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#AND THE KID TRIES TO GET INTO THE TENT AND THE GHOST GETS MAD
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The Ghost Next Door - Chapter 7
Prompt: After suffering an almost lethal injury in combat, Simon "Ghost" Riley expected a dull, and uneventful leave back at his shitty apartment. His new next-door neighbor ruins his plans. Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader (named Riley Thomas for plot purposes)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
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Disclaimer: slow burn; neighbor!Simon; explicit sexual content
Chapter Summary: In which Simon's neighbor gets free lunch and ends up with her hand on his pants.
Word Count: 2.1K
Simon Riley and Riley Thomas sat face to face at her round kitchen table, the random assortment of food containers from their favorite Chinese place being the only thing separating them. Their afternoon reunion had been as awkward as could be expected: extremely hungover, Riley tried her best to pretend she hadn’t embarrassed herself tremendously the previous night, and Simon pretended he hadn’t jerked off twice in his shower after he put her to bed.
Tension filled every moment of silence, which Riley was quick to heap with useless chatter on how she hoped the weather got better (it never did) and how delicious the food was (it always had been). Simon simply hummed in agreement when necessary, finding it amusing to silently observe her flustered expression and the way she avoided his gaze.
To her dismay, she couldn’t even count on Johnny to help diffuse the awkwardness between them, since he had immediately - and very excitedly - asked her to take Rex for a walk in the park, while Milo dozed off in her bed. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to refuse the cheerful Scot anything at all. 
When the meal was finished, and the young woman had finally started to relax against her seat, believing him to have opted to forget the matter, Simon cocked his head to the right, readjusting his facemask and therefore silently allowing her to look at his face once again.
“Are we gonna talk about last night?” His deep, low tone made her cheeks flush immediately, her hands covering her face as she sighed nervously.
“Can we not?” She grimaced at the faint memories of her inappropriate behavior, dreading the possibility of having ruined their friendship - her only one - for good. She couldn’t make out exactly what she had said, but she painfully remembered how she had desperately tried to kiss Simon, and the way his hands had firmly kept her away, the rejection still staining her heart.
“You don’t wan’ to?” He raised an eyebrow, but she kept hidden behind her palms. “Riley…” He called and she shivered at the softness in his tone.
She slowly parted two of her fingers, uncovering one of her eyes tentatively. 
“Let’s talk, yeah?”
“Hmm.” She grunted, shaking her head.
“What’s the matter, love?”
“Don’t call me that!” She reburied her face in her palms, feeling her skin heat at the nickname.
“Talk to me, then.”
“I…” She started, but the words died down in her throat. “I’m so sorry.”
Simon leaned back in his seat, arms crossed at his chest.
“What for?”
Riley sighed deeply in exasperation, feeling more humiliated than ever.
“For practically assaulting you!”
He let out an amused chuckle, and she uncovered her teary eye once again, assessing his reaction.
“You’re not…mad?”
“Why would I be mad?”
“Simon…”
“I’m serious, love.”
“You rejected me.” Her voice slightly trembled.
“You were drunk. And very vulnerable.”
“So…I didn’t ruin our friendship?”
“You did. Jus’ not in the way you’re worried about.”
She cocked her head in confusion, but he gave no further explanations, standing up and beginning to collect the empty containers.
“What does that mean?” She frowned, finally fully looking him in the eyes. He ignored her panic, beginning to stuff them in the bin. 
“Simon!” He didn’t let up, turning to wash the dishes she had left piled in the sink the day before.
When he didn’t respond, silently taunting her, she stood up, walking over to him and pinching his behind roughly.
“Easy, kid.” He flinched, surprised at her unusual boldness.
“Tell me! How did I ruin it?” She seemed on the verge of tears, but he returned to the dishes, grunting in response.
Riley let out an angry breath, grabbing his bicep and forcing him to turn to her, pinning him against the sink.
He looked down at her smaller frame, not even a little intimidating, amused at how cute she looked when she was mad.
“Tell me. How. I ruined it.” She commanded slowly, concern visible in her doe eyes as she pulled him down by the collar of his shirt.
Simon was stone cold serious, holding her gaze as he grabbed her wrist gently, lowering it all the way down to his jeans, where he pressed her hand against something hard, and girthy behind the denim.
“Friends don’t usually give me a stiffy.” 
Riley’s lips parted in shock, her eyes fixed on his growing bulge, head emptying as she tried hard to process the meaning of his words.
“Fuck.” Was all she could come up with as she palmed him through his pants, too shocked to move away (not that she wished to, anyway).
“Hm.”
Riley Thomas bit her lower lip pensively, before looking up at the man through her lashes, innocent curiosity mixed with emboldened desire. She pressed her palm more firmly against the protruding hardness, her breath caught in her throat as she carefully mapped out the contour of his length, noticing the way his eyelids grew heavy, dark brown eyes hazy with something she couldn’t yet decipher.
“D-do you mind if I…” She trailed off, hooking a finger behind his belt.
“Let me guess…My consent would be greatly appreciated?” He taunted and she bit her lip once again, nodding slowly with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“By all means.” His deep, sultry voice conceded, and her trembling hands made awkward work of the buckle, followed by the button, and the zipper.
 Riley felt like a hormonal teenager when she placed a sweaty hand on his navel, lips parted in wonder at the lovely blondish happy trail that dipped into his briefs, keen on exploring every inch of his pale skin as her heart hammered violently in her heaving chest. She looked up once again, searching for further approval, unsure of how far he was willing to take it. Simon cocked his head to the right in his usual casual manner, raising a hand to caress her cheek in a comforting gesture.
“You don’t have to.” He assured, thumb grazing her freckled cheek tenderly.
“I want to.” She immediately countered, eagerly. “But do you?”
Simon felt his heart melt at her care and concern, his cock twitching at the kindness in her eyes and the tenderness of her touch.
I’m so fucked. A part of him ached, terrified of those new, unexpected feelings he had worked so long to subdue. 
“I do.” He nodded once “We ain’t got long. Johnny has tiny legs but he walks fast.” And that was the last coherent sentence he was able to utter, until her cold fingers snaked their way inside the fabric of his briefs.
Riley let out a shaky breath as her fingertips grazed the coarse, trimmed curls where his velvety, thick shaft rested, feeling it pulse once she actually gripped it. Simon’s hands rested on the sink, gripping it so tight she was surprised he hadn’t broken it yet, his head tilted back as he let out a deep sigh of relief.
A firm grip around the base, silently measuring the impressive thickness of his hard length and fantasizing about how good it would feel inside of her, stretching her out. She took a deep breath before finally pulling it out from the confines of his warm briefs, a drop of pearly pre-cum leaking from his pink tip. She pumped him once, twice, three times until Simon finally let the smallest, lowest groan fall from his lips.
She bit her lip at the sound, gazing up at his beautiful brown eyes as she moved her hand lower, gentle fingers cupping his heavy sack. Simon’s hands latched onto her hips, holding on for dear life as he kneaded her flesh.
It wasn’t enough, the soft, languid touches exchanged between the two, as Simon’s large, warm hand palmed her breast tentatively, too carefully, over her shirt. Riley gasped when his thumb lazily grazed her hardened nipple over the fabric, lips parting as she teased him right back, her own thumb caressing his leaky slit, eliciting a deep, pleasured sigh from him. 
He held her gaze as his left hand slid under her clothes, calloused fingertips grazing the softness of her tummy, before fully cupping the plump flesh, fingers pulling on her pebbled nipple softly. She felt her insides burn with need as she outright moaned, eyes shutting as he rolled it between his fingers, eyes assessing her every reaction, body responsive to every sound and movement she made.
Riley picked up the pace, pumping his cock more eagerly when his right hand dipped into the hem of her sweatpants, easily gliding a finger over her soaked panties. She blushed in utter embarrassment at the desperate sound that left her lips when his fingers traced the outline of her folds, and Simon smirked under his mask.
“Seems you weren’t lying last night.”
“I really wasn’t.” She whimpered, forehead pressing against his chest as his fingers finally dipped in her knickers, a groan of approval rumbling in his chest at the warmth and wetness of her folds. He couldn’t help it as he pressed the tip of his middle finger against her entrance, testing the resistance as he slowly pushed in all the way to his knuckle, making her hiss at the unexpected stretch.
“Sorry, love.” He wasn’t actually sorry as he took in the desperate way in which she ground her hips to his hand, eager to find relief. Riley lowered her head, and allowed some spit to fall from her lips onto his sensitive tip, lubricating his cock as she pumped him faster. Simon’s weaker leg faltered and he struggled to focus as he gently moved his finger inside her tight hole, massaging her walls with the utmost care before removing it and spreading her slick over her swollen clit. She whimpered and Simon thought he could cum at the sound.
He knew he wouldn’t last long, not with the way she was desperately bringing him close to the edge, wet sounds of her saliva coating him all the way down to his balls filling the small kitchen. He felt like his virgin 16 year old self, barely hanging on at the feel of her round tits beneath his hand, the both of them all avid gropes and desperate caresses as he kneaded every inch of bare skin he was lucky enough to touch, while she pumped away any of his remaining sanity with firm strokes.
The young woman almost begged him to remove his mask, to let her swallow those pleasured groans and soft whimpers that made warmth pool in the apex of her thighs as the mutual masturbation continued, but she didn’t want to push her luck. Not yet, at least.
“I’m close.” She admitted, not even five minutes since they had begun, her cheeks flushed with shame and vulnerability as she looked up into his eyes.
“I’ve been close since you started.” Simon groaned in her ear, veiny shaft pulsing,leg faltering.
“Simon…” She whispered quietly, panting as he quickened the pace at which his fingers fervently rubbed tight circles around her bundle of nerves. Her loving gaze and her parted lips awoke something deep within him, something that meant much more to him than the pleasure she was coaxing from his body.
Simon Riley had had lovers. Not many, but a considerate few who had managed to set his guard down long enough to earn a shag, nothing more than meaningless, quiet humping, meant to satisfy primal instincts and stifle his relentless loneliness - temporarily, at least. But he had never had that: Riley’s warmth, and beautiful, loving eyes that seemed to look beyond him, his mask, and actually care.
He didn’t object when her left hand slowly reached up, pointer finger ready to pull down his mask as her right hand continued her ministrations. He actually leaned down, his face so close to her he could breathe in her soft sighs of pleasure. Her nail had barely grazed the side of his stubbled jaw when they heard loud barking in the hallway, their bodies freezing at the same time.
The two neighbors barely managed to get their hands off each other’s underwear, Simon’s mask snapping back into place, hands fumbling to tuck his hard cock back into his jeans awkwardly while Riley readjusted her shirt. In a minute, Johnny McTavish was already bursting through the door, the pup at his leg wagging his tail excitedly.
“Christ…Am I interruptin’ something?” He teased, mocking their suspicious proximity, Riley’s face and neck reddish like a tomato as Simon quickly turned to the sink, pretending to do the dishes.
“Did ya get us tea?” The Lieutenant asked, coolly changing the subject.
“Of course. Anythin’ for my two favorite love birds.” 
“Fuck off.” Simon rolled his eyes as he threw the sponge back in the sink, side eyeing the drinks he placed on the table.
Riley still blushed furiously, seemingly inclined to throw herself out of the window as Johnny smirked, unleashing Rex and turning to his best friend while pointing to his midsection.
“Oh and Simon?”
“What?”
“Ya forgot the belt.”
A/N: Once again, apologies for the delay!! Uni and work have been kicking my ass so as per usual I'll be doing my best to upload as fast as possible! Thank you so much for every single comment and message <3 Keep the feedback coming, it really motivates me :)
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loraliewritesthings · 11 months
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Danny Phantom but make him a circus/freakshow attraction headcanons
Maybe he was sold maybe he was captured. Danny couldn't quite remember threw the pain. The lab accident felt like decades ago but time goes slow when your hurting
The blood blossoms were always underfoot. The cage was small his muzzle tight and he was hungry.
So so hungry
Still he didn't look forward to his preformances to the gawking masked people or the salt circle his cage would be placed in or turning from boy to ghost for entertainments sake.
The first time he tried to escape when his box was opened.
That of course only made his capturer mad and earned him more blood blooms.
Dick hated places like this. Cruel hurtful places sullying the name of the circus. Maybe that's why he jumped at the chance to help spy on the freakshow that had recently come to town despite Bruce's worried expression. It wasn't hard to convince Bruce to let him go though. He knew circus lingo better than anyone else in the family after all. Sure his slang MAY be a little outdated but it didn't matter too much for just a few nights.
Dick has seen some horrible things and stayed pretty lighthearted, but because the circus is so sacred to him I think he takes this mission very seriously.
In the end it's him Bruce on the mission.
It wasn't hard to locate where the metas and "freaks" were being kept.
He entered the tent and between a man labeled "the cannibal" and Killer Croc who somehow got dragged into this, there was a young man in a muzzle kneeling on what looked like flowers.
Something about his eyes made him look almost haunted.
He moved on to the next row taking note of every poor soul there.
He was going to get them free.
Sure Bruce didn't like metas, but he wasn't heartless. It didn't take long for him to divide the staff into the willing and unwilling participants. It took him even less time to tie up the willing workers and to call in the Gotham police department.
When batman went to talk to the victims one stood out to him. The boy was muzzled his eyes rapidly switching from blue to green.
He couldn't have been older than Jason.
No one else there was muzzled.
He wondered briefly what made him so dangerous.
The question nagged at him as he asked person after person how they got here.
As expected no one was there voluntarily.
Speaking to an albino set of twins, the last to be questioned, he asked about the boy in the muzzle.
One twin merely shrugged and said he had been there the longest.
It was enough to strike empathy in him.
He approached carefully removing first the lock then the muzzle.
The young man almost pushed past him to get out.
Starting his questioning he asked where he was from and what his name is.
The young man, Danny apparently, didn't seam to remember much outside of the circus though. Where some of the more recently "aquired" captives remembered the older ones didnt
He could only imagine it was trauma holding them back.
Because this place was all he could remember, Danny didn't know what he wanted to do after he was free besides get far far away.
Bruce asked him no more questions.
General headcanons:
Danny is still sassy in this au but he's also bitter.
He doesn't talk much at first cause he's not used to it cause of the muzzle.
It takes quite a while for him to become more like his own self.
Sits on top of Wayne manor staring at the stars he doesn't remember why though.
He has "sad eyes" as babs and steph phrased it.
Bruce didn't mean to keep danny. He's basically a foster fail.
He will never here the end of such from Alfred.
Talking about Alfred he handles the new addition just fine
After all Danny broody and sassy.
He even has the light eyes dark hair combo.
Danny is kinda a foil to Dick. Where Dick is cheerful, Danny is jaded
Where Dick sees the circus as sacred Danny sees it as a trigger
They get along ok weirdly enough.
Jason swore when he first saw Danny.
"Bruce you got another damn kid"
Offers to take him away from Bruce if ever needed. Offer always stands.
Tim doesn't notice the ghost boy for about a week. He was just too sleep deprived.
When he did he assumed danny was a sleep deprivation hallucination
Now he doesn't know how to approach him so he treats him like he's always been there.
Cass understands Danny.
The silence between them is comfortable and amicable
Damian is Damian.
He isn't sure what to think so at first he comes of as aggressive.
That stands until he sees Danny in a fight for the first time.
Now he only wonders now this meta who can turn invisible and fly got caught.
He thinks better then to ask.
Slowly Danny learns to trust again. To live again.
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Primetober Day 5: Life By The Sea, with all three additional themes (Drowning, Puking, and Sick fic)
Canon compliant. Dream finds Tommy in Exile not only barely crawling onto the sand, but also with an obvious fever. He finds he quite enjoys caring for his protege-in-training. Warnings for illness, vomiting, abuse, referenced drowning, and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
ao3 link
— Dream’s stomach dropped when he couldn’t find Tommy in Logstedshire.
He hadn’t run. He couldn’t have run. Dream had trained him too well, been far too kind for him to stupidly run off. So that meant one thing- Tommy had been hurt and couldn’t make it to meet him.
Poor thing. The idea of Tommy hurt and alone was something Dream never wanted. Well, not unless he deserved it. There was a difference between his fair punishments and the cruelty of the world he tried his best to spare him from.
He wasn’t in the log cabin or his tent. Dream was about ready to tear the whole world down to find him when he noticed a trail of footsteps leading to the beach, barely noticeable in the dirt and sand. He silently thanked the Primes as he followed, glad that Tommy hadn’t escaped or anything, until he came across his collapsed form.
Tommy was pallid, pale even where you could see the pink of sunburn peaking out. He was on his hands and knees, shaking violently, as he vomited out what looked like a lungful of salt water. As Dream got closer, he could see how wobbly he seemed, even outside of the shaking, unable to get a firm grounding and looking about ready to fall into the ocean.
“Tommy?” Dream kept his voice gentle, calm. He tried to keep any hints of concern out of his voice, lest Tommy think he was in trouble. Any punishments would come later, even for the infractions not yet corrected yesterday. Dream was a patient man, and he wasn’t an idiot. Tommy looked so frail that laying a hand on him could tear him in two, and he certainly wasn’t lucid enough for a lecture. “Are you alright?”
Tommy coughed violently, the last of the water out of his system. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to speak, but no sound came out. Shakily, he tried to at least sit, only to faceplant into the sand pathetically with a whimper.
Seeing Tommy in such a state in any other situation would have been hilarious, but now? What if Tommy had hurt himself badly? He wasn’t allowed to die, not until Dream decided to. He was Tommy’s God, in all ways that mattered, and he wasn’t going to let whatever this was take that control from him.
Helping the poor thing up, Dream couldn’t help but notice how clammy Tommy’s skin was, his temperature burning bright hot. That was the only warning he had that the kid was sick before, a split second later, he vomited all over Dream, a mix of seawater, blood, and what little food he had eaten.
Tommy shivered, weakly trying to pull away and failing, settling for turning his face away from Dreams. “M’sorry,” he muttered, a hint of terror in his quiet, hoarse voice. “I din’ mean to. Please, don’…” He was cut off with more gagging, this time onto the sand.
“Oh, Tommy…” Dream gently ruffled Tommy’s hair. “I’m not gonna get mad at you for being sick. That’s not your fault, is it? Shh, let’s just get you somewhere comfortable, okay?”
Tommy groaned as Dream picked him up. He was so light, probably even more than the heavy weight of a netherite axe, and Dream found himself mixing with a bit of concern- maybe he should make more effort to get Tommy to eat- and a weird sense of protectiveness rushed through him. Tommy was so fragile, so small, so young. So much lesser than him. It made Dream feel like a God.
Tommy lay completely limp, clearly exhausted, as Dream carried him towards the cabin the ghost had built sometime early on, the only valuable thing he’d ever done. Lying him down on the mattress inside, patchwork yet sturdy enough to hold his minuscule weight, Dream knelt beside him.
“Okay, let’s clean you up first, okay? Then you’ll need to eat a little, and then you can sleep.”
“B-but wha’ about puttin’ my items in the hole?” There was a genuine terror behind Tommy’s tired, dull eyes. “Don’ wanna get in trouble.”
“Don’t worry about that, Tommy. Just stay in here until you feel better, okay? I’m not having you die on me.”
“I’ll be fine, man-“
“I’m not risking that.” Dream’s voice must have come off harsher than he intended because Tommy flinched upon hearing that. “I don’t want you to make it worse, Tommy. I know I work you hard, but it’s to teach you. I’m not gonna make you do that when you’ve got a fever. Your orders until you’re not puking all over the place and fainting are to let me take care of you, do you understand?”
Tommy nodded slightly, looking incredibly nauseous at the effort.
“Good,” Dream mumbled absently, looking through the mess of his inventory to grab a bucket of water and soap. Thank the Primes he had those on him whenever he visited Logstedshire- he couldn’t stand the feeling of the dirt and sand digging to him, so he rubbed his skin raw to get it off and feel pristine. Cleanliness was next to Godliness, after all.
Tearing off a clean piece of his cloak- he couldn’t bear to keep it knowing it had been dirtied, the idea made him feel like he’d be sick instead of Tommy, so he might as well make it useful- he dipped it into the warm water and started gently cleaning the mess off of Tommy’s face and hair. Thankfully, it looked like he didn’t get his clothes dirty or anything, so it was fairly quick, though Dream made sure to double and triple-check, both with soap and without.
“M’ sorry,” Tommy mumbled halfway through, seeming half-conscious. “For bein’ a burden an’ shit.”
Getting the sense that Tommy probably wouldn’t remember what he said back at this point, Dream decided, stupidly, to be honest. “Don’t worry, Tommy. I love being able to take care of something.”
Plants, animals, a server. Throughout his entire life- and that was a lot, lot longer than he let on- Dream had taken joy in nurturing and little else. Some things dulled the void of painful memories other than that, of course. The adrenaline of a Manhunt, or the thrill the game of politics gave. A casual friendship, trying to swallow the burning feelings of betrayal whenever the other person left his side, left his brain to be tormented by loneliness and nightmares. Those worked for a while, maybe a few years, and then they dried up, leaving Dream stranded with all the pains of the world on his body and mind, phantom agony ripping through every possible part of him.
And Tommy… Tommy was so in need of guidance. Young, still naïve, yet too defiant and stubborn. He was a handful, and that was perfect, keeping Dream’s mind occupied and preventing waking dreams of things he would not speak. Tommy was safety in a world Dream knew would turn on him the second he showed weakness, do unspeakable tortures out of pure spite for love and happiness. And having Tommy so helpless, so in need of caretaking? The feeling of comfort, the knowledge that there was no way the world could twist things around and leave him crying in pain on the ground again and again, the fact he was essentially a God in every way that counted?
It was intoxicating.
Tommy didn’t react, eyes starting to flutter shut. Poor thing must have been exhausted. Still, he needed to get something in him. Then, he could sleep as long as he needed to.
“Tommy?” Dream gently shook at his shoulders, causing his eyes to slowly open a bit. “Tommy, you can’t go to sleep yet.”
“Wha- sorry,” Tommy murmured, barely intelligible through how it slurred from exhaustion. “I- you c’n hit me first, or wha’ever…”
“Prime, Tommy, no!” Dream couldn’t help a little bit of horror slip into his voice- yes, he needed to be cruel to be kind, and he certainly couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy it, but he wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t going to hit Tommy when he was so ill; he didn’t want to kill him. Not until he was ready for the experiments, anyway. “You need to eat something, that’s all.”
“I’ll just sick it up. An’ I’m not hungry.” There was a spark of defiance in Tommy’s half-opened eyes, just a tiny spark, and Dream couldn’t help but grin at that. He was still the same old Tommy, it seemed.
“You won’t get better if you don’t have a full stomach to heal on. Unless you wanna be sick forever, you gotta eat.” Dream snorted. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind, but you don’t want to rely on me forever, right?”
Tommy’s eyes widened. “Fuck no.”
“Then eat.” Dream got a small bowl of soup from his inventory- he was going to eat it, but he’d go without food for a day to help Tommy. He wished he could do kind acts like that more often. “Do I need to spoon-feed you, or-“
“No!” Tommy shook his head vigorously, and shakily grabbed the bowl, sipping from the side like a wild animal instead of waiting for a spoon. It was disgusting, but if it got Tommy to eat at all, Dream would swallow the icky feeling in his chest as Tommy slowly managed to finish most of the bowl. When he looked about ready to collapse into it, Dream took it from him and put it to the side as Tommy collapsed back into a fetal position, hugging himself as he shivered.
When Tommy started snoring, Dream pulled the patchwork blanket over him and tucked him in before feeling his forehead. He was still warm enough that Dream couldn’t help but cringe- he should bring some potions to make sure this fever didn’t get any worse, because he didn’t want a corpse on his hands until he knew he could fix it- but he seemed a little less clammy, and as Dream did it, a small smile crossed Tommy’s face.
“Hi, Tubzo…” he muttered, delirious, and Dream bit his tongue. He might hate the ram, but he’d let the kid believe whatever if it would get him to sleep. He’d punish him once he was better, for that and for whatever other slights he’d make while ill. He wasn’t going soft or anything, but he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t pointlessly cruel. This was all for the betterment of everyone.
Besides, it let him sit by Tommy’s side, watching that oddly peaceful and serene expression on his face, and Dream wouldn’t give that up for the world.
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canidkid · 3 months
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sorry you're not having a very nice time, friend:( but! i'm here to send some more superstore stuff if that's alright! :)
Kelly;
seems to be a big fan of lifetime/hallmark movies, so i just imagine her setting up a movie night! making popcorn and bringing out the warmest blankets to make sure you stay cozy while watching the movie.
she also just seems like the type to go all out for any holiday! like having a small easter egg hunt at easter, or dressing you up in cute matching costumes at halloween! she'd definitely be the type to get personalized stockings with your name on them for christmas, and do adorable little christmas crafts.
Jonah;
small hc that after the golden globes party, jonah was just so excited to show kelly all of the old commercials she hadn't seen so he could rant about them and so that she would 'be in the know'.
also just the quote, "i never yell. even when i'm mad. i just push it down really deep, and then sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night panicked and sweaty for no reason. " it just seems like something that would cause him to regress. i like to think it was something that happened while he was still with kelly (since he said it after they had broken up), and she helped calm him down afterwards. just like she'd do after a nightmare.
*weep* thank u for this TwT
I've been missing superstore stuff hehuhehe
This somehow spawned a whole little fic,, so,,, for everyone's reading pleasure
I'd say it's more agere adjacent than anything explicitly mentioned, but I really really love the idea of Kelly jumping to calm Jonah down like "No questions asked, you're getting a kissy on the head. Ok, goodnight."
cw: brief description of anxiety
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Kelly turned over in bed, throwing her arm over her face. What time was it?! And why was she awake again?? She tried to glance at her alarm clock, only to realize it wasn't there. Moreover, she wasn't in her own bed, or her own home for that matter. She'd been spending the night with Jonah more often than not recently. She almost let herself drift back to sleep when she remembered why she'd been woken up in the first place.
She propped herself up to look at her partner through sleepy eyes.
Kelly startled slightly when she saw the state he was in. Sitting upright against the headboard, staring at the opposite wall, hardly breathing. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. His blankets had been kicked far from where they should be, and Kelly could see him trembling even in the dark.
“Jonah..?” Kelly whispered, not wanting to scare her boyfriend. “Did you have a nightmare, what's wrong?” Jonah physically flinched when she spoke up, which sent a pang of something unpleasant straight to Kelly's stomach.
“I'm-good. No nightmare. I'm fine, I'm good I'm-” Jonah's hasty response caught in his throat and he brought his hands up to hide his face. He fell silent again, and all Kelly could hear was his ragged breathing. She tentatively placed a hand on his back, like her own mother had done when she'd had a bad dream as a kid. She felt her boyfriend sob silently in response.
“Whatever it was, um, you're safe here? Yeah?” The sleepy fog in Kelly's brain was steadily lifting as she tried to understand the situation. She moved her hand in slow circles against Jonah’s back in an attempt to comfort him. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and turned to look at her, still teary. “S’ too much, sometimes,” he croaked, his voice hoarse and small, “..everything.”
Kelly nodded. She understood. “Oh, I know,” she cooed, “you've been dealing with so much lately. Work's been crazy and with trying to find a place to live and-”, she stopped in her tracks. “C’mere.”
Jonah readily let himself be pulled into her arms, immediately tucking his face against her neck. Kelly noticed how tense he felt, and instinctively began to rock slightly from side to side. One of her hands found purchase in his hair, her baby blue manicured nails drawing soothing circles across his scalp. She pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “You don't have to think about any of that now.” She whispered.
They stayed like that for a while as Jonah's racing heartbeat slowed down, his muscles relaxed bit by bit - certainly aided by Kelly's expert comfort. Until, eventually, he just felt like a pile of sleepy goop in her embrace, instead of an anxious mess.
“Thanks”, he mumbled against her, feeling his cheeks heat up with the embarrassment of the whole situation. He felt so stupid and immature, like he should have rejected the comfort she offered and just…dealt with it. Like he always did.
Jonah shifted to sit beside Kelly, vehemently avoiding eye contact. “You should go back to sleep now. Sorry- sorry I woke you up.”
Kelly wasn't having that. She turned Jonah's face up with a gentle touch of her hand to make sure he was listening. “You don't have to go through everything by yourself, Pumpkin.” Kelly mentally kicked herself for letting the sillu pet name slip, but Jonah didn't seem to mind. He only responded with a tight-lipped nod, not wanting to cry again. She was just so sweet. Kelly gave a small smile before settling back down into her pillow. She held the corner of her blanket up, and Jonah accepted the invitation, crawling underneath and letting Kelly pull him close again.
…maybe it wasn't so bad to be fussed over.
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caemthe · 2 years
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@maljefe​ said.º
"Wai- Glady! Bell! Stop it where are you two going?!" Completely stunned by her wolves sudden outburst she drops her weapon and bolts after the pair. Normally they only acted this way when danger was nearby, or when they found their interest piqued beyond normal levels. However, that generally was a bad thing for Loni ( or so she'd learned ) on the few occasions it had happened thus far. "Girls stop it! We gotta go back to the camp! Dinner was almost done cooking!" At this rate something was going to come and ransack the spot and steal the meat they had painstakingly hunted that day. Not that she didn't have back up rations, but she had been looking forward to a warm meal after a couple weeks of surviving off of dried meat, berries, and stale bread. "Oi! You brats! I sai- GYAH!"
Bursting out from a thick bush she hits something soft and sturdy and goes flying forward, face hitting the dirt and scraping against it. Immediately after she heard a whimper which was followed by a wet tongue dragging across her cheek. Which, of course, had her snapping up so she could grab the canine by the scruff. "Bell, what where you two doing? I swear give a girl a heads up if you're going to do this... Huh? What? You're staring at something behind me and suddenly I have a feeling I should have brought my sword..."
Swinging around she comes face to face with a massive individual. One that towered over her even if she hadn't been on her knees. Blinking several times over she tries to get a feel for him, but the only thing she could sense was the power radiating off him in waves. "... Ah, I see... You must be the reason they ran out here..." Now to hope her tagging along wasn't the wrong choice.  / Conall also for the fantasy verse pls & thank u
     One would think that the mercenary leader, the wolf with a background full of mystery and rumors of being of one of the survivors of the now extinct Land of Wolves, wouldn’t have time nor bother with playing family and the like. That couldn’t be further away from the truth... No, at one point, he had been like that. Someone that was consumed by their own madness and was fueled by a rage with no direction and their bloodlust. A creature could hardly be considered human, only a mad beast that thirsted for vengeance and took as many lives as possible. That kind of monster was, still is, Conall Cernach. But as the years passed and the corruption wore off the mactíre, he began to ‘calm down’, no longer a ticking bomb that could explode and destroy all around him at any moment. He still was an awful man, the worst this earth allowed to exist, but he wasn’t made of thorns nor was he void of a heart.
     His closest subordinates and comrades weren’t surprised when one of his kids would interrupt a meeting to spend time with him, but others would look at him like he suddenly grew a second head or think that they were imagining things. He couldn’t care less at this point. So, when his eldest walked into the main tent where he was having a strategic meeting regarding the next big mission, Conall simply informed everyone present that they would be taking a break for a couple hours. Didn’t even bother rolling his eyes in annoyance when the newest member gasped as if they had seen a ghost. He had more important things to do like, for example, ask his son what they wanted to do.
     His eldest was already two years old and relying on their tail for balance, pretty normal for their age but they had been wanting to practice more and show how much control they had over their motor skills and coordination. The father and son went deep into the forest so the pup wouldn’t be worried about others staring while they practiced walking (and falling) over a tree trunk and other exercises. Conall always stayed close so he would be able to catch them in time in case they tripped over air. It was supposed to be like any other day in which he got to see his kids grow and then take them back to the camp after they fell asleep. But his plans were changed once he sensed two beasts... no, two wolves running towards him. There were a bunch of small camps and travelers nearby so he didn’t think much of it before. After all, one needed to have lots of guts or simply have a death wish to try to attack the mercenary leader when he was with one of his kids.
     The side of his mouth twitched, twisting and lifting into something that could only be described as the smile of a man that only wished for blood. But it quickly softened when his son tripped again and he had to grab them so they wouldn’t fall. He didn’t bring any weapons with him so things could get really messy if he didn’t think of a way to ‘convince’ the approaching stranger to go away or got around snapping their neck before they could react. Conall carefully accommodated his son in arms and told them to cover their ears. The beasts arrived before their master so he used those few seconds to let them know: ‘If you appreciate your master’s life... stay down.’ Many thought that he could talk to wolves but that couldn’t be since animals don’t talk like humans do. They communicate and make themselves understood, and that’s what he could do too.
     Conall began to wonder if he was worrying for nothing when this ‘assassin’ actually bumped onto him. He couldn’t sense bloodlust or desire to kill from the woman but, then again, such intentions weren’t impossible to hide until the very last second. No sword on her hand or visible weapon on her body, but one didn’t need a weapon to complete an assassination. Things really would be much easier if he just killed the woman and her wolf companions but he also didn’t want to kill anyone with his hands in front of his son if he could help it.
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     "That seems to be the case.” The mercenary leader replied as he sat down, no longer appearing like a giant before the woman. The pup in his arms still was covering their ears, mostly looking up at their father but stealing glances at the woman and her loyal companions from time to time. “But it’s kind of amazing really... Wolves usually know better than to step into someone else’s territory unless they’re looking for a fight. But it looks like you didn’t bring any weapons with you.” A calculated smile appeared on his features.“What a coincidence, neither did I.” He laughed and his laughter lacked honesty and warmth. It lasted for a couple seconds before he dropped the act and lifted his free hand that soon transformed and showed deathly claws. “I do have these tho.” The forest fell silent all of a sudden, as if even the wind itself was holding its breath back. The only one who remained blissfully unaware of what was happening was the pup in their father’s arms. 
     “You’ve one minute to convince me you aren’t an assassin risking it all for a chance to get me or my kid. Now, speak.”
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theoracleofgiana · 1 year
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The One who Stayed
(Hanahaki Au)
(Tw: Suicide, angst, blood)
When Camillia first starts coughing up flowers, Alanna freezes. Everything in the angel's mind screamed that the girl didn't love her. That it was all a lie. Hanahaki wasn't uncommon by any means. It was natural to fall in love and the other not to feel the same. However, kids got medicine, and surgery was regularly available for those who needed it. So why was Camillia coughing up pale red carnations? She was so quick to know what to do as well. Camillia walks out of the bathroom with no trace of the flowers or blood. Alanna doesn't stay and rushes out the door. Camillia gets a message a few days later that she's single again. 
Years later, the same thing happens in front of Jazz. Camillia's quick to get to the bathroom. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her tears mix with the blood and carnations falling from her mouth. Internally, she curses herself for forgetting her meds. She didn't take them often, only for dates. The flowers meant too much for her to get rid of them completely. Camillia washes up and takes a deep breath. She slowly walks through the bathroom door to the living room. 
Jazz sits there. "Do you need anything?" Her voice is filled with concern. Camillia wants to cry but reminds herself Jazz is probably being polite. Instead, she shakes her head and sits next to the other woman. Jazz seems to relax a bit. "May I ask who?" Camillia startles at the question. She turns to Jazz in shock. "You're not mad?" The demon asks tentatively. Jazz giggles at that. "Of course not! We've only known each other for a month," Jazz tells the other with a shake of her head. "Besides, I should hear you out before deciding anything." Camillia does tear up at that. No one who found out ever asked why. They always broke up with her or ghosted her. 
"I can tell you," Camillia says softly. Jazz looks at her intently, listening closely. "When I was young, I met this girl with red hair. She was always full of life and spirited. She grabbed my arm and dragged me with her when we first met. I didn't even know this girl's name, and suddenly we were running away from some adult. At some point, we stopped and caught our breaths. It was that moment of looking into her eyes I knew I was in love with her," Jazz stops the story with her hand on Camillia's thigh. "And she didn't love you?" Jazz supplies only to be greeted with a no. "Not at all, the opposite," Camillia has a faraway look as she reminisces. "We were the most troubling couple. We always got into mischief. My dad would always shake his head and sigh. Her mom," Camillia trails off before taking a deep breath. "Her mom hated me. That woman hated her kids in general. It never seemed to bother Rina. But hearing how much you're a failure and a waste of space will grate on anyone. I knew before anyone," Jazz envelops Camillia, who didn't even know she was shaking. "I knew...I knew she was dead. I knew when I was sitting in front of the fountain, and Rina was three minutes late." Camillia starts crying and buries her head into Jazz's neck. Jazz holds her until she's ready to continue. "I was the last to know it was suicide. I kept thinking I should have tried harder. I should have gotten her away from her mom. It was two days after the funeral that they came," Camillia looks at Jazz, unsure if she should continue. When Jazz nods in response, she starts again. "The carnations were blood red at first. Over the years, they've become pale. I take medicine to keep it from killing me, but sometimes I want to feel her with me again. I loved her so much," Camillia breaks into a sob and wraps her arms around Jazz. 
Jazz strokes the crying girl's hair and reassures her everything will be okay. Camillia calms down after a few moments, and Jazz takes that as a sign to continue the conversation. "Did you miss her tonight?" Jazz asks tentatively. Camillia shakes her head and slowly removes herself from the other's embrace. "I forgot my medicine," The demon says sheepishly. Jazz makes a soft humming sound and gently places Camillia's hand in her own. "You lost someone you loved so much. I'm so sorry for that," She says, pulling Camillia's hand closer to herself. "Are you going to break up with me?" Camillia's voice is faint. Jazz looks at her in horror. "What?!" She says in disbelief. "Why would I do that to you? Especially when you're in this vulnerable state." Camillia tears up for the third time. "Others have," She manages to croak out. Jazz looks shocked and mad at the same time. She takes a steady breath and envelops Camillia in her arms again. "I'm so sorry they did that to you, love," She whispers in Camillia's ear. 
The two spent the rest of the night cuddling and the next talking. They stayed together for years. Eventually, the carnations stopped entirely. Camillia took it hard until Jazz suggested they grew carnations. Six years later, Camillia sits in front of a small planter box on an apartment balcony. Jazz and her's apartment, to be exact. The carnations were a mix of red, pink, and white. Camillia smiles fondly at them until the sound of the porch door opening surprises her. "Love?" Jazz's voice comes quietly as if not to startle Camillia from any daydream she might be in. "Hello, my beautiful wife," Camillia says as she turns around. Jazz laughs and playfully swats at the other's arm. Camillia holds Jazz from her waist and pulls the girl next to her. Jazz rests her arms on Camillia's shoulder and the two look at the carnations in peaceful silence. "What are you thinking about?" Jazz fusses with Camillia's hair as she speaks. "Just reminiscing," Camillia responds, leaning into her wife's touch. "Don't reminisce too much. You'll miss dinner," Jazz tells her with a hum. Camillia releases the woman and stands up. "Care to join me for dinner, blossom?" Camillia asks while holding out her arm. Jazz huffs but takes the woman's arm, and the two head back inside. The carnations sway gently in the breeze, the home filled with love right behind them. 
(A/n: Sad. Very sad. I almost cried while writing this. I also don't know how to write endings. I hope you enjoyed and have a lovely day. Show the people you love a little extra love as well. Please talk to someone if you are having suicidal thoughts.)
Suicide Prevention Lifeline: https://988lifeline.org
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phoradendron · 3 years
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The Conjuring 2 is fantastic I recommend it
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Part 2 baby, I'll put these up on my ao3 soon as well so they're in one place together
-------
"Dad... you're dead."
Jack laughed. He probably shouldn't have, Danny seemed to be very genuine in his assessment, and Jack recognised that he should probably take this more seriously. But still, dead?? It was laughable.
"Come on Danny be serious." Danny's face remained stoic, "I'm not dead, I'm right here."
"You're a ghost, dad." Danny's lips were pressed tight, his entire body tense. "You died."
Jack was feeling a little ill at this point, was Danny okay? Was there a ghost messing with his head? He leaned toward Danny and grabbed his hand, it was cold, Danny's hands were always cold.
"Listen to me son, you're not talking sense, there's probably a ghost somewhere tha-"
Danny stood up fast, impossibly fast, his chair skidded behind him and toppled over.
"No! Dad can you just- how did you get to bed last night?" He asked.
Jack hadn't been expecting the question, he'd gone to bed... the usual way right? Like he always did, took a shower, brushed his teeth, got into his pyjamas, kissed his wife goodnight, although for some reason the details felt a little fuzzy.
But before he could answer Danny continued.
"When did we leave the party?"
Party? Jack's brow furrowed, oh the party! It was his 50th, how could he forget his own party, had he had that much to drink?
Oh, oh of course. He'd gotten drunk and done something stupid, said something upsetting. That's why everyone was mad at him, that's why last night was foggy.
Danny kept going, he sounded frustrated, angry, but his voice cracked a little. He was upset, oh boy Jack must have done something truly awful.
"What happened after the toast?"
The toast... He had just blown out the candles on the enormous cake Vlad had bought for him, ah that's right, Vlad had been there! He'd hired the venue, planned the whole party, it had been a surprise.
He had handed him a drink...
Danny asked another question, Jack knew it was the last, it felt heavy and final, it didn't even sound like a question.
"What's the date today."
Jack knew the date, of course he knew the date, it was the day after his birthday why wouldn't he know? He'd never been particularly good with dates but not even he could forget his own birthdate.
He glanced over to the calendar on the wall, just in case, he had a sneaking suspicion this was some kind of a trick question.
Jazz was the one to mark off the days, she used it to keep track of her assignments and her tutoring sessions. Each day would be marked with a tidy little line, not an X because they had 'a negative association with failure' or... something. He didn't really understand a lot of Jazz's ideas.
The days were marked off up to June the 18th... the 18th, it should have been the 10th. His birthday was yesterday, on the 9th, today should be the 10th.
How could he have missed a whole week? Maybe this was a joke, a way to get back at him for getting drunk and embarrassing everyone.
But this... didn't feel like a joke.
Maddie's sobs hadn't felt like a joke, Jazz's silence hadn't felt like a joke.
Danny's eyes gouged into him. Danny had always been an awkward kid, he took after Jack in that way, he was shy when he was young, always had difficulty maintaining eye contact. He had no such difficulty right now. They were so bright, had they always been so bright?
It was unsettling.
Why couldn't Jack remember what happened after the toast...
The drink had tasted strange, bitter. He never particularly liked champagne, he assumed that it was normal. Vlad had been smiling, his teeth were sharp... his eyes...
Danny's hands were clasped together tightly, his knuckles bumping against his lower lip as they shook. His gaze had shifted from Jack's face to the gravy-stained tablecloth.
"You're dead. I'm sorry, I know this is hard, I know you still feel like everything is the same but it isn't. You... you're a ghost, dad. Not the kind you're used to, you're just a haunting spirit right now, nobody can see you, nobody can hear you. You can't interact with anything, not yet."
Danny dropped his hands away from his face and looked at him sadly. Jack felt as though there was more to his expression, but he'd never been particularly good at reading people. Vlad had always been better at that sort of thing, it often felt like Vlad could speak a whole other language Jack simply couldn't understand.
Vlad... something was tickling the back of his mind but he couldn't quite grasp it, like a word on the tip of his tongue.
Vlad had given him a drink. Vlad had smiled. It looked like a real smile, but Jack felt like... there had been something more to it, Jack had never been good at reading people... Vlad had smiled, his teeth were sharp, his eyes... red, they were red.
The champagne was bitter. He could almost still taste it.
Jack jumped to his feet, startling Danny as he balled his hands into fists.
"Vlad." he growled, Danny breathed a sad sigh.
"Yeah, it was Vlad, he-"
"He was overshadowed by a ghost!" Jack roared, "It's still got him doesn't it? Mads is out there looking for-"
"No! Fuck, dad- SIT. DOWN."
Jack sat. Without thought or question. Danny's command was loud, not deafening but loud in a different way, like he'd heard it through not just his ears but his entire body. It reminded him a little of the concerts he and Maddie used to frequent back in their college days, where the music was so loud it vibrated through them, head to toe.
It took him a moment to realise he was shaking, Jack always considered himself fearless, and that was generally true, so true that he almost didn't recognise the feeling as it swept coldly over him.
Danny closed his eyes and rubbed at them in frustration, Jack was almost certain he caught a flash of vibrant green beneath his fingers.
"I'm sorry I... I didn't want to use that- I didn't mean," he sighed heavily. "You just never listen."
He was listening now, if not simply because he felt too shaken to do anything else. His thoughts rattled around trying to piece themselves together, something within him was screaming like he'd just touched a hot surface or a live wire. Danger danger danger danger.
"Vlad wasn't being overshadowed," said Danny, leaning against the kitchen bench, his body almost sagging with exhaustion. "It's... a lot more complicated than that."
"I can't be a ghost." Jack muttered, indignant, "They're monsters, they don't even look human. They don't wake up and hug their wives, they don't want to sit down and eat breakfast with their daughters."
"Not all ghosts are the same." Danny's voice was quiet, it had none of that fierce intensity like before. What was that? It wasn't normal, it definitely wasn't human. Jack glared up at him as a hot flush of rage washed over him.
"How do I know you aren't the ghost. That you haven't done... something to my family, to make them think I'm dead!" Jack growled.
He wanted to stand up, but under Danny's icy stare he felt locked into his seat. His expression was mostly blank, but Jack could see a twitch in his brow and tilt to his lips. He could see it, but he couldn't read it. Ghosts were easier to read than this, ghosts weren't usually very subtle.
"Not all ghosts are the same." Danny repeated, his voice was so quiet now, tentative and fragile.
He walked over to the sink, Jack wanted to get up, wanted to keep his eyes on Danny and the ghost that might be controlling him, but he couldn't seem to make his legs work. The command still rang in his ears. Sit. Down.
"We aren't going to get anywhere like this." Danny filled up a glass of water and placed it in front of Jack. "Pick it up."
It wasn't a command, Danny's expression had softened once more.
"Please."
Jack narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but he did as requested. He could feel the cold glass in his hand, the condensation on his fingers, but as he tried to lift it... the glass remained as it was. His hands simply slipping over it.
He tried again, and again, it wasn't as though it was slippery, or heavy, or even that he couldn't grip it. The glass felt normal, his hands felt normal, the glass just wouldn't... move.
Gritting his teeth in frustration he grabbed the glass and squeezed with all his strength, it didn't break. The water didn't even ripple.
"This is a trick..." said Jack. "It's just a trick..."
Red eyes and a bitter drink, people stood around him, faces blurred. He was falling, someone screamed.
Danny started rooting around in a nearby drawer, he pulled out a ragged newspaper cutout. The ink had run in some spots, he placed it down in front of Jack.
It was an obituary. It was his obituary. Tear stained and rough around the edges, torn from the rest of the paper instead of cut, he skimmed over it, almost unable to take it in.
Jack Jonathan Fenton... age 50... survived by his wife Maddie and two children Danny and Jazz...
There was a list of his degrees, complete and incomplete, engineering, physics, mathematics, it listed the names of his high school and university, his reputation as a local ghost hunter, a blurb about his dedication to his work and his love for his family. Jazz had written it, he could tell. She was so good with words.
"Don't make this harder than it needs to be, please." Danny's voice cracked, his eyes were bright with tears as he righted the knocked over chair and sat back down across from Jack, gripping his hand tightly.
Vlad leaning over him, Vlad gripping his hand, he was smiling, his teeth were sharp. Glass smashed, he'd dropped the drink. It was bitter.
He could almost still taste it.
"No..."
Maddie running past him in the lab, like he wasn't even there, crying. Jazz at the breakfast table, not seeing not hearing, eyes red and puffy. They hadn't looked at him, not once had they looked at him. They couldn't see him, they really couldn't see him.
But Danny could.
"If... I'm a ghost," the words tasted foul and heavy on his tongue, "and you aren't... why can you see me?"
Danny sighed, still holding tight to Jack's hand.
"It's complicated." he said, staring down at the table.
"Vlad, he did this. I'm..." Jack whispered. "But his eyes were... he was overshadowed. It was a ghost that-."
"He wasn't overshadowed." Danny kept his gaze averted, his expression was hard and cold. "It was the accident with the proto-portal, it changed him. He-"
Danny choked up, tears were slipping from his eyes, he gasped a few unsteady breaths.
"He blamed you, he blamed you and wanted to kill you, he's been trying since the attack at the reunion. I tried to protect you dad I tried I tried I'm sorry, I didn't know about the poison until it was too late I'm sorry, I couldn't get there in time I couldn't-"
Danny's sobs shook his whole body, he buried his head in his arms, shaking hands still clasped around Jack's.
Red eyes, sharp teeth, the reunion...
"The Wisconsin Ghost," how had he not seen it? "He's the Wisconsin Ghost."
Then another thought struck him. He looked at his son like he'd never seen him before, sobbing loudly, painfully, his body wracked with spasms as he choked on every breath. He had been trying to protect him, all this time he had known and was protecting him, alone.
When Jack had been told to sit, compelled to sit, unable to move and paralysed with terror, had he imagined the glint of green in his son's eyes? He knew a ghost with green eyes, who could incapacitate someone with a single terrifying scream, who was mortal enemies with the Wisconsin Ghost, who claimed to be a protector, who looked just like a kid.
Danny had been in the lab that day, when the portal turned itself on.
Had the portal turned itself on?
Jack stood, his legs finally acting of his own accord once more, and he rounded the table to pull his son into a tight hug.
"Oh Danny, it was you, the ghost boy, it was you."
"I'm sorry dad, I'm so sorry." The words wouldn't stop pouring from his lips, tumbling over and over. Jack's chest grew tight from the pain in his voice.
He ran a hand over his son's hair and shushed him gently.
"It's okay Danny-boy, it's not your fault, you did your best. I'm so proud of you son, we should have realised, you did so much all on your own, I'm so proud of you." It was Jack's turn to start blubbering.
"I should have told you." said Danny, voice muffled against Jack's chest.
He and Maddie always talked about all of the things that they would do to Phantom if they had ever caught him, they'd talked about it during family dinners. Danny had sat there listening, the whole time he had been right there listening.
"I... understand why you didn't." said Jack.
Danny had stopped shaking, he pulled away from Jack and wiped his eyes.
"Vlad told mom that he'd been overshadowed, she's been out hunting for the Wisconsin Ghost all week." Danny sniffed, "I wanted to tell her the truth, I wanted to so badly but Vlad he... he said he'd go for Jazz next. Said if he got past me once he could do it again. I couldn't risk it."
Jack had never understood why a ghost would choose to remain tethered, why they couldn't just move on and leave the living to go about their business in peace. He always told himself that when he died he would never return, he would take what was to come with open arms.
But that wasn't what happened. He'd gotten up to start his day as usual, but he was already dead. There had been no choice, and were he given one now, he didn't think he could bring himself to take it.
His family still needed him, how could he leave them behind? It wasn't wrong if he stayed to protect his family, right?
Jack placed a heavy hand on Danny's shoulder, and gently knocked his chin with a large fist.
"Buck up kiddo, I might need to get a handle on this whole bein' a ghost thing but when I do," Jack's voice dropped into a low, dangerous growl and, for just a brief moment, his eyes flashed a vibrant green, "I'm not gonna let him hurt anyone else."
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lupically · 3 years
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#D6BB9E | BENNETT.
genre | fluff, best friends au, crush au
word count | 1777
warning | mention of burns (pyro slimes ;-;)
note | hello (〃^▽^〃) thank you so much for requesting from me, anonie! i hope this is what you are going for and happy reading!
request | from anon
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your hands squeezed tightly around bennett's forearm before he fell too far from the peak.
"i–i got you!" you said through gritted teeth, not giving yourself a moment of spare breath as you grounded the tip of your shoes against the grass and pulled.
he was heavier than you thought. but bennett was always running and jumping around, fighting monsters and getting hurt, digging up vegetables and soiling his unclean nails. you should not be surprised if he packed some muscle weight on his shorter body from his daily adventuring.
but oh, lord barbatos, was he heavy! the effort you were putting into pulling him back to the grassy surface was made especially prevalent because of the near-death experience bennett once again put himself in.
"bennett! stop daydreaming and pull yourself up!" you hollered when you felt him slip slightly from your grip.
you had glanced at him; your shaky eyes darted from below him at the dark pit of the faraway ground to his face, which held a somewhat surprised and emotionless expression. it was not at all what you expected someone who almost fell to their death would look like.
he snapped out of his sudden trance, one that his mind inconveniently put himself under as soon as he saw your face pop up from the cliff edge. he had thought he was done for; it was probably bound to happen one day considering how he adventures with no backup nor help from anyone. your sudden appearance just served as a pleasant surprise.
"so–sorry!" he shouted, the light coming back to his brilliant green eyes.
reaching his other hand up, he grasped onto your forearm and tried to pull himself up just as you scooted your body further away from the cliff, using the ground as leverage to conjure strength and stability.
his hand was close to reaching the rocky edge, he could see. but before he could grasp the ground and hoist himself back on a surface, his eyes widened at the redness that emerged—jumped—above your laying body.
you could sense the panic in his eyes. furrowing your brows, you followed his gaze to look behind your shoulder to find a giant pyro slime that had jumped above your head. your gaze rounded at the heated creature—oh no. it would not squish you, you know, but it would definitely burn you with the heat radiating off its watery body.
ugh. watery pyro slime... what juxtaposition.
your fingers curled around bennett's forearm to prevent yourself from dropping him, which sacrificed your ability to utilize your catalyst. squeezing your eyes tightly, you turned your head to the ground and told yourself a burnt back would be much, much better than a dead friend. besides, barbara's water healing would counter with burns well so you should be fine!
the sound of a blade cutting through the air around you burst into your ear. you did not dare to look up from the ground, but bennett had instinctively unleashed his sword and carelessly stabbed upward at the pyro slime (fortunately not scraping you in the process considering both his bad luck and unprepared action). he pulled his sword away, his grip around the hilt losing when he saw that the slime was beginning to blame around its body.
it was going to burst.
quickly discarding his sword, he kicked himself up using his feet and the ample wind so he could finally catch the edge. you squealed from the impact of his motion, feeling yourself being pulled forward.
bennett hoisted himself up just enough that his arm could go around the back of your head, and in the nick of time, just before the pyro slime combusted with a hot explosion, he placed his hand at the back of your head and dipped you toward him as much as he could.
you winced at the heat that touched your legs and the small of your back, but most of the damage that was supposed to go to your uncovered skin landed on bennett's bare arm instead. he gritted his teeth at the pain, but anything would be better than you getting hurt because of his carelessness, so he endured and kept his arm around the back of your head.
looking up from the ground, the tip of your nose lightly bumped against his as soon as you faced forward. bennett took a second or three to access the proximity, as well as the other party sharing it with him, and he immediately panicked.
"i–i'm sorry!" he shouted for no reason, his cheeks beginning to flush red.
"woah–hey, bennett! stop moving, you're going to fall!" you scolded at the commotion he was causing in the air, your senses coming back to you as you helped pull him back up to the surface.
you let go of him when he got his feet on the ground. falling backward, you breathed out a relieved sigh as your back touched the grass. you spread your arms out slightly, just enough that your knuckles ghosted against bennett's hand after he mirrored your action.
"that was way too close for comfort!" bennett exclaimed as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. he looked up at the sky, controlling his breathing. "thank you for saving me. i got lucky for once, i can't believe you were around!"
you pursed your lips together and tilted your head then. turning to your side, you frowned at your best friend and reached out to poke his cheek for his attention. bennett turned to look at you, his brows rising and his cheek pinking from the sight.
"huh?" he asked as he blinked at you innocently.
"i'm mad at you," you grumbled. "you didn't wait for me this morning. you just left to dig treasures for yourself!"
you almost forgot why you were here—to scold bennett for leaving you in mondstadt and going to adventure alone. you had to find him by following trials of unusually burnt grasses, eliminating the guesses that it could have been the doings of pyro slimes.
"ah! pyro slime–" a sudden recognition of the recent event dawned upon you, and you looked down at your leg to find a patch of redness around it. "ah, it did burn me..."
bennett sat up quickly, his eyes widening slightly. your hand tentatively smoothed over the red spot, your wince obviously in his observant eyes.
he could not have protected you from that one, he had been rather far away. he already tried his best in the circumstance he was in, but still, he would rather take all the harm in your place if he could.
"i'm sorry," he apologized urgently, moving forward and reaching a hand out reluctantly.
you looked over, your eyes scanning his scarred arm that gained itself some new stories to tell this afternoon. but more permanently engraved in your beating heart was the same burnt redness, in a much bigger patch, that he has yet to complain about.
he took that for you, didn't he? the arm that went around the naked back of your neck. a vulnerable place; he protected it however he could.
bennett always protected you however he could.
the arm that put itself in front of you when you were being teased by other vision-wielding kids before you got your anemo vision, the bandaid that sloppily got stuck to your knee when you fell from the bike at five, the jacket that warmed you after you almost drowned in cider lake, and the hand that went behind your hand when the pyro slime exploded.
bennett has bad luck, sure. but he was the bad that surpassed the good, he was the hope that things will turn out for the better because he would always be there to save the day.
he was the foolishness of loving someone to a point of losing oneself.
it was the kind of foolishness that exists within bennett, the kind where you love someone so much that you are willing to hurt in place of them, the kind only bennett could flawlessly pull off in the most flawed way possible.
"bennett... your arm," you muttered as you moved to sit more comfortably on the ground.
he blinked curiously down at his arm, unsure what got you looking so damaged and upset. for a second, he almost got insecure about the way his marked skin looked as he wondered if the pain he had to endure had appalled you. but you took his hand, gently and firmly, and you placed it before your closed eyes.
"uh–what–what are you–what are you doing?"
"healing you," you muttered. "my healing won't work as good on the burns, but i can try helping you with the rest."
your concentration brought along with you a gentle gust of wind. it blew across the neverending grass field, it blew across the sky, and it blew around you two. it tickled bennett's skin carefully, the greenness flying like sparkles of dandelion petals, and it stopped at his arm to sew his skin back together.
your hair blew, dancing harmoniously with the wind that fell around your head. and the softness of your hand that touched his made his heart speed up expectantly. when you were done, the wind didn't go, but you looked up at him under the dying of the sun just to smile with golden dust on your cheeks.
and bennett could not take his eyes off you. his cheek blushed; the kind of boy whose face get red simply because the person they like looks pretty.
he opened his mouth impulsively, his mind urging him to do one of the scariest things he could ever do.
"i lik–"
"let's head back to the cathedral," you cut him off, not ready, "we can ask barbara to treat the burns."
was that intentional? bennett could not tell. he was sure the thought of it would haunt him for nights on, though.
with his luck, he would like to say rejection was almost a guarantee in his story. but, at the same time, he could feel hope bubbling in his chest when you stood up and dragged him along with you.
he followed suit, his arm extended as you guided him through the open road, your voice rambling about what to eat for dinner together.
there was hope. there has to be. lingering in your appearance when he was in need, in the wind that pushed your hearts closer together, and your intertwined hands as you two headed back home. there has to be hope.
bennett smiled to himself at the thought.
and that. that is foolishness.
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Their Doll 8
Let me in
B.Barnes x Reader, S.Rogers x Stark!Reader
series synopsis:  y/n Stark, all records of her non existent, and yet Hydra still find her. When she is kidnapped by a certain super-soldier and no one believes her, she finds herself searching for unexpected familiarity in her not-so-distant past.
Series Warnings: smut, violence, torture, swearing
Chapter Summary: y/n gets emotional
Warnings: swearing, feelings
A/n: The timeline in this has been altered, as there I things I wanted to include but I also wanted this fic to follow the storyline/timeline of Winter Soldier and Civil war.So for purposes of this fanfic, Peter Parker was discovered by Tony at a much younger age - when he was bitten - and has been an intern with him since, almost like a protégée.(For the purposes of this story Peter was bitten much younger too - more like when he was 9 or ten rather than 14/15)
Masterlist | Series Masterlist
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Life at the tower was...tiring, to say the least. During my free time I often found myself in the gym, lobbing knives at a target and trying my hardest not to biting one in Steve's chest every time he would correct my technique. When I wasn't trying to murder the avenger in cold blood, I was usually dragged into things by the other: briefings and debriefing for missions I'd never go on, my dad's parties, group training sessions and study periods with Bruce in his labs to name a few.
But for now, I was huddled in my rooms - fresh out of a hot shower after a brutal two hour training session and four mile run with Natasha - curled up on my bed and attempting to catch up on a few of the films I'd missed. But the exhaustion and drowsiness clouded my eyes, the noise from the TV merely in the background as I felt my eyes growing heavier by the second.
A sharp knock at the door snapped my out of my lowsey state, the people movie across the screen simple a blur of colour as my eyes darted past the tv and over to the door.
"Mr Stark is waiting at your door. Would you like me to let him in?" FRIDAY's evenly calm voice chimed, making me groan and mumble a 'no' into my pillows. The last person I wanted to see right now was my dad.
"Come on kid, let me in." My dad called from the other side of the door, and I could practically hear him roll his eyes and shake his head when I stayed silent. When he spoke again, it wasn't directed at me. "FRIDAY, override command and open the door."
"Wait! That's hardly fair!" I whined like a five year old, groaning again when the door swung open and my dad stood on the other side, quite clearly just as exhausted as I was.
"Get used to it, kiddo. Life isn't fair." Tony chided, walking over to my bed. I tried to shuffle away slightly when I felt the bed dip, my dad perching on the edge as his eyes scanned over the room. "I see you haven't decorated yet." He commented casually, as if nothing had ever happened between us.
"Yeah, well, I thought It'd be a shame to spend so much time on something when you're probably waiting to kick me out anyway." I mumbled, refusing to look at him.
"What the hell is wrong with you, y/n? Ever since you got back you've been-"
"Acting different?" I cut in, and when Tony simply swallowed thickly I nodded. "Funny that, seeing as I was kidnapped and tortured for three years. Not to mention made to kill people for another year after that."
"Y/n I'm sorry..."
"But you're not! You can't be, otherwise you'd actually have tried to save me, rather than leaving me to rot!" My voice cracked, tears pricked at my eyes and I now sat up straight in my bed, facing my dad but not looking him in the eye. "And you can't change that, you can't go back in the past and fix your mistake. And trying to fix it now sure as hell won't work, so I suggest you leave before I'm tempted to use you as my target for my training session tomorrow." I raised my voice, eyes now keeping his captive as the tears rolled freely down my cheeks.
"Oh, kid, they broke you." Tony murmured, cupping my cheek with his hand, eyes swimming with sorrow. Sorrow that I didn't want.
"You can't fix me either, because I'm not broken!" I said harsher now, voice only getting louder. "I don't need to be fixed..." I trailed off, voice barely above a whisper Joe as my eyes broke the contact, averting to my lap as the tears dropped onto the bed sheets.
That's how I found myself in my fathers arms, face pressed against his shoulder as the sobs made my body shake, hiccups escaping me as I tried to speak.
"A-all I needed W-was my D-dad, and yo- you took him f-from me!" I wailed, hands clutching my dad's shirt and his arms wrapped protectively around my shoulder, hands rubbing circles over my back soothingly.
"I know, kiddo. I'm sorry."
...
"Who is that?" Clint frowned, staring at the pictures scattered over the table in front of Natasha and Steve as they studied them deeply,  brows creased in thought.
"Our newest pain in the ass." Tony answered for them, slapping a thick folder down in front of Clint as he said so. The marksman was quick to pick it up, flicking through the documents, news stories and information sheets greedily.
"The...winter soldier?" He asked, looking at the three superheroes in front of him as if they'd gone mad. "But he's a ghost story!"
"I've seen him. Been shot by him, actually." Nat said, an sadistically proud smirk forming on her lips with her last words, almost as if it were an achievement.
"We're trying to find out more about him, maybe that way we can beat him." Steve explained, sitting back in his chair with crossed arms as he huffed in defeat, sick to death with staring at the same five pictures all morning.
Y/n walked in, a skip in her step as she crossed the room to Tony.
"Morning, dad." She greeted, placing a quick kiss to his cheek and heading over to the cupboard to grab a mug. Clint and Natasha frowned in confusion, looking between the two as if they'd witnessed pigs fly.
Tony shrugged, y/n too preoccupied with making herself a coffee to notice the avengers' reactions. When her coffee was done, y/n swiped her mug from under the machine and sipped happily, letting out a content sigh before wandering over to stand behind Natasha.
"What are you working on?" She asked, peering over the spy's shoulder to get a glimpse of the pictures.
A loud smash crashed through the room, Tony's eyes widening in shock and Natasha jumping from her seat in order to not get covered in spilt coffee. Y/n stood paralysed, eyes never leaving the photo in front of her as she started at the Soldier. Steve frowned deeply, studying the girl as her eyes glossed over with with what seemed to be...sadness.
Clint was already at her side, a comforting hand on her shoulder as they all asked y/n what had happened and if she was alright. It was like a constant ringing in her ear interrupted their words before they reached her ears, and y/n suddenly felt nauseous as she starred at the bright red star on the soldier's arm, his long and messy dark hair shrouding his face and his leather clad, muscular body. Only his cerulean blue eyes could be seen, the rest of his face covered in a black mask she didn't usually see him in.
"I-I need some air." She stuttered, stumbling blindly out of the room and down the stairs, tipping over a few steps from the bottom and tumbling down the last few. She quickly pulled herself to her feet, hearing still ringing and vision offset, hazy, as she scrambled for the double glass doors. Luckily they already stood open, so she flew through them and out into the busy streets of New York.
Y/n found herself colliding will someone almost instantly, angry shouts of 'hey, watch it!' And 'look where the fuck you're going, kid!' Being called after her like a chorus as she pushed through the bustling people.
She finally stopped, dropping to her knees and simply staring straight ahead, no intended subject in her line of vision as she tried to comprehend the-the grief, at seeing the a soldier's face again.
It had only been two weeks, and yet two weeks without him, his touch, his scent - it felt like an eternity to y/n now. She hasn't registered what her feeling meant for him before, liking him beyond a source of comfort had just felt...wrong, after all he'd done, and yet y/n couldn't deny it.
She was in love with the Winter Soldier, and she didn't even know his name.
...
I wasn't aware of when someone had found me, nor of how they got me back to the tower or even how I was now stood staring blankly out of the window that stood next to my bed. I gazed longingly, almost as if I stared long enough, hard enough, he'd appear.
But of course he wouldn't, he was probably half way across the world, knowing HYDRA. A soft knock on my door and my head was turning, facing my visitor with a look of pure grief and want. Desperate, unhinged want that could eat you up from inside out and you'd still feel it.
"Hey, y/n. Can I talk to you for a moment?" Nat asked tentatively, clearing trying to to disturb my shaken up state. I nodded, offering a small smile which she returned as I now faced her. She walked up to me, talking my hands him hers and playing with the as she spoke, eyes kind and full of understanding.
"There's a mission, and we want you to go." She said calmly, almost as if the mere thought of it would send me into some kind of heart attack.
"Okay," I begun, eyes flitting down to the floor before back up again. "What is it? Aren't you scared that I'm still HYDRA and all I'd do is stab someone in the back?"
"Not exactly." Nat informed me with a smile, amusement glinting in her eyes at my assumption. "For starters, we all trust you, well maybe not steve - but everyone else does." Nat and I both laughed slightly. "And I think you wouldn't have it any other way it to go on the mission yourself." Nat finished.
"How come?" I asked, brow raised.
"There's been a lead..." she started. "On the winter soldier. We thought you might want to help check it out, possibly capture him. Your powers may be the best chance we have a detaining someone as strong as him." Nat spoke. "And if we can detain him.."
"We can save him." I finished.
"Exactly."
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Swear By The Stars - A Tubbo & Robin Fic
It’s a peaceful night in L’Manberg, but the leader does not rest.
He doesn’t look it, picking his way through the woods bordering his country wearing a thick jumper and cloak, bags under his eyes and a sword in his belt, but it hardly matters. At this hour no one’s coming over for diplomatic reasons, and whatever he finds in amongst those trees is none of his business, actually.
Or so he thinks.
When he sees the figure in the clearing, his first instinct is to say “Ghostbur?”, but that would be very dumb because it clearly isn’t. Sitting on a log in the middle of the empty space is the ghost of a child, with ginger hair much too vibrant to be Wilbur’s, wearing an old fashioned shirt and a straw hat.
“What are you doing?” The question leaves Tubbo’s mouth before he can think to stop it, and the young boy’s head snaps to look in his direction. His mouth sets in a line as he gives Tubbo a once-over, face betraying curiosity; and then he goes back to gazing at the night sky, staring at nothing but clouds in the frigid air, as Tubbo sees when he walks over to join him.
“Are you alive?” Tubbo jumps slightly, looking away from the vast expanse of nothing overhead and back to the boy who has fixed him with a dull gaze. His voice is soft like it hasn’t been used for a long time, and he cocks his head to one side slowly. “I am.” Comes the teenager’s reply. The boy looks puzzled for a moment, then shakes his head. “Right. I thought, from the cloak, you might have been from the same place- time as me. But, obviously not.” “When are you from?” “A very, very long time ago.” The boy leans back on his elbows. “I lost track not long after I died. It all blends together, especially when you’re not watching people that are alive, but I never went away. Unfinished business, or something.” He tilts his head to one side again. “Who are you?” “President Tubbo of L’Manberg.” He replies after a beat, sticking out a hand for a handshake on reflex. The ghost boy takes it somewhat anxiously and gives it a tentative shake, soft and yet firm at the same time.
“Robin.” And there it strikes Tubbo, that Robin reminds him of someone. Someone he can’t pin down just yet.
“So what are you doing?” He asks as they let go of each others’ hands. “Waiting.” “For what?” Robin lifts his gaze to the heavens once more. “For the stars to come out. No matter when or where you are in all the land, there’s one surety: sooner or later, the clouds disappear and the stars show themselves, once per night. The weather moves fast.” He says, turning to look at Tubbo again. “Would you like to join me?”
Tubbo’s answer comes in the form of him taking a seat on the log beside Robin. They both look up, and it’s several minutes of nothing before either of them speaks again. “So, why do you think you’re still here? What’s your unfinished business?” The phrase leaves a bad taste in Tubbo’s mouth even as he’s saying it, and it hangs in the air for a moment as the younger boy contemplates his answer. “I don’t know. It’s supposed to be about tidying your loose ends, letting go of your life and moving on, but I guess it... broke when it got to me, because what are you supposed to let go of when you had nothing to lose in the first place?” “What do you mean?”
Robin sighed, “My village… went completely mad. I was an orphan: I barely knew my mom and my dad died in a war, missing in action, so not even a gravestone for him. I tried to study medicine, be somebody anyway, but I was a burden on everyone around me. One night, someone was murdered, and the town thought the only person that still cared about me did it.” Tubbo wanted to reach out and put an arm around this kid; he refrained. “They executed him in front of me. But they still weren’t satisfied. The next day, they came for me too. I didn’t have the will to deny it. All I had ever done was annoy and burden these people because I couldn’t look after myself, and they needed someone to blame. In the end, I just let them kill me too.” Robin sounded close to crying, though his expression stayed neutral. He looked over at Tubbo, whose face resembled that of someone who just watched a puppy get kicked. “Sorry, it’s not a happy story.”
The teenager forced a smile, “It’s okay- Look, Robin, I know we just met, but I think I can figure out what you need to do to pass on in peace. I might be wrong - I’m probably wrong, we’ve spoken for about two minutes-” “You can’t be wrong, you’re the President, and I’m pretty sure that’s the ruler of the land, so you’re always right?” Tubbo chuckled a little, “That’s not how it works anymore.” Robin seemed amused by this. “-anyway, what was I saying… Right, yeah, you said you don’t know how you can move on, but the way it seems to me, you have a lot of bad feeling weighing you down that you need to let go of to be at peace.” “How do I do that?” “I… don’t know.” Tubbo sighed, eyeing the scars on his hands and imagining where they run up his arms and torso, all the way up to his face. “I haven’t figured that one out yet either.”
Robin followed Tubbo’s gaze to his scarred hands, then to his face. “...what happened to you?” He took a deep breath, “It’s a long story but, essentially: I was found in a box on a roadside by a man who already had three sons and never really took to me. I fought a war for that country over there-” He gestured back in the direction of L’Manberg, its lights glowing softly through the trees. “-with two of the ‘brothers’ and we only just won. Then they lost this seat of power to a crazy old guy that made me be a part of his cabinet- It’s like a council?” He said, for the benefit of the confused child next to him. “I was spying on him so my brothers could take our home back, but he found out and executed me…” The two boys looked intently at each other as Tubbo trailed off, an awkward feeling settling over them both.
Then Robin broke it. “He executed you, and you’re alive? Did you reanimate or something? Come back to life?” Tubbo laughed nervously. “Like I said, things are a lot different now-” “You have gotta teach me how to do that.” And they got a good laugh out of that. “-but no, really. We fought one final war to get our home back, and we won, and they made me president, and for five minutes everything was fine, until two of the aforementioned brothers blew the whole place up and betrayed us.” The president startled again as Robin placed a ghostly hand on his arm, jarring him. “What about the last brother? Was he okay?” Tubbo felt a heavy weight settle over his heart. “Yeah,” And his voice became smaller than that of the young ghost’s. “He’s fine, except I exiled him from my country a few weeks ago, and I can’t even remember why now, it was so stupid and I miss him and-” The next thing he knew, the young boy had pulled him in for a hug, and Tubbo was a bit embarrassed by how emotional he’d gotten. “You weren’t kidding. Both of us have… some things to think about. But look!”
Tubbo pulled away, following the hand pointing upwards, not missing Robin smiling with hope in his eyes as he gripped Tubbo’s arm with the other hand. While they had been recounting their sob stories, the clouds had cleared. The two grieving, lost, lonely boys sat under a sky full of stars. “Doesn’t matter what you’ve done,” Robin said, dropping his outstretched arm. “The clouds can always clear. Maybe I should’ve fought it, tried to make something with my life instead of letting it be thrown away. Maybe you shouldn’t have sent your brother away. But the stars are still there. I’m not alone anymore: I have Corpse, the one who cared for me, who comes down to visit even now. And I’m sure you do too. Somebody, somewhere, who would come back for you. They can see the same stars.”
And at that moment, Tubbo knows exactly who Robin reminds him of. Himself.
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unicorndads · 3 years
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Garrett??? Are you kidding me right now?? Please tell me you didn't just die If you die in that fucking morgue I'm gonna kill you I hope the wifi just cut out I can't lose my chance to tell you please don't do this
Garrett's brow furrows in confusion as he reads these messages from his sweet friend, Andrew Siwicki. He had just made it back into his car, safe and sound from ghosts and other demons, and decided to check his phone before he drove back to his uncles' house. He had felt it buzzing in his pocket while he was trying to get back online to the stage event, but he was too distracted and scared at the time to see who was texting him. Now fully focused, he keeps scrolling through the sea of blue awaiting him.
Oh thank God you're alive Sorry I didn't mean to freak out on you like that. I just really don't want you to die. sorry
Garrett's lips twitch upward as he continues reading Andrew's texts, now chiller - random reactions to things he had said to his listeners. He's happy to learn that Andrew was one of them. He had hoped his friend would be, but he didn't expect him to be - the man's back home in Illinois; he didn't have to waste an hour on him. But Garrett's glad he did.
Forgetting he's still only feet away from St. Ignatius, Garrett calls Andrew. It takes only a moment for the red head to show up on his screen, his curls looking as red and perfect as always. Garrett's heart warms at the way Andrew's face immediately softens.
"Hey!" he says softly, eyes crinkling as he smiles.
Garrett's returning smile comes naturally. "Hey man! Thank you so much for listening. It was so spooky in there."
"Ya, it sounded like it. I'm glad you're still in one piece."
Garrett shrugs exaggeratedly. "Well, you know me. It'll take more than a few haunts to get me."
"Ya." Andrew's eyes shift as he seems to take in every part of Garrett.
Suddenly feeling self-conscious, knowing his hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat, Garrett clears his throat. "Well, what was it that you wanted to tell me?"
A brief moment of panic crosses Andrew's face. "What?"
"You said you didn't want to lose your chance to tell me something. When you thought I was dead." Garrett tries to make it sound humorous, but it doesn't come across well, even to him.
Andrew's no longer looking at him. "Right," he says tentatively. His tongue darts between his lips. "Actually, maybe I should just tell you in person. Now that I know you're still alive."
Disappointment crashes over Garrett. "Come on," he begs. "Now I'll be stuck wondering for days. What cruel and unusual punishment!" The giggles in response makes his grin widen.
Andrew mumbles something to himself that sort of sounds like, "Maybe I can tell you part of it," before shaking his head. But then he takes a deep breath, signifying his compliance. "Okay. I'm sorry I didn't tell you this sooner. Uh, I just...wanted to tell my family first. But I feel like I should have already told you. Um, but yeah. I'm-I'm bi, dude." Laughter is choked out with his confession, but Garrett can tell he doesn't think it's funny.
A flood of emotions rush through Garrett - surprise, happiness, pride - and he fights to push away the touch of hope. "Andrew!" he gushes out. "Thank you so much for telling me!"
Andrew's cheeks turn a lovely shade of pink, and his eyes become wet. "I'm sorry I didn't-"
"Andrew," Garrett cuts him off sternly. "You sure do apologize a lot for someone who has nothing to apologize for." Andrew's mouth opens, but he doesn't seem to know what to say. "I'm not mad that you didn't tell me sooner. In fact, I'm so happy that you felt like you could tell me at all."
Relief flashes through Andrew's eyes. "Of course," he murmurs. "You're my best friend."
A comfortable silence falls over the two men as they look each other over, this new information sinking in fully. Garrett is pleased to see the small smile now gracing Andrew's lips slowly but surely reaching his eyes.
"I miss you," Andrew blurts out after a minute. He averts his gaze and clears his throat.
Garrett hums with laughter. "I miss you, too. But it's just a few more days, right?"
Andrew nods, still looking away. "I should let you get back to the comfort of your uncles' home," he mumbles.
Garrett realizes that it is getting late. "Okay. See you soon. And thank you again for telling me. I'm proud of you."
Andrew looks back into the camera long enough to nod and smile. He's tearing up again. Then the call ends.
Garrett stares at his screen a bit longer, trying to decipher the way Andrew was acting in those last few moments. Shyer than he had ever been, and slightly distant. He hopes Andrew wasn't crying because of him. Did he say the wrong thing?
He eventually chalks it up to Andrew's nerves about coming out and decides he should indeed head back now. As he drives away from the abandoned hospital, his heart suddenly feels the heaviest it had felt all night, a reminder suddenly crossing his mind: Just because he's attracted to men doesn't mean he's attracted to you.
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startanewdream · 3 years
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Eyes glistening (with the ghost of my past)
Summary: “Can you remember your parents at all?” said Rita Skeeter, talking over him.
“No,” said Harry. 
“How do you think they’d feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?”
A Jily Lives AU to answer that question.
Read on AO3 or below the cut:
----------------------------
Lily is fuming by the time they leave Dumbledore’s office, her hand still gripping tightly the letter they received from Harry late the night before.
‘Mum, Dad,
I’m one of the Triwizard Champions. I SWEAR I didn’t put my name on the Goblet of Fire. I don’t know who did it, but Hogwarts has another champion too.
Dumbledore said I have to participate now, but I never wanted to.
Please don’t be mad.
Love, Harry’.
James supposes Lily had already used all her patience to not storm into Hogwarts right after receiving the letter; he’d felt the same. None of them had slept well that night, just holding each other, unable to promise that things would be ok when they clearly weren’t.
They had flooed to Dumbledore’s office early in the morning, but the headmaster’s words had done nothing to calm their worries. Harry was a participant in a tournament that shouldn’t be available to underage wizards and witches, and as a fourth champion when there should be only three.
And Dumbledore was fearing - as they had all night - that someone had done it on purpose, to have a shot at…
James can’t finish this thought. All he ever wanted was for Harry to have a normal calm year at Hogwarts, but for some reason - and he could name the reason - things always happened around him.
Lily’s hard steps wake him.
‘Lily…’, he begins, and she turns to him with fire in her eyes.
‘Don’t Lily me, James, not now’.
‘Being mad won’t accomplish anything’.
‘What else can I do?’, she asks, angry tears shining on her eyes. ‘Dumbledore won’t do anything, that stupid Goblet is a magical contract and now Harry is bound to compete in a tournament well above him -’
It’s everything James has been thinking since they received Harry’s letter, but he can’t falter now. Lily needs him and, if he knows his son at all, no matter how much Harry will say everything is fine, he will need them too.
‘I know, love’, he says soothingly, offering his arms so she can bury herself on them. After one second of hesitation, during which Lily seems too upset to do anything, she accepts his hug. ‘Now we do the only thing we can do. We help Harry’.
‘We aren’t supposed to’, she whispers.
‘I know, but we can’t just stand -’
‘I only meant we will have to be discreet about it’, adds Lily, separating herself a little so she can wink at him. ‘So we don’t cause him any harm. But you can be damn sure he won’t be alone in any of those tasks’.
He nods and for a moment they just stand facing each other, promising themselves silently they will do everything they can - and more - to help Harry.
‘Let’s go find him?’, James asks finally, and Lily nods.
‘Where? Gryffindor Tower or Great Hall?’
‘Times like these I miss my old map… It’s morning, let’s try Great Hall. A champion has got to eat’.
Lily’s smile at his joke is not very hearted, but he will take it. Harry had always enjoyed breakfast and he hopes any concern over the Tournament didn’t affect his hunger.
‘What do you think it will be?’, Lily asks him in a low voice, as they start descending the stairs. There are a few other students around them, throwing curious glances at them. James supposes it will take them a few moments to recognize him and Lily - they are famous, after all, and Harry looks just like James anyway. ‘The first task?’
‘The one to test their courage? It could be anything’.
‘We have to find out...’
‘If twenty years ago someone had told me you would be positively trying to break a wizarding rule, I would say they were mad’.
‘Twenty years ago I didn’t have a kid that is facing death at every corner’, she snaps louder than before, and when people turn to look at them again, she sighs. ‘Sorry, James, it’s just -’
‘I know, Lily. But he will -’, his voice falters a little, ‘- he will be okay. Harry has faced worse than anything they will have for the Tournament and if there is anything he excels at is being brave’.
Lily smiles at this, and he knows the smile is of love for Harry, for how their son faces everything life throws at him with courage and goodness. James tightens his hand around hers, and he urges himself to believe in his words too. He is right in the sense that for someone who has met Lord Voldemort three times now and survived, Harry has an advantage on this tournament.
But what he doesn’t say is how much he wishes that Harry wouldn’t be so targeted by any dark lord, how he could just have a normal year at Hogwarts worrying only about classes and dating and his friends. Like James once did.
He hates feeling powerless to protect Harry, who is just a boy.
His boy.
They stand at the door of the Great Hall, trying to look inside without calling much attention; Harry always hated attention, though James thinks that he will have a long year ahead.
‘I see Ron’, he says. ‘But Harry is not -’
‘James’, Lily calls him and he sees she is looking at the front doors, on the Entrance Hall.
He turns around. Harry is walking through the front doors, with Hermione by his side, both in gloomy silence. Harry’s head is slightly bending down as if the weight of his back is crushing him. Looking at him causes another wave of fury in James, over the injustice of everything that is happening with him.
He is only fourteen. He shouldn’t have to carry such a weight.
Harry’s eyes snap in their direction and he straightens himself a little bit, as if he is trying to look less miserable than he is, and James wants to bury his son deeply in his arms and never let go, never let any harm come to him.
But he can’t, and not only because Harry would be so embarrassed by being hugged by his father in the middle of the Entrance Hall. By James’ side, Lily presses his hand with more force, and he knows she too is holding herself as not to grab Harry and fly away with him to a place Harry can have a peaceful life.
They approached him quietly, ignoring the curious looks around them.
‘We will talk later’, says Hermione, throwing a tentative smile at Harry. ‘Hello, Mr and Mrs. Potter’.
At other times James would complain that she should call him James - and Hermione does sometimes when they meet her and Ron during the summer holidays - but now he just nods in silence, thanking her.
‘Harry -’, Lily begins, and James can hear the agony in her voice. Harry too, because he winces.
‘Let’s go for a walk’, suggests James, and Harry just accepts in silence.
That’s not good; Harry is always loud and talkative. It’s when he is quiet, deep in his thoughts, that it means something is wrong.
They walk on the grounds; it’s a November day, crispy and gold still, and James tries not to think that the last time he walked on Hogwarts grounds with Lily, it was very different. It had been their last day on Hogwarts, a summer day, and they’d been full of hope for the future, for fighting their part in the war and then for what they would do after the danger was over.
The war had supposedly ended, but the danger had not left their lives ever since Harry was born on the wrong month.
Harry avoids the lake - James sees the Durmstrang students are anchored there - and the forest, taking them instead for the empty Quidditch field. James remembers the letter Harry had sent early in September, talking about how he was excited for the Triwizard Tournament but deeply disappointed that Quidditch had been canceled…
Now Harry looks around the field with an expression that seems to confirm his disappointment as if he wishes more than ever he could just being flying.
‘We can talk here’, Harry says in a desolate voice. ‘Go on’.
Lily and James exchange a look.
‘What do you think we will say, Harry?’, Lily asks softly. 
‘You are mad, aren’t you? You don’t believe I -’
‘Harry’, James cuts him off, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder. Harry’s eyes, so identical to Lily, look at him with a desperate need. ‘If you say you didn’t do it, we believe you’.
‘We will always believe you’, promises Lily.
There are sparkles of tears in Harry’s eyes, but he looks calmer as if somehow hearing his parents telling him they believe in him has lifted a giant weight on his shoulder.
He doesn’t see Harry moving, but suddenly he is hugging both parents in a way James hadn’t seen him do it ever since the first time Harry was embarking to Hogwarts, the first time he would be left without his parents. They stand together, all three of them, hugging each other.
‘We are not mad, Harry’, adds Lily, when they break apart, and Harry is blinking too fast. ‘I mean, we are, just not -’
‘Not because of you’, completes James. ‘We know it’s not your fault’.
They all know whose fault is, but none of them mention Voldemort. His presence is always lingering over them, marking even the good moments as if they are a second away from being over.
‘But what we can do now is to get you through’, says James, with a smile that’s braver than he feels, but Harry seems to appreciate his gesture anyway.
‘I don’t know what the first task will be, but -’
‘Let us worry about this’, Lily says, her eyes full of determination and a mischief sparkle that James loves when he sees it. ‘You focus on your classes and studying. You know, trying to -’
‘Pretend everything is normal?’, Harry jokes, but there is still a heaviness in his voice that makes James thinks more than one thing is abnormal. Lily notices it too because she frowns.
‘Harry… what happened? Other than your name coming out of the Goblet of Fire, I mean’.
Harry bits his lips, clearly not wanting to say anything. He seems more upset than ever, but after a minute he looks at James with another kind of desperation in his voice.
‘Dad… Did you ever fight with Sirius?’
The question seems so random that James blinks.
‘Yeah, I mean, you’ve seen our discussions -’
‘No, I meant it for real. As if - as if you couldn’t even be friends anymore’.
James exchanges a worried look with Lily.
‘Yes, I did. Once’, he admits, and Harry looks surprised at him. ‘There was this time that Sirius had this idea of a prank, one that could hurt innocent people, including Moony, and I didn’t agree with him. So we fought and we didn’t talk for days. I never felt so miserable’.
‘But you managed to be friends again, right?’, Harry presses. ‘How did you do it?’
James looks at him; Harry looks more scared now than he was when thinking about the Tournament. James thinks of seeing Harry with Hermione, and of Ron alone in the Great Hall.
‘With time and patience and forgiveness’, he says slowly, trying to understand what happened to make Harry and Ron fight. ‘Best friends always come around’.
‘Whatever happened, Harry, the real friendship will last’, Lily adds, her voice concerned. ‘And you do have real friends’.
He doesn’t seem to believe them so much now, but Harry nods.
‘Do you want us to -’
‘No, Dad’, Harry says quickly. ‘Me and Ron - I mean - we will sort things out. Eventually’.
‘You will’, James agrees, touching Harry’s head and messing his hair in a way that always makes Harry smiles in embarrassment and joy. Harry grins.
‘Hey, hey, okay’. He pauses briefly. ‘Thanks. For coming here to see me, I - I am so sorry to worry you -’
‘Harry’, Lily interrupts him fondly, her hand messing Harry’s hair just as James had done, but with much more gentleness. ‘We are parents, we are always worrying about you, even when nothing is happening’.
‘Yeah, why do you think I got so much white hair?’, jokes James, making Harry let out a reluctant chuckle.
‘Sirius, probably’, he says teasingly, and James grins, agreeing. Harry looks at them with a soft expression, as if really appreciating his parents being there, before he sighs. ‘I should get back’. He blushes slightly. ‘I have some essays to finish, actually’.
‘Let me guess, they are due tomorrow’, James says smirking. His hips bump playfully on Lily. ‘Guess he took that from you’.
‘I always thought desperation makes the best essays’, Lily says brightly, sharing a smile with Harry. ‘Go on, then. And Harry… Be careful’.
‘I always try to’, Harry assures her. ‘But, you know -’
‘Trouble keeps finding you’, James finishes for him, pulling his son for another hug.
The fact that Harry accepts without complaining at all shows him how much Harry was needing that hug and, once more, the despair over the situation threatens to overwhelm James. But he puts a brave smile for Harry and watches as Lily hugs Harry too, vowing to himself he will keep doing everything he can to protect them both. His family.
‘We love you’, she says, and Harry smiles a final time.
‘Love you too’.
James and Lily watch their son go back to the castle, their hands gripped together to keep each other from falling.
-------------------------------------
‘So, Harry’, Rita Skeeter is smiling sweetly at him, not at all convincing. ‘How do your parents feel about you competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?’
Harry takes a deep breath.
‘My parents believe I didn’t enter’, he says, knowing perfectly well Skeeter won’t publish any of this. ‘They are worried, of course, but they support me, as they always have’.
136 notes · View notes
mikauzoran · 3 years
Text
Lukadrien: Zebras Can’t Change Their Stripes: Chapter Eight
Read it on AO3: Zebras Can’t Change Their Stripes: Chapter Eight
Once the sun rose, Adrien gave up on getting any more fitful sleep and rolled out of bed to get dressed for the day.
Plagg grumbled groggily at being disturbed, but, instead of resettling and drifting off again like he would have done back in the day, Plagg relocated to Adrien’s hair, doing a little circle before curling up to resume his slumber atop Adrien’s head.
Adrien smiled fondly at his kwami as he took care not to jostle Plagg too much.
Plagg had definitely been more clingy since their reunion. It used to be that Plagg would go off exploring on his own or stay behind in Adrien’s room or bag while Adrien showered or ate dinner or attended class or practiced fencing.
Over the past few days, Plagg hadn’t let Adrien out of his sight. He’d even gone so far as to follow Adrien from one room to the next in the small flat, even when Adrien just went to the kitchen for a glass of water.
It was reassuring in a way. It warmed Adrien’s heart and really drove home how much Plagg cared.
“Marc’s probably still here, so you’ll have to hide when we go out into the main room,” Adrien cautioned as he went to his closet and picked out clothes for the day.
Plagg hummed disinterestedly but obediently phased into Adrien’s left shoulder to hide when they exited Adrien’s bedroom.
 There was no sign of life in the apartment, so Adrien quietly brushed his teeth and combed his hair before heading to the kitchen. He took inventory of their supplies, made a shopping list in the notes app of his phone, and then left a note on the counter informing Luka and Marc that he had gone to the store.
When he got back, the flat was still silent and devoid of movement, so he took up residence in the kitchen. He snacked on the mediocre croissant that he’d picked up at the store and missed Marinette more and more by the second as he prepared big batches of three different kinds of soup.
Adrien figured that they could have some of the soup now and freeze the rest in individual portions for later, if and when they were feeling too drained to cook. He reasoned that it would be good to have something healthy and nutritious on hand if Adrien were ever out and Luka needed something quick and easy to eat.
Marc emerged from Luka’s room a little after eleven o’clock and sheepishly greeted Adrien.
“Looks like you’re being industrious already. It smells like an Indian restaurant in here, and it’s got my mouth watering,” Marc chuckled.
Adrien blushed, using his wrist to sweep a few stray hairs back out of his face. “I’m glad you approve. I know my cooking can be a little fragrant, but I’ve always loved ethnic food. Cumin and coriander are two of my favourite things, and Luka’s liked the dishes I’ve made so far, so…”
He shifted nervously, feeling a little awkward and out of place.
“I just want to be helpful,” Adrien hastened to explain. “I feel really anxious when I’m sitting around being useless.”
Marc crossed the living room into the kitchen and rested a reassuring hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “You are far from useless. Don’t ever think that about yourself, Adrien.”
Adrien gave him a tentative smile, not sure whether he believed Marc was right. “Thank you. …How’s Luka doing?”
Marc winced, pulling away to rock back on his heels. “He’s…been better. He’ll live, though. I’m going to get him out of bed and up and dressed.”
Adrien nodded, turning again to the pot on the stove and pointedly avoiding Marc’s gaze. “I’m so sorry. I should have done a better job looking out for him last night. I said I was going to watch him until you got there, but…I guess I didn’t realize I’d let him have too much.”
Marc’s hand was back on Adrien’s shoulder in an instant, giving it a bolstering squeeze. “Adrien, no. Seriously. That wasn’t your fault, so please don’t blame yourself.”
Timidly, Adrien met Marc’s gaze. “You’re not mad at me?”
Marc shook his head, giving Adrien a tired smile. “Listen, Kid. Luka…”
He took a deep breath and slowly sighed it out, shaking his head. “Luka has problems. Maybe you’ve noticed, but he puts all of his energy into taking care of other people and never bothers to take care of himself. He’s been imploding for a couple months now, but this is just the culmination of years of unhealthy behavior and putting himself last.”
Adrien cringed, recognizing what Marc was describing because Luka had been that way for as long as Adrien had known him, but having Marc spell it out like that put it in a new light.
“You can’t make him care about himself, and you can’t make his problems your own responsibility,” Marc explained gently. “Try to save someone from drowning, and they might pull you down with them. All you can do is throw them a life raft and try to tow them in. You get what I’m saying?”
Adrien’s teeth sank into his bottom lip as he tried to absorb Marc’s words.
Hesitantly, he nodded. “I think I understand what you’re getting at.”
Marc smiled and gave Adrien’s shoulder a pat. “You’re a good person with a big heart, and I know it can be hard to say no when someone asks you for something, but you have to know your own limits. If it ever gets to be too much for you to handle, please call me or Jacob or Josie. You don’t have to go it alone to be useful or pay Luka back for giving you a place to stay or anything like that. Okay?”
A grateful smile slowly stretched across Adrien’s lips, and he nodded again, more certain this time. “Thank you, Marc. I’ll try to remember that.”
“Good,” Marc affirmed, giving Adrien’s arm a pat before stepping back and making to return to Luka’s room. “Well, I’m going to go get Luka up. Happy cooking.”
“I can start on breakfast, if you’d like,” Adrien volunteered, sensing an opportunity to be helpful. “Do you have any food sensitivities? I was reading up on good hangover foods. Do you want me to make some coffee?”
Marc blinked, surprised, before bursting out into a hardy laugh. “You’re wonderful. Thank you so much Adrien. That would actually help out a lot. Coffee would be fantastic, and I eat anything so long as it’s not green pepper or olives.”
Marc gave a shudder at the mere mention of the foods.
“Got it,” Adrien confirmed with a chuckle. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes and then start so that it’s not cold by the time you’re ready for it.”
 “I am so sorry for anything and everything I said or did last night,” Luka blurted out, hanging his head as he took a seat at the island.
Adrien waved away Luka’s apology. “You’re fine. I promise you didn’t do anything embarrassing, so don’t worry about it.”
Luka was about to protest and apologize again, but Adrien cut him off. “How are you feeling?”
Luka grimaced. “Like a freight train ran over my skull. I guess it serves me right for drinking so much. I swear I’m not normally like this.”
Marc focused his attention on his coffee and kindly refrained from calling Luka out for stretching the truth.
Adrien, mercifully, didn’t press the issue either. “Here.”
He set an egg, spinach, tomato, bacon, and avocado sandwich down in front of Luka.
“I looked into hangover cures a little this morning, and the internet said that this should help you feel better.”
He next fetched a cup of coffee, a glass of water, and some pain killers.
“The articles I read said you should make sure to hydrate too, so hopefully something here helps.” Adrien finished with a tentative smile, still feeling uneasy and desperate to be useful even after Marc’s pep talks.
Luka’s bloodshot eyes filled with warmth and gratitude as he gazed at Adrien.
“Thank you, Angel. You’re amazing,” he breathed, humbled by Adrien’s thoughtfulness and the amount of care Adrien had put into the meal.
Adrien perked up at the praise, and a bit of the edge came off his anxiety at this affirmation of his worth.
“You’re welcome. I’m happy to help,” he insisted.
“Luka’s lucky to have you,” Marc added approvingly, nodding towards his own breakfast sandwich. “And it’s a huge relief to know that I don’t have to worry about Luc eating anymore. You make some delicious, nutritious food, Adrien.”
A pleased blush spread across Adrien’s cheeks as he took a seat and started in on his own meal. “Thanks, Marc. Like I said, I’m really happy to be helpful.”
As breakfast wound down, Marc turned to Luka. “I need to head home. Are you going to be okay?”
Luka started to nod but stopped when it made him feel dizzy. “Yes. Thanks, Marc. I really appreciate you, and I’m sorry that that happened.” He lowered his voice to shamefully add, “again”.
Marc rolled his eyes and gently tussled Luka’s hair. “You’re good. You’re always there for me, aren’t you?”
Luka frowned. “Yes, but—”
“—No buts,” Marc tsked, getting to his feet and ghosting a quick kiss against Luka’s temple. “I’ll text to check on you later. Take care, all right?”
Marc turned to Adrien and raised a hand in parting. “I’ll see you Tuesday for practice. Thanks for everything, Adrien. Just text if you need anything, okay?”
Adrien nodded, waving back as Marc made his way to the door. “Thank you, Marc.”
Suddenly, the flat was awkwardly quiet.
“…He’s not the Marc you dated before, is he?” it suddenly occurred to Adrien to ask.
He wasn’t sure why he abruptly felt threatened by Marc, but he did. He was jealous of the way Luka trusted Marc implicitly while Adrien was kept at a bit of a distance. Adrien wanted to be able to take care of Luka the way Marc did.
Adrien understood what Marc had said about Luka wanting Adrien to respect him and think he was cool and not see him as a mess, but…Adrien couldn’t help but long for Luka to rely on Adrien. Adrien wanted to be trusted like that.
Luka winced. “No. The Marc I dated was a different Marc. Our Marc is straight, and he’s only had eyes for his wife Wakana for a little over a decade now.”
“Oh. Okay. Just wondering,” Adrien explained, trying to shrug it off like an inconsequential whim as he set about cleaning up from that morning’s cooking binge.
“The only person in the band I’ve dated is Jacob—a youthful folly of mine,” Luka attempted to excuse himself. “A lapse of judgment.”
Adrien rolled his eyes. “I remember you talking about him when we were teenagers. You slept with him.”
Luka crumpled, his ears starting to glow red.
“You only sleep with people you’re in love with,” Adrien pressed, finding a strange pleasure in making Luka squirm.
“What is love but an extended lapse of judgment?” Luka muttered.
“You don’t actually believe that.” Adrien sniffed indignantly. “You told me once that being in love lifted you to a higher plane of existence.”
“I say a lot of dumb things when I’m in love,” Luka grumbled into his coffee.
“I thought it was beautiful,” Adrien hummed softly. “Sixteen-year-old Adrien swooned when you said things like that.”
Luka choked, spraying coffee onto the counter. “Seriously?”
Adrien peeked back over his shoulder with an impish grin. “Mmhm. You were my biromantic awakening. I thought everything you said was so cool and wise and suave.”
“And now you know better,” Luka chuckled darkly, sopping up the coffee splatter with his napkin as he internally mourned the missed opportunity to sweep Adrien off of his feet.
“Not necessarily.” Adrien smiled as he grabbed a damp cloth and helped with the cleanup.
Luka quirked an eyebrow. “How could you possibly still think I was suave or cool or wise after seeing me last night?”
Adrien shrugged. “After all this time, you’re still the you I remember from back then. You haven’t changed much…and you saved me last week by taking me in. That buys you a lot of grace with me, so I’m willing to overlook last night’s indiscretion and give you a pass.”
Luka winced, squeezing his coffee mug reflexively as he bowed his head. “Thank you, Adrien. Again, I’m really sorry that you had to see that.”
Adrien leaned across the island to tip Luka’s chin up.
“No apologies needed.”
Luka’s eyes widened as his gaze flicked back and forth between Adrien’s eyes and mouth.
Adrien pulled back with a soft smile. “I know you’ve been suffering since The Breakup, so I’m proud of you for keeping it together all week while I’ve been here. You’re doing a good job, Luka.”
Luka dropped his gaze once more. “I’m glad one of us thinks so.”
“You’re biased, so my opinion is the only one that counts,” Adrien announced, going back to rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher.
Luka chuckled and drained his coffee mug. “I’m not the only biased party here. At some point in time, you actually thought I was suave.”
Luka got up, disposed of his trash, and came over to the sink to rinse his plate and cup.
With some trepidation, Adrien turned to look at Luka. “I still think you’re suave. Like when you told me the other day that I deserved to have nice things and that I deserved things I didn’t necessarily need just because I wanted them and when you bought me my Chat Noir the Third plushie so that I’d have a reminder that I was loved.” He swallowed and reiterated, “I still think you’re amazing, Luka.”
Fighting down a rampant blush, Luka stepped in and pulled Adrien into a hug.
He couldn’t be sure if Adrien was just projecting onto Luka because Luka had given him a home and food and luxuries Adrien had been denied the past four years, so Luka didn’t want to read into what Adrien had said. He didn’t want to get himself hurt by allowing himself to misinterpret Adrien’s feelings.
“God, you’re so sweet,” Luka sighed into Adrien’s hair. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“You’re my friend,” Adrien replied simply, like it was obvious.
Adrien pulled back and looked up, finally asking the question that had been bothering him since the previous night: “You’re not mad at me, are you?”
Luka’s mouth dropped open. “What? No. P5, why would you think I was mad at you?”
Adrien went back to the dishes, shaking his head. “I just…last night you said that I was going to hurt you. It was kind of confusing. You didn’t seem mad. You seemed more sad than anything, and you kept telling me you loved me, but…I’m sorry. It just bothered me.”
He looked searchingly at Luka. “Do you have any idea why you would have said that I was going to hurt you?”
Luka scrubbed at his face with his hands, mentally kicking himself while simultaneously thanking his lucky stars that Papillon and akumatization were a thing of the past because he was so mortified in that moment that he’d surely register as a target.
“I am so sorry, Adrien,” Luka replied through the spaces between his fingers. “I was drunk. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I promise you I didn’t mean it, and I’m not mad at you. I probably thought I was talking to someone else. I’m really sorry.”
He held his breath and hoped that Adrien bought it because Luka couldn’t bring himself to admit what he had told his other bandmates about his doomed feelings for Adrien and Adrien’s impending relationship with Marinette once they were reunited.
Adrien’s eyes narrowed. “…So…you’re not mad?”
Luka dropped his hands from his face and shook his head. “Adrien, you’ve been an absolute blessing. Why would I be mad at you?”
Adrien pursed his lips. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t either,” Luka assured. “…So…are we okay?”
“…Yeah,” Adrien decided. “Yeah, I think we are.”
“Good,” Luka sighed in relief, feeling like he’d avoided an apocalyptic catastrophe.
“…So…what happened with you and Jacob?” Adrien easily slid back into their former topic of conversation. “You were in love with him, and then…? What? You two seem cool now. Like, not awkward or anything.”
Luka shrugged, grabbing a plate and rinsing it off before handing it to Adrien to put in the dishwasher.
He didn’t exactly relish discussing his love life with Adrien, but it was better than having to explain his drunken indiscretions of the night before.
“Nothing really happened with me and Jacob. We were young teenagers in love…and then we weren’t anymore. We grew up a little, started wanting different things, grew apart… It was a mutual breakup. We decided we still cared about each other and wanted to stay friends, but it wasn’t working romantically anymore,” Luka explained with a shrug. “It happens.”
Adrien nodded, happy to finally understand the dynamic between Jacob and Luka. It had been one thing when Jacob was just a name casually mentioned in Luka’s stories, but now that Jacob had a face to go along with the name, it felt different, and Adrien was glad to be able to fit Luka and Jacob’s relationship into a clearly defined box.
“Have you kissed him since you guys broke up?” Adrien inquired, continuing to air his morbid curiosity while they were on the subject of Luka’s love life.
Luka groaned. “A handful of times? Not recently.”
“How about Josie? Have you kissed her?” Adrien pushed his luck.
Luka exploded in laughter but quickly got it under wraps when it made his head feel like it was exploding. “Josie is aggressively lesbian. She would be insulted you even asked.”
“She’d forgive me, though,” Adrien snickered. “She likes me.”
“She does,” Luka confirmed with an affectionate smile. “…Do I get to ask you questions about your love life now?”
“I don’t have a love life,” Adrien snorted. “I have no updates to report since the last time I whined at you about how my love life was nonexistent four years ago.”
“Have you ever kissed Nino?” Luka asked with a smirk.
Adrien’s entire epidermis lit up like a Roman candle, and he pointedly avoided Luka’s eyes.
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urlocalbunny · 3 years
Note
Hello ! I hope you passed the exams you took. I am happy to be able to reapply. My question about boys is this : let's say the boys and Eloise can go to an amusement park at night. Wich amusement would the boys prefer ? (Ferris Wheel, ghost train, roller coaster) Have a good day or a good evening !
This headcanon was ready and I tried to post it but tumblr was hungry and ate it. I'm really upset and sorry for the delay but i got upset and took some time from it~
Aaron:
He likes the Ferris wheel and the games where you get prizes🥺.
As in Aaron is not vocal about any toys they go in until the ride begins. He's not boring, boy has good conversation and he CAN flirt.
He laughs and yells normally like everyone else, of course, but he's fine with whatever and he only cares about kissing Eloise and eating churros until his cheeks are chubby. Until...
I want one ticket, please." He grabs the water gun and shoots the targets easily, handing Eloise a big wolf plushie, blinking his eye and smiling as in "it's a secret, but I'm giving this to you because I am an actual wolf. Nice, huh?"
Eloise is full of bags and Things She Said "I Want It" And She Got Them™, then he looks up.
"I like the ferris wheel." Eloise runs to buy tickets and tackles people to get them if it's over. No regrets. Her man wants ferris wheel.
As soon as his feet are off the ground, he dangles them and giggles. "That's so nice. Does your tummy feel cold?"
When they're watching the view from above, Aaron sighs longingly while he looks at the forest and the manor. Then he turns to her and his little eyes are shining uuuugh. "I'm so glad I met you, my beloved."
The day ends with a sweet, heartfelt kiss and a hug.
Raphael:
He likes the rollercoaster. The worse it is, the funnier it feels. Spinning around and feeling the wind whip your face while you can't see a thing is freaking crazy!!!!!
He squeezes Eloise's hand while they tighten the security bars and his head spins while the cart approaches the peak. And then.
"ELOISE, HOLY FU-" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" and they fall into oblivion. He laughs his ass off while everyone screams in horror, and he throws his arms around as he feels himself being driven upside down and sideways until he has to gasp for air and his legs feel funny because that's just So. Much. Fun.
Eloise is yelling like crazy and praying for people he doesn't know in languages he doesn't know and he doubts that exist. She cursed a lot and for a moment he felt her hand squeeze his chest while trying to find support. He was red all over from so much laughter.
"RAPHAEL, ARE YOU OKAY?" he hears Ivan yell in the front, probably from the spot they waited on. He yelled back as much as he could before speaking.
"THIS PARTICULAR TOY IS INCREDIBLE AS FU-" "HELP ME YOU SILLY BATS"
He stepped down with a bounce on his step, Eloise by his side, grasping his arm for dear life. He heard the others approach them as he smiled.
"you said fuck."
"I would never say foul things. Eloise won't let me. ||("
Beliath:
He loves the scary rides with the cart. He sits on it and he pats his side so Eloise can climb uncertainly. She huffs. "You're gonna yell so quick. Gosh."
"BWAH" "UAAAAAAAAAAAAAH." "And that's on being such a liar."
The ride begins smoothly and so does Beliath, holding her hand and kissing her in the darkness, trying to play it cool and saying he will protect her of the ghosts and then the cardboard ghosts fall off the ceiling.
"I'M LEAVING. I'M LEAVING. DON'T TALK TO ME!" He holds Eloise close as she sighs, leaning into her seat.
"tell me how can a literal demon be scared of cardboard. I guess a moron will always be a moron." "Don't talk to me like that! That was scary and nothing prompted it. The next one won't be scary because I know."
After a good bit of screams and Eloise being squeezed like a pillow, they finally seemed to be ending their ride. However, one of the poor actresses let her plastic eyeball fall from her forehead and it went rolling near the carts. She went to get it, but Beliath noticed her.
Seeing a running monster with a hand over their third eye yelling "WAIT!" wasn't really good for his heart. He hopped out of the cart and left running and screaming a high-pitched sound.
The result was Eloise laughing her ass off in the cart while the others waited with confused faces. Ethan would never let this die. They're immortal.
Vladimir:
Baby likes the bumper cars so much! He'll spend his WHOLE TIME there if he can.
Every time he crashes he starts laughing heartily. Tries not to crash with all his might tho, just to annoy Eloise.
"Your car is supposed to crash!" "Too bad it does not, right?" "You'll see!"
He becomes a child, smiling like a little rascal as he races through the other cars and Eloise crashes behind him. His eyes glimmer when Eloise laughs behind him and mocks his long legs perched up on the toy.
He even has the odd urge to mock the boys waiting near the toy. Aaron curses back and laughs a booming laughter while Beliath covers his face with his hair trying not to laugh too loudly. Ethan looks grossed out and Ivan is already red and crying of laughter.
After a good chase, he turns his car the wrong way on purpose and smashes against Eloise's car, making her yell. They laugh together for a while but soon they make up a plan to smash everyone's cars >:).
They end up crashing against everyone at least once before the ride is over. The others look at him quizzically only to be met with the usual Vladimir. "What is it? Is something the matter?"
When they begin to walk home that night, Vladimir stayed behind with Eloise and held her hand, giggling as if they had a secret to hide. His pearly white teeth shone under the gaps on the tree branches. He winked at her, skipping home.
Ethan:
HEAR ME OUT I'VE HAD THIS IN MY DRAFTS FOR FOUR MONTHS I PROMISE. I'll paste this here.
The others go in another rides and he lifts his index finger to his lips and smirks, raising his other hand with the palm up. She looks back at the group in line for a roller coaster, but she holds his hand instead. She's his chalice anyway, they should try to get along more even if they were friends already.
Ethan runs through the crowd practically dragging Eloise, first to a churros tent and then to a less noisy place that was up a few flights of stairs. The guy stops skipping and walks slowly until they're in line for another toy that doesn't seem full of people yet.
"What is this? It's high, isn't it?" She asks with concern, eyeing him suspiciously. He shrugs, rolling his eyes and smiling as if she didn't know about real fun at all. "This, little pest, is a Flying Coaster."
"Why is it called like that?" "You'll see when we're on it." He says as he pays for the ride this time. They get up in it and he's practically buzzing. Eloise notices he hid the churros on his coat and when the security employee moves back to her place, the cart leans forward. She gulps. "Ethan, why are we looking at the floor?" "Chewrrows?" "You're chewing churros in out deathchairs?" "Nuish One, haha!"
The toy starts Actually Moving™. She then realizes they were a little higher up as her finger grazes the top of a tree three times her size. Then it's too late. "SON OF A- UAAAAAAH!"
Ethan laughs like he didn't in a long while and watches the moon from the highest point in the roller coaster while gulping down his churros as Eloise curses and kicks. At some point they look down and see Beliath's terrified eyes staring at them as Eloise curses at them too. "YOU FREAKING CLOOOOOOOOOowns!"
When they get down from the toy, he thinks Eloise will be mad and regrets his decision, but then she leans into his arm and starts laughing. Her hair ia disheveled and she grabbed his other churro (it was for her don't let him trick you) with the prettiest smile he had seen in a while.
"... Suddenly I feel weird. The roller coaster made me nauseous, let's get the fuck out of here." "I think it's your heart, Ethan-" "Shut up, you demon."
Ivan:
He likes easy rides, don't @ me. Eloise is in the amusement park with him, he won't go apeshit like he did before. He must be... CaReFuL wItH HeR. But with a little coaxing, he mumbles that he likes the Twister Rollercoaster and Eloise digs completely.
He jumps like a little kid twice and pays to enter, sitting close to her. Since it's kind of late, the front seat is just the two of them. He looks at her tenderly and holds her hand. "Will you be fine, babe?" "Yeah, don't worry about it."
The ride begins to move and Ivan kicks around a little and squeals. Eloise giggles, holding his hand as best as she can. He squeezes back, smiling like that made his whole year better.
As soon as the carts begin to go down the line, he yells in excitement and lifts his hands, looking at Eloise. She's just as excited, screaming in joy as the carts spin around. He wished he could take a picture of Eloise looking like a pineapple with her hair upside down.
"you look like a pineapple!" "Don't make me tell you how you look, please!" They laugh at some woman yelling a funny sentence and screech when the cart seems like it's going to derail in the dip. A camera flashes several times during the loop and he thanks the gods above for that.
When they make it back, Aaron is tapping his foot on the floor. "You both could've flies into space!" "You don't mean that. Look." He lifts the picture of Eloise with red luminous eyes and a ominous smile while Ivan straight up yells towards the camera, both upside down and with their hair messy.
The picture gets framed by Vladimir. Eloise isn't allowed to take it off by votes.
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cauldronofmorning · 3 years
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Okay so.... I've encountered your tags about "the talking scene between trapper and hawk in dr pierce and dr hyde the stuttering the grabbing the not blinking how another of hawk's coping methods has bitten the dust#trapper being soft parental but annoyed and how he needs to check out while hawkeye needs to save the entire world"... if you have time, Go off! I would love that 2000 word essay and your opinions.
It’s a bit of a mess and would probably get a C- if I handed it in, but! Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde and how it shows the difference between Hawkeye’s and Trapper’s coping methods.
Context! Alan Alda wrote the episode, mental health is important to him (not to psychoanalyze an actor, but he had depression before the show and his mom was schizophrenic) and there’s a quote on how Hawkeye didn’t actually change much in the eleven years, just had his coping methods beaten down.
So throughout season one, Hawkeye and Trapper have mostly been ignoring the trauma of a war. Hawkeye naturally ended a movie with a speech about propaganda (Yankee Doodle Doctor) and Tommy tells them (Sometimes You Hear The Bullet) about a kid who should have been the blonde hero in a war movie actually dying and not hearing a bullet, forcing them to actually quietly think about it. But for the most part, they can distract themselves with booze, pranks and women, and Hawkeye can still draw a straight line between his tenuous sanity pre-war and the place he’s in.
There’s also two important episodes in season two before Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde, that make the war more personal for both of them. The first is Radar’s Report, where a scared prisoner contaminates Trapper’s patient by knocking the blood over. Trapper’s sulkier throughout the episode, obsessed with how it could have been okay if it weren’t for that incident, and less indulging of Hawkeye’s girl of the week problem. His patient doesn’t make it, and he makes a beeline to the POW’s tent, maybe would have killed him if Hawkeye hadn’t bought him back to reality. “That’s not what we’re about.”
The second is For The Good Of The Outfit. This one has a village bombed by American military and Hawkeye/Trapper run afoul of previously decent sounding generals trying to shut them up from talking about it, including passive aggressive threats to send them to the front, and specifically to Hawkeye, intercepting letters to his dad. It’s okay by the end of the episode, but he’s still livid when he finds this out.
In comes Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde. The episode starts with Hawkeye already slightly dissociated from a long shift, thinking it hasn’t ended, and Trapper having to gently take him by the arm and guiding him out of the OR, telling him he was taking the chest cases “like he was their only hope”. Hawkeye wanting to save everyone keeps popping up throughout the episode; here, when he’s stumbling into Henry and his ego filtered through deprivation making him think he’s the only one who can do chest cases, the scene I’m getting to, and the end where Trapper and Henry sum him up.
As much as Trapper is “let’s get drunk to deal, okay?” kind of comfort in comparison to BJ who can actually talk about emotions, if not necessarily knowing the best way to deal with them (Hawkeye has a type and it’s repressed blondes), he’s soft with Hawkeye – gentle touches, firmly telling him to go to sleep, indulging that chopper noise is just thunder – until he figures the best way to get his friend to rest is to sedate him behind his back.
The thing with Trapper is that while he might be a bad husband, cheating on his wife with no shame (but he keeps bringing up that Hawkeye is more perverted so that might make it easier for him to deal with, see the couple of times he glares at Hawk for flirting with Henry/a male patient, Divided We Stand, The Trial Of Henry Blake, Check Up, Life With Father, Adam’s Ribs), he’s a good father who ran into a minefield for Kim and tried to go AWOL for Cathy and Becky. That’s not to say he always treats Hawkeye like a child, that would be weird considering how much flirting they do, but when the other man is manic or badly affected, Trapper’s first instinct is to be parental.
After Hawkeye in his doubletalky way admits to Radar he’s compulsive and psychotic (sidenote:  his symptoms of strong emotions, not being able to think clearly and too many spirals to name actually bear that diagnosis out, instead of just using the word when one thinks another is behaving badly), he wanders around the camp like a ghost, making notes about corpsmen with guns and nurses checking patients in post-op.
As Hawkeye often does, whenever he finds something out, or thinks he has in this instance, he has to tell his live-in boyfriend of the season immediately, and if he can’t sleep then neither can anyone else. He sits on Trapper’s bed, extremely close and not blinking, and jostles him awake. Already Trapper’s slightly panicky, as no matter what he says about being the mellow one, any time there’s shouting or loud noise in the swamp, he always wakes up with a start. Even when he sees it’s Hawkeye it takes him a few seconds to process and get back into his role.
Hawkeye’s very sad and very quiet. For the past seven minutes, even though he’s dissociated, exhausted and not doing well, he’s still trying to do his normal thing of turning his anger sideways and being snarky or being a clown bottom for the gaggle of nurses. Going back to one of Trapper’s good qualities is that he’s a decent parent, Hawkeye can regress emotionally into being like a ten year old (incidentally, the age when he had the most trauma pre-Korea, with Billy, his mom dying, guilt over not wanting dad to remarry and at some point losing his virginity), both for funny like in Picture This and for sadness.
So he’s finally noticed that he’s in a war zone and he’s too tired to make jokes about it or distract himself from it. Trapper already sounds frustrated but still listens, telling him to go bed before he drives himself crazy. There’s been a few takes that Trapper would get sick of later Hawkeye, and given how much they really can’t talk to each other that often, even just a mention of Hawkeye’s will when he has to go to the front makes Trapper shut down and Hawkeye cover with a joke, that’s probably true. They’re both messes, but for now Trapper can give Hawkeye someone to lean on.
“If I thought I could stop it just by going to sleep, don’t you think I would try?” Hawkeye does a twitch of the head, still unblinking, and that’s just really asking Trapper to understand and take him seriously. Also the wording, he’s not saying he can stop thinking about it just by going to sleep, or stop feeling anything just by closing his eyes, although both of those are implied. He makes it very clear later on (Letters, Preventive Medicine, Blood Brothers) that he feels like he’s as bad as the war – god and martyr complex combined – and if he can’t fight against/blame everything on that then it’s time for some self loathing.
Trapper does actually pay attention and gives him some advice. Definitely not great advice, but advice nonetheless, to close his eyes when things get unbearable, and to keep checking out when it keeps happening. This can’t work for Hawkeye, who’s had a guilt complex ever since he was a child, but it’s how Trapper copes. The next episode when Kim’s mother turns up for the boy, after a time of being actually open, he goes right to dismissive snark. Plus in season three’s Mad Dogs and Servicemen, another one on how differently Trapper and Hawkeye deal with things, he shrugs that he pretends he’s not there all day along.
Hawkeye’s stuttering a bit at this point. Words are important to him, it’s why you should probably leave him a note even if you’re a man who 1) wants to forget about Korea as soon as he arrives in Boston but won’t 2) wants desperately to believe he’s straight but isn’t 3) cares through physical touch and can’t think of what to say for seventy two hours. Wordplay is important to him too, and he admits to Sidney in the finale that his brain thinks too fast. Obviously exhaustion is going to put his brain and mouth out of sync, and considering how he sounds like he’s going to cry in the mess tent when he can’t even get words out to Frank Burns, it makes him all that more helpless.
“Somebody, and it wasn’t you or me, started this war.” It’s the “whoever the them, we were always us” of it all. It’ll be more important in the third season, and what happens in Welcome To Korea, but Hawkeye has taken it for granted that he and Trapper will stay co-dependent no matter what happens or who they come up against or how their time is running out. Much how he probably didn’t tell Trapper about the abandonment trauma he’s suffered before, Trapper always reassures him to come back soon, or no charge for leaning on him, or it isn’t a Christmas goodbye, and doesn’t want to share real feelings.
Beyond that scene, with Hawkeye dragging himself off to be a hero, assume that everyone who tries to take care of him really just wants to sleep with him, and cry while singing, Trapper tries to sedate him while he’s not looking. He’s tried being parental, he’s tried the repression advice, it’s time to be passive aggressive for Hawkeye’s own good. Or what he thinks is Hawkeye’s own good. It’s not especially great on Trapper’s part, but a similar thing happens reversed in Mail Call, where a drunk Trapper tries to go AWOL and as soon as he’s distracted laughing at Frank, Hawkeye locks his bag away so Trapper won’t be tempted again. Both of them are repressed messes who can’t really talk to each other.
When that sedation attempt ends up in Frank falling over, Trapper goes to Henry to be the worried macho boyfriend. Like with the only comedic dancing allowed and not the time in Officers Only when a genuine offer gets turned down, being protective over Hawkeye where he can hear can only happen when it’s for fun/likely no real danger.
At the end, Trapper and Henry sit by Hawkeye’s bed when he’s finally asleep and talk about him. Kindly, but they know he’s unstable with a hero complex. Like Mulcahy said in season eleven, the camp has a lot of experience with not dealing with reality, and even Trapper says in Iron Guts Kelly that one man’s reality is another man’s fantasy. Nobody has the capability to talk about this yet, and Sidney and Hawkeye only really become friends in O.R. Hawkeye will wake up and he and Trapper will pretend this never happened.
When Adam’s Ribs comes around, and Hawkeye has a manic episode over needing to eat something that isn’t liver or fish, Trapper and Henry are again the ones looking after him, comparing him to their kids and Trapper in the background both snarking over Hawkeye’s slippage in sanity and looking out for him. It’s not as quite high stakes as Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde, but they’re still worried about him.
To end this out, Trapper and Hawkeye and mental health is a fun thing to look at. Neither of them are particularly emotionally intelligent yet, Hawkeye just kind of a self absorbed mess and Trapper finding it easier to be a reassuring rock and keep his own struggling to himself, and they keep things from each other while also taking past each other, but they comfort each other with jokes and distractions that only they can understand. The repressed clowns are trying, even if it does all end with a borrowed kiss and only just barely missing each other.
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