then, the older ghost's focus switched back to Danny, and it was like he'd never spoken to them at all.

"Daniel," he coaxed. "It's time to go."

Danny groaned but stumbled forward and passed out in Clockwork's arms, promptly ending the video.

Silence descended over the room. Jazz could hear blood rushing through her body, and her heartbeat was pounding in her ears. She thought over what they'd found in the facility, about the state of Amity Park, her parents, and most importantly, her brother. About how he was tortured to the brink of insanity and how he still found it in his heart to love others. To protect them. To care and grieve for someone he'd never met. He must be feeling so much hurt.

Deciding on the next step was easy.

"We need to find Clockwork."

[I realized the timeline is kinda confusing, and I promise it'll all match up in the next chapter, but here's a chart on what it looks like right now so it's easier to understand.]

[The top one is the timeline Ra's and the rest of the DC characters are on. The middle is Jazz and the others. Danny is separate from both timelines right now because of the Time Medallion that Dan forced into his core. Right before the start of the story, which is marked in bright colors, Danny and the agents he's traveling with get involved in a time anomaly and are transported two months into the past. The agents still take him to the Yellowstone compound, but the incident makes the GIW speed-run their research on the Ghost Zone and, now, time travel. The timelines sync up again when Tucker finds the video from Clockwork. The total amount of time that has passed since the start of the story to the sync-up is about three weeks.]

#pondhead writes #dpxdc #the folly of men fic #long post #really long post #why did i decide to do multiple POVs #living my worst life rn #lemme know if i made mistakes #i'm posting this at two am cause fuck it we ball

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britcision · 1 year

Text

Okay so… today is a little bit of a long one, so we’ll see if we’re back at Tumblr breaking length or juuuust on the right side

But! Finally, much anticipated, we have the man himself: John Constantine! Here to share secrets and save the day! (Not)

And! This chapter got us right up to the edge, next chapter is gonna push me over to one MILLION words on AO3 y’all!! I’ve been flirting with it the past couple years but finally we’re here!

So. Might push the next one out faster. Might slow the next one down, since we’re in heavy waters again. And, since we are in the heavy waters, Imma tag on some warnings:

1) we gonna be speculating a little more on Jason’s death in this one, from a couple of viewpoints. We’re also discussing Cass’s in particular, and its repercussions.

No gore or details, just some death themes, mostly from Jason’s perspective after he and Danny leave the manor (Jason’s second POV segment)

2) Bruce is gonna make some very bad decisions about stimulants and concussions, mostly off screen but it is mentioned at the end of our first Bruce POV segment

And now the links!

First and link to AO3:

———————

Never Make A Promise You Can’t Keep

Constantine hadn’t been looking forward to discussing Amity Park with the Justice League. Not the first time he’d been sent, and not for a single second after.

But hours turned into days, days to weeks, weeks to years. He’d almost thought he’d gotten away with it and that they wouldn’t ask.

Which was probably what had gotten the big Bat’s fuckin’ attention, wasn’t it. Couldn’t possibly let the universe have something nice for Johnny Constantine.

Luckily it was damn hard to lose something in the House of Mystery unless the House wanted it lost. Today she was feeling merciful and gave him the book on the second try.

It’d have been nice if he needed to refresh his memory of the case. If the knowledge of Amity Park hadn’t been sitting like a weight on his awareness since before he’d been.

Honestly he could probably point to it from anywhere on Earth. Most magic users could, if they had the faintest alignment with death.

Amity Park was goddamn wrong, even if it looked like things had turned out alright for now. Still, there were types of wrong you didn’t poke at.

Going prodding around would only make things worse.

And now he had to go explain that to Captain Prod himself, and try and persuade the fuckin’ Batman that no news was good news.

At least the Superboys had listened when he told them to clear off until he could visit in person. They’d pinky sworn they were back in Metropolis, and he’d heard enough traffic to believe them.

They could just as easily fly straight back to Alaska, but they weren’t stupid. They knew how to listen.

(Possibly from trauma related to the times Young Justice hadn’t listened to him, but he’d take what he could get.)

Now he just had to persuade the Bat that he knew what he was talking about.

Constantine hated debriefings with Batman. The guy had no grasp of magic, which was perfectly fair for most folks.

He preferred that. It kept them out of his kind of trouble, meant he didn’t have to worry about them until it got bad enough they’d accept whatever snapped sentence he managed.

Batman though. Batman treated magicians like it was their fault that the world didn’t work the way he personally preferred. Like they had any say in the how and why of magic.

Asshole.

And now he wanted to scold John like a naughty child about something he had no way to understand. Well, fuck that.

For better or worse, the Justice League made Amity Park his problem. Years late or not, this was his show, and he wasn’t going to take shit from anyone.

Thumbing quickly through the book, he kinda hated how easily it fell open to the relevant page. Like he’d already spent way too long looking.

Even he didn’t fuck with the Infinite Realms. Not if he could help it.

Stuffing in his notes from the city itself he closed the book, left the House, and hurried to one of the closer zeta tubes. Didn’t matter which city he was spat out in, he could find one.

His number didn’t coax even a flicker of the usual dry amusement as he stepped out into the bat cave, scowling up at the massive screen.

League records. Great. He strode across the floor, hoping they could sort this crap out fast.

“What the fuck’s got you lookin’ into Amity Park?” He asked as the Bat turned to face him, book tucked under his arm.

None of his usual prevaricating or fucking around. No chance for the fucker to try his usual “control the conversation” shit.

If it had any effect whatsoever, it didn’t show. Damn white outs. Batman just stared at him for a moment, then turned back to the computer, pulling up another page.

Constantine didn’t look. He didn’t want to know.

“Why did you mark Amity Park as a prank?” The big Bat asked in his stupid, gravelly tones.

Constantine rolled his eyes.

“I didn’t mark it as a fuckin’ prank, I marked it as a no fly zone for your little lot, so again: what the fuck came out of Amity Park?”

Batman stilled for a moment, doing that annoying “human computer” bit again. John preferred each and every one of the actual cyborgs, even the ones that tried to kill him.

Then he turned back, swivelling the chair around to fully face John like a movie super villain. Asshole.

“Over two thousand legitimate cries for help came out of Amity Park, and were ignored. If they were marked for the Justice League Dark, you should have responded, not deleted them.”

And that sounded way too much like an accusation. And completely fuckin’ irrelevant.

Something deeply unpleasant was tugging at the edge of Constantine’s awareness, just below the irritation he scraped over the sense of impending doom he’d been ignoring for the last hour.

He pushed it down, scowling at Bruce as he crossed the last of the distance and slammed the book down on the table next to the keyboard, gesturing up at the screens.

Still not bothering to look. He didn’t want to fuckin’ know.

“Years ago, Batty. This could be time fuckin’ sensitive, so quit pissing me about an’ tell me what. Exactly. Got you looking into Amity Park.”

There was a moment of hesitance, and he just fucking hated that. Nothing that made Batman hesitate could possibly be… good.

The feeling at the back of his mind suddenly clicked. His eyes widened and he groaned, wishing he had something stronger than a cigarette. Maybe a bullet.

“Great. Just fuckin’ great. They’re here.”

Groping around behind him, he grabbed another swivel chair and folded down into it, elbows bracing on the desk and burying his face in his hands.

Well, this was the nightmare situation.

From the fucking death taint seeping into his fuckin’ skin, something extremely fuckin’ big had oozed its way out of the Realms, and settled itself in Gotham.

Batman’s attention had snapped to, the man suddenly alert and watchful as Constantine slumped.

One hand dove into a pocket for the carton of cigarettes, Bat Cave rules be damned. Not much fuckin’ point, but he wasn’t doing this sober, and his flask was too small.

For once the Bat didn’t comment as he flicked the lighter open, lit up, and took a long drag. Just focused that laser stare on Constantine’s face.

At least he’d grasped the gravity of the matter.

“What is here?” The Bat finally asked when it became clear Constantine wasn’t elaborating, sounding annoyed.

Constantine took another drag of his smoke. Some days nicotine just wasn’t enough.

“Start from the beginning, Bats. Tell me everything that led up to you lookin’ into Amity Park, and everything you found since,” he demanded, hoping there was still a point to asking.

“If this is time sensitive, Constantine, you need to tell me what is happening,” Batman growled, tensed like he wanted to leap out of his chair and loom like one of his fuckin’ gargoyles.

The bat sounded cranky. Fuck him.

Constantine fixed him with a level stare.

“Then you’d better get fuckin’ talking, hadn’t you? I need to know how fuckin’ bad it is before I know first steps.”

Batman hesitated a moment longer, then turned back to his computer.

“I can summon the League-”

“No time,” Constantine cut him off acerbically, shaking his head, “and might make shit worse. Just fuckin’… report. Gimme yer damn report.”

For all that the Bat loved paperwork, loved to bury them all in bureaucracy, he dithered another moment before nodding, pulling up…

Well lookie there, he already had a literal report typed up. Great.

Taking another long drag of his cigarette Constantine leaned back in the chair and scanned the document.

Hopefully this wouldn’t take long. Or the extra details he could already tell he’d need, that had prompted the dull and clinical report.

Jason had tensed as Danny did. First because of the sudden alertness he could feel in Danny’s aura, even reduced back down to conversational levels.

(And that had been fun. The more times he felt Danny’s aura wrapped around him, the longer he spent with his chest tight and Danny’s presence right down to his lungs…

He felt cold when it went away. Almost lonely, surrounded by people. Fucking ancients help him, he was getting used to it.)

Was that what it’d feel like if he felt that Danny was in danger? A rush of adrenaline?

It was a little weird being so in tune with someone, but not in a bad way. Danny didn’t seem upset, just suddenly on guard in a way that the whole table noticed.

On guard, and… amused. And then he spoke and Jason tensed again.

“So that’s John Constantine… huh.”

Danny could sense John Constantine. That was… Really not the strangest thing, but it didn’t mean Jason had to like it.

If Danny could sense Constantine, could Constantine sense Danny? Jason wasn’t sure if he should ask in public.

Tim had way less reservations.

“Wait, what do you mean? What just happened?” He asked, breaking away from Tucker for a moment. But at least Tucker also looked confused.

Danny shook his head, chuckling softly and finishing up his food.

“Oh, sorry. It’s Sad Trenchcoat Guy,” he added for Sam and Tucker’s benefit, both of whom relaxed like that actually meant something.

Sam was back in her original clothes now, although Jason hadn’t given her the thermos back yet. Once her parents arrived, maybe.

Jason stifled a snicker, along with most of the Gothamites. It was a pretty accurate description of Constantine.

“Still in the dark over here,” Duke put in, a slight frown on his face.

Danny shrugged again and grinned at him.

“It’s kinda a ghost thing. I can sense other ghosts, or certain kinds of magic users. Constantine came to Amity Park not that long after I died,” he explained casually.

Tim and Dick shared meaningful looks behind Tucker’s head, and Jason stifled another chuckle. They thought they were so discrete.

Dick leaned in again, arms folded on the table as he gave Danny his best innocent interest.

“Oh? That’s kinda weird, do you know why?” He asked casually. Not questioning where Danny thought John was now.

He wanted to try and lead them away from the topic, probably. Too bad for him, if he’d asked he might have gotten some idea of how far Danny’s power stretched.

He’d explained to Jason about his aura covering most of the city, although he hadn’t claimed it as his haunt. But if Dickie didn’t want to know, Jason wouldn’t tell.

Sam fielded the question, rolling her eyes and folding her arms.

“We thought he might have come to help, since that was around when the ghost attacks started. He didn’t though,” she added bitterly, and Danny kicked her under the table.

“We don’t actually know why he came,” he explained, giving Dick a half smile, “he never talked to us. He did talk to some of the other ghosts though.”

“Wait, you can just do that?” Steph asked, her brows furrowed. Whether she was playing civilian or actually wasn’t sure, Jason wouldn’t put a bet on.

The amount most of the bat clan knew about magic and ghosts used to be that Jason was a zombie.

Which, as it turned out, was wrong.

Danny gave her a blank look, then shrugged again.

“I mean, yeah? You literally can just go ask half the time, but he was doing some fancy stuff. Binding circles and demanding truth, that kinda shit,” he added, making a face.

“He wasn’t popular among the living either,” Tucker agreed with a snicker. “Lotta weird questions for people, and no answers. We figured he was one of those occult nuts.”

“That’d explain the binding circles and truth thing,” Duke agreed with a solemn nod, folding his own arms. Honestly, watching them all play civilian was kinda adorable.

Tucker hesitated a moment, then shrugged and nodded, conceding the point.

“I mean, you’ve got me there. But he never tried to get anywhere near the fights, and then one day he just vanished. We got a ton more weird tourists for a while, but he was the weirdest,” he finished with relish.

Sam snorted again, clearly still annoyed about the whole mess. Maybe she’d been the one who actually wanted help.

Danny hadn’t mentioned how he felt about it yet, and Jason hadn’t asked, but they’d all been abandoned. Fucking Jason wasn’t happy about it.

“He was the only one who actually knew what he was doing,” she huffed, scowling at the table. Then she sighed, shaking her head. “So if he’s in Gotham, I’m gonna call it a bad sign.”

Privately, Jason was tempted to agree with her. John Constantine was a danger magnet, and Jason was half tempted to go and have a word himself.

Word in the Bat Chat was that Constantine was why Danny had never gotten any backup before. Danny himself might not be looking to start a fight over it, but Jason had Opinions on teen heroes.

And the adults who should have been protecting them.

Not with Bruce around though. He’d have to wait and see if Constantine stayed in town.

It’d give him time to ask Danny about the suddenly constant undercurrent of suppressed laughter he could feel.

In the bat cave, Constantine squinted at the picture Batman had pulled up from the gala. Not exactly the best picture on earth, but it was clear enough to tell. Shaking his head, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Alright, could be worse,” he decided, tossing aside his second cigarette butt. The report had been complete, he’d give old Bats that, and he’d even been allowed to smoke through it.

But a black gloved hand covered his when he reached for the pack again.

Fucker.

Constantine let it slide for now, raising both hands in surrender and then pointing at the screen.

“Looks like you’ve got the halfa. Not bad news, as it goes. He’s at least still half human, which is probably why your precious city’s still intact.”

He didn’t even want to think about what might have happened if another ghost tried to set up a haunt in Gotham. The old girl’s Curse would have something to say about it.

Batman didn’t look noticeably reassured though.

“Enough stalling, Constantine. What is this all about? What happened in Amity Park?” He demanded roughly, and Constantine was grudgingly impressed.

Seemed like that ol’ bat hyper focus was going to win out over even a threat to his own city. Or he hadn’t been fully listening.

No bet.

Constantine sighed again, gesturing to the screen.

“You got a ley line map somewhere on this thing?” He asked, mostly just to annoy the bat a little further. Not like he wasn’t gonna give him the answers.

Batman hesitated for a moment, then set to typing. Probably… yup, going into the JL Dark files. Zatanna kept a helpful reference folder for the mundanes.

Constantine didn’t think they needed any more help than they asked for, but she’d been right this time and he owed her a beer for it. A second later the map was on screen.

Constantine nodded again, pointing to the general area of Illinois.

“Pull up Amity Park on that map,” he instructed, wheeling his chair back out of reach to pull out a third cigarette.

Both got him an annoyed frown from old Batsy.

“What is this supposed to mean?” He asked in the old gravelly growl, the map already obediently zooming in.

Constantine lit his smoke and waved at the screen again.

“Y’know what ley lines are?” He asked back, watching the map scroll around.

Not one with a search function then. Batsy’d have to find it by hand. Sucks to be him.

It kept him from focusing much attention on John anyway, so that was a win.

“I know the places they meet are magical nexus points,” Batman admitted reluctantly, like he didn’t hoard information about everything on earth.

Constantine nodded, not willing to entertain his issues.

“Amity Park’s on a dozen of them,” he said bluntly, and watched the guy stiffen.

Zoom out a bit, find the flowering spot where damn near every ley line through that part of the world crossed. Zoomed back in to find Amity Park.

The bat scowled at the screen for a while, then at John, who’d put his feet up on the desk. Tough titties, they weren’t coming down.

“But what does that mean, Constantine,” he growled, and John sighed.

Cupped his hands in front of him, paused, and shook his head.

“Alright, I’m crap at metaphors so bear with me. You know about multiple dimensions?” He asked and the bat nodded impatiently.

Like he shouldn’t have asked. Like this fucker hadn’t just asked for the fuckin’ kindergartener explanation.

Whatever.

“Yes. There’s a different dimension on the other side of the ley lines?” He asked, and Constantine did his very best not to roll his eyes.

Well. Maybe not his very best.

But he didn’t do it as hard as he could have.

“No. There’s way too many other dimensions. But what the ley lines do is weaken a place in this dimension, especially where they cross. Amity Park is a fuckin’ sieve,” he said with finality, waiting for the Bat to catch up.

And sure enough, those frown lines etched themselves deep again. This guy was gonna make John Fuckin’ Constantine look like a fresh faced baby.

“So other dimensions can cross through?” He asked again, and John sighed.

Reductive fucker.

“No. Yes. Sort of. Because some stupid motherfucker in Amity Park didn’t just use the natural portals or holes; they punched a fuckin’ permanent portal to the Infinite Realms.”

Honestly using the natural portals would have been bad enough in his opinion. Reality was basically swiss cheese in Amity, and getting anything’s attention would be beyond dangerous.

He hadn’t even liked visiting.

Batman looked more stoic, which John assumed meant he wasn’t keeping up. Scrubbing his free hand through his hair, he blew out a stream of smoke and frowned.

“So you get natural portals between our dimension other dimensions. It’s how all that “evil other self” crap keeps happening. With me?” He asked dryly.

The bat nodded without speaking, which was as close to an admission of confusion as Constantine figured he’d get.

Whatever.

“You get more portals on ley lines, and more again where two cross. About a dozen cross in Amity Park, so they get lots of natural portals. Yes?”

The bat nodded again, face pinching up like he resented John’s tone. Double tough, he’d had every chance to read Zatanna’s primers.

If John was doing Ley Lines For Dummies the dummies could keep their attitudes to themselves.

“Natural portals, they open and close on their own. Rest of the world, they don’t usually stay open for long. They need power to stop the world from… mending the hole.”

Which was the worst fucking explanation of all time and not remotely what happened, but who fucking cared. Batty wanted to weigh in again.

“So natural portals also stay open longer around Amity Park,” he growled, trying to get to the next step of the explanation.

Which, actually, John hadn’t really thought about. Pursing his lips, he let his gaze drift to the smoke swirling around the ceiling.

There were actual fucking bats up there.

Of course there were.

Dramatic bastard.

Forcing his attention back to the bastard in question, he waved a hand to dispel the last stream of smoke.

“Doesn’t matter what natural portals do. Some asshole went to the spot in reality most likely to break on its own, and decided to punch a hole. A permanent hole, into the Infinite Realms.”

Batman took a deep, even breath in, like he was trying to hold onto his temper. Yeah, well, he’d walked face first into Amity Fuckin’ Park, now he had to join John in Hell.

“What are the Infinite Realms?” He asked, sounding as patient as ever. Brownie points for trying, John wasn’t going to.

“It’s where the unclaimed dead go. Souls not ready to move on, souls that were never born, and, much worse, it occasionally pops out personifications of forces or belief,” he ground out the last words, teeth gritting in spite of himself.

The bat stilled for a long moment, drawing in another slow, steady breath. Probably counting to ten.

“What.” It wasn’t even a question really, a flat statement of dissatisfaction.

It meant not talking about Amity Park for a bit longer though, so Constantine leaned in.

“God shit. Concepts like Time, Hope, Growth. Anything that someone, somewhere, truly believes in. Well, not just anyone,” he corrected, and Did Not enjoy the way Batman’s jaw clenched.

Not even a bit.

“It takes a lot of juice, makin’ a whole entity. But the Infinite Realms are the core of all the dimensions, the intersection they all go through, and that’s where the belief settles. The more people who believe, the more clearly they believe it, and eventually you get enough to form a personality.”

He gave the bat a little time to digest that one. To really let it sink in what a fuckin’ problem the Infinite Realms could be.

And then a thought occurred to him.

“Your city’s got one, y’know?” He mentioned almost as an afterthought, and Batty Did Not like that.

His head snapped up, white outs narrowing to slits as he glared.

“What?!” He demanded sharply and Constantine waved a hand.

“Gotham. Dunno if it’s all the shit you lot go through, or the stubborn arseholes that live ‘ere, but Gotham has a city spirit.”

No need to mention the curse yet. Batsy was already having a day.

That’d be for the next time he ticked Constantine off.

This time, just that revelation seemed to have been enough to stun the bat. Constantine left him to sit in this one until he was ready though.

Processing.

He wasn’t completely heartless.

He was a little grudgingly impressed by how quickly Batman put it aside and refocused on the matter in hand.

“And that’s why the Infinite Realms are dangerous? These powerful personifications?” He asked cautiously, like he expected John to say no again.

Smart man.

Constantine gave him a dry smile.

“If fuckin’ only. There’s spirits in there, Ancients, and every one of ‘em could give Darkseid a run for his money. But even the ghosts of the Realms are a fuckin’ dangerous lot. You know Deadman?”

The bat nodded to indicate that he did, brows furrowing.

“He can’t be seen or heard without magical assistance,” he agreed, that same caution present.

At least he was a quick learner. Constantine nodded in satisfaction.

“He’s a ghost made by magic. Ghosts from the Realms don’t have anything like the same limitations. They can’t be seen or touched unless they want to, and they can damn well affect the world around ‘em.”

John shuddered, remembering some of the attacks he’d seen. Nothing stronger than a baseline demon, but the damage you could do when no one else could touch you, or stop you…

And he shook his head, locking the damage back down.

“And worse, they’re fuckin’ unpredictable. Demons, they’re easy. They all want the same shit. Realms ghosts? If one of ‘em decides fuckin’ cheese is their obsession, that’s it. They’ll drown a city in cheddar.”

The bat was staring at him again, back on that stoic “I have no idea what’s happening so I’ll look big and scary til it all makes sense again” bullshit.

Constantine sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look. I ain’t even told ya the worst of it yet. How about we jus’ take it as read that the Infinite Realms are bad fuckin’ news, okay?” He asked as patiently as he could.

There was that little twitch, that little scrunch again. Not a happy Batty.

And he wasn’t gonna get happier while he made John teach him Magic For Dummies either.

But he nodded, folding his arms reluctantly.

“Then why did you leave the people of Amity Park to face them alone?” He asked bluntly, and… well, that was the question, wasn’t it?

Constantine stared blankly at him.

“You want Superman gettin’ body hopped by a ghostie craving all the cheddar in the mid west?” He asked in turn, and there it was.

The little indrawn breath. The fuckin’ scale of the problem.

Fuckin’ FINALLY.

“Look, Amity Park has a hero. Had. The halfa.” He waved vaguely at the screen again, the picture of Bruce’s mystery kid now buried several windows deep.

Didn’t matter.

“He’s got all the powers the ghosts do, an’ can’t be possessed. Last thing the poor little fuck needed was to face an overshadowed super.”

And yeah, the Bat still didn’t look happy (more to the better, that’d be a terrifying sight all on its own), but at least he had a reason for resting bitch face now.

Constantine sighed, waving a hand vaguely and tossing the latest butt down.

“Look, I can’t stop ya from pokin’ around. Not for lack of trying, mind. The Realms are a dangerous place, an’ Amity Park’s practically on the other side already. I dunno why the kid left, I don’t care. You though, Bats? You’re gonna do me a proper fuckin’ oath.”

He levelled his best serious stare, useless as usual against the damn white outs. It’d kill the asswipe to look human.

Batman shifted again, clearly feeling the weight of the last word.

Good.

“An oath?” He asked warily, and Constantine nodded, holding out his hand.

“On yer name, on yer blood, on yer tie to this fuckin’ city. No matter what you do lookin’ at the Infinite fuckin’ Realms. You do not. Fuck. With the Ghost King.”

The bat stared down at his hand like there was something wrong with it. John assumed anyway. The pissy face could be for anything.

And then he asked the question, because of fuckin’ course he did.

“What is the Ghost King?”

John sighed heavily, leaving his hand where it was, waiting for the oath.

“The prettiest fuckin’ princess of them all, what d’you fuckin’ think. The Ghost King rules the Infinite Realms, and by all accounts the last one was a bloody tyrant. Good news is he probably never noticed Amity Park yet, cuz America isn’t a smoking crater.”

Honestly, maybe he’d add a chapter to Zatanna’s document. Stamp it all across any reference anyone tried to make to Amity Fuckin’ Park so he never had to do this again.

He caught the Bat’s gaze again, weighting his words with enough power that every sound in the cave died around them.

“It took all the damn Ancients to seal Pariah Dark once. And someone’s beaten him, and taken his throne. I don’t fuckin’ know who, I don’t ask, but if they’re tough enough to beat Pariah, they are beyond what the League can do. Your only chance is to stay the fuck outta their way. Swear it.”

Batman stared at him for a long moment, and then down at the outstretched hand. Reached out and clasped it in his own.

“I swear. I will not knowingly upset the Ghost King.”

John gripped tighter, realized almost immediately that it was pointless against the reinforced gloves, and did it anyway.

“None of that, Batty. No bullshit. You do not fuck with the Ghost King. You hear the faintest goddamn whisper of their name, you turn tail and fuckin’ run. We will not survive their attention.”

He stared the stupid white outs down, as long as it took, and didn’t let go. Batman stared at him for a while, clearly absorbing the gravity of his words.

Constantine couldn’t remember asking a member of the League to swear to anything before. Usually he was the buyer in deals, not the keeper.

Woulda been nice to remain so, but nothing stopped the fuckin’ bat from sticking his nose in, so here was John Constantine, last condom of the universe.

Last desperate scrap of protection against a fuckin’ dick.

Finally the bat nodded, grip tightening in return.

“I swear. I will not engage with the Ghost King.”

Harley had gotten back just before Sam had to leave, with perfect timing to see her to the door actually.

The look on Pamela Manson’s face when Harley kissed Sam on each cheek and waved her off would keep Danny warm on cold nights.

A quick check of flight times back to Massachusetts (like Danny wasn’t going to take shortcuts) confirmed that Tucker could have one more night in Gotham.

Tim immediately offered to put him up in Wayne Manor again, clearly not allowing the chance to slip by him two nights in a row. Tucker was only too happy to accept, although Steph and Cass begged off.

Probably for their hero patrols. Danny wasn’t exactly sure how many vigilantes Gotham had, there seemed to be a new one every few months, but having eight of them at the gala last night probably meant all the rest had been out.

Obviously Red Robin wouldn’t be out tonight either, but there were enough of them to cover for each other.

Danny was kinda jealous of that. It had been just him for so long, and then him and Valerie, which hadn’t been better until she stopped hunting him too. He’d have loved a night off.

Still, their numbers meant that Jason probably wouldn’t need to go back to the night life unless he actually wanted to. He was definitely still built for it, but Danny couldn’t imagine anyone wanted to ask him to.

Most of the bats had clearly had their own run ins with death, but Jason’s had stuck in ways even Danny knew he didn’t quite get.

Jason had been so tense at just the thought of Danny being a teen hero. It wasn’t like that’d get easier when it was his little siblings swinging from rooftops.

Danny’s hero career might have started with his own death, but he personally was of the opinion that that’d be a perfectly fine reason to end one too.

So Dick, Steph, and Cass headed out not too long after Sam, and Danny wasn’t exactly surprised when Jason’s background angst jumped.

He’d stayed on edge since Danny and Bruce got back, even when Harley told them Bruce was off dealing with his own shit and probably wouldn’t be out of his room all night.

Danny’d bet fifty bucks that the arrival of Constantine actually meant Bruce was in the bat cave being suspicious, but he wasn’t gonna say it.

Tim had shown them to a games room, for all that he’d apparently also moved out. He still knew where everything was, and soon had them hooked up for Mariokart on the biggest TV Danny ever saw.

They’d played a couple rounds (Harley was expectedly devastating with red shells) and while Danny and Tucker were having fun, he could feel Jason stressing.

Like, even if he stuck his fingers in his ears and ignored the aura. The guy was tensed so tight his shoulders strained at his shirt, which woulda been visually interesting if Danny didn’t know why.

Cass was one near death experience from slipping back across the boundary for good.

Cass was off punching criminals with rocket launchers in body armour and spandex.

Duke was probably actually in bed, Signal did morning patrols, and Damian was obstinately refusing to play video games with them perched on the back of the couch, but still.

Dick and Steph had both given one life to the cause too, and for all Dick was a cop and in danger on his day job too, cops pretty famously showed up after the vigilantes ended the party.

More than half Jason’s immediate family were back in the line of fire and Danny could practically taste Jason’s Obsession eating away at him.

As much as he tried to pretend he was playing along and gave a shit about winning, the controller creaked in his hands more than a couple casual races should allow.

So, yeah, if he couldn’t get Jason to crack a smile with this one, he was gonna gently bow them both the fuck outta the manor.

He kept half an eye on Tim, who had a glass of water.

“Hey, you guys heard the theory about Batman?” He asked casually, just as another round of Mariokart started.

Jason kicked him in the ankle but otherwise ignored him, which was fair. He’d been exposed to Danny’s bullshit.

Tim stiffened and then forced himself to relax, Tucker rolled his eyes and jostled Danny from his other side, but it was Harley who answered.

Innocent as the day she was born.

“Oh? What? Is it that he’s a lizardman? Cuz I got right up on that cowl and he’s definitely a mammal,” she said casually, not even looking away from the screen.

Danny was pretty sure he heard Damian almost slip off his perch.

He was a little bit in love with Harley Quinn. He should get her number for Jazz, maybe his big sister would learn to have a little fun.

Grinning broad and only half fake, he drifted a turn to pick up a double item from under Tucker’s nose.

“Shit, yeah, you might actually know! It’s his secret identity!” He exclaimed cheerfully, and felt the tension in the room ratchet up.

From Tim and Damian. Jason… still wasn’t paying attention.

Not like he was deeply immersed in the game, for all he kept up he was nowhere near the speed demon that handed Danny his ass the night before.

Hmm. Better get his attention.

Tim and Damian had already settled again, probably remembering he was already In The Know even if Tucker wasn’t, and Harley had given him a very knowing look right before she fire flowered him.

Almost ready.

He waited until Tim had taken a hasty sip of water on a calm stretch, nudged Jason in the shins, and made sure he was louder than the music.

“So d’you think it’s possible that Markiplier’s Batman?”

Tim sprayed water across the couch, Harley fucking cackled, and Jason snapped his head around to stare at Danny so hard he cricked his neck.

Danny red shelled him for good measure, just so he wasn’t missing anything on screen.

Tucker rolled his eyes, also deeply used to Danny’s bullshit and much more interested in gaming revenge.

“Fuck off Danny, Markiplier isn’t even a Gothamite,” he said disdainfully and Danny shook his head, grinning.

“That’s why it’s the perfect cover. I mean, Batman wants to keep his secret identity a secret, right? So having an identity that very publicly “isn’t in Gotham” makes perfect sense!” He argued cheerfully.

Jason half snorted a laugh beside him, picking back up and speeding his way back into the race. Across the couch Tim wiped his face, still catching his breath.

“I fucking hate that that made sense,” he moaned, and Harley cackled again.

“Nah, he’s got a point! How does anyone know where a youtuber lives? We only see one room!” She agreed cheerfully, clearly leaning in.

It was so nice to have a true showwoman in the crowd.

Damian looked angry in the confused way now, and Danny would hazard a guess he didn’t watch youtube at all, let alone a lets player. That might have made it funnier, had there been no other concerns.

Beside him Jason huffed out another dry chuckle, shaking his head with the barest hint of a smile.

“I can’t believe Batman has an OnlyFans,” he said in a solemn, almost sorrowful voice… and dropped a blue shell.

Tim groaned like his soul had gone with it, clinging desperately to his first place lead. Harley cackled and added her own green shells to the mix, dropping all three as they came to the home stretch.

“Don’t forget the calendar of tasteful nudes! All for charity, just what Batsy would like,” she crowed with evident glee, and Tucker snorted a laugh.

“It’d explain all the surgeries,” he agreed reluctantly, and Danny had a sudden, utterly wicked idea.

“Hey… now that Batman’s on OnlyFans, d’you think he’ll convince the whole Justice League to do a pinup calendar, or just the other bats?” He asked innocently, watching said bats from the corner of his eye.

Well, Robins technically, but since only Tim was of age birds didn’t seem appropriate.

Tim himself threw his controller to the ground, abandoning the game and throwing himself over the back of the couch and almost hitting Damian on the way.

Damian definitely hissed at him like a startled cat.

No way Danny imagined that this close to the finish.

Tucker hesitated for a long moment, clearly considering his odds of winning, but when Harley blasted past Tim’s spun out corpse and across the finish line he abandoned his controller too to check on Tim.

Harley was surprisingly good at the game when flopped sideways on her chosen couch, laughing too hard to breathe. Danny breezed into an easy third behind her and Jason, giving the other man an assessing look.

A little wary of reaching out with his aura, especially when Jason was on edge. He didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.

Didn’t want to be too invasive, if he was honest. Danny had… kinda always been the one who was new to aura stuff before. And he’d gotten used to it, in the Ghost Zone.

He’d never spent this much time with another halfa before. Especially not without a single trace of punching or stabbing.

Except in Mariokart, where the Geneva Convention held no sway.

Jason had clearly noticed him looking though, and read the concern even without Danny pushing. He gave Danny’s shoulder a gentle bump, a nudge of fine-stop worrying alongside.

Danny nudged back, his own disbelief tinged with understanding-empathy-worried too.

But, that was kinda the other thing… the thing he didn’t really want to bring up around the other bats just yet.

And while Jason had smiled, Danny didn’t think he’d mind them dipping out.

Faking a yawn, he stretched, cracked his back, and looked over to where Tim had rejoined the couch.

“Honestly, I’m beat. I gotta try and get back into a better sleep schedule before classes start,” he said, pulling a face at the self-reminder.

Their break was coming to its end, and then he’d be back into university. His class schedule was flexible, more afternoons than early mornings, but he’d… miss this.

Free time to just spend the whole day hanging out with friends and catching up. Meeting Jason’s family, Jason meeting his.

Danny didn’t actually know what Jason did, whether he was working or going back to school, but it was gonna come up soon.

They had a trip to Frostbite to plan, some ecto shots from Danny’s fridge, and at some point he still had to introduce Jason to Frighty… and probably ask the guy if he wanted to be called that still.

It’d be a little weird to start calling him Halloween or whatever, but frankly him obeying Danny’s orders and calling him “my liege” was way fucking weirder so it’d be fine.

And about four more days before half of Danny’s time would be eaten by lectures, study halls, and projects. Fuck, maybe Jason would give him a hand with those too.

So long as he wasn’t sick of Danny by then.

Another quick glance showed that Jason’s face had reset into that tense almost-scowl again, staring past the TV.

At the other end of the couch, Tim gave a disgruntled huff.

“I’m gonna make you pay for that next time,” he grumbled, shifting to Tucker with an adorable moment of sudden concern. “Do you need me to show you to a room too, or…”

Tucker shook his head with a snicker, giving Danny a side eye.

“Nah, unlike that weakling I got used to the vigilante sleep schedule back in high school. I’m good for a couple more hours at least,” he bragged.

Danny flipped him off, hauling himself to his feet and giving Jason a nudge.

“Yeah, well, this weakling fought a croc last night and needs his sleep. Mind giving me a ride back?” He asked when Jason looked up at him.

Gently offered a touch of easy out-reassurance-trust me.

The deep furrows in Jason’s brows twitched until he caught on and his expression cleared. He nodded quickly and pulled himself to his feet.

“Yeah, we can take my bike.” Then he hesitated and looked a little uncertain. “You never told me where you live.”

It took Danny a moment to realise that… no, he really hadn’t, because that just plain didn’t feel right. But no, he’d met Jason again in that coffee shop, then come to the gala with Sam.

Hadn’t gone home last night, just stopped at one of Jason’s apparently multiple places; at least he was doing better than Danny had thought from the first apartment.

He found himself chuckling at the thought, shaking his head.

“Oh yeah, we’ve only been to your place… I’m at the south dorm at Gotham U, I can give you directions as we get closer,” he offered and Jason nodded.

He felt… weird? Like he was surprised Danny had told him where he lived, and ashamed of being surprised.

Danny decided not to dig into it, offering Jason his arm and bowing like all those Shakespeare plays he knew Jason loved.

“Shall we?”

Jason’s moment of surprise was quickly swallowed by delight and he bowed back, then tucked his hand into Danny’s elbow. Almost definitely knew etiquette better than Danny did, so Danny wasn’t gonna doubt him.

“We shall. I’ll drop you off and head home,” he agreed, then paused and glanced back at Harley.

Whose giggling had completely ended and was now watching them like her favourite sitcom. Chin in hands and all.

“Did you wanna meet up here tomorrow, or…” Jason trailed off, obviously also a little put off by her intensity.

She perked up when addressed, giving him a cheery grin and a double thumbs up.

“Here or th’ station, I don’t mind! Hey, did ya wanna come too, Danny boy?” She asked sweetly, head cocked to the side and just waaaay too innocent.

Not that Danny could work out what she was up to.

“Uh… to do what?” He asked carefully, head cocking to match hers before he noticed and straightened up.

Her grin widened, so she noticed.

“Oh, Jason an’ I are gonna go check on my buddy Waylon, see if we can’t work out what he was doin’ at the gala. If youse threw down he might like ta see ya there?”

Which honestly left Danny at a loss, until Tim explained.

“Killer Croc. His actual name’s Waylon Jones, and he was Harley’s tenant in Coney Island before coming back to Gotham,” he said casually, and Danny stilled.

There was an intensity in the room that hadn’t been there before, a sudden wave that sent a chill down his spine. Something from Harley, suddenly predator sharp in a way he hadn’t felt since Skulker had been a serious threat.

For the life of him though, he couldn’t put his finger on what though, since she didn’t move. Just grinned like she had been all along.

“People called him Killer Croc cuz of his skin condition. He gave up tryin’ ta change their minds,” she said with a light shrug, completely belied by the intensity of her stare.

Danny couldn’t look away until she released him, something satisfied in the quirk of her lip. Like she could see the sudden well of memory in his chest.

He’d never actually given in to all the things his parents had called Phantom. They’d been ashamed of all of them when the truth came out, and he’d only had to put up with them for a few years.

He tried to imagine decades of it, being called a monster for things he couldn’t control. For nothing more than a weird scaly skin condition.

He couldn’t imagine going full bomb vest over it, but Danny was man enough to admit he might just be a little touchy because of Jason’s death.

Which Waylon might not even know about.

Suddenly he actually did want to know why they’d attacked the gala.

Until now it had just been inevitable, someone was going to so why not them, but… well. He’d felt it under the whole plan, every stupid step.

Jason had trusted Waylon, not Danny, to keep things from getting out of hand. To know that a tussle was part of the fun.

Danny hadn’t planned on asking, but. Yeah.

“I’d like that,” he agreed quickly, nodding, at about the same time as Tucker found his own voice.

“Wait, that’s a skin condition? He’s just like that?” The techie asked sharply, staring around at Tim and Damian to confirm.

And got a disdainful look from Damian back.

“Tt, what else would it be? Do you know many scaled people?” He asked archly.

Danny’s mind snapped directly to Dora and her asshole brother. Knew Tucker’s had gone to the same place a second later.

“More than you’d think,” he and Tucker said in unison, and they shared a grin. If there was one benefit to their fucked up ghost hunting years, it was shutting down smart ass remarks.

Damian only looked more annoyed at being corrected, and Tucker shrugged.

“I thought he mighta been a scientist and tried to fuse himself with a lizard or something, like in Spider-Man,” he elaborated, and Danny kinda hated how much their lives resembled superhero movies.

Not that he’d say that in a room full of bats.

Damian’s brows drew down even further and he sneered, displeasure evident, but Jason cut him off before he could speak.

“Before you make a comment about mad scientists I’m gonna remind you we live in a city with Viktor Fries,” he said dryly and Damian’s mouth snapped shut.

Big brother privileges.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Ellie had given Danny those?

Tucker gave Danny a confused look, and Danny just shrugged back. He didn’t pay much attention to Gotham’s various rogues; he didn’t want to tempt his Obsession.

Tim chimed in again, without actually looking at Tucker which was kinda impressive. Guess they were just very obviously new to Gotham.

“Dr Freeze. He uses a lot of liquid nitrogen and freeze rays, he’s usually after money or diamonds to try and cure his wife,” he explained with a slight shrug.

Tucker made a confused noise.

“So… couldn’t Bruce just pay him off and keep him from bothering the city?” He asked carefully, glancing around the room.

Jason actually snorted a laugh at that, shaking his head.

“If he could, he would have. What Fries wants isn’t possible yet.”

Not possible for humans. Part of Danny perked up, wondering if Frostbite might have the answers… but no. It wasn’t his job to solve every problem in the world.

Bringing healthy humans to the Zone was iffy. An already sick woman… well, she might get hastened along her journey to the afterlife.

And this was a conversation he really wanted to keep away from, honestly. Gotham’s rogues weren’t his problem. Couldn’t be his problem.

Danny fought ghosts, unkillable entities who enjoyed missile attacks as sport. He wasn’t interested in learning how squishy human rogues were; it had been bad enough with his friends in the line of fire.

Mega pass on being the firing squad.

He almost reconsidered the trip tomorrow, but… he trusted Jason. Trusted Jason knew where he was coming from, and that neither of them wanted to trip Danny’s Obsession.

So he gave the big guy a smile and an elbow nudge, nodding for the door.

“Not that rogue chat isn’t fascinating, but you were taking me to bed?” He asked hopefully, and only realised what he’d said when Harley stuffed half her fist in her mouth to laugh.

And now, now Danny had a choice. He could feel the heat threatening to build, and blushing? Blushing would make things much worse.

Jason’s cheeks had pinked and that was adorable and Danny would ectoblast anyone who gave him shit for it, but if DANNY blushed, Tucker would never let it go.

No, the better answer had to be to play it off, and what did you do to counter red in makeup? You added green.

Not that Danny had used ectoplasm as a fucking colour corrector before, but he might as well try. So he let his grin go saucy, eyebrows waggling, and tried a teeny bit of spectral ice to cool his cheeks.

It made Jason chuckle again, so he’d take it as a win, and Jason gave him another bow, hand still tucked in Danny’s arm.

“Your chariot awaits.”

Tim and Tucker mimed puking almost simultaneously. They were perfect for each other. And had no taste, so that worked out well for them.

Danny ignored them all and gave the room a last wave, heading for the door and tugging Jason along with.

“Night all, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow Harley, and Tucker just text me when you’re up and we’ll see about getting you home,” he called brightly, definitely not about to stop no matter what anyone said.

Not even when Harley hauled herself vertical and call after them,

“Oh, Danny! If the bat calendars do come out, shall I grab you a Red Hood one?” She asked saucily and Danny felt Jason’s grip spasm in his elbow.

Which. He was gonna try putting together later, but tonight he really did wanna get out of there before long.

Who even was Red Hood?

Danny’d never seen him and he hadn’t turned up at the gala, so he didn’t have a guess ready, just like Batwoman.

A couple of people in one of Danny’s classes simped constantly over his thighs, but Danny now figured it was because they hadn’t met Jason.

It was probably easiest to agree, so he gave her a thumbs up over his shoulder.

“Autographed please!”

The headache that had lessened as he talked to Harley was back in full swing, along with a throbbing pulse in his temples and roiling nausea in his gut.

Constantine’s damn cigarettes weren’t helping, but Bruce just didn’t feel up to wrestling them away from him.

He’d expected… well. He hadn’t expected Constantine to come through full of fire and indignation, accusing Bruce of making the fucking mess.

His bad feeling had intensified too, not in the slightest relaxed that Constantine could feel that scrungly fucking kid all the way up in the manor.

No matter what Constantine said about the “halfa”, that could not bode well. Not with the look he’d seen on the man’s fucking face.

Steph called him an occult OSHA violation in a trench coat. Anything that scared him worried Bruce.

He could put up with some smoke and some pain to get the information he needed with a minimum of fuss.

He was beginning to wish he’d gotten some sleep though. Or could have someone get him a drink of water.

He’d shown Constantine the missed call logs from Amity Park, and the magician swore in ways that made Bruce see flashes of colour.

(That might have been the concussion talking, but Bruce could remember the almost buzzing swearwords he’d heard from Sam Manson and wasn’t sure. Nothing could be trusted.)

Not at the volume of the logs, that hadn’t surprised him. No, Constantine had gotten serious when Bruce shared the logs Tim had first shown him.

‘Earth is gone. The sky is green and Earth is gone.’

“Alright, that? That’s very fuckin’ bad,” the magician grumbled, reaching into his pocket for a flask for the first time since he’d arrived.

At least it wasn’t another goddamn cigarette. Little fucking meow meow magician.

(Bruce wasn’t quite sure what that one meant, but Steph usually said it with enough derision it had to apply.)

“So I assumed,” he gritted out, jaw clenching against another pang of pain.

Constantine levelled him with a blank stare. Bruce made a conscious effort to relax his face. The tensing wasn’t helping anyway.

“No, Batman. I mean really, really not fuckin’ good. They never called again?” He asked, and the sudden gravity in his voice sunk through layers of ache and irritation.

He sounded as serious as he’d been about the oath. That definitely wasn’t good.

Bruce shook his head, scrolling demonstratively to the end of the file.

“Not after this cluster of messages, all within the same day.”

Tim had all sorts of explanations for that. Bruce fervently hoped he was right and it was just pique on the part of Amity Park; he’d take them being angry with the League over anything else.

Especially anything that made John Constantine look that serious.

“An’ the town’s still there?” He asked, like that was a reasonable question.

Except… Bruce suddenly wasn’t sure. There were alumni from Amity Park, people who’d moved away, but the sheer lack of online information about the town itself…

They hadn’t even been able to get a clear satellite image.

He should have noticed that. He should have checked that. If he hadn’t been so twisted up in his worries about Jason…

But no, that wasn’t fair.

Bruce closed his eyes a moment, calming himself down. Breathing through the sluggish throb at his temples.

None of their Amity Parkers talked about the town like it was missing, or anything out of the ordinary. His children would have flagged it.

This wasn’t an oversight, but Constantine may know something that none of his family could have assumed.

He just had to get this finished. This briefing with Constantine, his report to the League, Jason… no. Sleep first, some pain killers, a more thorough scan.

Maybe a day of recovery, as soon as he could afford one. Wait until his head cleared.

Harley was right, Jason deserved the best Bruce could give him, and trying to talk to his son now would not go well. Bruce was only barely tolerating Constantine’s presence.

For all the man was alarmingly combative about this subject, he was a pussycat compared to Jason in a mood. Jason knew far more about what would hurt Bruce most.

Jason had always been what hurt Bruce most, ever since he’d held his lifeless body. Jason, and even the thought of one of his other children following him where Bruce couldn’t go.

No. He just had to get through this.

Refocusing on John-Bloody… no, that wasn’t helping either. On Constantine.

“From what we’ve gathered from people who have left Amity Park since, they still have access to the outside world.” He wasn’t quite sure what else he could commit to now.

It didn’t seem to satisfy. It didn’t satisfy Bruce either.

“Okay, but ya remember what I said about the fabric of reality bein’ swiss fuckin’ cheese around this city?” Constantine asked, his usual drawl starkly absent.

Bruce found himself tensing again. Wishing this was something he could fight.

“Yes. We haven’t been able to receive any satellite imagery of the town, nor any footage or communication online from within.”

He could pull up all the data, all the social media, but he knew Constantine wouldn’t care. It wasn’t what he’d asked for.

And sure enough, Constantine hauled himself back to his feet, striding towards the zeta tubes.

“Right. Well, guess we’re takin’ a field trip to th’ Watchtower, B-man, because you’re really not gonna like what I’d have to do to this lovely cave to get the intel I need. We’ll need every sensor you lot have, because that?”

Constantine half turned on his walk, finger jabbing at that last message. Barely even glancing in Bruce’s direction.

It felt like an accusation.

“That’s not fuckin’ good. That sounds like the Infinite Fucking Realms,” he declared darkly, trench coat billowing around him as he stalked across the cave.

Bruce almost flinched. Like he had no control over his expressions.

He needed sleep.

He needed answers. Needed to know what had happened, and what had to happen to fix it.

Needed to know they hadn’t let a half dead child take on an entire alternate dimension alone, because no matter how little he trusted the man Danny was, the thought of the child still ached.

Needed to know if that suspicion was actually justified by anything but his own inability to accept Jason’s clear. To have an unknown factor in Jason’s life.

Constantine’s reaction was one point in Bruce’s favour.

Whatever they found about the current state of Amity Park… would tell the rest.

He forced himself out of his seat to follow Constantine, hand straying to the pocket on his belt that held his emergency stimulants.

Alfred wouldn’t be pleased, the tiny pills carried an adrenaline boost that was wearing even at full health, but he needed to be sharp. Just for a few more hours.

He could pass what they learned off to Clark and Diana, and to his children when he returned. Just for a little while. A few hours.

Amity Park had gone unnoticed for years, as little as Bruce liked that fact. He could only hope that whatever threat it presented would lie dormant just a little longer.

Fuck the no killing rule, Jason was gonna murder Harley Quinn. And by that, yeah, he probably actually meant “seek vengeance in some small but annoying way”, but still.

He didn’t actually have a crush on Danny. It was a bit they were putting on to fuck with his nosey brothers, and it was probably a good sign that they’d apparently fooled Harley too.

But Harley was a hopeless romantic and prone to see romance where none existed, so maybe it wasn’t that good.

More importantly, Danny didn’t fucking know he was Red Hood yet. He’d have to text Harley tonight and drill that in, since she’d definitely picked up that Danny was in on the secret.

And since apparently they were all gonna be hanging out tomorrow.

He kinda wished he hadn’t brought it up. That Harley hadn’t asked.

He’d monopolised so much of Danny’s time already over the break, three full days and they still had to make that run back to Frostbite.

Danny must have had some other plans. Something he actually wanted to do with his time instead of just following Jason around.

The gala had been fun though. And so had today, it just… Jason couldn’t help feeling he was being too needy. Too clingy, with a guy he’d known for all of a week, if you were generous.

Being around Danny made him feel like himself for the first time in fucking years, and he knew what he’d have given up for that.

He didn’t want to be too much. Too pushy. Didn’t want Danny to get sick of hanging out with him so soon, and leave him right back where he’d been; bitter, angry, and alone.

At least Danny didn’t seem to be thinking too much about Harley’s parting shot. There was definitely something on his mind, but they hadn’t actually unlinked arms.

Jason could feel his aura.

Concern-worry-worry.

Shit, they hadn’t fucking unlinked arms. Should they? Should Jason have? For fucks sake he was literally clinging to the guy, this was fucking ridiculous, he should just.

But Danny hadn’t pulled away.

It’d be weird to pull away now.

Jason managed to keep himself distracted in that little spiral all the way to the garage he’d parked his bike in. Danny waited until they left the manor’s grounds to speak again though, arms tightening around Jason’s chest.

“Pull over a sec?” He called above the wind, and Jason very firmly did not let that pitch him further. He pulled over, still firmly in the heights and far from any living souls.

Unless theirs counted. Probably not.

He dropped the kickstand and pulled off his helmet, hoping Danny just wanted to talk. Maybe ask him to make his excuses to Harley.

Ask Jason to drop him at the university and not follow him home. That’d make sense. He didn’t need a wayward puppy.

He didn’t actually get off the bike. Didn’t want to give up Danny’s arms wrapped around him, even if it was just for expedience.

And maybe realised that wasn’t a great idea when Danny rested his cheek on Jason’s back and a warm wave of relax-safe-reassurance threatened to swallow him.

“I know what you’re thinking about,” Danny admitted softly, and Jason damn near bolted. Barely heard the next words, which…

Well.

He knew Danny tended to overlook things. But it turned out he could be pretty damn perceptive too.

“She’s gonna be okay, you know. Cass. I can feel her anywhere in the city if I try, and I’ll know if something happens to her.”

And just like that, the pit dropped out of Jason’s stomach.

He’d been trying not to think about it. Pretended he didn’t know what she’d be doing when she left, out in the city, one fucking accident from being like him.

Even worrying about Danny getting sick of him was better than that.

She might not even need the pit to bring her back this time. Gotham had a fuck ton of native ectoplasm even for a city; it couldn’t not.

Ectoplasm was made of and attracted to raw emotional energy. For all that people died every day in the city, more were born or moved in to join their ranks.

Gotham would be a metaphorical ghost town if they hadn’t, instead of the literal version slowly creeping across the city’s vigilantes.

From the rogues’ overdramatic schemes to the peoples’ undercurrent of rage and defiant joy, Gotham seethed with emotion. Most of the dead didn’t stay to use the ecto up, and every rogue attack brought a fresh wave.

Not clean ectoplasm like the realms, but tainted with their individual torments, the fierce glee, the desire to burn, it all churned into an ambient ectoplasm Danny swore he’d never seen in another city.

And that defiant spirit, the Gotham je ne sais quoi that made people put up with all the rogue attacks and dangers, was powerful too. Jason had known that even as a kid.

Now, it was literally the reason he was alive.

He might have a second core filling his system with pit water, but they’d both have dried up without the boundless “fuck off” energy Gotham was built on.

He’d felt it the second he returned. He was alive in Gotham in a way he hadn’t been in Nanda Parbat, anywhere but the fucking pit. It let him think clearly.

Well.

Apparently Danny let him think clearly. That still stung. But it shouldn’t have surprised him.

He’d never been much of anything that other people didn’t make him.

It was why he didn’t really mind Clockwork trying to make him Danny’s knight within a couple hours of learning he was half dead. It was kinda what he did.

People had been using him as a weapon since he swung a tire iron at Batman himself. Protecting the guy who gave him his fucking soul back?

He’d have done that anyway, for free. And he got a kickass gun and a supernatural sense of when said asshole needed him. Honestly, easiest job of his life.

The catch would come eventually, but this whole “feeling the intent of people you talk to” thing left him way less suspicious than he still kinda felt he should be.

He’d rather that than be left nebulously owing his whole self to Danny with no way to repay him and no idea where the catch would come from.

It had just… never occurred to him that the same way Danny could reach out and find Vlad, he’d be able to find Cass. Or Jason himself, probably.

Jason hadn’t realised how tightly he’d wound himself until the pressure eased.

He sucked in a breath that seemed to fill his chest for the first time in hours, folded his arms forward onto the handlebars, and let his head rest against them.

Danny followed him down, never losing contact but his face slipping lower and lower down Jason’s back. It almost made him chuckle, imagining how they must have looked.

Actually, he did. Just a moment, a soft and almost giddy sound that he choked back immediately. He sounded… well. Not like himself.

He’d been itching since the girls left to patrol, wishing he could join them. Be Cass’s backup in the field and be sure she wasn’t going in on anything big alone.

Cass was a step beyond competent, she was exceptional and she’d been doing this for years without a shadow. On a regular day, she wouldn’t need help.

But hearing how close she was to losing her humanity and not coming back right no matter what had him on edge. He wanted to shield her, protect her from what he’d gone through.

It wasn’t that he wanted her out of the fight. The idea of asking her not to go out hadn’t even occurred to him. She could make her own choices and he’d back her with all he had.

He just absolutely fucking hated the idea that she was out there alone, while he had fucking nothing on him that’d let him go after her if she did need backup.

If she needed help, he’d have to waste time gearing up before he could go out after her. The other bats would have her back, they all would, so long as they weren’t busy too.

It wasn’t like he was anyone’s first choice for backup even now, he just.

Yeah. He might kinda get what Danny meant about his Obsession being protection. Protecting the bats was a recent addition, but Jason had burned himself out on enough missing kids since he got back to suspect.

He’d have to ask what an actual capital-letter Obsession felt like, but that would wait for another time.

Just knowing that Cass would be safe, had another pair of eyes and more powers than a Kryptonian watching her back made him feel like he could breathe again.

Even knowing that though, he was glad to have left the manor. He could take Danny home, suit up, and… wait.

Danny had no choice but to move back as he straightened, half turning to frown down at the smaller man.

“Is that why you wanted to leave?” He asked quietly, gauging Danny’s face.

Had Danny worked it out on his own? Felt him stressing out about his baby sister back in the field?

Did Danny know that Jason wanted to join her, if not necessarily which costume he wore, and cut his night short?

Would Danny do that for him?

The answer was obvious in the other man’s face as Danny shrugged, even before he spoke.

“I didn’t wanna put you on the spot, and I figured you’d rather get out of there,” he explained casually, leaning just a little into Jason. Enough to feel what warmth Danny had.

Jason hesitated for a long moment, not sure what to say. If he should thank Danny. If Danny would ask, and if Jason should tell him he was the Red Hood now.

It’d be weirder the longer he didn’t mention it. Like he was keeping a secret.

The same secret Danny had kept as a teenager, so at least he’d probably understand, but Jason didn’t like how it felt. He wasn’t fucking ashamed of being the Red Hood.

He’d done shit no one else ever could have, and every inch of his territory was safer than it had ever been without him. He was proud of what he’d done, even if he wouldn’t brag about his methods.

It worked. It got him where he was today, where he didn’t need to kill anymore because people turned tail at the hint of his damn name.

He still didn’t know how Danny felt about killing. It wasn’t something that came up in conversation much. Maybe he’d find a way to ask first.

Tonight, he managed a stiff nod and leaned a little of his own weight back into Danny. Even if the guy thought he was just gonna go home and mope there instead, it was a win.

“Thanks,” he said softly, half wishing for his helmet’s voice modulator. He didn’t like hearing his own voice sound so… vulnerable.

Danny, fucking angel of mercy that he was, chuckled softly and gave him a gentle tap upside the head.

“Yeah, well. Also wasn’t sure how the others would react to “99% of you are permanently on my radar” anyway, and I wanted to make sure you knew for Cass,” he explained cheerfully.

And yeah, Jason still hadn’t really processed that yet, and wasn’t even sure how he’d react. Smart fucking call on Danny’s part.

Chuckling under his breath, Jason shook his head and flipped the kickstand back up.

“Anything else before I take you to bed?” He asked, half teasing Danny’s own unfortunate choice of words earlier.

They were absolutely still fucking with his family to think this was some kind of romantic relationship. Maybe a bit to punish Bruce, who clearly couldn’t handle the idea of Jason happy.

Danny laughed, a hint of something Jason almost identified behind it, then settled himself more firmly against Jason’s back, hanging on properly again.

“Not a damn thing. Oh, are you gonna come pick me up tomorrow or do I make my own way to the manor to join you and Harley?” He asked, snugged up tight.

Jason had almost forgotten that was happening. Apparently. And suddenly he was glad for at least the motorcycle helmet as his cheeks flushed pink.

Fuck he’d say he was trailing after Danny like a puppy, except Danny was the one going where Jason needed to be.

Another excuse to get Danny on his bike, arms around him.

Fuck off Jason Todd, Romance Heroine. It was a goddamn jailbreak, if a legal one. Not a fucking meet cute.

“If you actually want to come,” he agreed a little hesitantly, because the voice that insisted he was just a burden and Danny was only humouring him wasn’t all displacement activity after all.

Or pit related, apparently. Delightful.

He coulda tried to pretend it was, but that had been more convincing back when it was always a background grumble of anger, not the little calm pool of happiness now sitting in his gut.

Unforeseen side effect of getting his toxic sludge cleaned up: he was gonna have to own some of his own bullshit now. Work out what was his and what wasn’t.

Danny leaned back a little, grip loosening, and Jason could feel concern like a whisper soft touch.

“Yeah… I would, if you don’t mind? It seems like he’s important to you.”

Jason wasted a moment trying to work out what the hell Danny meant by that.

Did he want to meet Croc cuz he was important to Jason? Or did he think Jason wouldn’t want him to if he was important?

Cuz while yeah, Jason considered Waylon a friend (and thanks, Harley, for the new name crisis, love that. The guy introduced himself as Killer Croc but Jason knew all about controlling a narrative) it wasn’t like he was family. Not like Dick, Cass, or the others.

Except. Roy was family. Long before any of the bats made it back into Jason’s good books, Roy was one of the first people to be happy Jason was alive.

And Waylon had helped Roy get help when Ollie fucking kicked him out.

Waylon had been a restraining hand on Jason’s shoulder too, in the bad old days. Keeping him from pushing too hard, going too big, doing something he really couldn’t come back from.

Family didn’t have to mean annoying texts at four AM. Didn’t have to come around for dinner every Sunday; how often did any of them really see Harley?

Fuck, how often would they have seen each other if Alfred didn’t have them all firmly under his culinary thumb.

Waylon had to count as a reliable old uncle at least.

And that kinda made it a different question. Did Jason want Danny to meet his family?

It had been an easy “yes” with the bats, not least because the nosy bastards would muscle their way in regardless. Croc…

Waylon never judged Jason. From his highest highs to lowest lows, he never looked down on him. Not even when he was telling Jason to stop and think.

It kinda made Jason ache for what his life should have been. His, and Waylon’s if he’d never been called Killer Croc.

And maybe it’d give Jason a read on how Danny would react to the Red Hood thing. Or whether or not Danny already knew.

Jason was gonna blame Bruce for this chronic overthinking. Definitely not something he’d had on his own.

He’d thought about it long enough that he could feel Danny tensing, and he forced himself to snap out of it. In all honesty, it wasn’t his business what Danny thought he’d get out of it.

In the end, there was no point second guessing what someone else wanted to do with their time. It was Danny’s call. Not his.

And that kinda helped.

He half shrugged, leaning back into Danny for a moment and tugging him forwards again.

“I mean, we’re not “Thanksgiving at each others’ houses” close, but… he’s helped me out since I came back. More than I expected anyone to. I don’t mind if you wanna meet him,” Jason explained.

Danny obediently moved back into position to go, his aura a gentle hum of curiosity-concern-interest at Jason’s back.

“So do I make my own way, or…”

“I’ll come get you, probably around eleven?” Jason offered, definitely NOT thinking about Danny being back in this same position very soon.

He was gonna have to get another helmet for the bike. Immortal Ghost King or not, it just felt rude at this point.

After Danny and Jason left, Tim, Harley, and Tucker played a few more rounds of Mariokart together. Switched to a couple other games. Damian abandoned them almost immediately, disappearing half way through a round.

Probably to start a patrol of his own, or go try to spy on Danny and Jason.

Eventually Harley wished both the boys well and headed out with a cheery wave.

“Right, maybe I’ll see ya tomorrow or maybe not, have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she called cheerfully, then paused and pointed at Tucker. “An’ keep an eye on Tim. Make sure he sleeps.”

Tim rolled his eyes, not looking up from their new round of SpiderHeck to wave her off. Tucker did, and Tim took advantage to swing across the map and cut him down with a lightsaber.

Amateur.

“Huh? Oh, sure! Fucking hell Tim,” Tuck complained as his attention switched back to the defeat screen.

Tim snickered, leaning back in his seat and crossing his legs.

“Hey, not my fault you can’t keep your head in the game,” he teased smugly. Tucker poked him in the face.

“Not my fault I have enough manners to look at people when they talk to me. So is Harley gonna be staying in the manor too?” He added curiously, glancing around.

They easily had the rooms for it, though Tim didn’t really wanna think about it. What might Harley get up to on a 2am snack run?

Although it wasn’t that far from 2am now.

“I don’t think so, she has a place in the city at the moment,” he mused, his mind beginning to shift.

It wasn’t that he’d been waiting for witnesses to clear out, exactly. Everyone was in on the secret, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to head down to the Bat Cave even when they had the larger group.

It was just… they’d been having fun. It’d be rude to leave their guests, and Bruce was already being cranky down in the cave.

Of course, Tim’d gotten another ping on his zeta tube monitoring program an hour or so ago. Constantine and Bruce both checking out, probably to the Watchtower.

So it’d be safe now, and they’d reached an okay stopping point. Tim had no doubt that Tucker would prefer checking out the cave over any games.

Tim couldn’t let him on the bat computer yet, but he could show Tucker a couple of Tim’s better scanning programs. Maybe even ping Babs and see how the others were doing.

See if she had time to talk to Tucker in person. Maybe he could show them both how he’d encrypted that server, which Tim suspected would involve ectoplasm.

Not like he couldn’t link the PDA to an un-networked monitor so that they could all see what he was doing though. Hell, they could record it for Bruce.

He’d love having answers to the Amity Park problem. If Tucker would let Tim run the PDA for a few minutes…

Still, it was just good manners to check in.

Alfred would be thrilled that they were learning to communicate.

Pulling out his phone, he shot Bruce a quick text.

‘Hey, we’re gonna head down to the Cave. You mind if I give a tour?’

It didn’t take long to get a reply, which was usually a good sign. It meant Bruce wasn’t hyperfocused enough to ignore his phone.

Maybe things with Constantine were going well.

The length of the reply wasn’t as reassuring, but not a surprise either. Bruce wasn’t exactly wordy in person, and only less so over text.

‘Go ahead.’

No indication of when he’d be back, but that was fine. They could compare notes whenever that turned out to be.

Tim turned to Tucker, grinning in anticipation of the other man’s reaction.

“So, wanna see something cool?” He asked, and felt gratified when Tucker’s eyes widened and a matching grin spread across his face.

But who wouldn’t be excited to see the Bat Cave?

“Hell yeah!”

Tucker followed Tim eagerly out of the games room, mind already buzzing with all the things the young genius might want to show him.

Did they have a tech lab in Wayne Manor? They definitely had the space for it, and it had to be safer than keeping one at Tim’s downtown apartment.

Bruce might not have been much of a techie but Tim was personally responsible for enough big developments that he was considered a prodigy even in Tucker’s circles.

Of course the guy had the advantage of near limitless money and resources, especially after Drake Industries merged with Wayne Enterprises.

With that kinda money, Tucker himself could have revolutionised the world. But, Tuck had the advantage of the Ghost Zone and ecto tech, so he wasn’t too upset.

Especially not if Tim was really going to let him see where the magic happened.

He did nearly let out an audible groan as Tim led him into an office and activated a secret elevator in a clock. Maybe Danny had a point… maybe all billionaires were dramatic assholes.

Maybe Sam had a point, and they were all evil. Maybe Tim was bringing him down to an evil lab.

Caution reluctantly seeped into Tucker’s excitement, but he fought it off sharply. Tim was a good guy, they were becoming real friends, and Tuck couldn’t believe a fellow techie would betray him.

Besides, no one in Gotham knew shit about ghost tech, or liminals. It wasn’t like Tucker would actually be in any danger from a scrawny nerd like Tim.

Even if he did have very nice shoulders. Shapely arms. An almost snatched waist that almost tipped to androgyny, but he carried it so well.

Anyway.

Tim definitely wouldn’t hurt him.

It was probably just a super secure underground tech lab, to keep anyone from stealing secrets. Tucker let himself hype up again, imagining the kind of security measures Tim could install underground.

It’d remove the chances of someone sneaking through a back window for sure. And sure, rock wouldn’t stop a ghost, but it stopped pretty much anyone else if you added seismic sensors.

It made sense, really, putting all Tim’s very coolest and most secret cutting edge tech experiments somewhere that no one would expect, and almost no one could get to.

Tucker found himself rocking forward on his toes as the elevator descended, and flushed a little when he noticed Tim smiling.

He was excited, sue him. It beat worrying that he was about to get his first go at the Danny Fenton Lab Experience.

Thankfully no one ever cared enough to capture the nerds.

Tim was quiet on the way down, clearly savouring the anticipation, and that suited Tucker fine. It wasn’t a long ride, and he all but bounced out of the doors as soon as they opened.

Stopped.

Stared around at blank stone walls, stalactites on the ceiling, and… a waterfall? A robotic dinosaur? A row of display cases?

This was not a super cool high tech research lab.

This kinda might be a supervillain cave.

Tucker’s heart sank for a moment, especially as he noticed more and more Batman themed pieces on walls and cases.

Bruce Wayne (please don’t let it be Tim’s secret project any more, Tucker couldn’t bear it) was obsessed with Batman. Collecting trophies.

Probably wanted to catch the hero himself and stuff him in a case. Rich people were all like that apparently.

Except… the locker room? Off to one side? Where a freshly laundered Red Robin uniform hung, neat and pristine?

Collector freaks never let anyone clean their stuff, especially if it might have had gross hero sweat to obsess over.

And that was the Batmobile, parked next to a large garage door. An array of motorcycles, and Tucker was no expert on Gotham’s heroes but there were at least three colour schemes.

Someone had been changing the oil on one of them.

A massive computer screen, surrounded by smaller screens at various angles, and as he approached in awe he spotted a bat sticker on almost every monitor.

No way anyone ever stole THE Batcomputer. People would notice. Someone would talk, there were legends about Batman’s set up!

Half Tucker’s class would have killed for a look at the tech, no way they wouldn’t know if it ever got loose.

Which meant.

Tucker knew his jaw had dropped. Couldn’t find it in himself to close it as he turned back to Tim, eyes wide, and watched all colour drain from the other man’s face.

“Is this the fucking Bat Cave?! Is Bruce Fucking Wayne actually Batman?!” He exclaimed eagerly, not even wondering why Tim suddenly looked so shocked.

This really was the best day ever.

Wait.

“You DO know the fucking Oracle!”

Well.

The curse of Robin had come for Tim at last. Bruce was absolutely going to fucking kill him.

But, okay, in his defence, it totally wasn’t Tim’s fault! He’d assumed Tucker already knew because Danny one thousand percent definitely did, he called Dick out in costume!

And Tucker was still trustworthy! Still an asset! And he’d help Tim get past the firewalls, get into Amity Park, all they had to do was get enough work done before Bruce came back.

And killed Tim.

For bringing an unknowing civilian into the fucking bat cave.

Best day ever.

Tim sucked in a great rasping breath, suddenly aware that he’d completely stopped breathing somewhere in there, and shook his head.

Okay. Snap out of it Tim.

Those nights with Alfred-supervision had made him weak, no way only thirty-six hours without sleep should have done this to him.

Too bad, sleep deprivation would have been a great excuse.

He wasted a moment lamenting his lack of immediate coffee and turned his focus to the actual problem: the Amity Park firewall.

Tucker was still staring at him in awe and triumph, though worry was creeping in. Tim pulled on a charming smile, walking to the batcomputer and gesturing for Tucker to join him.

“Uh… yeah, sorry, I thought Danny already told you or I’d have said. I didn’t mean to spring it on you,” he lied, like he’d have ever let the secret slip.

Tucker pouted then, folding his arms.

“Oh, of course Danny knows. Bet that’s how he and Jason met. So does that mean you’re…” he trailed off curiously, clearly hoping Tim would fill in the blank.

Tim considered being mildly offended that Tucker didn’t think he could be Oracle, but he valued his digital security. Zero chance Babs wouldn’t be pulling this video up later for a laugh.

He nodded to his suit instead, the new one hanging waiting. Probably for tomorrow night at this point, since there was no reason to change just to hang out in the cave.

“Red Robin. I ah… saw you last night at the gala,” he added sheepishly, wondering just how much of Tim’s minor breakdown Tucker had noticed while waiting to give Tim the tablet.

And Tucker’s eyes lit up, clearly remembering, and he grinned, clapping his hands together.

“Oh! That explains why you left, huh? I guess someone had to deal with the rogues and stuff,” he mused thoughtfully.

Tim had to hope he wasn’t thinking about the exact same thing. At least the discovery was going well so far; Tim couldn’t think of many people he’d had to share this particular secret with, and most of the ones who did had been villains at one time or another, but still.

Tucker was keeping up, wasn’t freaking out, and had gotten over his surprise in record time. Tim definitely wasn’t disappointed.

Tuck had been a vigilante himself after all, it’s not like he was a civilian. And had already admitted he didn’t pay much attention to vigilantes, so he might not even know which one Red Robin was.

It’d just. Have been nice if he was more impressed.

Not that Tim cared. He wasn’t Red Robin to impress people, and usually didn’t even think about it.

And Tucker didn’t seem surprised or upset when Tim steered him to one of the tables beside the batcomputer instead of the big baby itself, and got one of the un-networked monitors out.

“Pretty much. I get a little… antsy if a takedown goes too easily, because with Riddler it usually means we’re missing something,” he explained dryly, pointing Tucker to a second wheely chair to pull over, “but yesterday it was apparently just a shitty rush job on his part.”

Tucker snickered at that, wheeling the directed chair over and sitting eagerly beside Tim, still darting looks at the bigger screens.

“Should I be mad I didn’t get their best work?” He mock-pondered, and Tim snickered.

“Probably. But Riddler and Croc aren’t really A-listers or big on the mass destruction side anyway.”

“Waylon,” Tucker corrected almost absent mindedly, pulling out his PDA.

Tim missed exactly what he did next as he remembered Harley’s little tidbit, and he pulled a face.

“Yeah… I’ve not exactly had the one-on-one time with him Jason’s had, I don’t think we’re on a first name basis,” he explained, shaking his head as the monitor sprung to life.

Tucker snorted a laugh, flicking through screens on the PDA.

“What, Mr Jones then? Want me to just start downloading the Amity Park records first, then we’ll go hunting?” He added, and Tim nodded quickly, snickering himself at the vision.

Nothing threw a shining ball of confusion into a fight like calling someone “Mr Jones”. He’d have to try it if Croc… Mr Jones was gonna be back on the scene.

It was the name that went on all of his prison paperwork, so it wasn’t like it was a secret identity the same way the bats had.

“Honestly? Better than Waylon. And yeah, we can start with the government files and news reports, just so we have a backup. Then we’ll look around and find out what else B thinks we’ll need.”

Tucker snickered beside him, flicking quickly through screens on the PDA. Despite it being purely for his benefit, Tim pretty much ignored the monitor, keeping most of his attention on the device itself.

It was chunky and very retro, but given the processing power and space for storage? There was a definite charm to it.

Maybe Tucker would let him play around on it later.

But, in the spirit of not being killed when Bruce returned… there was one thing they definitely needed to talk about.

“I…” Tim sucked in a deep breath. He’d put good money on Tuck, Danny, and Sam being what actually solved Amity Park’s last calls to the League.

It might be a traumatic memory. Probably was. But he had to ask. And better him than Bruce.

Tucker looked up when he trailed off, making a curious noise. Not exactly asking what Tim wasn’t saying, but showing he’d noticed the pause.

Sighing to himself, Tim wheeled across to the batcomputer. Bruce probably still had the files up.

“I also think we need to talk about these,” he explained, pulling up the records for the Justice League’s missed calls. Hundreds of them.

Tucker just looked nonplussed for a moment, then sobered. Probably when the dates sank in and told him what they were talking about.

“Oh… yeah. Probably,” he agreed, sounding more serious than Tim had ever heard him. Which kinda proved Tim’s point about traumatic memories.

Leaving the records on screen, Tim wheeled back over, pulling out one of his larger recorders. This conversation might take a while.

“Do you mind if I just record what you tell me? B’s gonna want a full write up. He’s off ripping a strip off of Constantine as we speak, probably, cuz whatever he did… this lot went past voice mail and straight to the trash.”

It wasn’t exactly an apology, wasn’t exactly an excuse, and Tim cut himself off before it turned into whining. The past was past, and it was too late to change that now.

Something complicated crossed Tucker’s face as he spoke, and Tim tried not to look too closely. Didn’t want his overly analytical side latching on.

The only thing they could do was work out what happened, and if there was still anything the league could do to make up for majorly dropping the ball.

Tucker sucked in a deep breath of his own, letting it out in a low whistle.

“Y’know, I thought we were coming down here for fun and tech talk,” he said almost wistfully, and Tim chuckled wryly.

“We can definitely still do that. It’ll just unknot Bruce’s panties some if we’ve got this part out of the way before he gets back. That way you’re just telling me, no “swooping menace in the shadows”,” he added half sarcastically, and Tucker laughed.

He looked… well. Haunted. But that wasn’t exactly a sensible descriptor for a guy who spent years hunting ghosts.

Not too bad though. No tremors, no tightness in the eyes or jaw that said he was hiding something. His skin was still a rich, warm brown, no paler than before.

If he was having a deeper reaction than the tiredness, he was hiding it in a way Tim couldn’t hope to spot. That… was probably the best sign Tim had seen about this particular shit show.

Chuckling to himself, Tucker checked the PDA one more time, then set it on the table and turned to face Tim directly.

“Yeah, might as well do it during the file download. Your setup is gorgeous, but that’s still gonna take a while. If you ask me, you’re not gonna need to ask Danny about it later, right?” He asked, and Tim bit his lip.

Less good sign. Seemed Danny carried more of the weight of this one too.

“B’ll probably want his side, and to check the stories match, but Jason won’t let him push Danny into anything,” he offered instead of a blanket statement.

Tucker cocked his head a little, examining Tim for a long moment in a way that made him feel almost… dissected. Like a piece of tech Tucker had taken apart, and was looking for secrets in.

Finally the older boy nodded and shrugged, leaning back.

“Yeah, fair. It’s damn hard to pin Danny down if he wants to leave anyway. There’s some Fenton tech that’d do it, but it’s not like you can get that here. So… where do you want me to start?”

Filing away that comment about the Fenton tech for later, Tim jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the big screen.

“Do we have time to start at the beginning? The first calls?” He asked, half expecting the answer to be “no”.

Tucker glanced down at his PDA, and snickered.

“Well, I can give you the Cliff’s Notes version. And then if you have questions you can ask?”

Which… yeah, Tim glanced at their little offline monitor. It was a pretty big download; Tucker had meant it when he said he was grabbing everything for them.

That had to be a sign of good faith, right?

And then after that they’d have to shift everything over to an un-networked hard drive. After whatever Tuck had to do to de-ecto it.

Shoulders settling, Tim put the recorder on the table before him.

“Sounds good. So… Tucker Foley, current top student at MIT and soon to be receiver of a Wayne Enterprises internship,” he teased, enjoying the way Tucker snickered again, also visibly relaxing.

Might as well make this as comfortable as possible. They could break after Tucker finished for some drinks or something.

“What happened in Amity Park?”

On the Watchtower, Bruce slid his phone back into its pouch on his utility belt and returned his attention to the pacing magician.

He’d pulled up every type of reading they could gather from Amity Park for the week of the last distress call, and from their current logs.

Thermal imaging, infrared and ultraviolets, seismography, electromagnetic waves, spectrography, and several that Bruce wasn’t sure what they were, just that the Justice League Dark were the only ones who used them.

The fact that even Bruce could see extremely obvious spikes on more than half of them was not a good sign. It made checking the dates almost superfluous.

Nor was the way that even though those spikes had lowered within that same day… they’d never gone all the way back down.

In every magical sense they could detect (and half a dozen scientific ways he was actually comfortable with), Amity Park glowed like a cartoon nuke.

The only good news was that their radiation sensors had gone straight back down to normal after the initial spikes. Which made no scientific sense given the normal decay of radioactive materials, but Bruce was not going to argue.

He appreciated Tim checking in though. The gesture towards clearer communication. He wasn’t sure exactly what Tim would want to show Harley in a tour of the bat cave, but honestly?

He wasn’t going to ask. It was nice to have something that wasn’t his problem, and he trusted Tim and Harley, together or separately.

It wasn’t like Tim would bring anyone else down to the cave.

——————

😇

I regret nothing.

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna

Next Chapter:

#danny fenton dead and loving it #dp x dc #dpxdc #dead on main ship #danny x jason #never make a promise you can’t keep #jason: oh man danny must be so sick of me i’m taking up all of his time 😔#danny: dang i gotta go back to school soon instead of spending 24 hours a day with my new bestie this is clearly normal to be sad about #and suddenly constantine was there! wooooo #gonna try and wrap up waylon and harvey next chapter (wish me luck)#we gots bigger fish to fry 😏#and maybe a justice league meeting just for fun #chapter 12 #counting is hard

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toppersjeep · 7 months

Text

Chapter 9- All For Love Charles Leclerc

Masterlist

Elena’s POV

“So are you nervous for this race” Lando said. “A bit I mean if I win I’m world champion” I said. “And if Max wins” Lando said. “I mean hey no female has made it this far so I’m excited” I said. “You should be I’m proud of you and I know Charles is” Lando said I smiled.

“Speaking of love you told Addie you love her” I asked. “Yeah I did but I’m worried that she hates me” Lando said. “She doesn’t hate you” I said. “She hasn’t spoken to me since” Lando said. “Pato broke up with her” I said.

“Oh I had no idea” Lando said. “And Lando.. make a big gesture I’m sure she’d love it” I said. “Like what” Lando said. “Just go kiss her dummy go tell her you love her” I said. “Do I bring her flowers or something” Lando said.

“Obviously Lando” I said. “Okay I’m on it thank you I don’t know what I’d do without you” Lando said hugging me. “Your welcome lando now go” I said he smiled and ran off.

“That was very sweet” Charles said. “I had to push him you know” I said. “They’ll get there” Charles said. “Hey Ellie” Daniel said sitting beside me. “Charles they need us for filming” Carlos said. “Alright I’ll be back love” Charles said kissing my cheek.

“Have fun” I said. Charles left.

“So my little sister engaged before me” Daniel said. “You’ll get there” I said. “But how” Daniel said. “You’ll find someone special Danny” I said. “After you I don’t know how too” Daniel said. “Dan” I said. “You have no idea how much I” Daniel said looking at me.

“We can’t do this here” I said walking away. “Elena wait” Daniel said running after me. He and I found a spot to talk with nobody and no cameras around. “Daniel what is it” I said. “I shouldn’t have said what I said or pushed you away from me” Daniel said.

“Wasn’t this all because of Charles you said” I said. “A little bit Elena but” Daniel said. “What was there something more” I asked looking at Daniel. “I don’t know I was scared of that next step” Daniel said. “Your so young Elena you have your whole life ahead of you” Daniel said.

“Daniel” I said. “Your 25 years old would you have really settled down” Daniel said. “So you just ran away from it and made an excuse” I said. “Elena there was so much going on” Daniel said. “But you still could’ve just” I said.

“Part of me always knew you loved him too Elena” Daniel said cupping my cheek. “Dan” I said tearing up. “When you love something sometimes you gotta let it go” Daniel said. “How’d Joss know” I said. “He mentioned that.. I wanted to marry you huh” Daniel said.

“Yeah is that really true” I said looking at him. “I know you hate your father.. but yes I asked him permission” Daniel said. “And your Mom too but I chickened out” Daniel said. I couldn’t find the words to say as he looked at me.

“I should go get ready for the race Ellie but.. I guess I thought it would’ve been you and I” Daniel said. “But.. hey if he’s the one person you want… I get it” Daniel said.

“But please just know how much I love you.. and I always will” he said kissing my head. He then walked away. I just stood there for a minute trying to collect my thoughts.

I wiped my tears and walked back out to find everyone else. But I bumped into someone. It was April. I had no idea she was standing there.

“April” I said. “Make the right decision this time” April said walking away from me. But what exactly was the right decision here.

Later that day…

It was the final two laps of the race. I was leading. Charles was behind. And Daniel was in third place. Max had been pushed back to fourth.

“Elena one more lap” Bono said. “Bono” I said. “Yes Elena car is good is something wrong” Bono asked. “Umm how far away is Daniel from passing Charles” I said.

“He’s got an opportunity soon” Bono said. “Alright” I said. “Why” Bono said. “Curiosity I guess” I said. “Elena this is your race” Bono said. “But what if I don’t deserve it or them” I said.

“If your asking for love advice not my job Elena” Bono said. “Bono no” I said. “Okay good” Bono said I laughed. “Elena just follow your heart and win this race please” Toto said over the radio. “Copy that Bono” I said.

I finally made it across the line. I had done it. I was the world champion. For the first time in my career.

“Holy shit I did it” I said . “Elena you are the world champion dear” Bono said. “Let’s go” I said yelling. “You did it Elena we are all so proud of you” Toto said. “Congrats Elena” Mick said. “I couldn’t have done it without you guys I love you all” I said finally stopping the car at the number one spot.

I got out taking my helmet off. I then ran over to hug the team.

“Let’s go Elena” the team yelled. “So so proud” Bono said I smiled. “Amazing amazing race” Toto said. I looked over at Charles and Daniel giving each other a handshake. Charles had kept P2 and Daniel P3.

I still didn’t know what to do or say. Charles walked over and hugged me.

“I’m so proud of you my love” Charles said kissing my cheek. “Thank you char” I said. “Your mom would be so proud” Charles said I teared up. “I hope so” I said he hugged me again. “We definitely have to celebrate” Charles said.

“Yeah we do” I said. “I’ll let you see everyone else love” Charles said walking over to Lando and Addie. I then walked over to Daniel. He hugged me and picked me up spinning me around I laughed.

“I’m beyond proud of you and impressed” Daniel said setting me down. “Easy there” I said. “You deserve this and so much Elena” Daniel said. “Thank you” I said. “I’ve always been your biggest fan you know” he said I laughed.

“Yeah you have” I said. “And I always will I’m never going anywhere” he whispered in my ear. “You deserve this win and so many more Ellie” he said just so I could hear. “Hate to break up the reunion” Max said. “You can bother your sister” Daniel said. “Hey” I said. “Great race” Max said.

“You too” I said. “Well if I had to lose to someone I’m glad it was you” Max said. “Oh” I said. “I’m still better but your getting up to my level” he said I laughed. “So you saying I’m almost as good as you” I said.

“Yeah you are I guess Elle” Max said. “Well thank you Max” I said. “Hey we may fight sometimes but I do love you.. you are my sister” Max said. “I guess I love you sometimes” I said he hugged me.

“I know you do but seriously you always have me and Kelly we are family” Max said. “And Penelope” Kelly said I smiled. “Can’t forget p of course” Max said. “Thank you both” I said.

“Of course” Max said walking away. “And Elena.. not my place but they both love you” Kelly said. “You heard” I said. “Yes I did but if someone risked there life for me… I’d never let them go” Kelly said. I looked at Charles. “But Daniel” I said. “Your stuck aren’t you” Kelly said. “Yes” I said.

“Whatever you decide I know it will be the right decision just do what makes you happy” Kelly said.

I then walked over to Charles. “Oh did you hear these two… I then kissed Charles. Daniel gave me a look.

“What was that for love not that I’m mad” Charles said. “I just had too” I said. “Well I liked that” Charles said. “What were you saying” I said. “Lando finally asked Addie out” Charles said.

“Oh thank god” George said. “It’s about time” I added. “Well Elena gave me good advice” Lando said. “That’s what Elena does” Daniel said looking at me. “She’s the best Charles” Addie said. “I know she is” Charles said.

“She always has been” Daniel said walking away. “What is it something I said” Charles said. “No I’ll be right back” I said walking after him. I then followed him into the Red Bull paddock. “What Elena” Daniel said.

“I don’t get you” I said. “And I don’t understand what you want from me” Daniel said. “I don’t know what I want” I said. “Just .. make it easier Elena” Daniel said. “I can’t” I said. “I don’t know either Elena I can’t help you” Daniel said.

I then looked at something on his shelf. It was next to the picture of him and I. A small little box.

“Dan” I said looking at it he grabbed it. “You know I had it all planned out for you” Daniel said sitting on his bed. “For this specific weekend you know” Daniel said. “I” I said. “I knew you’d win and on that podium I was gonna” Daniel said looking at the ring.

“Hell.. I was gonna” he said wiping his tears. “Danny” I said. “It’s not my place anymore clearly” Daniel said. “I’m sorry” I said. “It’s not your fault Elena” Daniel said. “Maybe it is” I said turning away from him. “Elena if I were to ask you what would you have said” Daniel said.

“Daniel I just” I said turning around. To see him holding the ring up. “I don’t care about Charles right now but Elena this feels right to me” Daniel said. “All I want is you” Daniel said.

“Dan” I said looking at him. “Elena I knew for ever ago that I wanted to marry you” Daniel said. “And I know part of you still loves me so I’m asking you right now” Daniel said. “Elena Lynn Verstappen will you marry me” Daniel said getting down on one knee.

The door the opened. And Charles was standing there. He looked at both of us. Nobody said anything to each other. We all exchanged looks.

“Oh Daniel … I see we had similar plans for this evening” Charles said.

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ilovewriting06 · 11 months

Text

Hypothetically

A/N: I was going to finish the fics in my drafts but I think I need to just take a break and do my own thing so I’ll be back to writing but I’ll not be writing requests. This idea however did come from @kati-1997 who’s a friend of mine and is kind enough to help me out on some things. The name for this was originally going to be ‘Heart Stealing Sniper’ but after writing it I felt that this title fit a little better.

Steve’s POV

I furrow my eyebrows as Kono checks her phone for the eighteenth time within the last half hour. “Kono, is everything okay?” She looks up with wide eyes and hums out a what as Chin laughs, “She is wishing away the day. Her friend is moving back to the island and Kono is counting down the minutes until the plane is scheduled to land.” Danny chuckles as Kono groans, “Twenty minutes and then I’m leaving!”

True to her word twenty minutes later she’s all but running out the door and yelling that she’ll be back as soon as she gets her friend.

Y/N’s POV

I stumble backwards from the sudden weight change as I pull my last bag off the belt. Once I stabilize myself I strap my bag to the top of my smaller suitcase before spinning around as I hear someone yell my name. I smile as I’m crushed in a hug by my best friend. “Kono! It’s been so long!” She pulls back with a smile that matches mine as she nods, “I know! There are a few new people I want you to meet, both of which are single.” She wiggles her eyebrows as I roll my eyes, “Kono, I am perfectly happy as a single woman. Plus no one can handle my ‘adventurous and adrenaline seeking personality.’” I put air quotes along the last part as I sigh glancing down slightly. I feel Kono’s hand on my bicep, “Oh Y/N/N, come on. That dude was a dick plus he was salty that you broke up with him, he had no right to do that.”

I snort as I roll my eyes, “Yeah well apparently he couldn’t stand me anymore seeing as he fired me.” She shrugs, “Hey, it got you back to Oahu so I’m not complaining.” I shake my head with a laugh, “Of course you would see it that way.”

My eyes widen as Kono puts the car in park outside of a huge building that looks like a castle. “Holy shit! You work here! This place is like a fucking castle!” She laughs as she opens the door, “Well, it is called the Palace.” I follow Kono through the Palace with wide eyes taking in everything until we stop in a room with a blonde and brunette arguing over the correct way to pronounce Worcestershire sauce. I muffle a chuckle as they continue arguing before Chin comes rushing over yelling my name, “Y/N! It’s been awhile!” I chuckle as I hug him and nod, “Sure has Chin.”

As we part from the hug I notice that the two other men have finally realized there is a new presence in their ‘office.’ The first one to say anything is the blonde, “You must be Kono’s friend, I’m Danny.” I shake his outstretched hand and nod with a smile, “Sadly that’s me.” Kono goes to slap the back of my head but I spin around and grab her hand with a click of my tongue, “Shame on you Kono, you know better.” She rolls her eyes with a huff as I drop her arm, “I swear you’re like a ninja or something.” I snort out a laugh before turning back to Danny, “I apologize for that but it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Y/N.”

The brunette is seemingly analyzing me with a smirk before offering his hand, “I’m Steve. Where did you learn to move like that?” I shake his hand with a wider smile than before, “I’m an Army BRAT, I was surrounded by fast moving and highly skilled people my whole life and I guess they rubbed off.” He snorts out a chuckle, “Should’ve guessed you’d side with the Army.” I smirk as I finally realize why his stance seems familiar, “Well, I’ll be dammed. I’m in the presence of a Navy man aren’t I?” He nods, “You guessed right.”

I step back and narrow my eyes, “Don’t tell me let me guess.” I analyze his stature and build before humming, “SEAL? I’m gonna guess Commander.”

He laughs and nods, “I’m a SEAL but I’m only a Lieutenant Commander.” I laugh, “I’d ask what you specialized in but I’m gonna guess that’s classified.” Danny snorts unimpressed, “Yeah, his whole life is classified.” I shrug, “Not all of it, you just have to ask the right questions.” Kono steps up and throws her arm around my shoulders, “So boss, can we keep her?” I laugh as Steve raises an eyebrow, “What can she do?”

Kono smirks, “Sniper. She can hit anything you want her to, she’s the one that taught me how to shoot but I’m still not even close to her level.” I roll my eyes with a smile, “That’s a little dramatic but I do specialize in shooting. I was on a task force in San Diego but I was kicked off.” Steve’s eyebrows raise and Danny’s eyes widen as he asks, “Uhm, that’s a bit of a red flag there Y/N.”

Kono scoffs and crosses her arms obviously still ticked at my ex, “No it’s not, she stood up for what she believed and her dick of an ex, who was also her boss, kicked her off the team claiming she was a liability and too much of a risk taker but he didn’t have any issues with it when she was in his bed.”

Steve tilts his head with a face that tells me he’s thinking, “What did you stand up for?” I cross my arms and pop my hip out to the side, “I believe that if someone committed a crime they deserve to go down for it, no matter how rich or ‘important’ they are. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” Steve smirks and nods, “Well, I like you so consider yourself a temporary member of the team until I see what you can do. You prove yourself and we’ll see about making it a little more permanent.” I smile and hold back the urge to tackle him in a hug, “Thank you Steve, you don’t know how much this opportunity means.”

I growl out as my toast pops out of the toaster looking 50 shades of black, “Kono! Your toaster’s broken!” She walked into the kitchen rubbing the sleep from her eyes before groaning, “It is 5 in the morning, normal people are asleep instead of setting of smoke detectors.” I scoff, “How could someone sleep through this catastrophe. Did you not hear me? The toaster is broken. Do you know how important toast is to me?”

She groans again before shuffling back down the hall, “Well you’re out of luck because the toasters shot and you’ve been here for almost a month and just realized it broken so toast isn’t that important.” I pout looking at my charcoal bread before sighing, “Do you at least have some good coffee now?!”

I hum happily as Kono and I stroll into Five-O headquarters before taking a sip of my coffee. The boys spin around with wide eyes as they take in Kono’s appearance before Chin steps forward, “Kono you okay? You look exhausted.” Kono groans before dragging herself to her office, “Well someone, decided that it was a smart idea to get up at 5 am and set the smoke detector off.” I scoff, “It’s not my fault your toaster fucking sucks and so does your coffee!” She groans before disappearing into her office.

I lick my lips and turn to see all three men watching me curiously. “What?” Chin raises an eyebrow, “I think you broke Kono.” I shrug, “It’s not my fault she has no good butter in her fridge.” At this Danny cringes and asks, “Oh please please please tell me you don’t put that shit in your coffee too?” I scowl and purse my lips, “I’m sorry but did you just insult the way I drink my coffee? Danny let me remind you that I can kill you twenty different ways with a spork.” He holds his hands up before walking away, “I give up, I’m surrounded by weirdos.”

Chin follows Danny and I turn to Steve, “Was it something I said?” He chuckles and motions for me to follow him, “Come on Y/N, I’ve got some butter in my office.” I gasp as Steve pulls out my favorite brand of butter from his little fridge, “Steve, you just became my favorite person.”

“Well I’m honored.”

Danny’s POV

When I emerge from my office and can’t find Steve I peak into his office through the glass and smirk at the sight that greets me. In Steve’s office he and Y/N are throwing a paper ball back and forth while he leans back in his chair and Y/N has her feet propped up on the desk. I knock on Kono and Chin’s office doors and motioning them both out.

As we watch Steve and Y/N continue talking and laughing while throwing around the paper ball I look at Kono, “I think Steve may have a crush on your friend.” She nods with a smile, “She has it bad for him too. Ever since she was permanently added to the team she talks about him a lot, asks a lot of questions. I’ve honestly never seen her this interested in a guy since high school.” Chin crosses his arms and hums, “You know, they actually seem like they would be a good pairing. They’re both on the wild side but she’s talked him down from doing a few stupid things and he’s done the same.”

I look at Kono and smirk, “I’ll work on Steve tonight and you work on Y/N?” She matches my smirk and nods, “Oh trust me, I will.”

I throw my feet up on Steve’s coffee table as he sits next to me and hands me a beer. “So Steve?” He turns to look at me and hums to let me know he’s listening. I snort at his indifference, “When were you going to tell me you liked Y/N?” I choke back a laugh as he chokes on his beer, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I set my beer on the coffee table before turning to face Steve, “Come on Steve, I know you. You like her and she likes you. Ask her out, take her to dinner or buy her a coffee.” Steve sits up and sighs, “Danny I don’t know if I can.”

“Why?”

“It’s just, everything with Catherine blew up in my face and I don’t know if I can go through that again.”

I sit up straighter and lean forward, “Come on Steve. Y/N isn’t Catherine, s-she’s smarter and funnier and she likes you. I think you should ask her out. I’m not asking you to meet her family or move in with her I’m just asking you to take her out on a nice date and get to know her. One date, that’s it, and if it doesn’t go well or you don’t feel like it will work you don’t have to go out with her again.”

I see him think about it before he sighs, “Okay, okay, one date, that’s it.”

I smile and grab my beer knowing that one date is going to turn into many more and hopefully even forever.

Y/N’s POV

I groan as Kono prods on, “Come on Y/N he’s your type! And he would never be upset about your adrenaline seeking and adventurous spirit as you like to put it.” I glance at the toaster on the counter and smirk, “Fine, if he asks me out I’ll take him up on it on one condition.” She leans forward with wide eyes and nods, “What? I’ll do anything you want. Well, within reason.”

“Buy me another toaster.”

“Deal.”

I use my hip to close Steve’s mini fridge in his office as I stir my coffee to melt the butter. I look up as his office door closes and Steve stands there with his arms crossed, “So we are now intruding each others personal space huh?” I smirk as I recline in his office chair and throw my feet up on his desk, “Might as well. Anyways, did Danny have the same conversation with you that Kono had with me last night?” I chuckle as his cheeks flush and he nods, “If we’re talking about the whole ‘just one date’ conversion then yeah, I think we did.”

I nod as I put my feet back on the ground and stand, “Look Steve I’m sorry, Kono keeps trying to get me to go out again and I will but I don’t want you to feel pressured into asking me out. I mean it’s not that I wouldn’t go out with you.” My eyes widen and I set down my coffee as I continue rambling, “That came out wrong! I wouldn’t go out with you…wait no that’s worse. I think what I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t go out with but I wouldn’t not go out with you. Does that make sense?”

I gulp as my cheeks flush and notice that Steve has not only come to stand right in front of me but is also chuckling. I twirl my bracelet around my wrist as I think about what to say but before I have the chance Steve caresses my biceps, “Y/N/N, no that made absolutely no sense but at the same time it did. I don’t feel pressured to ask you out, I want to ask you out but I got out of a relationship a few months ago and I guess I’m worried it’ll blow up in my face all over again. She left with no warning just up and disappeared one day and called me a few days later telling me that she didn’t have a purpose to stay so she left to find her purpose.”

I feel my heart clench thinking about the pain he went through before I cup his cheek, “Oh Steve, I would never. That’s wrong in so many ways, if I want to break up I’ll be honest and straight up about it, I could never justify doing that to somebody, especially you.” I watch his lips twitch ever so slightly in a smile and I drop my hand to his shoulder, “You know, I could really use some target practice, I just need some coordinates.” He throws his head back in a laugh and I smile at the twinkle in his eyes.

When he stops laughing he looks at me with a wide smile before finally asking, “So, if I were to hypothetically ask you out for dinner tonight what would say? Hypothetically that is.” I chuckle and tap my chin as if in deep thought, “Well hypothetically I would say yes but wouldn’t it ruin your good standing with the Navy to link yourself with an Army girl?” He shrugs, “Again hypothetically it wouldn’t really count since you were never in the Army.”

I smirk and nod, “So could I hypothetically expect to be picked up around 6 tonight?” He smiles and nods, “I could hypothetically make that work.” I nod, “It’s a hypothetical date then?” He chokes back a laugh as he nods, “Yup.”

I raise an eyebrow and notice the three faces that are not so subtly watching us, “So since this was all hypothetical I vote we dodge any questions they have and if they ask a question we have to answer we tell them that we talked about it, but only hypothetically.”

He smirks and nods, “See this is why you are a prime candidate for my hypothetical girlfriend.” I smile as I grab my coffee and head towards the door, “And if you asked I would love to be your hypothetical girlfriend.”

Tag List: @kati-1997 @djs8891

#steve mcgarrett #hawaii five 0 #steve mcgarrett x reader #hawaii #hawaii five oh #danny williams #5 0

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wolfjackle-creates · 9 months

Note

How about Tim Drake and Danny Fenton with 7 and/ 54!

7. Trapped in a room/closet/elevator

54. Kidnapping

Well, doesn't that just give ideas. I'm going with Tim POV on this one.

Word Count: 1.6k

-----

Tim came back to awareness with the feeling of ropes cutting into his wrists and ankles and the absence of a mask on his face. He was tied to a very uncomfortable chair.

His head hurt, but more like a hangover than physical trauma so he must've been drugged. Where had he been?

The museum, that's right. He'd been at the museum. There'd been a class of out-of-state high school students visiting and they were acting strange. Bruce sent him to check up on them, make sure they were who they'd said they were.

Without moving, he mentally checked his body. Nothing to be alarmed by. Maybe a new bruise or two and his wrists and ankles would be sore. He was wearing his shirt and pants, but his shoes and socks had been removed along with any of his possessions.

So he let himself focus on the rest of the room. An arrhythmic tapping sound was coming from just a few feet away. But his head was still foggy from whatever he'd been drugged with and he couldn't figure out what it was.

He couldn't hear anything else.

So he let himself moan slightly and shifted his weight as if he was only just waking up. He opened his eyes slightly and didn't bother hiding the wince of pain at the light from the bare bulb that hung from the ceiling.

"Hey, cool! You're awake!" exclaimed someone. They sounded young.

Tim looked over and saw a boy about his own age also tied to a chair. The tapping noise had been him rocking back and forth on his toes. The room they were in was small, more of a closet really. About five feet by five feet and shelving had clearly only been removed recently. The door had no window. No way to know how long he'd been out.

"Where are we?" asked Tim. "What happened?" Tim narrowed his eyes against the light and looked closer. The kid looked familiar, where had he seen him?

"You okay?" the kid asked.

"Killer headache. Better than a concussion, I guess, but these drugs, man. Did they not get you with them?" And then he placed the kid, he'd been part of the group he'd been following.

The boy shrugged. "Things like that usually wear off for me pretty quickly. I'm Tim. Who're you? This your first kidnapping?"

"I— What? I'm Tim."

"Huh, cool. We have the same name. They kidnapped us because my dad's Bruce Wayne and they want ransom. When they found two boys of a similar age with black hair and blue eyes in the museum, they took us both rather than waste time figuring out who was who."

And suddenly it made sense what this kid was doing. He was trying to trick them into thinking he was Tim. Perhaps so Tim could escape or just to sow confusion. Tim shook his head and winced when that just caused throbbing pain. "What are you talking about? I'm Tim Drake, adopted son of Bruce Wayne."

"Dude, why are you lying? We both know I'm Tim."

"You're the liar," he shot back. He couldn't let a civilian take the fall for him.

But before their argument could continue to cycle, the door banged open, making the pounding in Tim's head worse. Two men stood there: one holding a gun, the other a phone. Most likely he was videotaping them. Both of them wore more guns and knives openly.

"Look like Sleeping Beauty's finally awake," sneered the one holding the phone.

Tim pretended to be afraid as was protocol for civilian kidnappings. "Who are you? What do you want?"

His companion, however, did not seem to get the memo. "You'd better let us go right now or you will regret it."

"Looks like we've got a feisty one on our hands, eh?" asked Gun-kidnapper.

"Smile at the camera, boys, we'll be sending this to Daddy Wayne. Better pray he pays up. Otherwise worse'll happen."

"Worse than what?" demanded his companion. "I've been in detentions worse'n this."

"Shut up!" hissed Tim.

"You better listen to your pal, boy, because you just volunteered for our first demonstration," said Phone-kidnapper. "Hear that, Brucie? We're gonna shoot your boy, or maybe not your boy. And you'll pay us the demanded ransom if you don't want us to do it again. Every half hour you delay, we'll put another bullet in one of these boys."

Without delay, Gun-kidnapper raised his weapon and shot. But he missed as Tim's companion managed to get enough leverage to knock his chair over.

Not that it was enough to stop the kidnapper who simply shot again. And this time he didn't miss. Tim watched as blood quickly began dripping from the boy's thigh onto the floor. At least his position on the floor meant it was elevated.

The two kidnappers laughed before leaving.

"Shit, are you okay? Why'd you do that?" Tim pulled at his bonds. The other boy needed medical attention ASAP. Worth using some of his Robin Training to help out the brave, idiotic kid.

The kid chuckled through clenched teeth. "I've had worse, it's fine."

"Worse? That's a gunshot wound!"

"And last Tuesday, I was hit by a spear and lasers, bit by a vulture, and punched through a wall over the span of, like, four hours."

That gave Tim pause. If that was true, and he seemed oddly unconcerned about a bullet wound for it not to be, he was clearly not a normal teen. "Who are you?"

The boy grinned. "I told you, I'm Tim Drake! Now, do you trust me?"

"Trust you to do what?" Tim had almost gotten one hand free.

"We're getting out of here, Timbuk-two."

Before Tim could blink, the kid did...something...and all his bonds fell away. Then he lunged at Tim, pushing him out of the chair and into the wall. They came through into what looked like an average Gotham warehouse.

Tim bit his tongue as they continued flying through the wall and ended up outside. It was still daytime, but dusk was getting close.

"What the hell?" whispered Tim. "You're a meta?"

"Not exactly, but close enough. I'm Danny. I can keep us invisible and intangible, but I can't block sound. So only speak when needed. Want to figure out who these guys are or leave?"

"You need to get medical attention. Much as I want to know who these guys are, we're leaving."

"I'm fine! I've had worse."

Tim looked down from where they were floating and noted the blood dripping to the ground. "Dude, you're bleeding. We're leaving."

That seemed to knock Danny out of it. "Oops. Suppose you're right. Where should we go?"

"There's a doctor in crime alley who treats everyone. She won't talk about your meta status and she'll be able to contact Bruce for me to let him know we're out."

Danny hesitated a moment before asking, "Can you promise she won't talk? Because there're people who'd like nothing more than to strap me down and cut me open to figure out how I work."

"Fly a few buildings over and land on a roof so I can get a tourniquet on your leg. Are those the same people who hurt you last Tuesday?"

Danny did as directed. "Believe it or not, no. That guy wants me to be his son."

Once the landed, Danny let him go. "What the fuck?" Tim patted himself down hoping that the kidnappers had left him with anything useful only to sigh. He'd have to make do with his shirt.

"I know. He's a total fruitloop. Nah, it's the government that wants to vivisect me. And a few others, but I think they'd stop once they realized who I am." Danny looked him up and down. "But it looks like you might have a story or two to tell as well."

"You are going to tell me everything, Danny," said Tim as he set about tearing his shirt into strips. "Bruce would totally take you in if you need a safe place to stay. Especially after you helped me escape."

"And what can you do about it? There's laws that make experimentation on people like me legal."

That made Tim pause in what he was doing, but only for a minute. "If that's true, I happen to be friends with two very good investigative journalists who would love to do a series of articles. They've a good track record of getting unjust laws overturned."

Danny didn't say anything for a moment and Tim looked over at him. It seemed like he was actually contemplating the offer. "Really? I'll want proof before I talk. And I'll need to reach out to some friends for a second opinion."

"Only sensible. Okay, this is as good as I'm gonna get it. I'm going to bandage your leg now."

"Just do it."

Looking at the wound, Tim could see the bullet hadn't passed through Danny's thigh but had seemed to have fallen out. Perhaps when he'd density-shifted them? But then why did their clothes remain intact? He'd have to ask later. Instead, he focused on making a bandage and tourniquet out of the strips of his shirt.

"Okay, that's as good as it's going to get. How high can you fly?"

"Higher than you can breathe."

"I see. Well, fly us up a bit so I can figure out where we are in the city, then I'll give you directions to Leslie's clinic."

"Will do!"

With how well Tim knew the streets of Gotham from the sky, it was the work of moments to get his bearings and fifteen minutes later, they were using the back entrance to Leslie's clinic.

A week later, Wayne Manor had a new resident and Clark Kent and Lois Lane published their first joint article on the Anti-Ecto acts.

-----

I honestly went into this one without a plan, something I usually hate doing. But I like how it turned out! Let me know what y'all think.

I've one more prompt to fill which should happen by the end of the week. Still accepting new ones, but the turn around will be a bit longer I'm afraid.

#dpxdc #kidnapping #being trapped with danny #puts escape on easy mode #if not even easier than that #sam already knew clark and lois by reputation #as soon as danny mentioned their names #she ordered him to accept tim's help #tim's scars made danny more inclined to trust him too #meant he wasn't just some rich kid #and that he had secrets of his own #doesn't take him long to figure out their identities

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theerurishipper · 5 months

Note

Hi~ Hope you have a lovely day. I want to get your opinions on my rant lol and ask.

Marinette is such a disappointment of a lead female character in a western magical girl cartoon. She isn't a good leader and all her team consist of yes men and women and sidekick Chat Noir where her real partner Alya is standing over to the side. I liked her in the first two season and maybe some in s3 but the s4 and onward just got to me ngl. It's her world and we're all just living in it. Miraculous is so weird when it comes to team dynamics because I get she's guardian but I really wished it were someone else and not her because she chooses people she already get along great with. It fun for team dynamics to add be different and broader.

The whole she's just 14 the fandom spouts only goes so far how many messes do you do until you realise you need to own up to them even at that age when you should know better on your conduct ?

I get it hard to communicate but onwards I always thought the bigger of the two in the conflict was her because of her secrecy and her controlling tendencies. I disliked it so much in the ephemeral episode and her betraying her partner disgusted me. Sorry to those who like or defend her character this much but I can't stan or like a character that does this much crap to a friend let alone a love interest and then gloss over or minimize it and not be called out for it. Like, are people standards that low they think she's a good leader or a good proper representation on feminism when this show reeks of misogyny and misandry. She's the ultimatum voice for Astruc.

A communication issue with her Chat was fine a long time ago but now in s5 she crossed it hell nah how do people still support a ship with her knowing she followed Hawkmoth command for Adrien. I literally can't anymore with this show. Every guy she likes gotta be so 100 percent in effort and like in the Shadybug special him always comforting her makes me so jaded whenever she cries what about a change in dynamics had we ever seen her comfort him in turn how are people invested in this ship? Like that time in the bench and she just thought of ways to woo or give presents instead of just comforting him is so sad to watch.

She really followed in Master Fu steps. The bar is in hell and she crossed it in the finale. There is no excuse no handwaving it away and i know in my heart they gonna minimize it for Adrien own good. Everything is for his own good huh? What good is it rooting for a ship that just reeks of pity points. Like, she was never my favorite but who knew 8 years ago she'd pull a stunt like this and people bending over and doing mental gymnastics to rationalise this insanity. She really is a good foil to Gabriel ironically to bad she has no sway in this family drama we call the Agreste.

I know she has good intentions and it's not wrong for her to wish to save her prince but like thats all that is intention. Her actions are also important and the effects she's done is so bad that if she weren't the Main character and we haven't spent the chunk of the majority in her pov alone she'd be disliked.

I feel like compared to other respective series Winx Club s1-3 Bloom, Danny Phantom, Ben 10, Totally Spies they have it much more harder and so many more all show the consequences of your actions and how you do them right and they're her age. I feel like whenever someone bring up consequences it's like people in this particular fandom think we do it to punish Marinette but no I just never ever saw it properly done in this show because she's very coddled in the narrative. I don't see other MC as coddled as her before in a show where when they MESS UP it's actually integral and important.

Rant over.

You encapsulated all my thoughts perfectly, anon. I've said so many times before that I loved Marinette from Season 1-3 and even during Season 4 as it aired. What made me fall out of love with her character post Season 4 was the utter lack of acknowledgement of her actions and the insistence in portraying her as in the right at all times. Like you said, it's not just your intentions that matter. Your actions and the effects that they have on the people around you also matter. The writers don't seem to understand this, and it hits Marinette's character worst of all. She had so much potential to be such a great character, which is why I feel so sad seeing just how badly the writing failed her. Marinette deserved better.

Thank you for your ask!

#MLB #ML Salt #ML Writing Salt #ML Writers Salt #Marinette Salt #Meta #Asks

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rhoorl · 8 months

Text

Working Title | Chapter 12

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x OFC Belle

Rating: Mature, 18+, for the love of all things please don’t engage if you are a minor ok?

Word Count: 4.8k

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Chapter 12 on AO3

Chapter Summary: We return to the resort post-photoshoot. Indy and Belle have a girls' night, but is Dieter able to stay away?

Chapter Warnings: SMUT. Oral (m and f receiving). Allusions to intimacy issues. Ryan is his own warning at this point.

A/N: You know I'm a sucker for an alternating POV, so we get a little bit of that. This is the most explicit thing I've written to date sooo be kind as I go crawl into a hole. 😬 But honestly, I couldn't let Belle and Dieter go any longer without something spicy happening.

“Easier said than done, Lizzie. I’m just so…” he leaned closer to her and dropped his voice to a whisper, “I just don’t want to fuck it up you know?”

“You won’t. I’ve never seen you like this sweetheart, I’m really proud of you,” she patted him on the knee and then felt her phone buzz. “Ugh,” she shook her head at her phone.

“What? What is it?”

“Well, you aren’t going to be happy with me, but hear me out,” she put her hands up to pre-empt his frustration, “Maria asked if you and I could have dinner with her tonight at the resort," Dieter sighed. "I know, I know, but it's good for the story."

"Ugh, okay," he looked over to Belle, who was still fast asleep.

"It's only a couple of hours champ, you can survive I promise," she smirked.

"I know," he pouted.

You don't know how long you had dozed off, but the next thing you knew your eyes were fluttering open as the van made its way back up the path to the resort.

Dieter was on his phone when you looked over at him. He must have sensed your glance as his eyes lifted from the screen to land on your face as he gave you the sweetest smile.

When the van finally comes to a stop, everyone files out, Dieter letting Liz go first before following you.

"Did you have a good nap?" He asks as you make your way down the stairs.

"Yeah, I don't know what it is about me and moving vehicles," you chuckle.

"Hey so, I uh," he rubs the back of his neck, pulling you off to the side as Aubrey and Danny walk by. You notice Liz lingering by frantically typing away on her phone, but keeping tabs on you both out of the corner of her eyes. "Originally I had plans to take you somewhere tonight for dinner, but Liz said that Maria wants to have dinner." He looks apprehensive, unsure how you’re going to react.

"That's ok," you smile at him.

"You sure?" He was dumbfounded by your quick and simple response.

"Why wouldn't I be? You have work stuff, I understand."

He let out a breath, "You're amazing you know that?"

"For being ok with you going to a dinner?" You laugh.

"Yeah, I … I haven't…that hasn't always been the case for me."

You sense there's more under the surface, but you don't want to press it.

"Well, I'm sure Indy and I can come up with something to do. I haven't seen her much and we could use a good girls’ night."

"Oh nice, well don't have too much fun. And if you do, take pictures," he whispers the last bit in your ear as he pulls you in for a hug.

"You're ridiculous," you giggle as he kisses the top of your head.

"Indy? Are you here?" The room was quiet but you see Indy's bag on the ground so you’re pretty sure she was there.

"Babe! Ahhhh how was the rest of the photoshoot?!" She runs from her bedroom to give you a big hug. She clearly recently showered, as her hair was still wet.

"It was so good, Ind! The photographer kinda gave me the creeps and Aubrey was annoying, but Dieter … he seriously looked so good! How was your day? Did you put the leave-in conditioner in your hair just now?"

"Yes, moooom! And eeeeek! I'm so excited for you! Well, not for the creepy photographer and dumbass Aubrey. Seriously, want me to throw her in a pool at some point?" She giggles as you playfully hit her shoulder. "My day was good. They're doing some rewrites and I have a kind of sexy scene to shoot with Sam soon," she wiggles her eyebrows and shakes her shoulders.

"Well, good thing you both have been rehearsing so much. Ow!" She slaps you on the ass as you turn toward the kitchen to go get some water. "Are you guys hanging out tonight?"

"No, he actually has a really big scene tomorrow so he's calling it an early night. What about you? You and Dieter doing something fun?"

"He and Liz are actually having dinner with the reporter who’s doing the interview. He went straight there once we got back."

"Oooo so we can have a girls' night?" She grabs both of your arms and shakes you a little.

"I guess so!"

Knock.

"Are you expecting anyone?" You scrunch up your face, looking from the door to Indy.

"No, Ari has the night off." Indy saunters over to the door and looks through the peephole. She turns back to you and smiles before turning around to open the door. You start to make your way over too to see who was there.

"Hi miss, we've been asked to bring this to you." One of the resort staff was at your door with a bottle of champagne and a cart that carried two trays topped with a lid, hiding the contents of what was underneath.

"Oh, we didn't order anythin-" you start to say as Indy elbows you in the side.

"Please, come in," Indy pulls the door back and lets the man wheel in the cart.

"Would you like me to open the bottle, miss?"

"That would be great!" Indy looks over to you with an excited, but surprised expression.

The man makes quick work of opening the champagne and pours you both a glass. He sets both trays onto the kitchen island and puts the bottle in a bucket already filled with ice.

"Anything else I can help you ladies with?"

"N-no, that's great, thank you so much!" You walk him out while Indy reaches for the flutes.

Once you close the door you turn around and see Indy with a huge smile on her face. "Ind, did you order this?"

"No babe, but I know who did," she waves a little note card in the air.

You skip over to her and snatch the card out of her hand.

Hope you ladies enjoy a fun night to yourselves.

P.S. I wasn't kidding about the pictures.

"What pictures is he talking about," Indy knocks your shoulder with hers.

You tell her about the flirty exchange you had with Dieter before you both parted ways.

"Ooo, I think our boy Dee is missing you," she teases. "But we should take a photo, you know, as a thank you."

"Right, it would be the right thing to do," you wink.

"That's the spirit!"

She takes the lids off the two trays to reveal a charcuterie board on one tray and an assortment of desserts, on the other.

You arrange the trays at the corner of the kitchen island and stand to the side, ready to take a selfie. "Ok, let's take a picture with all of the stuff."

"Oh, you aren't wearing that," Indy looks you up and down. "C'mon we are having a cute night in, let's put on something fun!"

"I have a feeling you don't mean for me to put on my T-shirt and workout shorts."

Indy shakes her head. "Oh no, we've got to make Dee miss you even more than I know he already is," she winks.

"Anything else I can get you to drink sir?"

"Water is fine thanks," Dieter smiles at the waitress. He glances down to his phone for the fifth time in the last minute. He told Danny to send something up to the girls as a surprise but now his mind is going a mile a minute since he’s yet to hear from Belle.

Did Danny do it right? Of course, he did, the kid doesn't ever let me down. So why hasn't she said anything? Was it too much? I did too much. I thought it would be nice but…

"Dee?"

He looks up to see Liz and Maria staring at him. "Hmm?"

"Everything ok?"

"Y-yea sorry, thinking about a scene I have tomorrow," he tries to play it off and he thinks Maria is fooled but Liz isn’t.

Her eyes narrow a bit before she returns to her conversation about who knows what with Maria. Dieter pretends to be engaged while glancing at his phone.

Buzz.

He practically lunges at his phone, quickly unlocking it when he sees a message from Belle.

Belle: This was so nice of you, thanks for getting our girls' night off to a great start! 😘

Attached was a selfie of Indy and Belle, which Indy clearly took given the angle. She positioned the camera high above their heads with her long arm as they both looked up and smiled. Dieter was a little embarrassed at how quickly his eyes went from Belle’s face down to her body to see what she was wearing.

He tried to take a sip of his water but coughed a little the more he looked at her, tracing every curve he could see.

She had on what looked like a silky pair of pale pink sleep shorts with some lace trim at the bottom and a robe of the same color half thrown over a lacy, sheer black tank top. Her hair was down and she had a cute smirk, but it was her eyes that really drew his focus.

"Dee?"

"Um, y-yea, sorry I was waiting on a text. Just got it," he smiles. "Ah, one sec, lemme respond real quick."

"Ugh, Indy. Are you sure this isn't too much?"

"No bitch, keep drinking your champagne and stop thinking so much," she laughs as she snaps a selfie presumably for Sam.

Buzz.

Dieter: You're welcome baby. Looks like you girls are having fun

Dieter: PS … love Indy, but I feel like I'm gonna need a photo of you by yourself 😉

"See! I told you I didn't need to be in it!" Indy slaps your arm as you both giggle. "Ok, we need to position you a little for this."

You roll your eyes as Indy starts an impromptu photoshoot of you, telling you how to pose while encouraging and hyping you up.

Dieter felt a bit more settled now that he knew the surprise made it to the girls. But, he wished he could run upstairs to devour Belle instead of whatever he ordered.

Buzz

Belle: How's this?

Belle attached another photo of just herself.

Good girl, following directions.

She was kneeling on the couch with her back to the camera, looking over her left shoulder with a shy smile. Her robe was pulled down on one side, exposing her bare shoulder.

His breath hitched, surprised at how bold Belle was being, no doubt spurned on by her best friend and some liquid courage. But still, he was not complaining and started to fidget a bit in his chair, trying to discreetly adjust himself underneath the table.

"He's going to think I'm not wearing anything under the robe." You pull the strap of your tank top back up.

"That's the point, silly!"

Buzz

Dieter: wow, you're making it really hard for me to concentrate on this dinner lol

Dieter: What happened to the top you had on? I rather liked it.

"Worked like a charm," she winks at you. "Here take it off." She comes over to you and starts to pull your top off.

"Jesus Indy! What the fuck!"

"We're going to take a picture of it on the floor, not of you,” she rolls her eyes at you. “We gotta tease him a bit. C’mon, take it off.”

You take off your robe momentarily so you can remove the top, handing it over to Indy.

“Ok, what’re going to do with that?”

“Mmm…oh, I have an idea, here, come with me,” Indy takes your hands and leads you to your room.

“Ok, lay down.”

“Seriously, Indy?”

“Just do it, I have a vision.”

You roll your eyes and hop on your bed. Indy positions your legs crossed one over the other and then drapes the top on the bed next to your legs. She comes to sit next to you and takes a photo.

“Ok, aaaand… send!”

Buzz

Belle: Oh, you mean this?

Dieter leaned forward to put the phone down into his lap so Liz or Maria wouldn’t see it. He saw Belle’s bare legs crossed on what had to be her bed, with her top alongside her.

Fuuuuuck. Is she naked right now?

“Should we order some dessert, Dee?” Liz looked at him a bit confused as to what was distracting him.

“No!” He didn’t mean for that to come out as loud and forceful as it did. “Ah, I mean, no, I’m good. I’m actually getting kinda tired…busy day tomorrow.” His tight-lipped smile didn’t fool Liz, who smirked at him.

Once you send the photo, you put your top back on and go out to the living room to giggle as you snap some racy photos of Indy for Sam. You both sipped the champagne and snacked as she filled you in on some of the on-set gossip, but you couldn’t help but keep glancing at your phone, expecting a response from Dieter. As time went on, your face dropped a bit and Indy sensed your confidence dwindling.

“Don’t get in your head about it, there’s probably a good reason why he hasn’t responded.”

“You don’t think it was too much?”

“If I have to tell you no one more goddamn time I swear I’m going to smack you.”

Knock.

“Hmm…think Dee got us another bottle of champagne? We definitely don’t need it,” Indy laughs as she walks to the door to open it. “Oh, hi!”

“Hey, um is Belle here?”

You straighten up on the couch, peer over to the front door, and see a floppy mess of curls behind Indy.

“Y-yea, she’s in here,” Indy closes the door and does a little dance behind Dieter as he quickly makes his way over to you. “I’ll um…head to my room,” she winks as she grabs her glass and the bottle of champagne before retiring down her hallway.

You stand up to greet Dieter, who immediately brings you in for a hug and then starts kissing your neck.

“W-what are you doing here?” You start to whimper a bit as you feel one of his large hands move down to your ass to squeeze it as he trails kisses across your collarbone and up the other side of your neck.

“I…you…fuck you look so good baby,” he was trying to string words together between his kisses before he finally pulls back and looks you up and down. “Hmm…you put this back on, didn’t you?” He rubs his thumb along the hem of your top.

You hide your face in his chest. “Sorry, I…all of that, it was Indy’s idea.”

“And it’s the best fucking idea she’s had.” He chuckles as he moves back, grabbing your face. “You were driving me insane you know that? Could barely concentrate on dinner because I wanted to come up here and…” he trails off as he kisses you.

You deepen the kiss and pull on his sweatshirt to walk him back to your room. “W-what…hmm… what did you want to come up here and do?” You manage to get out as he nips along your jaw.

“Mmm…had lots of things in mind,” he smiles into your neck.

“Me too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I um…there’s something I want to do.”

You make it to your room and close the door. You work his sweatshirt up and over his head, and your breath hitches when you realize he didn’t have a shirt on underneath. You look up at him and grab his face to kiss him again.

“Hey,” he pulls back, panting. “I want you to do whatever you feel comfortable with ok? We could stop right now and go to bed.”

You roll your eyes and pout, “But that would be no fun.”

He chuckles as he brings you in for another kiss, working your robe off, and letting it fall to the floor.

You turn him so his back is against the door as you work on undoing his belt buckle. Once you finally get it, you start to trail kisses down his jaw, making a point to kiss the little bare patch before working down his neck and his chest. His chest moves up and down as his breathing gets faster, as you move down his stomach. You continue to work down until you’re on your knees in front of him.

As you go to unbutton his shorts he stops you, “Hey, I wanna take care of you first, baby.”

“I…uh…but I want to.” You could feel yourself losing a bit of the nerve you had. “Please…I…uh…”

You’re cut off by Dieter who bends down to kiss you, lifting you back up so you’re standing.

“If you only knew how much I’ve been thinking about your sweet mouth,” he whispers in your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. “Just have fun, I’ll tell you what I like,” he smiles into your kiss.

The butterflies come flooding into your stomach as the realization of what you are about to do hits you. But Dieter seems so eager and excited, that you don’t want to lose your nerve. So you start to work your way back down again. He keeps both of his hands at his side as you take his shorts off, one of his hands twitching, itching to touch you.

You felt how excited he was earlier, but now staring at it head-on, your mouth salivates. You hook your fingers under his boxers and your mouth parts as he springs out. He looks so beautiful and confident standing bare in front of you. You look up at him through your eyelashes to see him giving you a smug smile.

You move a bit closer, licking your lips as you lightly wrap your hand around the base and slowly start to swirl your tongue along his tip, stopping to swipe at the bead of precum which makes him shiver and whimper.

“Fuck, you look so pretty baby,” he pants.

He moves one of his hands and threads his fingers through your hair, lightly resting his hand on the back of your head as you slowly take him in. He whimpers again as you slowly move him in and out. You look up at him and see his head thrown back against the wall, slack-jawed, and his eyes clenched shut. He’s trying to praise and encourage you through his panting, but it’s coming out as an incoherent mess of "oh shit" and "fuck" among other things.

You catch his eyes a few moments later as he moves his head to look down at you. The eye contact nearly sends him over the edge, his grip on your hair tightens as you keep a steady pace.

"Fuck…shit, I'm…I'm close baby, where…where can I?"

You hollow your cheeks as you move off of him, and an obscene pop sounds through the empty room.

"Wherever you want," you pant as you take him again with even more enthusiasm than before.

"Holy shit��I…keep doing that."

There was something powerful about seeing this gorgeous man reduced to a whimpering mess all because of you.

I still got it.

You always thought you were pretty good at oral, you and Indy had traded enough tips and tricks over the years to each perfect your preferred methods. But like most everything related to intimacy, Ryan wrecked it. His preferred method for receiving a blow job was ramming his dick so far down your throat that you'd choke and gag on it. He got some sick satisfaction from seeing your humiliation. Oftentimes by that point, he was close and all you needed to do was finish him off with your hand.

But with Dieter, you wanted all of him, you couldn’t get enough. As you continued bringing him in and out, you felt his thigh twitch and his grip on your hair tighten, which you surprisingly were into.

"Baby, l-look…at me," Dieter pants as you look up through your eyelashes again as you lick up the underside of his shaft. "Fuck, I'm gonna… I'm…"

You return your mouth to him as his release starts, and you're ready for it as it hits the back of your throat. Dieter is making the most obscene noises and you continue working him through until he pulls you off abruptly.

"Shit," he quickly pants. "Fuck, sorry, that was ….I'm…gonna need a second," he chuckles as he rests his head on the wall, closing his eyes and catching his breath. You take a few moments to make a mental picture of this before standing up.

You go to wipe the side of your mouth to collect the last bit of cum that escaped your lips when he opens his eyes and leans forward licking it off instead.

Your eyes go wide as he leans back against the wall. His smug smile returns before he cups your face and starts to kiss you. It becomes deeper as his tongue explores your mouth, stopping a couple of times to either slightly bite or suck on your bottom lip.

He pulls back, looking at you with a bit of desperation. "Get on the bed. Please."

With Dieter, you were trying so hard to block out all of the bad shit that you associated with sex. Because what you just did? That was fun. He makes you feel giddy, appreciated and wanted.

You smirk and saunter over to your bed sitting on the edge as you watch him walk over, his eyes black with lust.

"Move back up."

You shuffle backward onto the bed, feeling some deja vu from this morning. Except this time, you were more than willing to have Dieter do whatever he wanted.

He crawls towards you and stops, taking a moment to check in with you. Your chest moves up and down, trying to catch your breath in anticipation of what is to come.

He takes one of your feet in his hands and starts to trail kisses up from the arch up to your ankle and calf before stopping at your knee. You shiver a bit as the prickliness of his beard rubs against your skin. He puts the sole of your foot onto the bed so your knee is propped up, looking at you and licking his lips before he does the same thing to your other leg. He shuffles himself between your knees again checking in with you.

"Want me to keep going?"

You nod and he shakes his head.

"I gotta hear you, baby, tell me what you want."

"You," you pant. He's not touching you at this point but the anticipation is building.

"Want me to what?"

"I …uh … I…" You cover your eyes with your hands, a little embarrassed about saying what you want out loud.

Dieter crawls up your body, one of his hands working to uncover your face.

"Hey, don’t hide. If you want me to stop I can."

"No, I …sorry, I'm just not umm…"

"Not used to asking for what you want?"

"Yeah…that," you chuckle.

"Tell me, and if you don't want to say it then show me."

"Mmm okay. Um, I want this," you bring two fingers up to his lips, which he promptly takes the opportunity and kisses them, "here," you take your fingers off his lips and thread them between your bodies.

He pushes off to see your fingers stop over your mound, a smile coming across his face. "Yea? You sure?"

"Yes. Please."

He takes a deep breath and kisses you. "Well, since you asked so nicely," he smirks as you roll your eyes at his sarcastic tone. "I aim to please."

The trek back down your body is deliberate and slow as he presses open-mouth kisses over your top before stopping at the waistband of your shorts. He lets out a breath and looks up at you again. He hooks his fingers and starts to pull your shorts down. He licks his lips as he sees the black lacy underwear you had on. You push up on your forearms to get a better view. The image of his fluffy curls and broad shoulders between your legs is nearly enough to get you over the edge.

“You still good?”

“Mhmm…y-yea,” you smile.

“Good.”

He takes the lace off and presses kisses up and down one of your thighs as his hand caresses the other. You start to writhe in anticipation as he moves closer and closer to your core. He hooks one arm around your thigh and the other hand rests on your lower stomach.

You close your eyes and feel him lick a long stripe up, your hips buck up at the sensation.

“Fuuuuck,” you whimper, throwing your head back. Your eyes are clenched shut but you can feel him smiling as he continues to work his way around, like a man starved.

It honestly feels like you blacked out for a second, overcome by the pleasure of Dieter’s tongue. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before and you’re so overwhelmed by it all you can’t even pinpoint everything he’s doing or the sounds he’s making. All you know is that it feels amazing and you don’t want him to stop. You prop yourself up on one forearm and use your free hand to tug on his curls.

As he concentrates on your clit, you feel him press a finger inside you, which makes your hips buck up even more, but his other hand presses you back down. He continues to work you over, you can practically see stars as he hits a spot you haven’t felt a partner hit in a long time. You hoped that Indy had some headphones in because you couldn’t control the moans that came from the depths of your throat as Dieter pushed you over the edge.

He worked you down the other side of your climax, whispering praises as he kissed your thigh. You both sat silent for a moment, taking in what just happened. You couldn’t remember the last time you came from getting eaten out.

“Oh my god,” you pant. “You…you’re really fucking good at that,” you giggle as Dieter comes back up to nuzzle into the crook of your neck. You could feel him smile into your neck as you catch your breath.

“I’m glad…I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” he kisses you, pushing his tongue in your mouth so you can taste yourself. “You’re amazing you know that? So fucking beautiful.”

“Yeah?” You smile into his kiss.

He pushes up to look at you, tracing his thumb down the side of your face. “Why would you think you aren’t anything less than perfect?” You turn away from him, blushing a bit as he sighs. “Ugh, try and forget him yea? I knew he was a fucking idiot before but now,” his eyes trail down your body. “But now I know it without a shadow of a doubt.”

You both kiss again, a little slower than before, taking time to explore each other. Your hands find their way back to his hair, your fingers scraping lightly along his scalp. You can feel him getting hard again as he moves his hand under your top before you pull back.

“Is…is it ok if this is all we do tonight?” You bite your lip, confused as he starts to laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“We’ve done so much already!” He kisses you, still smiling. “You teased me, got me all riled up, and then I came up here and you…” his eyebrow twitched as he smirked. “All I’ve wanted is to be close to you however you’ll let me, and so I’m over the fucking moon right now.”

“Really?” he nods as he kisses you again. “Well, I am too,” you giggle as he nipped at your jaw, moving down to your neck.

You don’t know how much time passes, but eventually, you’re both under the covers, your head resting on his chest as his fingers dance through your hair.

“Can I stay here tonight?” he finally broke the peaceful silence, glancing down at you.

“Y-yea, I’d like that.”

“I think I need to bring you with me on all of my photoshoots if this is how they end,” he winks as you laugh into his chest. He brings his arms around you, his warm embrace filling your stomach with butterflies again. The last thing you remember is him kissing the top of your head before you doze off to sleep.

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

A/N: I had plans to write other things this week, but Dieter kept yelling at me so here I am with two Working Title updates in the same week. I can’t guarantee how quickly the next one will arrive, but hopefully, this settles a bit of the slow burn we’ve been working on. There’s part two of the photoshoot in the next chapter along with another day on set filming.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate all of the kind comments, reblogs, and likes … it makes my day!

Tag list: @musings-of-a-rose / @legendary-pink-dot / @bitchwitch1981 / @mysterious-moonstruck-musings / @gracie7209 / @amneris21 / @pastelnap / @maryfanson / @sunnywithachanceofjavi / @sin-djarin / @winchestergypsy90 / @for-a-longlongtime /@harriedandharrassed / @titlee78 / @midnightraain / @poodlebae / @partyofone3413 / @guelyury

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo fanfic #working title fic #dieter bravo x reader #dieter bravo fic

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