#Danny with the worst voice crack: why are you DEAD

[little-pondhead]

[this is kind of a messy ramble, sorry about that]

Demon Twins AU, except Danny is loyal to the League.

The League of Assassins is a “cult” for a reason. They know what they’re doing. Ra’s has been around for a very long time; he’s seen every trick in the book and then some.

So when his daughter Talia gave him two, near-identical twin grandsons, he had already planned out their lives by the time the sun had set on their first day living. He knew the plans weren’t perfect. Nothing ever went exactly how he wanted it to. But that was the joy of being absolutely fucking ancient. Ra’s adapted better than anyone. If something went wrong, Ra’s will simply work around the issue and live to see another day.

So the boys were raised as he wished. Ruthless, with sharp blades and even sharper wit. They matched each other in every way, blow for blow. Neither won more than the other, and Ra’s encouraged the competition between the twins. Eventually, the battle for title of Heir came, and Damian won that particular match.

Danny was fine with this. Thrilled, even, for his brother to earn the title of Heir. The boys were very close, and worked well to take down targets twice their size. Ra’s approved this, and granted Danny title of Shadow. He was to be Damian’s eternal shadow, a guard. Both Talia and the boys were pleased with this.

But then came the time for the boys to learn how to live without each other. They’d gotten too used to someone guarding their back. Too complacent and too confident in their roles. Ra’s knew it would happen, and so sent Danny off at a very young age to live with some sleeper agents in America.

The Fentons.

Damian would stay here, with Talia, to learn how to be the perfect Heir. He needed to learn how to fight without the assistance of his brother.

Danny would go to Amity Park, and be fostered by the Fentons. He needed to put his skills to practical use and learn how to live without constant orders.

This was their Test.

Damian did quite well, for a while. Until Talia sent him off to his birth father, The Bat. Reports on his behavior declined in quality after that, and Ra’s couldn’t help but feel dissatisfaction with how the Heir had been corrupted.

Danny’s reports were always immaculate, however. His mask never slipped, and he’d worked himself into the hearts of the townspeople. The sleeper agents, Jack and Maddie, had a daughter who was quite enthusiastic about the properties of the mind, and accept Ra’s instructions to teach Danny with ease. It was the ideal situation.

In Ra’s eyes, Danny was thriving. Damian was not.

And then Ra’s died. The League was in shambles. Damian was at peace with his family, away from the cult he grew up in. He assumed Danny had defected years ago, since their mother stopped giving him reports about his twin.

Then Danny showed up at the Wayne’s doorstep, decked out in full League attire, angry and hostile.

“Tell me, dear brother,” he spat. “Why did you not inform me that Grandfather had died? I had to find out through his spirit when it came to visit from the afterlife!”

Damian didn’t know what to say.

#DPxDC #pondhead blurbs #just #Danny and Damian grew up in a CULT #cults have a reputation for a reason #Danny had no reason to even think about defecting throughout his entire childhood #if being loyal to his grandfather was an issue clockwork would have told him #Dan would have told him #the Fentons are part of a league faction operating out of the US #even Jazz is loyal to them and started viewing Ra’s as a grandfather figure the few times he came to visit #Danny LOVES his assassin grandpa and nobody in amity blinks an eye at him #Ra’s does know about the Fenton portal and phantom #because why wouldn’t Danny tell him? #Ra’s dies and his spirit immediately heads over to where he knows the portal is so he can get some help #ghost Ra’s: my grandson. it’s been too long. #Danny with the worst voice crack: why are you DEAD #Talia is still in hiding #or doing whatever she’s supposed to be doing idk #Danny shows up to ream Damian out and yell at him for his disloyalty #everyone is extremely worried about what Danny will do because he is very obviously still in deep with the league #he doesn’t like the talk about being ‘free’ because he was always free. tf you talking about Grayson. #also Damian doesn’t know about the full properties of the Lazarus pits or ectoplasm. he’s the Heir not the Head. that’s private stuff #Ra’s is a smug bastard using his grandson as a way to get revenge on the living #Danny is HIS shadow now. #I must stress Danny is pretty much the same as canon but literally just loyal to his grandpa Ra’s #maybe Ra’s meets clockwork? Ra’s x Clockwork? #their ship name is Sun Dial now I’ve decreed it

[coldbronzemoon]

Danny Fenton, Totally Mortal Hero Consultant (DPxDC)

Snippet for an AU I'll probably never fully write where Danny takes a job as a consultant for the Justice League to help with ghost and demon bullshit. It's a pretty good cash flow to help him with college, after all, and very flexible hours.

He just claims all his knowledge comes from his parents. Unfortunately, the JL has caught word of the elusive yet active hero Phantom, and want Danny to help them meet and assess him. Whoops.

Over the phone, Tucker sighed. “Good Christ, Danny, why do you keep doing this?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Danny said immediately. He winced at the vague sound of screaming below. Demons sucked. “I didn’t know the JL thing was gonna have me finding Phantom. How would I? They were talking about tracking down powerful ghosts, I was assuming Ancients!”

Tucker sighed again, which was really quite unfair of him. “Mhm. Well, Fenton Catcher?”

“Probably not. They know me pretty well at this point, and unlike what Sam says I can be professional. I’d confuse them with the… uh…”

“Stoner shtick?”

There was more screaming happening, but judging from the pitch it was a demon screaming this time. Danny checked the situation. Yep, demon getting their ass kicked. He didn’t need to get involved with a blaster. Yet.

Instead, he scowled at his phone. “Stop calling it that.”

“You’re gonna tell me flanny Danny wasn’t a pitch-perfect stoner, huh? With the chill vibing and the dopey look?”

“I hate you.”

“Love you too, bud.” 

The sound of a clacking keyboard that had underlined their conversation stopped. “But seriously, Danny, what the hell are you gonna do with this?”

“Uh, lie, probably,” Danny said, because it was very likely.

“Alright, smartass, what are you going to do when that lie backfires on you like literally every other one does?”

“That’s when I start gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing, babe.”

He had a hard time hearing Tucker’s distant groan of “Why am I still your friend?” on account of the sudden explosion. Danny checked again. Hm. Demon dude had a nasty fire thing going on.

Danny switched on his Fenton water gun—holy water included!-- and shot the demon in the face. They let out a cracking hiss of rage, but dropped the fire spell thing. He waited for them to stop looking around wildly for the culprit for a moment. 

He went back to the call. “‘Cause you loooove me, Tuck. From the bottom of your twice-dead heart.”

“Unfortunately,” Tucker deadpanned.

Danny just cackled. It was lost amongst the sound of supernatural bullshit below.

“Anyway, I’m still figuring out my plan A, honestly. Might bring in gray-man?”

“Amorpho’s an asshole, though. He’ll ruin the whole thing by taking the opportunity to shift into a JL member for a bit.”

Hm. True.

“Yeah, but he’s the main guy I know with that power set.”

“Ask after Desiree?” He could hear the immediate distaste in Tucker’s voice. “Ugh, pretend I didn’t say that. That’s worse than Amorpho.”

“It’s awful,” Danny agreed easily. 

Desiree was actually pretty alright nowadays, mostly on account of Danny remembering the last couple minutes of Aladdin and wishing she could refuse wishes she didn’t want to grant. That had made her happy enough to stop actively picking fights. 

Unfortunately, spending the entirety of one’s afterlife twisting the wording of wishes to their worst form made it hard to stop being an asshole. Who knew! So getting Desiree to split him in two for like a week had a 50/50 chance of fucking up his work relationship with the literal league of superheroes irrevocably. And this was his main cash flow right now.

So, no Desiree, no siree.

“Come up with something better then, asshole.”

Danny hummed and, since the heroes below were focused on the demon, lifted up a little and did a thoughtful back flip. What to do, what to do…?

Oh!

“My cousin!” he exclaimed.

“What cous—? Oh, Ellie.”

“Yeah, Ellie, Tuck. Which other cousins do I have?”

Tucker scoffed. “You literally have that whole Nightingale thing going on through your dad?”

Danny couldn’t help the face he made. The remaining Nightingales were worse than his parents somehow. “The Nightingales don’t count.”

“You can’t just say they don’t count.”

“I can say that, actually, and I will. They’re, like, cousins through my great-great-great-grandpa anyway.”

“Isn’t there a fight going on over there? Should you be shooting someone?”

 “Yeah, probably.”

He peaked down through the window once more. The heroes must have gotten the first demon to leave while he was talking, because the horned demon fighting them now was a truly unfortunate shade of yellow-green instead of purple. Or maybe it had transformed for some reason? They had it about as in-hand as the other one, though, so Danny definitely didn’t need to go down there. He shot the maybe-new demon in the face real quick.

“Anyway, Ellie can totally help out, she’s been practicing with changing up her looks. She’s also more, uh, malleable than me, what with her situation and all. Looking fully like Phantom shouldn’t be hard.”

Tucker hummed. “She’d try to embarrass you though.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem.” Danny spun in place. “I could bribe her?”

“With what? Her life doesn’t involve needing much cash.”

“She doesn’t get out to the Zone very much. Not many of the inhabited places, anyway. I can promise her the weird apple things Dora’s been growing with Sam’s help, she loved those.”

“If you think that’ll work…” Tucker trailed off dubiously.

Danny laughed. “She’s annoying sometimes, but she’s not gonna fuck over my job if I ask her not to. I’ll just bribe her extra hard for resisting the temptation to mock me.”

“Fair enough.” The clacking of keys resumed. “I’ve really gotta pay attention now, someone’s trying to stop me from getting into this database. Someone half-decent, actually, did they upgrade? Hm. Make sure no one died, yeah?”

“They’re alive. Bye, Tuck,” Danny said, and ended the call.

He shoved his phone back into his jacket pocket and made his way down the stairs. The fight outside he had been stationed for was basically over—Captain Marvel and Green Lantern (Danny was pretty sure he had accidentally learned the dude’s actual name at some point, but hell if he could remember)—had pulled out the magic restraints one of the other consultants had handed out.

That had probably been Constantine. Ugh. Constantine. Dude could stand to lighten up a little; skulking and smoking all the time wasn’t the base state of someone enjoyable to be around. Then again, Danny knew he annoyed the shit out of some of the league with his own attitude, so he maybe shouldn’t talk. But at least he was annoying with a smile!

Case in point: Danny grinned at the heroes. “Got it handled?”

“Suppose so,” said the Green Lantern, “though a little more help would have been nice.”

Captain Marvel was too busy getting in a minor tussle with the demon to say anything either way.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m like, pretty mortal,” Danny said. “I’m not fucking with demons right where they can hit me. And I did shoot him!”

Green Lantern rolled his eyes, but admitted the point. Danny cheerfully flipped him off anyway.

“I’ll be heading out, then, the hellmouth this guy crawled out of is like three miles away.” Captain Marvel said, hauling the handcuffed demon over his shoulders like a very angry backpack.

“Oh, one more for the road!” 

Danny hit the demon with a final water gun shot. Hissing and scrunching their face like a cat, the demon tried to lunge at him. It wasn’t very successful. Weirdly non-verbal for a demon, who usually had to talk to make deals and steal mortal souls, but Danny wouldn’t judge. Might be a minor demon. A really basic imp? Who knew.

“Stop being a little bitch and you won’t get spray-bottled, asshole,” Danny chided.

With a loud laugh, Captain Marvel sped away.

#dp fanfic #dp fic #dp x dc #dp x dc fic #dp x dc fanfic #dp x dc crossover #if anyone wants to use this idea feel free lol #my writing

[britcision]

Happy WIP Wednesday friends! Not a huge deal for you today, but I figured I’d drop the Flashback and give you the last piece in the “Bruce Puts His Head In His Butt” for the night!

(Bruce is tranq’ed by Alfred minutes after the call ends and is put to bed. In my heart. He might actually walk himself up but we all know it’s Alfred’s glare that makes it happen)

Just a taste of chapter 14 of Dead and Loving It, you can find the fic on AO3 or from my pinned post which is the latest chapter, but links to the first and all subsequent chapters are in each post!

———————

A Good Excuse To Be A Bad Influence

Jason was actually on his way to bed on time for once in his life, the early end to patrol and lack of crime lord duties giving him a chance to get a full five hours sleep.

He should have known he wouldn’t get lucky two nights in a row; Constantine wasn’t around to distract Bruce anymore.

He’d contemplated not answering. Contemplated trying not to shoot Bruce in half an hour if the fucker showed up at his window.

The pit growled.

It was the worst thing he’d ever heard. The worst thing he’d ever felt. And he did feel it, vibrating in his very bones.

It sent shivers creeping up and down, muscles tensing as if to run away from something inside him.

He answered the call, hoping it wouldn’t show in his voice.

“What.” Flat, unfriendly. Not encouraging conversation.

“You didn’t come to the cave.” B’s voice was equally flat, but in his case it sounded like a condemnation. An accusation.

Jason gritted his teeth.

“I have shit to do in the morning. Make it quick,” he snapped, giving his bed a glare it definitely didn’t deserve.

His pillows had never done anything to hurt him.

There was a momentary pause before B audibly decided not to push it.

Good.

Jason was in a mood to bite.

“We have intel on the Infinite Realms. I’ve sent the report. You need to stay away from Danny Fenton, for your health,” B said, still cold, still clinical.

Like he didn’t care. Like what Jason wanted didn’t matter.

Jason’s grip tightened and the phone case cracked.

“Yeah, no. Fuck off.” He spat the words, adding “get new phone” to his list of chores for the morning.

He’d been doing so well with this one. Of course Bruce had to ruin it.

At least the old man didn’t seem surprised by his reaction.

“Jason. It… he. His abilities may affect your condition,” he said slowly, sounding tired. Old.

The pit snarled, sensing weakness, and Jason kinda wished he was still lost in its rage. Back when he was, it was easy just to hate those moments.

B showing signs of humanity fucking hurt.

“He is. He’s making it better,” he shot back, brooking no argument.

“We don’t know that, Jason. Please, just… just for a few days. Until we can talk to the League, understand what he’s doing to you.”

Was.

Was that Bruce begging?

It froze something small and soft in Jason’s chest, stuck him in place. And did nothing to stop the flood of icy rage from filling him up.

Filling his chest, crushing his lungs, making it hard to breathe. Because of course, anyone and everyone else’s judgement was worth more to the man than Jason’s.

Begging Jason to listen to him, when he would never, ever, fucking ever listen to Jason. When it didn’t fucking matter if Jason begged.

“And why the fuck would the League know better than a doctor from the Realms?” He finally snapped, ignoring the way his throat tightened.

There was a long silence.

“A doctor?” Bruce asked softly, his voice still so flat and emotionless that only his kids could have read the confusion. Jason rolled his eyes.

“Danny brought me to a doctor. I’m gonna be fine,” he ground out reluctantly, part of him resenting Bruce’s constant insistence on knowing everything.

But… well. If it got the guy off his fucking back.

There was a long silence, one that Jason was fully aware B was likely spending working this new information into his latest paranoid fantasy.

Jason seriously considered just hanging up and going to bed. He was about to do it when Bruce spoke again.

“Would this doctor be willing to speak to the League?” And there it was again, Batman voice, clinical and distant and always, always fucking suspicious.

Jason rolled his eyes harder. With emphasis. Willing to be interrogated by first the Justice League and then separately also goddamn Batman.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure B wouldn’t get anywhere with Frostbite. Frostbite took his work seriously and was, yeah, king of a full realm of yetis.

None of Bruce’s pointed silences, menacing looming, or vague growls would bug the guy who got Danny through Fucked Up Ghost Puberty.

(And would probably be helping Jason through his own Fucked Up Ghost Puberty… joy of joys.)

It might actually be fun to see him try. If just being here wouldn’t put Frostbite in danger, because hell fucking no that wasn’t happening. The guy may not be his king but Jason would still die first.

But of course, in all his paranoid bullshit about the Realms influencing Gotham, B had somehow conveniently missed what America was doing to the Realms.

Like Jason hadn’t even done the full write up.

“Not while the fucking League are required to hand him right to the US government for torture and experimentation. Which, by the way, did you read my report on the Anti Ecto Acts?” Jason asked sarcastically, doing his very worst fake concern.

And again he was met with silence. Fuck, maybe Bruce hadn’t read it. Jason had dropped it in the day before all this gala bullshit had started, and it had been a busy two days since.

Maybe B deadass hadn’t put the pieces together. Might as well hammer it home for him.

“You know, the one that says you, me, Cass, and Damian are all non-sentient because we’ve been exposed to the pits?” Jason added, eyes narrowing.

Which wasn’t technically true, since it was the resulting liminality and ability to process ectoplasm that made them count, but Bruce didn’t need to know that yet.

Finally he spoke again, voice gruff and clipped.

“I’m looking into it. But for now, Jason, please-” he said again, the cover of Batman beginning to slip.

But Jason was done. No fucking chance Bruce was giving him orders when he hadn’t even bothered asking for Jason’s opinion.

He wanted to spout off about dangers of the Infinite Realms after talking to some wet paper bag of a man who hawked his soul like it was a pokemon card. Hard pass.

And even after hearing that Jason knew what was going on a damn sight better than Bruce did, he still wanted to push him around?

Fuck that.

“Sorry B, legally non-sentient, guess I can’t be blamed for my actions,” he drawled, then turned his phone off and dropped into bed.

He had a lot of shit to do before picking Danny up in the morning.

——————-

Jason will be using “legally non-sentient” as an excuse long after the laws themselves are repealed, and just you fucking wait until Damian hears he can try it too 😏

Sorry Bruce, Damian can’t socialize today, he’s legally non-sentient and can’t be blamed if he bites someone

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778

#danny fenton dead and loving it #dp x dc #wip wednesday #chapter 14 for sure this time #probably #tentative title: a good excuse to be a bad influence #just a lil snack of angst from jason and bruce #the thing about requests is that sometimes the answer is ‘no’ #and you have to just accept that #bruce may have forgotten harley is still in town but I HAVE NOT 😈😈😈 #harley ain’t vlad we remember she exists

[blackacre13]

Can you please make the next Amnesia story been really head over heals with that,, and I like how I makes me feel things.

Here’s part 4: And here's part 5!

And while Lou was speaking honestly, not wanting to upset Debbie or any of their found family group of criminal adult children, a poisonous thought was seeping into her brain as well. The doctor had explained that it was possible Debbie just assumed she had woken up on a certain timeline. In a specific year. So it would make sense that in that year, Danny was alive and kicking and she was friends with Tammy. She just hadn’t met Lou yet, so she couldn’t know her. But it was also possible that Debbie’s brain was being selective. With no rhyme or reason. That she was remembering people that were easy to remember. That made her feel safe. A gut reaction of sorts.

And what if, Constance came by to show Debbie a magic trick and Debbie told her she’d missed her and asked how many YouTube subscribers she had? Or she asked Nine to work some hacker magic with her hospital records or the tv.

What if she remembered each of the girls after all? Claude. The Met. Jail. The day before the accident.

But not Lou at all.

“I don’t know what to do here,” Lou laughed, shaking her head. Tears had been falling freely for what felt like hours now. She had never felt more alone in her life and the only person she wanted to talk to was Debbie. The only person who could have made her feel better was Debbie. Only Debbie understood. Only Debbie could soothe her. But the knife in the gut was that Debbie didn’t even know she had that power over her right now. Didn’t even know who the hell she was.

“She would know what to do,” Lou nodded, sinking down on the cold bench, smiling at the irony, a sick feeling twisting in her stomach. “She would know exactly what to do. She always has a plan. No matter what. Fuck the doctors. Fuck the prognosis. She would just know.”

“I don’t know why I’m looking at you waiting for answers,” the blonde finally sighed. Maybe she was going insane. She’d never felt this out of control before. Not since being sober. And then, she’d had Debbie has her anchor through it all, holding her cemented to the earth, making sure she was steady. Making sure she was okay. Now it was just Lou.

“I’m acting like she’s dead,” Lou whispered. “She’s not dead. Not even dead to me. God, she’s more than alive. It’s the cruelest punishment. I should’ve been the one who got hurt. Not her. And even if she’s okay…even if she’s fine…I lost her. She’s here but she’s not here. She’s gone. She gets to get up and walk away, and what? I stay here. My life stops? She’s my—Fuck, she’s the only reason I’m still here. And it’s like I’m a ghost trailing around trying to get people to realize that I’m still here. That I can see them! That I’m a part of their lives. Fuck!”

“I’m sorry,” Lou whimpered, wiping at her nose with her sleeve. “I shouldn’t crack jokes about being a ghost, should I. They have good martinis up there? Play a lot of poker? Bet you’re schooling those other guys. I just—Danny, what the Fuck do I do now? You know I can’t lose her. She’s my—my everything.”

“And I’m making this all about me,” Lou coughed. “That’s not even the worst of it, you know. She remembers you, Danny. She asked for you. And that’s fine. That’s—whatever. I’m not jealous or upset about that, but I just—how the hell am I supposed to tell her that you’re not here? That you can’t come see her? That you’re gone from all of us? I can’t—I can’t do that to her again. She can’t lose you all over again. She’s already mourned you. She still does to this day. You know that. She’s here with bagels every week talking to you,” Lou smiled sadly. “She can’t lose you again, Danny. And I hate that I’m upset that she doesn’t even realize she’s lost me. She doesn’t even know me. She doesn’t know what I’m missing. What she’s missing.”

“Is this some kind of a sick joke?” Lou screamed, her voice echoing through the marble room as the wind howled.

“Are you done?”

“Jesus, Fuck!” Lou cursed, almost falling off the bench.

“What gives, Miller? Looks like you just saw a ghost.”

“Shut up.”   

“You thought I was Danny’s ghost, didn’t you?”

“Rusty, I swear…”

“Tammy called me,” he sighed, sitting down next to the blonde, pulling her head onto his shoulder as she accepted stiffly, the two of them sitting in silence for a moment before she fell against his lap, breaking into sobs. “If anyone knows how to mourn an Ocean,” he started, looking up at the name etched in marble before his head sunk, rubbing Lou’s back soothingly as he shook his head. “You two have been through so much shit. This is the last thing either of you needed. You have no idea how sorry I am, Lou.”

“What do I do?” Lou sniffed, playing with the wedding set on her finger. “What if after all this time, and all that we’ve fixed and survived, I’m out of the picture. What if I have to let her go?”

#queue #blackacre13 #ocean's eight #oceans eight #ocean's 8 #oceans 8 #lou miller #Debbie ocean #Danny ocean #tammy #rusty ryan #ocean's eight fanfic #ocean's eight fanfiction #ocean's 8 fanfic #ocean's 8 fanfiction #o8 fanfic #o8 fanfiction #Lou Miller x Debbie ocean #Debbie Ocean x lou miller #amnesia au #amnesia #lou x debbie #Debbie x lou #lou and debbie #Debbie and lou #lou and deb #deb and lou #lou x deb #deb x lou #heist girlfriends

[theoriginaltortuga]

Hope at the End of the World (Part 1)

A/N: A slight speculation of how the Worst Timeline could come about and be fixed. Does it make sense? No. Is it very self indulgent? Extremely. 

In terms of “Worst” everyone who can be dead is dead, except Tom and Danni, no weapons were collected, and everything is awful.

Pairings: Connor x M!Devon

Many Mentions of Blood and Death below the cut

Devon had chosen to stay behind when Noah and Danni had taken off to help Rowan and the others with…something. He hadn’t slept in three days and his brain was like a sieve. It explained why he wasn’t on guard. He should have been on guard. Be aware of your surroundings was Monster Hunter 101, but it was his home. 

His knees cracked on the floor next to Connor’s body. Blood flowed freely from Connor’s chest. Don’t pull the knife out, they both knew that. It must have been instinct. Just like stabbing someone trying to bash his skull in was instinct.

Devon dragged Connor’s shoulders up to rest his head in his lap. His skin was still chalky pale and his eyes were still glowing blue, instead of the stormy gray Devon woke up to each morning. 

“I’m s-sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” Devon gasped through tremors. He was shaking so hard, he might just disintegrate into nothing. Why hadn’t he listened? Every time Connor had asked to leave and move on with Devon, to start a family somewhere far away, Devon had brushed him off again and again. 

He’d thought he and Connor would have all the time in the world to have their happy ending. A house, a dog, a wedding, a few kids. But now Connor was dead and all of that chance and possibility for the future was dead along with him.

Devon’s back ached as he curled over Connor. There were probably bruises along his spine. He could feel hand-shaped ones on his upper arms beginning to form. He should have let Connor kill him. He should have. What was the point of living without him? Devon had spent five years working tirelessly to bring back Noah. Outside of Connor and the Power, Devon had nothing.

He carded his fingers through gorgeous golden hair, sticky with blood and sweat. The front door slammed open. Had they won? He almost hoped they hadn’t, if they had…

Rowan stood in the doorway, their bright red hair plastered to their head and their black clothes damp and clinging. No one appeared behind them as they stumbled over to Devon. They took in Connor’s corpse with wild eyes. Selfishly, Devon wanted to tell them to fuck off and keep their eyes to themself.

“We lost,” He said instead.

Rowan nodded.

“Noah?”

“Dead.” Their voice was little more than a strangled whisper.

Devon couldn’t summon the strength to feel anything other than a slight pang of sadness. 

“Dead. Everyone’s dead. Jocelyn, Lincoln, Abel—Lia. They’re all dead.” Rowan broke into sobs.

Devon knew he should say something, anything, but he didn’t know what. Everyone was gone. What could he say about that?

They sat in relative silence. Him cradling Connor, while Rowan wailed beside him. It was strange to witness someone break down so completely. It was strange how he felt nothing for their pain. As their tears slowed and the wails turned to whimpers, Devon closed Connor’s eyes and kissed his lips for the last time. 

Devon straightened, ignoring the pain blooming where his skull had connected with a counter and watched Rowan swipe at their face. “So, the bad guys won?”

“No.” They said firmly. “We didn’t win, but I made sure as hell they didn’t either.”

Devon suddenly realized it wasn’t rain soaking Rowan’s clothes. 

“But there’s still a problem. Loha’s gone, Matthias tried to use me as the Anchor, then Noah when I escaped. Obviously, neither worked.”

“So, there isn’t an anchor?”

“Not yet.” Rowan’s face was tear stained and blank, they looked nothing like the argumentative bastard Devon had come to know. “I’ll take Loha’s place. Power returning to Power. I just need you to kill me.”

Devon sighed. Was it too much to ask that everything stop for like five minutes? “Does it need to be in the caves?”

“Yes.” Rowan paused, and Devon could practically see wheels turning in their head. “...but maybe there’s something we can do first.”

#ilw #it lives within #ilw mc #ilitw mc #turtle writes

[iceeckos12]

time travel snippet

little time travel au oneshot. season 5 jon travels back in time to season 1. from the perspectives of tim, martin, and sasha. 3.5k.

i dont think i need to tag anything, but please let me know otherwise.

Tim wakes up that morning, and it’s just like any other day.

Well—no, okay, that’s a bit misleading. Today is his first day working as an archival assistant, so he’s one part nervous, one part that breathless, exhilarated feeling you only get when you’re about to do something unfamiliar that may or may not redefine your life for the foreseeable future. When he says “it’s just like any other day”, he means that he wakes up, and he’s a normal person doing normal people things like eating a healthy breakfast and going to work.

(So, no. In short, he doesn’t realize that today is the day when It happens, that big, life-changing event that you think will Never Happen To You.)

He gets out of bed, stumbles into the bathroom. Washes his face of whatever residue that’d built up during the night, tries to scrape away the evidence of his nightmares, smiles big and bright at the mirror to see how successful his efforts were. He’s betrayed by the traitorous bags beneath his eyes, but that’s okay. Sasha taught him how to wield concealer as a shield whenever his past wore down his armor.

He shoots twin finger guns into his reflection, making soft pew, pew! noises that are almost too-loud in the hush of the bathroom. Then he turns on his heel and walks away, sauntering and humming along with the chorus of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5.

He gets to the Institute twenty minutes before he’s supposed to—not because he’s trying to impress his boss or whatever (he and Jon have known each other long enough that there’s no point). It’s just, Jon will probably want to make some sort of game-plan before the actual workday starts. 

The poor man had been relieved to an almost comical degree when Tim had said yes, I’ll come with you to the Archives. It’s painfully obvious how out-of-his-depth Jon is with the whole “Head Archivist” thing. Tim’s honestly baffled as to why Elias had singled him out for the position in the first place, considering his lack of qualifications.

But, whatever. It’s fine! Tim and Sasha will be there to help him—although the third assistant is a bit of a problem, considering that they know absolutely nothing about him. There’s no guarantee that this Martin Blackwood won’t report inadequacies or mistakes back to Elias. If that’s the case, Tim and Sasha will have to be Jon’s safety net, which is partially why Tim is hoping to talk to Jon before anyone else gets there.

He also wants to talk to Jon because he just knows the man is probably working himself up over all of this. Maybe reassurances won’t do away with the source of anxiety entirely, but at least it’ll remind Jon that he’s not alone, and that he can count on Tim and Sasha.

As expected, when Tim gets there he can see a sliver of light pouring out from the cracked door of the Head Archivist’s office. He selects a desk and sets his bag on top of it, noting a set of strange gouges in the fake wood with a raised eyebrow, and then an internal shrug. The Institute issued laptop is near the far edge of his desk, and his collection of pictures are strategically placed so that he can see them all clearly.

His eyes linger over the image of him, his mother, and his brother. Their smiles are almost perfect replicas of each other, like someone took a mold of one of their faces and recreated it twice over.

Briefly, he closes his eyes. Then he shakes himself, releases a slow, steadying breath, and goes to check on Jon.

Tim’s not sure what he’s expecting to see when he goes into Jon’s office.

(That’s misleading too, though. He’s not sure if Jon will be visibly calm or upset, if he’ll be on his laptop, if he’ll be picking at the skin around his fingernails, as he so often does when he’s stressed. He is expecting Jon as he is and always has been—a twenty-some year old going on sixty, who wraps his gruff, grumpy demeanor about himself to protect the soft, vulnerable core he likes to pretend doesn’t exist.)

He comes up to the door, and the soft rectangle of light that emanates from beneath the door paints the tips of his shoes gold. “Jon?” he calls softly, rapping his knuckles against the frame. There’s a soft rustling noise—papers maybe? but no audible response, so he shrugs and pushes the door open. “I’m coming in.”

Tim steps inside, a quip instinctively readying itself on his tongue—but then his gaze lands on Jon, and he freezes dead in his tracks.

Even years later, he still vividly, viscerally remembers the moment he saw Danny standing on the stage underneath the Royal Opera House, the way he’d looked...not quite right. The wrongness had been subtle, so much so that it had been unnoticeable upon first glance, upon second glance. The longer Tim had looked though, the more obvious it had become, exposing all the little faults in that almost-perfect recreation of his brother.

Looking at Jon now, it’s the first and only thing he can think of. Because—yes, there’s the long, silver-streaked black hair, there’s the rich brown eyes, there’s the pair of spectacles that make him look far older than he actually is. But that’s where the similarities between the Jon he knows and this Jon end.

Jon’s always been a small man, but his feigned haughtiness makes him seem much bigger than he actually is. Except—except this Jon looks smaller somehow, his shoulders curved protectively inward, like he’s trying to present less of a target. And there’s something about his face, too—his expression is too sharp, too much—

But the worst of it is his eyes. There’s something very wrong with his eyes.

Who the fuck are you, and what have you done with Jon? He doesn’t say it out loud though, just keeps staring at Jon, a heady mix of terror and horror making any sort of reaction impossible.

After a moment Jon’s lips thin, contorted by some distant cousin of displeasure, and he rises to his feet. Tim stumbles instinctively backward, his breath escaping him in a sharp gasp that’s immediately swallowed up by the apathetic stacks of books and papers surrounding them. He’s struck by the fact that if he dies here, it’s unlikely anyone will notice; he’ll become just another set of marks gouged into the desk, willed away with an uneasy shrug.

Jon freezes, lips parting subtly, as though he were about to speak. Tim feels his breath catch in his chest, unable to shake himself out of the clouded stupor his mind has fallen into.

In the end, Jon says nothing. Just releases a long, slow breath of air and sits back down, pushing his chair close to his desk. The motion looks heavy, tired, as though it takes far more energy than it should.

“You—you should go,” Jon rasps, and there’s something off about his voice too, though Tim can’t put his finger on why. He can’t cobble together enough of a train of thought to make sense of any of this, all he can think of is that clown ripping Danny apart—

He stumbles out of Jon’s office, sits down at his desk. Stares down at the cheap, fake wood, at the gouges that have marred the otherwise pristine surface. Puts his head in his hands, and tries to will his heart to stop pounding in his chest.

-0-

Martin’s heard things about Jonathan Sims.

He’s not usually the type to pay attention or encourage gossip, as the vivid memories of his classmates tittering cruelly whenever he walked by still leaves a sour taste in his mouth.The problem with the Institute is that the employees get bored pretty easily. Though most would consider academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal to be fairly interesting, it’s still academic research. And the subject content can get to be a bit...repetitive. There’s only so many gruesome statements you can read without thinking, oh great, more meat.

So the employees gossip a lot, and while Martin usually tries to keep his head down and avoid it, it’s difficult not to overhear some things. And from what little he’s heard, he’s...a bit concerned. Rude and unsociable has frequently been mentioned, as have arrogant and unnecessarily finicky, and worst of all, a bit of a stuck-up know-it-all.

Normally he tries not to put too much stock in office gossip—he’s well aware that the grapevine tends to exaggerate one’s most undesirable traits—but if any of it is true, then he might just be in trouble. It was hard enough being a library employee when his boss wasn’t even paying attention most of the time. If Jon is as exacting as they say, it might be enough to expose the fact that Martin has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. And if that happens, then he might get fired, and he can’t get fired, he needs this job, he can barely keep up with his mum’s medical bills as it is—

Calm down, Martin tells himself firmly, pressing his hand against his sternum, as though that will be enough to quell the rising panic. It’s only your first day. Maybe he’s nice, and we’ll actually be good friends.

(With his luck? Yeah, right.)

The Institute looms in the distance, growing closer with every terrified, grudging footstep. A shiver runs up his spine at the sight of its imposing presence, a dark, ugly blot of a building against the backdrop of the iron grey clouds.

If there’s one thing he’s good at though, it’s keeping his head down and muddling through until he’s able to figure out what is actually expected of him. He can twist and fold himself into whatever role they need him to fill, as he has done so many times in the past. Not easily perhaps, but he has always managed. The alternative is untenable, after all.

So he takes a deep breath, and shoves his panic down as deep as possible. Lifts his head and forces a smile onto his face, like a good attitude will be enough to protect him from his boss’s wrath.

He could really do with a cup of tea.

Martin trudges down the stairs, giving the blank walls, the old-fashioned carpet, a dubious look as he does. The Archives themselves are as he remembers it—he’s been down here a couple of times when Gertrude made a request for something specific, but—

He pauses when he notices a man sitting at one of the desks, his face buried in his hands. His shoulders aren’t shaking and his breathing is even, so Martin doesn’t think that he’s crying? He’s just….sitting there, his stillness so perfect it’s almost inhuman.

“Hello?” Martin calls softly, cautiously, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.

The man looks up, revealing a very handsome face and brown eyes so dark they may as well be black. His cheeks are dry but his eyes are bright and a little wild, and his mouth is pressed into a small, tight line. He doesn’t speak, just keeps watching, blinking dazedly in Martin’s direction. Martin gets the feeling that this person isn’t entirely there at the moment, like a house in which every room is lit, but there are no people inside.

He swallows and shifts nervously back and forth, trying to decide whether or not to call for some backup. Eventually he sets his bag on the floor and shuffles a bit closer. “Um—are you—is everything okay?”

The man blinks rapidly, some semblance of awareness creeping back into his gaze. He shakes his head slowly, pushes his short, gelled hair back from his head. His hands are trembling. “I’m...yeah, I’m fine. It’s—everything’s, it’s…”

But then his gaze lands on something over Martin’s shoulder, and all the color drains out of his face, his mouth shutting with a painful sounding click. Martin quickly spins around, searching for whatever could’ve scared him so much—

There’s someone standing in the doorway of Gertrude’s office.

There are so many things that one normally takes in upon first meeting another person: their hair, their skin color, all the little wrinkles and marks that give you the briefest insight into their life. Martin looks at posture first, tends to check if a person is intentionally looming, or if they’re making themself smaller.

But all Martin can see are the eyes.

There’s—two of them he thinks, but two is such an arbitrary number when the thing you’re applying it to doesn’t ascribe to human values (he’s not sure how he knows that—how does he know that—?). That horrible, terrible gaze is an unerring arrow, all-encompassing, all-consuming, piercing the deepest corners of his mind. It hurts in some distant, nebulous way he’s not even sure he comprehends—

Then he blinks, and the sheer terror, that feeling of the horrible, violating exposure of everything that he is, abruptly snuffs out. What’s left is just a person, wispy and small, his slight frame fairly drowning in a chunky, cable-knit jumper. He’s leaning against his doorframe, his eyes—two big brown ones, rich and unfathomably sad and more than that, human—drinking Martin in, his lips parted in a soundless gasp.

“Um—” Martin glances over his shoulder, and almost leaps out of his skin when a land falls heavily on his shoulder. The man who’d been sitting in the chair is standing just behind him, a strained but polite smile on his face.

“Hi Jon,” the man says, an undercurrent of a warning in his voice.

Martin glances between the two, his confusion growing with every passing moment. This is not what he was expecting when he first came into work today, and the uncertainty makes him feel strange and off-kilter.

The person in the door swallows once, twice, then straightens, one hand still gripping the doorframe like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. When he speaks, his voice is soft, tentative, a little ragged around the edges. “Tim. It’s, um...it’s good to see you.”

“Martin Blackwood, was it?” Tim continues, injecting a bit of cheer into his voice. It takes Martin a moment to realize that he’s being addressed, and he shoots Jon—this is Jonathan Sims?—an uncertain look before nodding slowly. “We’re happy to have you on the team.”

“O-Oh?” Martin squeaks, then grits his teeth and bodily forces his voice back into its normal range. “I’m—um, I’m happy to be here?”

“Good,” Tim says through a grin that looks more like a grimace, giving Martin’s shoulder a friendly pat. The look he shoots Jon is a dark, mistrustful thing. The look Jon gives him back is fragile, vulnerable, that winds the tension in Tim’s shoulders so tight it has to be painful.

Jon’s gaze flickers to Martin, just for a second—and then he disappears into his office, leaving the door cracked behind him.

Tim and Martin stand there for a second, staring at the door. Tim’s still tense as a bowstring, and his grip on Martin’s shoulder is almost uncomfortable. The air in the Archives feels stuffy and too warm, and there’s a strange prickling sensation on the back of Martin’s neck, like he’s being subjected to close scrutiny.

Then Tim sighs and lets go of Martin’s shoulder, a little of the tension bleeding out of him, and without it he looks small, deflated. He goes back to his desk and sits down, booting up his laptop without a word of explanation to Martin.

Martin stares at the back of Tim’s head for a moment, a number of questions clamoring around in his brain—what the fuck was that? What’s wrong with Jon? Why are you so obviously suspicious of him?—but the words won’t come. Breaking the silence feels...sacrilegious, somehow. Every breath of air sticks against the back of his throat.

In the end, he doesn’t say anything either, just sits at his desk and takes out his Institute-issued laptop. Stares blankly at the screen as the machine slowly, laboriously, comes to life.

-0-

Sasha’s not entirely sure how to interpret the tense atmosphere that has descended over the Archives.

The first day she’d arrived a couple of minutes before she was supposed to, prepared to follow Jon’s direction and help him adjust as best she could. (Her feelings about Jon’s promotion...didn’t matter. She didn’t like it, but it wasn’t his fault that Elias was an old-fashioned misogynist.)

But when she’d come down the stairs, Tim and the assistant she didn’t know, Martin, had been seated quietly at their desks. They’d both had the same distant, shell-shocked look on their faces, like they’d received some shattering, horrible news. Sasha had sent Tim a confused look, but he either hadn’t noticed it, or hadn’t wanted to explain.

She hadn’t even seen Jon that first day, just received a polite email asking her to start organizing the statements according to the system which he’d devised.

It’s been almost three days, and nothing has changed. Oh sure, they’ve all started organizing the statements as directed. Tim cracks jokes, Martin tiptoes around them and makes copious amounts of tea. That strange tension that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, like the world is holding its breath in anticipation, hasn’t faded though. And while she doesn’t know Martin all that well, she knows that something’s still up with Tim. He seems more subdued than usual, keeps sending uncomfortable looks in the direction of Jon’s office—

—which hasn’t been open since that first day. She hasn’t seen Jon at all either, no matter how early she arrives or how late she stays. The only proof she has that he’s still alive is the polite email she periodically receives, detailing some specific task that he wants for them to do.

Even then, his emails are...odd. She’s not sure how she can tell, but they feel...awkward? Stilted? Like he’s only half-aware of what he’s typing, or like he’s only asking them to do things because he feels like he should, not because he has any actual goal in mind.

Normally she’d be frustrated by this, would complain bitterly to Tim about Elias passing over her for someone who obviously doesn’t properly appreciate the position they’ve been given—except that she knows Jon. He’d made a point to explain the situation to her himself, an apologetic twist tucked into the corner of his mouth. More than that, he’d asked her to follow him to the archives, saying that he wanted the two people he trusted most, her and Tim, to come with him.

He respects her too much not to take this job seriously.

The strangeness of the archives is only emphasized by Jon’s complete and utter lack of presence within it, but she doesn’t—she doesn’t buy that. She doesn’t believe that he’d just suddenly decide not to do the job he’d been so anxious to excel at. 

More damning than anything is Tim’s complete, utter silence regarding Jon’s strange behavior, but whatever he knows about it, he isn’t saying anything. Martin is willing to talk, but he seems to be as lost as she is.

“I—that first day, Jon…” Martin shrugs, shooting a nervous glance toward the door leading to the archives. He’s been spending a lot of time hovering in the break room making tea, not that she can blame him. “He—I mean obviously I don’t know him very well, but he seemed...upset?”

“Upset,” Sasha repeats dubiously.

Martin lets out an exhausted sigh and turns away, waving a dismissive hand. “Look, I’m not entirely sure how to explain it. He just—okay, so, bear with me for a second, but he reminded me of this guy who used to live in my neighborhood.”

Sasha backs off, folding her arms and leaning against the counter. “Okay?”

“There was this little old couple that used to live in my neighborhood. They were—they were really sweet! The husband used to give candy to us younger kids. But um—sometimes you’d see him sitting in the rocking chair on his porch, and it was like...he wasn’t entirely there? Like, he’d just sit there for hours, rocking and staring at nothing. That’s—that’s what Jon’s expression reminded me of.”

Martin gets more animated the more he talks, Sasha notes; his hands move in broad, sweeping gestures, his expression twisting into an expression of extreme concentration. The moment he finishes he deflates again, tucking his hands into his armpits self-consciously, a hedgehog curling protectively in on itself.

“So, yeah,” he finishes eloquently.

“Huh,” Sasha says thoughtfully.

She gets back to her desk. Looks over at Tim, who’s studiously working through a box of statements, his mouth set in a neutral, concentrated frown. Takes a deep breath, letting the taste of dust and old papers sit heavy on her tongue.

Then she opens her laptop and starts looking through the catalog of cursed items that are currently being held in Artifact Storage.

(She doesn’t think that she’ll find anything, but—but just in case.)

-0-

They all get the call the next Monday morning: Elias Bouchard was found dead in his office.

#tma #iceeckos12 writes #my writing #just a little time travel au #probably wont continue this but i thought it was kinda fun

[doctenwho]

Alec’s Emergency Contact

Welcome back! I loved this prompt! It was so cute and I really got carried away writing! I believe I stuck to the main idea, but there’s a lot of fluff in here too, and Alec having a bit of personality because he’s with someone he loves (like with Daisy).

Hopefully I got his character right, since I’ve not posted anything Broadchurch yet, and sometimes it takes me a couple tries to get a character right. A couple small spoilers for season 1 along the way, but nothing too big, I don’t think. Anyways, I hope you like it as much as I liked writing it! 

Warnings: None, I don’t think.

Word Count: 3,722

Summary: Read the prompt :)

(Gif doesn’t belong to me, credit to creator!)

Alec Hardy did not remember a whole lot before he went down. He and Miller were chasing whomever had Danny Latimer’s cellphone, and then, well, he got a bit overexerted? Ran out of steam? Lost his footing?

Alright fine, he nearly died. He worked his heart too hard, and he collapsed on the job. Not only that, he collapsed in front of Miller. Damn Miller. How was he supposed to hide it from her now? He’d done so well at hiding his heart arrhythmia from everyone in Broadchurch, but now Ellie knows, and if Ellie knows, it won’t be long until everyone knows. Especially if it’s something regarding his wellbeing.

Bloody small towns. 

It wasn’t intentional, that much he knew. He really hadn’t been meaning to work himself to the bone just yet, not when there was still so much to be doing for the case. He’d be no use to the case if he were dead, and then no one would get justice and Danny’s killer would walk free, despite his unforgivable deed.

But he also couldn’t just stop because his heart decided it didn’t want to endure the difficulties of being a Detective Inspector. He had promises to keep, to the families of the victims, to the victims themselves—and to himself.

He’d told himself he’d get justice for Danny and his family if it was the last thing he did, which might just be what it comes down to. He’d told himself the same thing about the Sandbrook case, but he’d be damned if another case took a sour turn like Sandbrook had.  

He would get justice for these children. For the three misfortunate kids (and teenager), and the families to lose them far too soon. He owed them that much.

Hardy had blinked his eyes open, only to shut them just as fast. The light streamed into the room, bright and white, and almost blinding. He was reclined in the bed, covered by a blanket and propped up on a pillow or two.

He was no stranger to hospital rooms, in Sandbrook and in Broadchurch, and with this stupid heart arrhythmia, he was sure this wouldn’t be the last time either.

Even if he did try to stay out of stressful situations, and give his heart breaks, it was only getting worse. He’d need the peacemaker to really aid in his wellbeing. But he couldn’t commit to an operation when he was so close to cracking the Danny Latimer case and getting the boy the justice he deserved.  

The room was quiet, a soft beeping of a heart monitor announcing his heart beats, which had thankfully steadied. It wasn’t erratic, or beating out of his chest as it had been during the chase. Small victories he supposed.  

Hardy turned a bit onto his side to look around the room, studying the monitor and it’s reading, as well as the IV drip in his hand. He huffed a quiet breath at the medical equipment before turning on to his other side and almost dropping back onto his back in hazy surprise at hearing an irritated voice huff a rather annoyed, “well, look who’s back in the land of the living.” which was followed by his eyes landing on a very familiar, annoyed, face.

“(Y/N),” Hardy breathed out, trying to prop himself up on his elbows to get a better look at his boyfriend who should currently be home, hours away from Broadchurch, “what... what are you doing here? Why are you in Broadchurch?”

“Well,” you clicked your tongue, arms crossed across your chest, “as it turns out, when a loved one is literally dying, the hospital tends to contact your emergency contact.”

“I wasn’t dying,” Hardy tried to wave it off, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend. He couldn’t help the tug of guilt in his chest though, which in turn, made his heart skip a noticeable beat on the heart monitor. He glanced slowly at the machine, before looking back to his frustrated boyfriend.  

“No, you really were,” (Y/N) frowned, eyes locked on the machine to just give a warning beep, before you were casting your look back on your hospitalized boyfriend, “they told me you were dying.”

“They... they’re not allowed to tell you that.” Alec huffed, pulling himself up. You stood to adjust his pillows so he could sit up a bit more, and Alec didn’t seem bothered by you doing so.  

He wasn’t the fondest of being cared for, but honestly, you didn’t really care about that right now. Not when he looked so pitiful tucked away in a hospital bed after almost dying while chasing a supposed murderer.  

You’d heard the whole story form his new partner, who’d just stepped out to get the two of you coffee, just before Alec finally woke up.

You really needed the coffee since you’d driven almost all night to sit by Alec’s bedside until he woke up so you could scold him properly. 

Ellie clearly had the same idea, since she’d also been up all night with him, and it almost made you smile. Or, it would’ve if Alec hadn’t been in the Intensive Care Unit at your arrival.  

He’d been moved to a regular room shortly after when his heart steadied out, and you couldn’t be more thankful you could sit with him here. 

It was the worst feeling to have a loved one be so close to dying and not be able to see them—or hold their hand, which you hadn’t put down when you’d finally gotten a hold of. At least until Alec showed signs of waking, then you remembered you were cross with him.  

Ellie had been a lovely woman, charming and pleasant since you’d met her in the waiting room. You really weren’t sure how she had managed to put up with Alec, but then again, everyone always wondered how you could do the same thing. 

You’d heard bits and pieces of Ellie Miller from Alec over the phone, but you knew very little. He didn’t share every detail, but he was always happy to rant and grumble about things that annoyed him about people and work, and even Broadchurch as a whole.  

She was a good partner for him if she could manage to put up with him, and you’d expressed how thankful you were that she’d been there for Alec. You couldn’t even imagine if he’d had an arrhythmia when he was by himself.  

“They’re supposed to tell me everything that puts you in the hospital, Alec. Anytime you’re admitted, I should be the first person to know. Just like you’d like to know if I were admitted into the hospital, wouldn’t you?” Alec looked down to his lap, which was confirmation enough.

You rolled your eyes at the man in the bed, annoyed but fond all the same. You wanted to reach for his hand again, now that he was conscious and would squeeze your hand back like he always did, but you were still angry at him, “in fact, I’m a bit pissed off I wasn’t contacted when you fell in the restroom in your hotel room just after you got here. And even if they didn’t tell me, you should’ve rung me. You can’t keep these things a secret from me, not when it’s your health we’re talking about.”

“Hey, that one wasn’t my fault,” Alec frowned. “I was just as surprised as you were, I’m sure. It wasn’t a secret, I just... I don’t want to worry you.”

“I know,” you sighed, leaning back in the chair tiredly, “we’ll still talk about it later. And it’s my job to be worried about you. I only agreed to you coming here alone because you promised to look after yourself if I wasn’t here with you. I know how you feel about small towns and the gossip associated, but I’m not going to stand back and watch you work yourself into an early grave because you don’t want people talking about us.”

“It’s not that I don’t want them talking about us,” he stressed the word, “it’s that I don’t want you being hassled by newspapers for information about cases—and I certainly don’t want them focusing on us when there’s been a child murdered. Not everyone’ll be accepting of us—especially here with all the local chatter and that bloody Broadchurch Echo newspaper.”

He paused for a beat before lifting his attention and giving you a soft glare, “and I’ve been looking after myself,” Alec muttered, offended by the observation. “And if I haven’t, Millhur has been. She brings me tea, and... chips. I’m fine.”

“Of course,” you sniped, “it sure looks like you’ve been watching over yourself, Love.” You gestured easily along the length of Alec, curled up in a hospital bed. The man returned a look of irritation, but it didn’t bother you. “Honestly, you’d probably be far worse off if Ellie hadn’t been keeping an eye on you, which thankfully she has been watching out for your sorry arse.”

“Ellie,” the man wrinkled his nose, narrowing his eyes at your tense figure, “since when have you been buddy-buddy with Millhur?”

“Since the two of us sat up all night together waiting for a certain hospitalized spoon to come to.”

Once again Alec looked offended. Spoon wasn’t exactly an endearing nickname, but you were still upset with him. He was probably just upset that you finally met the Miller he talked almost fondly about, in his grouchy Alec way whenever the two of you spoke on the phone.  

You took a breath, exhaling slowly before launching yourself into another round of telling him off, which he clearly needed to hear, “I just can’t understand why you’d throw yourself into a situation you knew you were in no shape to be handling. Your heart is weak, Alec. You can’t be stressing, or overexerting yourself. You need to be careful, and chasing after a murder in the dead of night is certainly not careful.”

“I was doing my job,” Alec let his head fall back against the pillows propping him up. “I was doing what I’m getting paid to do. I’m doing what’s morally right for the families of the children who were murdered.”

“I know that,” you promised, “but, you’re not the only detective the world, Alec,” you tried to keep yourself from exclaiming, “you may be one of the best, but you’re not the only one. And you certainly won’t be any help when you’re six feet under because you ignored your own needs, and your body’s pleas for you to stop and take it easy for once!”

Alec’s lips curled up into a scowl, but he looked a bit more guilty that he really looked mad. You hated making him feel guilty for helping others, and being a truly amazing detective by bringing in bad guys, but you’d much rather this look guilty than, be attending his funeral because he ignored every word of advice ever given to him.  

It didn’t matter who said it, whether it be you, a doctor, a specialist, Daisy, or even his ex-wife, once he put his mind to something, there was nothing anyone could say to make him stop and reconsider. But you’d known that since way back when, when the two of you had started dating.

“You seriously almost died, Alec.” You sighed, looking down at the floor, “do you know how awful it is to get a call like that in the early hours of the morning? Someone phoning you to tell you that your boyfriend had been rushed to hospital after collapsing at work?”

“I know,” he whispered, reaching a hand out, barely hanging over the edge of the bed, “I know, Love, and I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to. But I couldn’t let him get away; I can’t do that to Danny. This case will not end the same way it did for Pippa and Lisa. I won’t let it—I can’t let it.”

You’d been following the case via news articles and police statements. You were proud of Alec for what he did for a living, despite fearing that it would eventually be the death of him. He really did so much for the victims and their families, more than anyone could know. He always worked so hard to bring in offenders, especially murderers.  

You also knew the details of the Sandbrook case—you knew everything because he’d told you. You probably knew more than most of the officers at Sandbrook, because you believed him wholeheartedly. He was a good, kindhearted man. Just a bit tough on the outside.  

“You can’t help anyone if you’re dead,” you reminded with a sigh, reaching across the gap between his bed and your chair to finally take his hand into your own. It was brutal, but it was the truth. You just hoped it would sink in for Alec.  

Alec squeezed your hand just like you were silently praying he would. It was comforting, quieting your raging emotions if only for a moment. He was okay, he’d survived and he was here talking to you.  

“I hope I’m not stressing you out,” you whispered as you scooted your chair a bit closer to the bed so you weren’t reaching quite as far. “That would be counterproductive.”    

“Nah,” he shook his head, giving you a small smile and bringing your hand to his mouth so he could press a kiss to the back of your hand which was still held tightly in his, “you’ve just been telling me what I needed to hear from someone other than myself. I know all this, but I can’t just stop. Health aside, there’s a family—three families—who have lost their children.”

“But what if I lose you?” you couldn’t help but ask, “or if Daisy loses her father? And what about Ellie? I’m quite sure she’s grown a bit fond of you as well, though I’m not sure how that happened,” you teased lightly. It was just to ease the tension a bit. The man gave you a small, sad smile, before he was looking up to the ceiling thoughtfully.  

“Alright, alright,” he sighed, “I’ll try to be a bit more careful. For Daisy and you... and, well, I suppose for Millhur too. But I will not stop. We’re so close to catching Danny’s killer. I don’t care what anyone has to say, that bastard will not get away with this.”

“You’ll get the sick bastard who did this,” you told him, because it was what he needed to hear. “You and Ellie. The two of you will catch this guy. I know you will, because that’s what you do.”

You paused for a second before turning towards him and frowning, “but for the love of God, don’t kill yourself trying, y’hear?”

“I hear,” Alec laughed. “I’m alright now,” he assured, pulling your hand halfheartedly towards himself. You huffed a small laugh, standing up so you could sit on the side of the bed against the headboard like he was silently requesting you do. Alec smiled at you, shifting closer so he could tuck his head into your side. “I’ll be alright. I’ll be alright, and I’ll catch the bastard to kill Danny Latimer.”

“I expect nothing less,” you snorted, trailing your fingers through his hair now that he was within reach and apparently seeking affection, “now you need to relax for a while if you expect me to let you return to work as fast as I know you’re going to want me too.”

“I should get back today-”

“Absolutely not. You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” you muttered in fond disbelief, “tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. And you’re going to be sticking around Ellie, or so help me, I’ll kill you myself.”

“Yes, fine,” Alec rolled his eyes, “tomorrow, and I’ll stick close to Millhur. Happy then?”

“Immensely,” you deadpanned before grinning at the man cuddled into your side. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”

----

To say Ellie was surprised to find out that her boss had such a pleasant boyfriend was a bit of an understatement. She probably shouldn’t have been so surprised at the knowledge that he wasn’t as lonely and miserable in the dating department as she’d thought, since he’d not said a word about himself since arriving.  

He’d only told her about his daughter when Joe had prompted him into it when Hardy had come around their house for dinner. Hell, he’d not even bothered to tell her he had severe heart arrhythmia.  

That wasn’t something someone should keep from their friend.

He really could’ve died, and she was fully prepared to lay into him for keeping that secret the moment he woke up, when (Y/N) had rushed in the doors demanding to know how he was.

Like the polite person she was, Ellie had introduced herself to the mystery man pleading to see her boss, only to find out the jerk had this secret boyfriend he hadn’t bothered mentioning.  

She knew bare minimum of his ex-wife, so it was a bit of a surprise that he had a boyfriend, not that she minded. He could be into anyone he fancied and nothing could change what she thought of him. He’d always be Hardy, a bit of a prick, but one of the best people she’d ever known.

They’d gotten around to talking, waiting into the late hours of the morning before Hardy was moved from Intensive Care and into a regular room, where the two of them were allowed to sit with him.  

Ellie thought it was adorable how (Y/N) pushed his chair up right close to the bed and held her boss’ hand. It was strange to see Hardy like this, to see him have someone who clearly loved and cared for him, holding his hand and sitting without moving for hours.  

She was happy he had someone. She’d never say it out loud, and never to Hardy, but she knew he was too good to be alone. That it wasn’t right that a man like Hardy would be single, even though he was a bit of an odd guy.

(Y/N) seemed like a lovely guy. Doting and caring. He told her stories that she was sure Hardy would’ve lost his mind if he knew she knew them, but (Y/N) didn’t seem bothered at the fact, and instead only shot fond looks at Hardy as he retold the stories.

He didn’t tell her much about Hardy in general—like his daughter or ex, or even mention his illness or anything along the lines, but he had ample stories and fond memories of the two of them he was happy to share.  

Ellie could barely even imagine her Hardy—the Hardy in the bed to be the man in (Y/N)’s stories. But it was adorable and heartwarming all the same. It made her happy that Hardy had someone like (Y/N).

And it made he even happier that (Y/N) was scolding Hardy like she wanted too as well. Not that she meant to eavesdrop outside the door, but it really doesn’t take more than ten minutes to get coffee from the cafeteria in the hospital.  

They were the cutest thing, and she’d be sure to tease Hardy a bunch about his adorable boyfriend when he was feeling better. And she definitely would because it wasn’t every day that an important person from Hardy’s life makes an appearance.  

When the talking inside the room died down to an occasional mumble, Ellie finally rapped her knuckles twice without managing to spill any coffee as a warning before pushing it open with her elbow, two to-go cups of barely warmer than lukewarm coffee in her hands.  

“’ello, Sir,” she grinned, containing the ‘aw’ sitting on the tip of her tongue as she took in her boss cuddled into his boyfriend, “feeling better?”

“I’m fine,” he waved her off with a scowl that was all too familiar at this point. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen the man without a scowl if she were honest. 

He didn’t bother moving away from his boyfriend though, as she feared he would’ve done since he was Hardy, and that alone warmed her heart.

“Well, don’t the two of you look all cozy,” she couldn’t resist teasing. She stepped into the room, handing the second cup of coffee to (Y/N). He took the cup gratefully, grinning widely at the comment before taking a sip of his coffee and leaning back against the pillows.

“Sod off, Millhur,” the man reclined in the bed sighed. He even sounded tired, but she resisted the urge to frown. Frowning wouldn’t help anyone.  

“Of course, Sir.”

“You make her call you sir?” (Y/N) looked down at Hardy with a teasing smile, “why can’t she call you Alec?”

“I don’t like Alec,” Hardy groaned turning his head to bury his face in (Y/N)’s shirt, “never liked Alec, you know that. Don’t like it when you call me Alec either, but can’t very well stop you now can I?”

“I can call you Sir too, if you’d like?”

“Right, I should go then,” Ellie retreated, a bit awkward that (Y/N) was actually teasing her boss. No one she knew (besides herself to a way lesser degree) would ever even think about teasing Alec Hardy. 

Plus, she really didn’t want to see where this teasing ended, not if it could possibly ruin her ever calling Hardy sir again. There were so few names she could actually call him, and she really didn’t want Sir to be ruined for her. “I’ll see you back at work, Sir. In a day or two.”

“A day,” Hardy replied easily. Ellie nodded, not bothering to try and get the man to stay in the hospital any longer. Not when she already knew it was a lost cause, especially if (Y/N) hadn’t been successful, “oh and Millhur?”

Ellie paused, looking back into the room to see he boss’ eyes on her, “if we can keep this between us for now? Not that it’s a secret, just--”

“Of course,” Ellie agreed instantly, “it’s yours to share when you do. I won’t say anything. Even though there’s really nothing to share.”

“Thank you.”

“You... just feel better, alright? We’ve got a killer to catch and I can’t do that without you.”

<><><><>

Thanks so much for the prompt, and for reading! Feel free to send another ask if this wasn’t what you were looking for, but hopefully it is!

Also, let me know if I messed up anywhere with male reader pronouns, I read through a couple times, but they might’ve slipped past me!

#alec hardy #alec hardy x reader #alec hardy x male reader #ellie miller #broadchurch #reader insert #writing prompt #male reader

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Blood, Freely Given

CW: Blood, vampirism, referenced dissoci@ted identities, vague referenced severe childhood trauma, brief noncon refs, brief torture references

The automatic double-doors slide open, and their bare feet move over the scratchy mat just inside, smearing mud across the black nylon. 

Water drips down from their hair, running in rivulets over the line of their throat, dipping beneath their soaked-through tank top, dripping with a soft pat pat pat pat onto the tile. They move as if floating past the welcome desk at the hospital.

Shadows, thick and velvet, swallow them whole. The shadows feel like arms holding them tight, like the grasp of a lover, like being loved.

When the admin assistant working the welcome desk looks up, light glinting off his nametag, to see who has come in through the door, he blinks as the lights flicker overhead, and for just a second he sees a flash of green hair stained reddish-brown and caked with drying dirt, a haunted blank face and empty glowing eyes… and then there’s no one there.

“Weird,” He mutters, staring as the doors slowly slide closed again. “Fucking weird.”

Outside, lightning flashes and thunder booms right on its heels, a deafening roar of sound that seems to rattle even the solidity of the hospital. The admin swallows, hard, staring out into the total blackness of the storm raging outside the safety of the brick and stone walls that surround them.

He’s already forgotten the half-second of sight, and thinks now only about the thunder and lightning. Water drips along the floor as they walk, ignoring him. 

He doesn’t matter.

Nothing matters but finding Ryan.

The shadows move around them, twist and dance around their feet like spirits, like animals, like children who never leave them. People look at the water on the floor and wonder why it hasn’t dried, find themselves baffled at the sight of mud dissolving into the puddles, but they don’t see the feet that make the puddles, they don’t see the drip of water from green hair, off of wrinkled fingertips.

They don’t see Ora Collins, because Ora Collins does not want to be seen.

Their cheekbones are pronounced, gaunt in their face. Hazel eyes glow, set into the lines of their face. Their hair hasn’t grown since the last day in the farmhouse, since the moment Ryan’s teeth pierced their skin. A broken fingernail has never regrown. A cut on one leg doesn’t heal, but it doesn’t hurt, either.

There’s a bruise that is now a permanent fixture on their left arm, a memory that might as well be a tattoo.

Dead and not-dead, they follow a heartbeat that pulses in perfect rhythm with their own. He’s upstairs, they know that. Waiting for them, knowing they’re coming. He feels them as strongly as they feel him.

We feel our own. We always feel our own.

Ora’s eyes flutter shut, and they see through his, the sight of the redheaded man covered in bandages and on the bed, the way blue eyes stare with emptiness into nothing, accepting the pain the way someone else has always stepped up when it became too much to bear.

Ora swallows, their throat moving, seeing on Danny’s body now the ghostly marks of times he has cried in the night.

They see, in that breath, that it began as a child used to feed his own mother, a little boy bled to sickness and then allowed to heal and then bled again. They see the fracture in him, how he hid from the reality in order to forget it, not to know. They see how he lost nights and days and no one believed him when he wondered why.

They see a shimmer of him where he lays in the bed, three sets of fingers, three pairs of wide blue eyes, three reasons to scream. They see how he is only alive because Abraham Denner didn’t know until later that he had someone who would step forward to take the worst of it so the others could survive. 

Funny, how much more you know when you’re dead.

Ora rolls their head around, small cracks in their spine releasing tension that will build again, and again, and again. Their mouth waters. This place is full of life, and it is their way now to take it.

Nothing matters but blood.

The shadows move, as a woman heavy in her pregnancy walks past them - stops, and turns to look at the presence she just felt nearby - and sees nothing.

Nothing but the flicker of lights overhead, and a spot of red in a droplet of water on a white tile floor.

The woman shudders against instinctive unease and keeps walking, heading for the double-doors, for the storm that pounds rain into pavement, the dim headlights barely visible through a curtain of rain. 

Ora can smell the woman’s blood, and knows in an instant that she is seven months pregnant, and her husband is here for a problem with his kidneys, and she will go home to three other children and cry, that the oldest child will hold her and they will tell each other it’ll be okay and neither one will believe it.

They know also that the husband will recover, and come home, and then the future is murkier, more uncertain. But Ora can see the happy day he sleeps in his own bed again. 

They pause, and turn, watching the woman’s back as she walks.

They mouth the words, you’ll be okay, and the baby will be fine. He will come home to you. They make no sound, and yet something in the woman’s shoulders relaxes, and she opens her umbrella and steps out into the night with a new confidence that, however terrifying the moment, everything will be alright in the end.

They might be dead, but they can soothe the restless fear of life as easily as they can feed them. They don’t have to be wicked, they don’t have to be evil, they don’t-

They don’t have to be Ashley.

They will not kill like Ashley did, they will not take captives, they will not delight in torture and fear and they will not feed on screaming. 

They don’t have to be Ashley.

That is all that matters.

Ora turns back to look ahead of themself, the soft neon lights of the food court on their right, conference rooms and offices on the left. 

Ahead, the elevators.

A man waiting for the elevator is suddenly distracted by feeling like a gust of wind hit his back. He drops his coffee cup, spilling it all over the floor. Lights above him flicker as he drops to a crouch, cursing, pulling out napkins to wipe up the spill. While he’s distracted, the elevator doors open, water drops inside in a soft pitter-patter, and they close again.

He looks up in time to see a flash of glowing eyes and green hair, a torn and mud-stained tank top and shorts, spots dried reddish-brown that can’t be anything but blood. He sees a hint of mud-covered bare feet.

He stares, and Ora looks back at him.

He doesn’t matter.

“Look away,” They say in a croaking voice, cracked from disuse. “Look away.”

The man looks down and forgets about everything but his coffee and his sense that something is very, very wrong.

They press the button for the sixth floor and the elevator lurches into motion, shakily. Lights flicker and power drops and jumps back up around them. They don’t care.

Ryan is waiting.

The elevator doors slide open on the sixth floor and three people sitting in a small lobby look up to see an empty box, with a puddle of water on the floor. The doors slide shut again, and the elevator heads back to the first floor.

A bit of rainwater runs down Ora’s cheek like the tears they no longer cry.

Dead people don’t cry.

Nothing matters enough to be worth weeping over.

Ora thinks of Danny’s eyes in the bed, water gathering over the empty places, running down to pool in the shell of his ear and dampen his dirty unwashed hair. They think of Ryan sobbing next to his bed in the first days when a tube down Danny’s throat breathed so he didn’t have to breathe for himself. They think of Nathaniel Vandrum’s hand silently laid on his back as he leaned over, and the two men meeting in the middle, dropping as always their loathing of each other for their love for a man who has had to make the choice to live too many times.

A doctor walking past brushes against Ora’s shoulder and they shiver at the beat of her heart, her pulse, the hint of her blood they can taste in the air. 

A nurse comes too close and Ora’s teeth are sharp, begging to bury in soft skin, pull out the life inside, and hand it over to the darkness that made them. Ora moves with the shadows, and the shadows bay for blood.

But this nurse has done nothing but try her best to save the lives of people who don’t know her, who she will never truly know, and Ora turns away. 

They will not be Ashley Denner.

That is what matters.

They find the room without hurrying, taking each step slowly. The tile floor is cold, they know this, but they don’t feel it.

Ryan has life beating in his blood alongside the death. He is made of green hills and murder in the darkness. He is made of eyes open to delight in flowers and of eyes slowly closing from a wasting disease that can’t be explained. 

Ora doesn’t have the life, anymore.

They wasted theirs, anyway.

All they are is death.

Is this a second chance? Could they start again? They haven’t thought about it. They walked to Tennessee - walked and rode in the back of trucks and cars, shredding the people who tried to hurt them thinking they were weak and leaving the kind ones unharmed, and drove until the car ran out of gas and then found another ride again - and then returned.

The cold silver-colored door handle turns easily under their hand, and when they step into the room Nate Vandrum is asleep on a sort of couch, a thin blanket thrown over him, the light of the machines in the room lining his face. 

Lightning flashes through the closed blinds, and thunder rolls.

Ora is a creature made of rainy seasons, lurking in stagnant pools of water, waiting for their chance to slip underneath protective nets and clothes and glide around candles. They are a heavy death, a slow death, but-

They don’t have to cause death at all.

They will not.

They will not.

Daniel Michaelson, laid out on the hospital bed, flickers his eyes open and turns to look at them. They see what he sees, eyes that glow in the darkness, a pounding hunger that must be satisfied. 

“Mom,” He whispers, voice trembling, and Ora tilts their head, wet hair sticking to their cheekbones, mouth watering at the beat of his heart, the hint of his blood. “Mom, no, please-... God, no-”

“It’s alright, Dan. They’re not Mom,” Ryan says, standing in the open doorway to the small bathroom attached to this private hospital room. He’s just come from a shower and heat mists off his skin, his black curls hang over his forehead and stick to the nape of his neck. His eyes glow, a soft gleaming yellow in the shadows, match Ora’s hazel for strength and more. All their heartbeats led them back to him. “And that won’t happen to you again. I promise. I’ll never, ever let anyone take from you again.”

“Ryan-” Danny’s eyes are impossibly wide, as always, and the darkness deepens the scars on his face until they are canyons cut into a plateau, the aftermath of a volcanic eruption, the lines of glaciers tearing up earth and turning flatlands into valleys. His voice is weak, and Nate Vandrum stirs, on the couch, called close to waking by the fear in Danny. “Help me, please, Mom’s h-hungry-”

“It’s okay, Danny,” Ryan says, soft and loving. He moves to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, to tuck a bit of hair behind one ear. “Go back to sleep. They’re not here for you.” His eyes stay on Ora’s as he says, with a shiver of something running underneath him, utterly inhuman and his birthright and hidden from him for too many years, “Calm, if you are living.”

Danny’s eyes flutter shut, and his breathing settles, deep and even. A machine over his shoulder beeps slowly as he settles. Nate, on the couch, breathes out in a long slow sigh, and Ora watches his right hand, curled into a painful fist, relax. 

“Can I do that?” They ask, hoarsely.

“No,” Ryan says, with a hint of warmth, watching his brother’s eyes move under his eyelids. “That’s from my father, not my mother.”

“Oh.”

Ryan looks back at Ora, relaxing now that his brother is soothed. “You walked a long way. Is she at rest?”

“Ashley? I ate her heart.” Their voice is flat, decayed, like the taste of Ashley’s black heart on their tongue.

“No… your girlfriend. From before.”

Ora looks down at their hands, the dirt pressed into the lines until it seems like they will never be clean. “I buried Penny like she deserved,” They say, voice low, twining around the sound of the machines. Only Ryan can hear them. 

“Good. That’s the last thing they took from us, then, made right.” Ora moves closer to him, and he watches them move. They watch him swallow, the movement of his throat. “Are you hungry?”

He’s beautiful, always. He’s so beautiful, even at his worst. Even tied to Bram’s bed he was beautiful, even screaming for mercy he was beautiful, even now, a predator set free, he is so beautiful.

He tilts his head to the side, and Ora hitches in breath they don’t need at the way the thin light from the machines moves over his skin. The flutter of his pulse.

Their only heartbeat is his. 

They want it.

“Yes,” They breathe. “I’m so hungry, Ryan.”

Ryan smiles at them, in the darkness, and reaches out. They take his hand and he pulls them close, sliding his other hand up into their hair, uncaring about it being wet, about the water that soaks him as well when he pulls them close. He pressed the back of their head to move them forward until their lips touch the heat of his neck. He’s so warm.

He’s so warm, and they’re so-

“If you’re hungry,” He whispers, “Then feed. I made you - I owe this, and more, for helping me save my brother.”

Ora buries their teeth in his throat and takes the blood like a sacrament. Blood, freely given and offered, blood that won’t kill, blood that won’t cause harm. Blood that won’t take a life and leave the grieving behind. Blood that won’t run from wrists or backs or legs. 

Blood, given to them openly and with love. 

They will not be Ashley Denner.

That’s all that matters.

---

@slytherynjolras, @whump-it, @bleeding-demon-teeth, @finder-of-rings, @burtlederp, @whumpywhumper, @18-toe-beans, @pumpkinthefangirl, @special-spicy-chicken, @swordkallya, @astrobly, @slaintetowhump, @moose-teeth, @untilthepainstarts, @whumpiary,  @lave-whump @raigash @cupcakes-and-pain, @whump-tr0pes| @wildfaewhump

#whump #vampire whumpee #vampirism #vampire #blood tw #referenced childhood trauma #childhood trauma tw #referenced torture #referenced murders #referenced noncon tw #past noncon tw #consensual vampirism #? #is that a thing we tag for? #sure okay #let's say yes #dissociation tw #referenced dissociated identities #daniel michaelson's story #ora collins is always nervous

[darkheart-brightsmile]

Because I Loved You

Barson, inc. adult Noah and some OCs. Established relationship, future timeline.

Warnings: Some fluff, MAJOR angst. This is beautiful, but bittersweet. And it's sad, like I cried writing it, sad. Major character deaths ahead. You have been warned.

"The is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved."

WC: 1698

***

“Tell us again, Abuelito, por favour.” both little voices cried from where they were sat playing on the floor.

“Tell you what, honey?” asked Rafael mischievously as he reclined in the armchair reserved for him when he visited their home every weekend.

“The story of how you met Abuelita, and how you fell in love.” replied Ellie, giving him a look that it was obvious what they wanted to hear.

“Oh, that story.” chuckled Rafael.

“Come on then, climb up, pequeños.” he replied, patting his legs and Daniel and Ellie, both now six and getting slightly too big to be clambering onto his lap, did so at his request.

“Well, I was working in Brooklyn, and I moved to the office in Manhattan.” started their doting grandfather.

“And that’s where you met her.” interrupted Daniel.

“Be quiet, Daniel! Abuelito is telling the story.” replied Ellie sternly.

“Ellie, be nice to your brother otherwise I won’t tell it at all.” both children quiet and staring at him, he spoke again, “but yes, it’s how we met, I had just finished in court and the Captain in charge, introduced her and Aunty Manda to me.”

“Tell us! Tell us what you said!” exclaimed Ellie, tugging her grandfather’s sweater in her enthusiasm.

Rafael threw Noah a smile over the children’s heads. He had heard this story a hundred times, and truthfully, he would happily hear it a hundred times more to hear about his mother and father and their twisting tale to their happy ever after.

“I said, ‘Captain, bring your daughters to work day?’”

Both children burst out laughing, and so did Noah, rubbing a hand over his stubble and then his mouth, trying to hide his amusement at his father’s youthful swagger and his children’s reaction to their silly grandfather.

“That’s so silly, Abuelito, why did you say that?” asked Ellie, her bright blue eyes, the image of her father’s staring up at him.

“I was trying to be charming, you cheeky monkey.” replied Rafael, squeezing her waist as she giggled.

“Did you love her as soon as you saw her?” asked Daniel quietly, he had a quiet observant nature that Rafael loved, watching his mind work things over was magical.

“I think I probably did.” sighed Rafael.

“What was she like?” he asked, in the same quiet tone.

“Oh, she was beautiful. She had the most gorgeous smile, and her eyes, her eyes were always my favourite thing about her.” smiled Rafael, closing his eyes, and squeezing them tight.

“How did you make her fall in love with you?” asked Ellie curiously.

“I don’t really know, it’s hard to explain.”

“Love isn’t hard, love is love.” spoke up Daniel.

“You’re quite right, Danny. But I still don’t know how it really happened. But I know I fell in love with your Abuelita because she was the best person I had ever known; she was my best friend. She was fearless, and had a heart of gold, and…and a beautiful soul.”

He paused and stared up at the ceiling, frowning and trying to figure out how on earth he could verbalise what it was he felt for Olivia.

“And I think she loved me because I believed in her. I would have followed her to the ends of the earth. And even on our worst days we would talk, and everything felt right. And when we got married, I told her how special she was, and I did everything I could to show her how much I loved her. And obviously, I am very charming.” winked their grandfather.

“Tell us how you told her you loved her.” chimed in Ellie.

“Well, we were friends for years and I left my work for a while. I did something that upset a lot of people, including your Abuelita. So, I said goodbye and we were both very sad, but we kept in touch because we were still best friends. I would send postcards and skype her and your dad. Then when I came back to New York I told her how I wish things had been different, and I said sorry, lots and lots of times. I told her how much I loved her, and I told her that I would never love anyone the way I did her. And she told me I was stupid,” he and Noah both laughed at that, “and that she had loved me for a long time, and she was just happy I had finally come home.”

“Wow.” whispered Ellie, “it’s like a fairy tale.”

“Tell them what else she did, Dad.” laughed Noah from the couch and Rafael frowned and sighed heavily, before grinning as he spoke.

“She told me if I ever ran away from New York again she would kick my ass, then she smacked me across the head and kissed me.”

Everyone burst out laughing and Rafael cuddled the children close, breathing them in and savouring them being small enough to hold like this.

“I wish she was here.” whispered Ellie.

“Oh, honey, me too. But you know she’s always watching over us. You know she loved you both so much, just like I do. And you know what, I did lots of things in my life I was proud of. But the thing I am most proud of was her and loving her as much as I could till the day she left us.” murmured Rafael, resting his cheek on her hair and looking over at Noah who held his hand up and pressed his palm to his heart.

Rafael nodded and smiled.

“We love you too, Abuelito.” whispered Daniel, kissing his grandfather’s cheek before rubbing his nose where the older man’s beard had tickled.

“Now, pyjamas, teeth, go on.” said Rafael, tapping them both on the back and sending them off to their rooms.

***

“Papi, are you alright?” asked Noah quietly.

“Mm-hmm.” nodded Rafael, his gaze straight ahead.

“I’ll ask them not to ask for that story again.” muttered Noah quietly as he came to stand next to his father, looking out of the kitchen window and onto the yard.

“No, no. Please don’t do that, Noah. It’s alright.” he replied, shaking his head.

“I miss her.” murmured Noah.

“God, me too, mijo, every day. I would give anything to see her face just one more time. I can’t believe she’s…missing all of this.” sighed Rafael, his voice cracking as he wiped a tear from his cheek.

“At least she met them before, you know…she always said that was tied in a top three best moments of her life.”

“What were the other two?” his father asked curiously.

“Adopting me, and,” he took a deep breath and gave his father a small smile, “and meeting you.”

“She would be so proud of you, Noah, she was so proud of you. Just like I am. I know biologically…”

“It doesn’t matter.” said Noah firmly, “remember what Mom always said? Family is what you make it. And you are my father as much as I am your son, blood or not.”

“God, you remind me so much of her.” chuckled Rafael through his tears.

“She always said I reminded her of you.” laughed Noah.

Rafael turned to Noah and clasped his shoulders tightly, looking him dead in the eye. “I love you, son.”

“I love you too, Dad.” replied Noah, pulling his father into a hug, and closing his eyes, breathing him in.

He still smelled the same all those years later, his cologne was the same, and if he tried hard enough, he was a kid again, and his mother was there too, her eyes and her smile.

“Let me get the kids to bed and how about we have a glass of scotch, and you can stay here tonight? Your room is made up anyway.” said Noah, pulling back and patting his dad on the shoulder.

“That sounds like just what I need, thank you, mijo.”

***

The picture of Olivia was still on the nightstand, taken on their first wedding anniversary. She had been stood on a balcony at sunset and had looked back at the camera as Rafael had called her name and she had given him that gorgeous smile that was reserved just for him, her eyes sparkling in the glow of the dusk light.

This room had always been their room when they stayed with Noah and the children on weekends, or occasionally babysat so Noah to take his lovely wife, Charlotte, out for the evening. Or nights like this, when Charlotte was working double shifts and Noah was alone with the kids all weekend.

“I miss you, cariño. If you could see Noah, Lottie and the kids now.” he sighed, “I would never have known the joy of any of that without you, mi amor, to have a family. I love you, always.” he sighed as he closed his eyes.

***

“Dad? Dad, are you awake?” called Noah as he knocked on the door lightly, “I brought you coffee, Cuban blend of course.”

But Noah knew as soon as he walked into the room, that something was wrong. He watched his father for a second, he looked asleep, but Noah knew he wasn’t. He was curled up on his side, one hand resting on the pillow next to him, his beloved wife’s necklace with the word ‘fearless’ still clasped in his hand, and the tiniest smile still on his face.

“Be at peace, Dad.” whispered Noah, the tears stinging his eyes as he kissed his father’s head for one last time and took a deep breath. He pulled the chair by the bed closer, and reached into his pocket for his phone, dialling the first number on the list.

“Uncle Fin?”

“Hey, kid, everything alright?” came the familiar deep tone of his mother’s oldest friend through the phone.

“I-I have some bad news, he, uh, he’s...” stuttered Noah as he rested his head on the bed and sobbed into the bedspread, the phone abandoned next to him. His hands clutched his fathers for one last time, and he could only hope that at least now his parents could be together again.

***

@igreg04 @mhargitay64 @tinyboxxtink @lauchasstuff @nippow @chasingeverybreakingwave @i-run-with-scissors39 @barsonlover2021 @michael-rooker @alwaysachorusgirl @storiesofsvu @chunex @klk1618 @simpforbarba @dubuforeveralone @zizzlekwum @tinyboxxtink@human––tragedy @a-queen-of-chaos @raulesparza4eva @thatesqcrush

#svu one shot #svu drabble #svu fic #rafael barba fanfiction #rafael barba imagine #barson fanfiction #barson fanfic #olivia benson #rafael barba #angst fic #major character death #minor fluff

[sideburndanny]

Batman Movie Villains Ranked from Worst to Best

Recently, a YouTuber I follow by the name of Mr. Rogues released a list of Batman villains ranked from worst to best. I have nothing but the utmost of respect for Mr. Rogues as a content creator, but I took issue with his list because his long-standing biases were often the deciding factor in many of his rankings. So, I decided to do a list of my own.

I’ll be going over every Batman villain to appear in the movies, briefly analyzing their portrayals and ranking them on a scale of 1 to 5. To prevent the list from being too cluttered, I’ll be separating the villains by which movie series they’re part of. Here we go!

Burton/Schumacher Tetralogy

Bane: Perhaps the only villain in this series I’d call “bad.” The calculating tactician of the comics is nowhere to be found here; instead, he’s reduced to a monosyllabic, brain-dead stooge for the other villains. Overall, he does nothing that couldn’t be done by a random henchman. 1/5

Two-Face: A deeply layered villain in the comics, Two-Face sadly gets upstaged by the other major rogue in the movie, but that’s not to say he doesn’t leave an impression. Tommy Lee Jones gives him a manic and mercurial demeanor that, combined with his colorful design, wouldn’t be out of place in the Adam West series. The size and scope of his criminal organization make him a genuine threat, and there’s something darkly fitting about Batman’s former ally being responsible for the creation of Robin. 3/5

Poison Ivy: Mr. Rogues for some reason ranked her as the worst Batman movie villain of all time, and frankly, I don’t see why. Like Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, Uma Thurman gives this character a delightfully over-the-top demeanor that combines with a colorful, comic-booky ensemble to make for another great “what-if-this-character-appeared-in-the-Adam-West-series” take. She does a good job juggling the differing facets of Ivy’s character: she’s the put-upon cynic, the craven opportunist, the radical eco-terrorist, and the suave seductress all in one package. 3.5/5

The Penguin: Fuck the Razzies. Danny DeVito made this role his own and set the stage for the character for years to come. He’s a bit of a departure, but a welcome one: far from the refined gentleman of crime Burgess Meredith portrayed, this Penguin is an animalistic thug warped by a lifetime of anger and hatred of the society who rejected him due to his deformities. His signature wardrobe, trick umbrellas, and Penguin gimmick are all there, but DeVito sells the role by showing amazing versatility: he can go from a comical and pitiable weirdo to a terrifying sociopath at the drop of a stovepipe hat. 4/5

Mr. Freeze: I honestly can’t say much about this character that my mutual @wonderfulworldofmichaelford hasn’t already. Arnold Schwarzenegger perfectly encapsulates both popular versions of this character: the flamboyant, pun-loving criminal genius from the Adam West series and the Animated Series’ traumatized scientist desperate to cure his loving wife of her terminal illness. Sure, the puns and hammy one-liners are what this version character is known for, but Ahnold definitely knows when to apply the brakes and give a greatly emotional performance as he tries desperately to cure his wife. 4.5/5

Max Shreck: Probably the only time you’ll see a movie-exclusive character on this list, and deservedly so. Corrupt businessmen are dime-a-dozen in Batman stories, and most of them have little personality outside of being greedy scumbags who either get defeated by the hero or betrayed by the other villains. Shreck, however, is different. Not only does he have an eye-catching fashion sense on par with any of Batman’s famous rogues, but Christopher Walken brings his signature manic intensity to the role, creating a character that’s as wicked and sinister as he is cool and stylish. You totally buy that the general public sees him as the good guy. His warm relationship with his son is also a delight to watch. 4.5/5

Catwoman: Michelle Pfeiffer does a lot to really make the character her own. She gets a lot of genuinely badass moments, but underneath all of her coolness lies the undercurrent that she’s a broken, traumatized character lashing out at the people who abused her and took her for granted. Even when she takes these ideals to unreasonable extremes, you never stop feeling like the retribution she brings on her enemies is at least a little warranted. Also, she has amazing romantic chemistry with Batman and her costume is fucking metal. 5/5

The Ridder: It’s Jim Carrey. 5/5

The Joker: This role is perhaps the one that set the standard for future Jokers to follow: Jack Nicholson’s humorous yet unnerving performance signaled to audiences early on that this would not be the goofy trickster of the Silver Age, but a different beast entirely. This Joker is a film noir gangster on crack: a disfigured mob hitman who quickly takes the entire criminal underworld by storm and unleashes his special brand of chaos and destruction across Gotham. He’s an artist, a showman, a charismatic leader, and the man responsible for ruining Bruce Wayne’s life. 5/5

Christopher Nolan Trilogy

Talia al Ghul: You know that recent trend in Disney movies where a side character we thought was harmless and inconsequential turned out to have been the villain all along in a twist with no buildup or foreshadowing with the reveal happening too late in the movie for this character to really do anything cool or impressive before being unceremoniously defeated? That’s Talia. DKR is the weakest of the three Nolan films, and I feel like it would’ve been much better received without this twist villain contrivedly shoehorned in. Also, while I could kinda forgive the trilogy’s whitewashing of other villains like Ra’s al Ghul and Bane due to the talent their actors display, Marion Cotillard doesn’t get a pass because she just doesn’t have the charisma or screen presence needed to pull it off. 1/5

Victor Zsasz: While the idea of redefining Zsasz as an over enthusiastic mob hitman instead of a serial killer is very interesting, it’s ruined by the fact that he barely even appears in the movie and doesn’t really do or say much of anything despite the buildup he gets. 1.5/5

Two-Face: Aaron Eckhart portrays Harvey Dent as a character of tragedy in a slightly different way than other tragic villains in superhero movies: he’s lashing out at a society he feels wronged him, but instead of being a lifelong outcast or put-upon loser, he was a handsome, successful crusader for the common good who lost everything he once held dear all in one fell swoop. You really feel for him even as he does horrible things. If I had to nitpick, though, I am slightly bothered by the fact that he plays some comic book movie cliches straight (i.e. they never call him by his alias and he dies at the end,) but it’s a solid performance overall. 3/5

Scarecrow: I’ll be upfront and admit that I’m more than a little annoyed that certain facets of the character had been changed in the name of “realism” — once again, they never call him by his villain name and he never wears a comic-accurate costume — but other than that, I can’t complain. Cillian Murphy plays the character with a smarmy, eerie charm that really makes his scenes stand out, his willingness to ally himself with other villains suits his character well, and the fact that he appears in three consecutive films with a different evil scheme in each really helps tie the movies together. 3.5/5

Catwoman: Much like other secondary villains in this trilogy, she really doesn’t get a chance to shine compared to the main antagonist — and, once again, it pisses me off a little that they do the whole “never refer to her as Catwoman but vaguely hint at it” thing — but she’s everything a modern Catwoman should be. She’s sly, manipulative, really holds her own in a fight, has great chemistry with Bruce Wayne... it’s all there. It’s also great to see Anne Hathaway break away from her usual type casting to play a role this dynamic. 4/5

Ra’s al Ghul: He’s a character that was in desperate need of mainstream exposure, and by God that’s what he got. Making him Bruce Wayne’s mentor adds a layer of personal tragedy to the climax where our hero has to stop the man who made him who he is from destroying Gotham with his admittedly brilliant plan. Add in a strong, captivating performance from Liam Neeson before we found out he was a racist asshole, and we’ve got one hell of an overarching villain. 4.5/5

The Joker: Everybody’s already discussed this version of the character to hell and back and likely will for years to come, so I’ll keep it very brief. He’s funny, he’s badass, he’s terrifying, he has great dialogue, it sucks that Heath Ledger didn’t live to see his performance reach the audience it got, and he basically makes the entire film. 5/5

Bane: Mr. Rogues actually ranked Bane higher than Joker on his list, and keeping it 100, I actually agree with him here. Finally, after decades of being dumbed down and misrepresented outside of comics, Bane is finally portrayed as the tactical genius from the comics. Tom Hardy plays Bane to perfection, being very believable as the peak of human physical and mental achievement, the man who broke Batman physically and emotionally. His design is iconic, his every line is quotable, his voice is weirdly fitting, and the memes are funny. 5/5

DC Extended Universe

KGBeast: Another point where I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Rogues. He is absolutely wasted in BVS, being nothing but a generic henchman for Lex Luthor. He doesn’t wear his costume from the comics, he’s never referred to by his alias, he doesn’t have his signature cybernetic enhancements, and he never does or says anything noteworthy. 1/5

The Joker: Ugh. I don’t know what’s worst: the tacky clothes, the stupid tattoos, the weird Richard Nixon impression that passes as his voice, the fact that promotional material hyped him up as a “beautiful tragedy” of a character even though he’s only in the movie for like 10 minutes and barely does anything, Jared Leto’s toxic edgelord behavior on set done with the flimsy pretense of “getting into character,” or the fact that he’s just trying to copy Heath Ledger instead of making the role his own. 1/5

Victor Zsasz: Chris Messina proves undoubtedly that Zsasz CAN work as a secondary villain in a Batman movie. He’s once again a mob assassin who enjoys his job a little too much, but unlike Batman Begins, he really gets time to shine. He’s just as sadistic and depraved as in the comics, but he also has this disarming, casual demeanor about him like he’s just indulging a hobby instead of slicing innocent people’s faces off. His close friendship with his boss Black Mask adds some depth to the character as well. 3/5

Killer Croc: Sadly, he doesn’t get much time in the spotlight, but he’s pretty cool nonetheless. The makeup and prosthetics used to create him look amazing, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s deep voice and imposing body language make him really stand out as an intimidating presence. He’s often in the background, which fits his role as an outcast by choice and a man of few words, but whenever he does get focus, he has everyone’s attention. It really would be a shame if this character’s only appearance was in a mediocre schlock action movie, but he makes the most of what he has. 3.5/5

Deadshot: Another highlight of what would otherwise be a forgettable film, Deadshot is just as cool and competent as he’s always been in other media, but this portrayal stands out for one simple reason. Will Smith was a very odd choice to play the role, but it worked out for the best here because you get the sense he truly understands the characters. He’s ruthless and pragmatic, but has just as enough charm and depth to make him likable. 4/5

Black Mask: I, like many, was skeptical when I saw early trailers depicting Roman Sionis as a foppish weirdo who doesn’t wear his signature mask, but upon seeing the final movie, I really feel like he has the high ground over other DCEU villains. Ewan McGregor is endlessly captivating in the role, portraying him as a swaggering dandy who is nevertheless dangerous due to his boundless narcissism and explosive temper. Sure, those who deal in absolutes would be put off from the differences with his comic counterpart — who is far more cold and humorless — but from a certain point of view, this flamboyant take on the character isn’t so much a departure as it is an addition to make him stand out while keeping his role the same. Black Mask has always been a middleman between the traditional mobsters of yesteryear and the colorful rogues that plague Gotham today, and this portrayal perfectly encapsulates that. He works in the shadows, but isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty; he flies off the handle and gets reckless at times, but there’s no question that the whole operation was his idea. 5/5

Harley Quinn: Margot Robbie owns this role. She’s unbelievably dazzling as a badass, funny, sexy antihero who deals greatly with tragedy and proves that there’s always been more to her than her initial role as the Joker’s sidekick. Again, not much to say, but she’s almost perfect. 5/5

#dc villains #batman #batman villains #dark knight #dc extended universe #batman movie

[sellyoursoulforagoodfic]

Shelbys at Somme: Chapter 4

Thomas X Reader

2306

Summary: Flashbacks and First days.

By: @adventuresintooblivion

[ Nine months before Somme]

“Why are all of the songs you sing happy?” he asked, mouth half full of slimy porridge.

Y/N glanced up from her rations, “What do you mean?”

Thomas shrugged, “You always sing about fighting or beating the odds no matter how bad it seems. Or about how angry everyone is about the war. Why don’t you ever sing anything that’s sad?”

She put her spork down, “You want me to sing a sad song during war?”

He didn’t answer right away, only shoveled a couple more mouthfuls down his gullet. After a swig of stale water he continued.

“I dunno. I feel like we should be allowed to be sad sometimes. Singing all these happy songs feels like we’re pretending that all the bullshit we see everyday isn’t real. Like we didn’t just watch several men lose their legs or that artillery didn’t just rip a man in half.”

Y/N let out a long sigh, “Thomas, I love you, but dear God man I’m eating.”

His heart skipped a beat. This was something he wished more than anything was real. That went beyond the comradery of soldiers. Yet, he schooled his features into something more neutral. Despite the fact that he craved to hear the words again but it was their spontaneity that was precious to him. 

Thomas was barely able to scramble together a reply, “I just want to feel again.” He blinked, not exactly sure where the admission had come from. Though he couldn’t take it back now.

Over the next few days he’d catch her humming a melody he didn’t recognize. Some parts she would work over again and again. Others would be there and gone, carried away on the breeze. When she sang it to them for the first time it was after a rough day. 

They had lost a handful of people to a tunnel collapse in the northeastern sector and all the hard work they’d done over the past six months was completely scrapped. One of the members of that team had been the youngest in their company. He had a fiance with a baby on the way even if he couldn’t yet grow a full beard.

She’d been perched on a piece of rubble that had fallen from a church. Her voice was clear and perfect as crystal. The song was about a soldier going home to find his wife bleeding on the floor. She’d ended her life to be with him after receiving a call that incorrectly informed her that his company had been massacred. 

The men of the 174th wept that night the hardest they had since the war began. All the pent up rage and fear leaking out onto their pillows in the dead of night. For those who couldn’t be silent, they wept with their heads held between their hands in an attempt to muffle the noise. It was the army though and no one ever questioned crying men.

Thomas hadn’t cried. He was more angry about the deaths and couldn’t quite settle down enough to listen to the words. It wasn’t until she’d sung it a second time it had unraveled him. She’d changed the ending. The first time the wife wasn’t saved and the soldier had to move on without her. This time, they lived into their greying years with the knowledge that life was unbearable without the other.

“Why is it the ‘happy’ ending?” she asked him once.

Thomas shrugged, his eyes still swollen. It was one of the few times they were alone and she’d sung it for him. He didn’t mind being the only audience but it had made the unexpected turn in lyrics all the more powerful for him. 

Thomas’ voice cracked as he spoke, “Don’t ever sing that in front of Hopper.” He elaborated when she raised her eyebrow, “If you sing a single note of that in front of him he’ll figure out you’re a woman.”

Y/N froze, “How did you know?”

He smirked, “You never bathe with the other men. Your uniform is always too big. You’re almost a head shorter, to the point I’m surprised no one has said anything. And your face does the thing”

“What thing?”

“That soft thing that everyone thinks is cute.”

He swore he imagined it but her cheeks turned a light pink, “Did you just call me cute Shelby?”

He shrugged, “Just keep the singing away from Hopper.”

〜

[Present Day]

Y/N awoke the next morning to the raucous laughter of dozens of men floating up the stairs. With a bewildered groan she checked the small window to her room to find that it was at least past noon at this point. On Saturday.

She cursed to herself as she quickly dressed in trousers. Her leg almost didn’t lift high enough to get inside without pain shooting up her back. With an audible growl she shoved her limp foot through the hole and grabbed her violin case. A passing glance in the mirror told her that her hair was wildly out of control, but if the singing had already started it was too late to fix it now.

Y/N practically hopped down the stairs on one leg. Twinges still assaulted her with every step, but it was better than just hobbling around on a bum leg. Which she’d have to do anyway on level ground.

Upon descending into the bar, she was confronted not by the milling groups she’d seen at lunch time the previous day but a completely packed room. Fully grown men were pressed shoulder to shoulder all staring up towards the front of the bar. A woman’s voice lulled over some lyrics Y/N recognized as a folk song that had become popular again after the war. Nostalgia always popped up in weird places.

With some luck, and her short stature, Y/N squeezed her way close enough to the bar that she had enough elbow room to play. Standing in front of the bar was the woman she’d seen at the opera...and the restaurant. Once she was done with her current song she waved to grab her attention.

Grace’s eyes practically bulged out of her head when she noticed Y/N, “Uh..Y...Yes? Can I help you?”

“Oh, this is weird,” she mumbled to herself. Speaking louder to be heard over the crowd, she lifted her violin case, “Thomas told me I was supposed to help you out on Saturdays. What would you like me to do?”

Grace’s eye’s cast about wildly. “Did he hire you?”

“In a way. Did you need help or…?”

“Yes. Yes. Set up over at that end of the bar. Do you know Black Velvet Band?”

Y/N nodded as she moved. “I know most of the popular songs. But if I don’t know something I can usually figure it out after the first verse as long as it’s nothing weird.”

For the next several hours, they entertained the patrons of the Garrison Pub. Grace could usually sing several songs in a row, but eventually she needed a break and that’s when Y/N would go from a supporting role to the main role. After Grace had rested and filled orders, she would once again relinquish center stage.

The patrons were eating it up, and at one point Y/N had caught sight of Jerimiah. She waved in a small pause in the music and damn near killed the man. He had turned ashen when he’d registered who she was and had begun to sway only to be caught by Danny, who’d stopped by after an errand. 

He’d quickly left, returning a couple hours later with almost the half the platoon they’d served with. The bar, already almost at max capacity, was now so overflowing with people that the party had begun to spill onto the streets. Someone had gone home and grabbed a portable skillet and had offered to cook anything people brought him. Soon the smell of grilled meats wafted through the slums of Birmingham. And the Garrison Pub was serving every single one of those thirsty people.

At some point a couple of men had constructed a makeshift stage for the women to perform on and had urged them outside. Now the dancing had started as women came to find their husbands up to their ears in drink and food. Children ran amok, mimicking some of the dances with others finding whatever they could to play with as music brought this part of the city to life.

It wasn’t until the sun had begun to set that someone caught sight of Thomas Shelby and his family approaching the Pub. Word spread quickly, and most continued their revelry even if it was subdued. Finally, Thomas made it to the foot of the stage. Everyone waited with baited breath to hear what the gang leader had to say.

“So, allow you two to play music for one day, and it becomes a feast?”

Y/N finally put down her violin after hours of playing. Her back practically screamed at her to sit down, but this was the first time she’d played to a crowd like this in years. She’d missed it.

So she did what she always did. “That’s what you get for sticking us both up here. Hell, between the two of us I’m pretty sure we could play so well the pearly gates themselves would open for us.”

“After all the shit you’ve pulled?” He raised his eyebrow skeptically. A soft murmur went through the crowd as people shared confused glances. She knew Thomas.

Y/N couldn’t help but grin, “Oh, they couldn’t bear not to have us play for the angels themselves. But here we are instead playing for these hard working men and women, and I think we’ve done a good job filling their hearts with hope again.”

He chuckled, “Fine. Just make sure the Garrison stays busy.”

“As you wish.” Y/N shrugged, her arms complaining as she lifted her violin once again.

Grace stared at her new companion with unveiled wonder, “He lets you talk to him like that?”

Y/N flashed Grace with one of her signature wicked smiles, “We were army buddies.”

“But they don’t allow women to fight.”

“Eh, who says they had to know?”

Grace’s mouth fell open as Y/N started up another song, one that Grace didn’t recognize. But the entirety of the 174th sent up cheers, their glasses raised. 

It was a fast paced one that made it hard to sit still. Y/N braced herself before she began to dance on the small stage, tapping her feet in time with the beat as the 174th began to sing. Their voices rose over the general din. There wasn’t much melody in it, but those men sang from somewhere buried deep inside. It was as if the hope that had carried them through the worst days of hell sprang to life to answer the call of music.

At the edge of the crowd in the shroud of darkness, the barest outline of Thomas Shelby could be seen. Even if he didn’t scream the lyrics along with his brothers in arms, he still sang. It was then that Grace understood why Thomas had been so adamant about there being no music in his pub.

If Grace wanted to truly understand Thomas Shelby she’d have to learn about him not as the gang leader, but as the man who survived the worst part of human history. Who was he before and what had happened with this woman that had changed his life forever? It was a way out, another option that didn’t rely on giving herself to the enemy. Holding onto that hope, Grace closed her eyes and tried to decipher the jumbled lyrics.

〜

Finally the Garrison Pub closed. Grace sat slumped against a table as Harry mopped the floor. Y/N curled up on one of the few benches in the corner. After everything was well and tidied up, Grace got up to leave.

“You coming?” she asked.

Y/N shook her head, “Actually I’m staying upstairs.”

Grace’s brow furrowed, “But...why? I mean your dress was lovely, and you were playing in one of the most expensive places in town. Can’t you afford a better place?”

“This suits me just fine. Besides, you of all people should know that a pretty dress is just a costume; at the end of the day it doesn’t mean nothing.”

Grace froze, “What do you mean?”

Y/N fixed Grace with a tired gaze, “It’s just how it’s always been. You may love rolling around in the dirt, but a bath and pretty dress later no one would ever know.”

She let out a deep sigh of relief but just as she was about to leave Y/N stopped her once more, “Hey, since you’ve been in town longer do you know any good music halls? Operas? Theatres? I’m looking for work that isn’t just on Saturdays”

“Oh, I can’t stand Opera so I wouldn’t know about that. But I think there’s a new place opening up on the other side of the river.” Grace waved dismissively then shut and locked the door behind her.

Y/N slowly stood and finally let herself limp over to the bar and poured herself a drink. She mulled over the possibilities of why the hell Grace was at the opera if she hated it and wasn’t dragged there by family. So far none of the possibilities looked good and it was getting to the point she’d have to tell somebody. 

The wad of money Thomas had shoved at her still burned a hole in her pocket; she hadn’t gotten a chance to return it today. A goal for tomorrow then.

#thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby imagine #tommy shelby imagine #tommy #peaky blinders imagine #shelbys at somme #adventuresintooblivion

[wkemeup]

Guiding Light (7)

summary: It was supposed to be a simple mission. Get the intel and go home. Until everything goes wrong and you’re taken captive by Hydra and now, Bucky can’t breathe without you. Not until he brings you home. If he even can. pairing: bucky x reader chapter word count: 7.2k warnings: torture, angst™, graphic descriptions of violence,  🖤series masterlist // series playlist

It was unlike anything you could have imagined, even in the worst of your nightmares. The scar upon your forehead from an accident as a child, the identical wounds and swelling you’d sustained in your captivity, the flicker of a softer hue in your irises as the light touched it, the delicate fall of your hair, the curve of your nose. The clothing you had been held in for weeks, the same tear in the top right shoulder, the dirt smudged over your skin.

It was you. Entirely and completely you.

Except that it wasn’t.

The woman, wearing your face, laid upon the ground, still bound and restrained to the chair though her body slumped toward the concrete, lifeless. Her eyes open, unseeing, as a deep red pool surrounded her head from where the bullet had torn through the cavity, blood expanding along the floor and nestling into the cracks of the concrete.

“Freaky, ain’t it?” Cain chuckled, nudging the woman’s body with the toe of his boot, only for her to slump back into place.

You stared up at him, wide eyes, shock paralyzing your ability to speak.

“She’s enhanced,” Cain explained, an amused smirk upon his features. “Shapeshifter. Watch this.”

With the end of his gun, he prodded at a spot behind the woman’s ear, your ear, as the woman’s skin rippled over in scales, like cards bridging in a deck, replaced by an entirely new body. Skin and hair that was not your own, eyes staring far beyond the wall a different hue, scars and wounds that covered her face and arms now clean and replaced with small nicks and scratches of her own.

“Been holding onto this one for a special occasion,” Cain goaded, “so consider yourself special, princess.”

“You’re sick,” you spat, unable to tear your watering eyes away from the body of the woman at your feet. You tugged at the men holding you back. Strong, unforgiving arms wrapped around you; your body too weakened to do any damage. “You murdered this woman for what? To prove a point? That—That the Avengers are human?”

“To keep your fucking brainwashed boyfriend from finding you before we’ve completed what we have planned!” Cain bellowed, rushing at you in one fowl swoop and pressing the barrel of the gun under your chin. The metal was hot on your skin as he pushed it against you enough for you to stretch your neck higher, searching for a relief from the pressure. You struggled to swallow.

“Now, we can get to work in peace without the Avengers breathing down our necks,” Cain barked in your face, split flying onto your cheek and forcing you to wince. He stepped away and let the gun fall from your neck. You coughed to find the air the barrel had suffocated from you and shot him a glare. Cain only seemed to smile wider at that, amused by your pain. “Not going to keep searching for a dead body, now are they?”

You sucked in a harsh breath and the men dropped you from their grasp. Too weak to stand on your own, you hunched over on the floor, eyes darting over at the body of the woman lying just a few feet away.

Cain snapped his fingers and one of the men grabbed a harsh grip of the woman’s arm, hulling her into the air and tossing her body over his shoulders. It was too rough, too cruel for the way he carried her and you parted your lips to say something, but bit down on your cheek. This woman who was killed wearing your body was just that... dead.

She didn’t know the humiliation or the desecration with which these men handled her body. She didn’t know the pain of being hulled over a man’s shoulder with little remorse. She didn’t know anything. She was dead, as you imagined you soon would be as well. 

You crawled over to the mattress at the corner of the room as the door slammed shut, trapping you with the pool of blood staining into the concrete. Body slumping onto the hardened surface, stray springs poking at your skin, and despite Danny’s whispered calls of your name, the urgency and worry in his voice, you closed your eyes and cried until sleep was merciful enough to pull you under.

***

Familiar clicks startled you from your rest just hours later as Cain pushed his way back into your cell, rolling along with him a television from the early 2000’s strapped to a tall, plastic cart. He shot a wink at you as you turned sheepishly upon the mattress to face him, too weakened to goad him or even warp your face into a glare. He was alone, without his lackeys, which was unusual for his daily visits.

“Got something fun to show ya,” he taunted as he pressed a single click to the television. “Hope you enjoy, princess.”

Without another word, he retreated from the room, closing the door behind him.

You swallowed, the bile painful in your throat as you starred over at the television as it warmed up, the picture on the screen slowly fading from a dark black to reveal the picture beneath.

“What was that about?” Danny asked cautiously through the wall.

“Not sure yet,” you mumbled back, pushing yourself to your feet despite the aching cries in your muscles.

Upon the screen, a blonde woman came into view, wearing a navy blue blazer as she handled a stack of papers in her hand, tapping the edge of a pen on the desk she sat behind.

“It has been five hours since footage airing the assassination of renowned Avenger Agent Y/n Y/l/n of SHIELD was streamed live to every screen in Times Square,” the woman reported and an image of your headshot from your early days in the academy appeared on the top left corner of the screen. With a bright smile, skin free of oozing scars, and a light behind your eyes, you hardly recognized yourself.

“This comes following almost two months held as a prisoner in Hydra’s captivity. While the Avengers have been tirelessly searching to rescue their fallen teammate, it appears all roads have led to this fateful moment.”

You heard Danny curse under his breath, having heard the reporter through the speakers. The woman pressed her lips into a thin line, a heavy breath exhaled before she spoke again.

“We have obtained footage from the scene in Times Square where the Avengers were subjected to watch Agent Y/l/n’s murder live in real time, along with the civilian population.”

The screen filtered away from the newsroom to show a young man and woman standing in the middle of Times Square, posing in front of the series of colorful billboards, holding up a peace sign with wide smiles brimming on their cheeks. The film was in a vertical angle, with thick black bars filling the rest of the screen, filmed on a phone’s camera.

“Oh, my bad... it’s a video,” a voice chuckled nervously from behind the phone to which the subjects of the intended photo rolled their eyes and began to laugh along with him.

Then, over the man’s shoulder a silver van shot into frame, electric sparks flying from metal scraping the concrete, tires long gone. A horrible screeching sound had the couple pressing their palms to their ears. It crashed into a parked car and drew the attention of every pedestrian within the frame.

“Holy crap is that the Avengers!?” the voice shouted, zooming the camera in on Tony as he flew above the van in his Iron Man suit. The camera followed Sam as he touched down on the other end of the van, winds folding into his suit.

It was strange, to watch your friends from the point of view of civilians. It had a certain kind of theatric to it and you understood why the people adorned your friends as heroes.

Heart in your throat, you collapsed into the chair used to torture you as Bucky suddenly came into view, sprinting towards the SUV, not stopping until he ripped the door from its hinges and tossed it several yards down the street. The man recording the film was shouting, cheering him on, as the lens flashed to his friends’ excited faces.

The camera zoomed in closer as Bucky dragged someone from inside the van. Too far away to hear what they were saying, but Steve walked into the frame, shoulders stiff enough for you to recognize that he was advising Bucky to stand down, carefully reaching for his friend’s shoulder, only to be shrugged away.

Hair shielding his face, Bucky began to beat the man until blood splattered over his hands. The recorder of the video only egged him on, like he was watching some kind of fight in the halls of a high school. He couldn’t have been any older than sixteen.

You heart was in your stomach.

“Oh-- Oh my God. M-Miles, look!” the young woman to the recorder’s left gasped, the lens now aimed at the dozens of screens lining the street with your face, the shapeshifter’s face, upon it.

You pressed your hand to your chest in an attempt to ease the race of your heart, but it did nothing to aid you. The film followed Bucky as he rushed forward and you could see how violently his hands were shaking, even at this distance. A lump in the back of your throat and tears welled in your eyes, watching as he turned in a slow circle, taking in the hundreds of screens surrounding him.

The blonde woman appeared back behind the news desk, a solemn look upon her face. “We have cut the video as it displays the violent and graphic image of Agent Y/l/n’s death. The recording will pick up again after the Hydra stream cuts out.”

As she stated, the feed cut straight back to Times Square, only this time you could make out the faint sound of people crying in the streets, the couple who had posed for the picture just moments ago, now huddled together, reaching for their friend behind the camera. He shook them off, aiming the lens back at Bucky as he was lowering a gun that had been aimed at one of the screens.

The video was shaking, the hand of the teenager capturing it trembling, as Bucky stumbled on his feet, grasping at his chest before he collapsed to his knees. The scream that fell from his lips shook you to your core, goosebumps trailing over your skin, and a puncture so sharp in your chest, you wondered if you would survive it. Your hand pressed against your lips to keep the sob from escaping you as tears blurred your vision, a lump in your throat threatening to choke you.

The camera panned to the rest of your team, your family. Tony was punching holes into the silver SUV before he took off into the sky. Natasha was hulled against Steve’s chest, her shoulders shaking as Steve ran his large hands down her back, nervous glances back in Bucky’s direction. Sam was kneeling just a few feet away, head bowed, like he was praying.

Slowly, the camera returned to Bucky and his hands were horribly shaking, trying to grab onto fabric, something, anything, to ground himself how you taught him but nothing was working. His whole body shook.

You pushed yourself from the chair, wobbling legs carrying you to the television and you skimmed your fingers over the static of the screen, touching the pixelized image of Bucky as if it could reach him in some way, as if it could tell him that you were alive, but it was useless. A suppressed cry hitched at your breath and you wrapped your arms around your chest.

“Memorial services are being arranged all over the country to honor the fallen Avenger,” the reporter stated soberly as the image of Bucky faded away. “For more information, please visit our website at—"

The screen went black and you fell back into the chair. The first time you saw Bucky in nearly two months, just the blurry outline of his figure in the distance, the movements seen from fifty feet away, and it was worse than you could have imagined.

You’d never heard his voice like that before, not even when he woke up screaming in the dead of night with the horrors of his part flashing through his dreams in twisted memories.

This, was something else entirely; the crack of his voice, the desolation, the hopelessness, the worst of his fears coming true in front of his eyes, on display for the entire world to see, and he had no way of knowing it was a trick. A horrible, cruel illusion by Hydra to persuade the Avengers to stand down, to keep them from finding you as Cain put whatever his plan was into action.

They had proof that you were dead, watched the bullet tear through your skull on live television. They had no reason to believe it was orchestrated. If you had any doubts your family would find you, this newsreel only confirmed it.

You were never going to see the outside of this cell again.

***

Days later, as Cain continued to come for you each morning with a tray of knifes at his disposal, he was displeased to find you hadn’t submitted to him completely.

While you had lost your hope, you still held onto your anger with every ounce of your will. Anger for what they did to you, what they’ve done to Danny, for murdering that woman for no reason other than theatrics, for putting Bucky and your team through hell and subjecting them to a trauma they would never recover from.

Anger that festered and burned aflame each time Cain walked into the room and it only urged him on as he ripped and tore at your flesh until he chipped at the very edge of your sanity.

Soon, Cain grew tired of your unwillingness to submit and he began to bring you to a different room, one that you had only heard stories about, described through panicked breaths in the dead of night from the man who was all too familiar with the horrors that lied inside.

The room was dark, and cold, and surrounded by lab equipment and monitors. The unsettling high-pitched beeping of machines as they ran through their intended algorithm. Men and women in white lab coats stared at you with intrigue, dehumanizing you to your very core.

You fought them every time they led you to the chair, knowing what it would do to you, to your free will, but your body was weaker than your mind and they strapped you down with ease. Metal clamps snapped over your wrists and a lab tech shoved a mouth guard between your teeth as the machine roared to life, electric sparks jumping from the ends of paddles they soon would affix to the side of your face.

A scientist by the name of Dmitry Petrov hovered over you as he tapped at the edge of his clipboard, observing intently before they brought the paddles down to you. You had spat the mouth guard out at him as he dared to touch the side of your face, studying the wounds you had sustained from your time with Cain.

“You should learn some respect, princess,” Cain seethed from the side of the room, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall, watching.

“You’re a fool if you think you can restart the winter soldier program and get away with it,” you shot back, voice cold, unattached, like you had become.

Cain laughed at that, shaking his head as he exchanged amused glances with the men in the room. “Seems like you’ve missed the point, princess. We’re not making an army. We don’t need a whole team of soldiers to accomplish our task. Just you and you will serve your purpose.”

You gritted your teeth. “Which is what exactly?”

“Not your concern,” Cain smirked and Petrov shoved the guard back into your mouth. He pulled a lever and in one shift motion, the machine clamped down on the side of your face, electricity pulsing through you, singeing your skin, your hair, and with a pain so unimaginable, you blacked out after your voice had gone hoarse from screaming.

***

Nearly two weeks following your supposed execution on live broadcast, you were dragged back to the room with the machine on a daily basis. You tried to keep Danny in the dark about what they were doing to you because you didn’t want to scare him, make him question if there would be a day you didn’t come back to the cell, because each day you wondered it yourself; if today would be the day the machine fried your brain or rendered you permanently unconscious.

On the third week of the machine, Cain shoved you back into the chair with a grunt and though you tried to fight him, he clasped the restraints around your boney wrists.

“You need to start feeding her better,” Petrov commented, examining the bones protruding from your chest. The way his eyes trailed over your body made your stomach twist; clinical, unkind, and with a disgust that made you sink into yourself. He turned to Cain. “If she is to do what she is meant for, she will need her full strength.”

Cain rolled his eyes, thought he eventually relented.

***

It was the fourth week of being hulled into that room when they attempted to use the trigger words for the first time.

They were unfamiliar to you, words that were not a part of Bucky’s list, and in a language you didn’t understand, but eventually as they paired each shock of the machine with the words in a small, red book, Petrov explained that they must carry personal meaning for it to be effective.

You decided that the translation of the words didn’t matter, not with the electricity coursing in your veins and pain so excruciating you relished the moments your body gave out, lulling you to the safety of your unconscious and the cool blanket of darkness.

Petrov was infuriated each time you blacked out, like it was an affront to him in some way. He’d start the process over again after they injected you with some kind of serum that swept through your veins like fire. Your body didn’t allow you your sanctuary after that.

“Tell her what the triggers mean, doc,” Cain taunted one day from the side of the room. He sat upon the edge of the counter, gripping at the lip. He wore that same grin on his face that made you sick to your stomach.

“It is not necessary,” Petrov replied flatly as he gripped the side of your face to get a better look at the burn marks on your skin.

Cain jumped down from the counter. “Maybe not, but it’ll be fun. She’ll know their meaning and I want to see the look on her face when she realizes. Get her all emotional. See if it helps.”

He stared at you, lips curving in that sickening smirk and you gritted your teeth. He was always trying to find new ways to torture you, to break you down to nothing. Your upper lip twitched as you struggled to contain yourself; a staring contest of wills.

“If you must,” Petrov replied offhandedly, thick Russian accent as he adjusted the settings on the machine. He pulled out his book, flipped on a switch and a surge of energy ran through your veins. You tried to bare it, to grit your teeth and push through the pain because you knew Bucky had once been subjected to this chair and maybe you could tether yourself to him in some one, hold onto him enough to guide you through this.

“Марафон,” Petrov recited, pacing down the room, watching your vitals.

“Marathon,” Cain spat, a translation you could barely hear over the roar of the machine and then, a flash of Bucky running at your side swept through your vision.

Even as you screamed out in pain, as voltage ran through your bloodstream, you thought of Bucky’s light breaths as he jogged beside you, slowing down in pace when your muscles started to ache and he thought you didn’t notice.

“горький,” Petrov continued, sending a watchful eye in Cain’s direction.

“Bitter,” Cain sneered the translation at you and you could only think of coffee at five in the morning, hunched over the counter; a watchful eye as you stretched in the corner for weeks before you heard his voice for the first time.

“Бруклинский,” Brooklyn. The first time you took Bucky to New York. You screamed out; the pain unbearable as it pulsed through your head, like a damn about to break.

“скаут,” Scout. The little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird. Bucky’s favorite character in the first book in a series of novels you had put together for him. His catch-up list. The stench of burnt hair filled the room.

“боевой,” Combat. Sparing in the ring. Fighting alongside him in the battlefield. You couldn’t breathe. The heel of Petrov’s boot clicked as he paced down the room.

“возлюбленная,” Sweetheart. You let out a guttural cry as the translation hung through Cain’s vicious voice. A name so loving, so revealing, that hearing it come from a man so cruel, so opposite to Bucky in every way, was an act of violence in itself.

“мелодия,” Melody. Tears streaming down the sides of your face as you thought of sitting at the end of your bed, curled up on the floor, laptop between you as the soft strum of a guitar filled the room and Bucky’s sweet voice asking you to play it again.

“вена,” Vienna. Your first mission together. Cain was laughing out of view. Petrov tapped his pen against the clipboard.

“шестнадцать,” Sixteen; of twenty-sixteen. The year you met. You were teetering on the edge of consciousness, pain too excruciating to hold onto.

“страсть,” Petrov called out, one last jolt of electricity through your veins and slowly, the machine released from the sides of your face and your body slumped in relief. Breaths heavy in your chest, jaw locked around the mouth guard and hands clenched so tightly around the armrests you weren’t sure if you’d ever be able to pry them away.

Cain stood from his seat at the corner of the room, strolling over you to and grabbed a firm hold of your jaw, forcing you to meet his eye as he spoke the last translation, his breath hot on your skin.

“Desire,” he purred the final translation before he leaned in closer, lips pressed as if he were to kiss you and you spat at him, a growl in your throat and daggers in your eyes.

Cain stepped back with a fury over his face you hadn’t even seen in the months he’d been torturing you and he slapped you hard across the face.

You barely felt it from the lingering ache of the machine.

“It’s not working,” he spat at Petrov, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I thought this was supposed to make her compliant! Does she look compliant to you!?”

“It takes time, Cain. You must be patient,” Petrov sighed, scribbling on his clipboard as he examined the monitors displaying your vitals. “Our fathers’ generation had years to perfect the winter soldier and I have been given months. Even knowing that the Avengers will not come for her, her will is too strong. That is the difference between her and the asset. She still has something keeping her from giving in to the conditioning; something to live for.”

Cain nodded, turning to glare at you over his shoulder. The curve of a knowing smile that etched against his lips was enough to make your stomach sink.

“Then we’ll destroy it."

***

That night, you curled up on your side, thinking of the words they used on you, words that were meant to be personal, words they shouldn’t have been able to know about you, about Bucky. His favorite fictional character wasn’t something they’d be able to find in a newspaper. None of it made sense, but your head now had a constant unpleasant ringing at the base of your skull that made it difficult to focus on much of anything.

“What are you going to do when you get out of here?”

You stared up at the ceiling, struggling to keep your eyes awake as Danny’s tired voice carried through the small crack in the wall. Slowly, you turned to face the hole, the blurry figure of ginger hair and tan camouflage barely in view.

“I think I’d go back home, apologize to my ma,” Danny continued, answering his own question with a careful nod of his head. “I wasn’t always a good kid growing up. Caused a bit of trouble. It was a small town, you know? What else were a bunch of idiot teenage boys gonna do? She... she didn’t deserve the stress I put on her. I think she should know that I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure she does,” you said softly, your voice raspy and raw from the machine. Danny hummed in response, thankful.

“I’m gonna see a Yankees game, too. Think your pal Stark will help me out?” he asked with a slight chuckle in his voice though it sat against a deep unease that settled uncomfortably in your chest.

“Of course,” you replied as tears welled in your eyes.

Danny wasn’t naïve, not anymore. He knew he had as good a chance of getting out of here as you did, but this was how he hung on, how he kept himself from falling into the darkness. He imagined something better.

“Maybe I’d give college another shot,” he sighed. “I think I could do better this time. Maybe I could go for criminal justice or something. I’d have a pretty high up contact at SHIELD now.”

A laugh escaped you, broken, but the faint burn in the crack of your lips went unnoticed.

“What are you gonna do?” Danny asked, as he always did.

You usually gave him some short, convenient answer so you wouldn’t have to really think about, so you didn’t have to imagine what could happen, knowing that it wasn’t in your future. It was too painful and you needed every ounce of strength you could muster.

But you’d been put through the chair more times than you could count. Pain had become second nature and you had stopped seeing Bucky even in your dreams. You were losing him, details fading from your memory. He had a freckle on his forehead, something no sane person would notice, but it was something you caught onto in the moments he allowed you to be that close, to notice something so small and faint between the lines of his brow. It was a privilege to live in his details.

Only now you couldn’t remember if it was above his left or right eye. You couldn’t remember if his eyes were more blue or grey or if they were somewhere in between. You were losing pieces of him and it wasn’t the chair that was taking him away. It was time. Soon, you’d lose him entirely. You’d lose the sound of his voice, the crinkles by his eyes when he smiled, the curve of his lips. You’d lose him, more and more each day until he was gone from you.

“I’d tell Bucky he’s the best parts of me,” you confessed suddenly, surprising yourself as you brushed aside tears that had formed in your eyes. “I’d make sure he knew that none of this was his fault. If it took months or years, I’d remind him every day that what happened here wasn’t because of him. I’d tell him that he is so immensely loved and I’d spend the rest of my days convincing him if he’d let me because I know he’d have a hard time believing it. I’d get away from all this for a while, take Bucky to Alaska or New Zealand and just be with him like I always wanted... like I think maybe he has, too.”

“We’d come back home when we’re ready,” you continued, desperately trying to picture it all in your mind. “We’d come back and I’d spend time with the team; the only real family I ever had. We’d watch movies for hours and order pizza from Chicago and lobster rolls from Boston just to put Tony’s money to good use. I’d go back to that stupid hipster bookshop in Brooklyn and buy a thousand more books and sit in the grass down by the lake at the compound and read until I fall asleep. I’d finally convince Nat to teach hand-to-hand to the rookies with me and help Sam down at the VA. I’d thank Steve for taking care of the love of my life in the times I couldn’t. I’d... I’d find a way to forget this place.”

“That sounds really nice,” Danny said softly, and you closed your eyes, tears sliding down your temple as you laid upon the mattress.

Danny’s hand pressed to the wall, the lines of his palm barely visible through the tiny opening and casting shadows into your cell. You mirrored his gestured, your palm resting and the cool sensation of the concrete.

A silent acknowledgement of the fantasies neither of you would ever see.

Then, the sharp clicking of locks. Only, it wasn’t coming from your cell.

“Danny?” you called carefully as he pulled away from the wall in a sharp motion, scrambling into the corner. The door slammed open and hit the adjacent wall loud enough for it to send a jolt through your spine. You listened carefully, hands pressed to the wall now, sitting up on your knees as you tried to decipher what was going on.

“No, no, please,” Danny begged, his voice breaking and you clamped your hand over your mouth. “Please, no more--”

“Let’s go, kid,” Cain’s voice chuckled, muffled, through the wall.

Danny was scrambling away, instinctively fighting back. “Get off of me!”

A muted punch and Danny grunted, falling silent, and what was left of your nails dug into your cheeks to keep silent. Feet scrapped along the floor as footsteps retreated from the room and you could only picture them dragging Danny behind them. It wasn’t the first time it happened, that they took him off to some unknown room only to return hours later, bloodied and beaten, but it was never any easier.

You sat back against the wall, tapping on your knee anxiously and waited for the hours to pass before he came back. You counted cracks in the ceiling, wrung at your hands, fidgeted with the ends of your worn clothing to pass the time.

He’d be back. They always brought him back, you reminded yourself on an endless loop.

Hours passed and still nothing. You stood to your feet; body stronger now that they had graced you with meals again and you began to pace. Your legs had grown sore and tired and you lost track of how long you had been shuffling your feet.

Suddenly, clicks run out beyond the door of your cell and you narrowed your eyes, freezing into place as the door swung open. Cain strolled in, pleasantly surprised to find you standing, watching him suspiciously. His knuckles were broken and red with blood.

“Hey there, princess.”

“Where is he?” you spat, convinced now that Cain had discovered your friendship with Danny long ago. He’d been waiting for the right moment to strike, to do something about it. This was it.

“Who?” he grinned, feigning innocence.

“You know damn well who!” you shouted back at him, red faced and arms flailing out to the side, taking a step in his direction, only for Cain to pull out a gun and aim it right at your chest.

“Better watch your step, princess.”

“You won’t kill me.” You shook your head. Defiant. Confident. “You need me for something. Wouldn’t waste all that time trying to mess with my head for nothing, would ya?”

Cain shrugged, chuckling under his breath as he holstered his weapon, “you caught me. We need to keep your body preserved, healthy even, but your will to live, to fight what we will make of you, has been... irritating to say the least. Lucky for me, I think I’ve found a way to break you. Would you like to see?”

“Fuck off, Cain,” you rolled your eyes, arms folding over your chest. Hardened features against the burn marks on the side of your face from the machine and Cain only grinned at you. He gestured for someone beyond the door and the sound of rustling footsteps came from down the hall.

A man appeared in the doorway, in his right hand something that made your stomach drop below your feet. Ginger hair wrapped between dirty fingers, clenched in this man’s fist. Danny was on the floor, grasping at the man’s hand to find relief, blood pouring down from his nose and eyes widening in fear when he caught sight of you.

Your arms fell to your sides, lips parting in shock as you watched the man drag Danny further into the room, shoving him down by Cain’s feet. Danny groaned, curling up on his side as he nursed an injury under the fabric of his shirt.

“Danny,” you whispered his name, fear laced in your voice that only egged Cain on. Danny lifted his eyes, nodding subtly at you, enough to tell you he was okay.

“Danny boy and I have been catching up, haven’t we?” Cain taunted, nudging Danny with his shoe. “He has been so incredibly helpful. Ain’t that right?”

Danny grimaced, shutting his eyes as he turned his face to the concrete. You furrowed your brow, watching as he so intently avoided your eyes.

“Oh, she hasn’t figured it out yet, has she?” Cain snickered, laughing with the men behind him. He reached down and grabbed a fist full of orange curls and yanked Danny to his knees. Your heart lurched as Danny let out a whimper, wobbling and unsteady as Cain released him. “Go on. Tell her what you did.”

Heart beating wildly in your chest, you slowly sank to your knees, trying to find his eye, but Danny wouldn’t look at you. Seeing him now, in full view, only made your stomach twist further. He was so young, practically a child; hands quaking and tears in his eyes. Skinny and baby faced.

“Danny,” you soothed. “Danny, it’s okay. You can tell me. What happened?”

He shook his head, gritting his teeth. Cain, growing impatient, kicked him hard in the shoulder and he fell forward, barely catching himself on his hands before his nose hit the concrete. He pushed himself back up to his knees, arms shaking violently.

“I-- I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he muttered, his voice thick with tears.

Cain rolled his eyes, stepping forward and knocking his fist to the side of Danny’s face, sending him spiraling to the ground. On instinct, you lunged forward at him, only for the barrel of Cain’s gun to return its aim on you. You froze, glancing between Danny and Cain.

“If he’s too much of a coward to tell you, then I’ll do it,” Cain grunted. “This punk’s been selling you out from the beginning; every time we dragged the little traitor from his cell, he’d let us know all the new fun facts you told him. Feeding us information you wouldn’t even give under the threat of a knife.”

Your breath hitched, a dread settling deep in your stomach.

It was how they got the trigger words; words they intended to use to rip your will from you and replace it with something dark, something evil and sinister and render you a witness to your own crimes. They learned these words from the kid who so innocently acted as your sounding board, who you confessed your memories and pieces of your heart to. They beat him and tortured him until he gave them up, unwillingly.

“It was his only purpose here, though he didn’t know that for quite some time,” Cain continued, pleased by the devastation on your face. “We knew that you’d never give up those details to me or anyone who tortured you long enough for ‘em, but we knew you’d tell some pathetic little army brat just to hold on to some kind of misguided hope. So yes, we brought in a naïve kid for you to bond with and eventually, he gave up all of the stories you told him. Didn’t you, Danny boy?”

Danny let out a cry, arms folding around his chest protectively and you leaned forward on your hands, outstretched as if to reach him though you knew you could go no further. He shook his head, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, face flushed and red with a shame he didn’t deserve to bare.

“Danny, look at me,” you urged, voice as gentle as calm as you could manage despite the rage boiling under the surface. Before Danny’s eyes could meet yours, you shot a glare at Cain, fury in your veins for the torment he put this kid through.

“I’m s-so sorry, Y/n,” he whimpered out, his youth and innocence on full display. Bright green eyes hooded under freckled, bruised skin, looked up at you, though his jaw was quivering. “They-- they made me tell ‘em and I—I tried not to. You have to b-believe me, I t-tried.”

“I know you did, honey,” you reassured him, tears welling in your own eyes. “Danny, it’s okay. It’s not your fault, you hear me?”

Danny shook his head, unconvinced.

“Not that this isn’t thoroughly entertaining,” Cain grumbled, “but we’re all gathered here for a reason and this little love fest ain’t it.”

“Just let him go, Cain!” you implored, slamming your hands against the concrete. “He’s practically a child! He’s done what you wanted! You don’t need him here!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he shot back, seething. “He was old enough to foolishly sign his life away to fly overseas and kill people for his government, maybe even get killed himself. I don’t consider that a child, do you?”

You were fuming, panting. It only made Cain smile wider.

“But you are right about one thing,” Cain shrugged, “I don’t need him. Not anymore.”

In one swift motion, Cain pointed the barrel of his gun at the back of Danny’s head. Your eyes went wide, breath caught in your lungs.

“Just so we’re clear, this is me destroying your last reason to live,” Cain smirked, pushing the gun against Danny’s head enough for his whole body to move in an attempt to relieve the pressure. Danny’s eyes were clamped shut; his trembling hands curled into fists.

You were frozen as Cain released the safety on the gun, the click of it echoing through the cell, deafening to your ears as time seemed to fall still. Heart pounding painfully, the thumping of it pulsing loud enough to hear, and your breaths coming out in shaky, uneven exhales.

Danny turned to look back at Cain and it kicked your adrenaline back into gear.

“Danny, no! Look at me!” you begged, urgency in your voice and you were met with the most stunning shade of green, hidden under layers of wet tears and red strain within the whites of his eyes. “Don’t look at him, Danny. Look at me, okay? I’m right here. I’m here with you.”

Danny nodded; his cheeks wet though a sudden calm washed over him. His hands fell still in his lap as he focused on you, on your breaths and your words, though they were breaking through your cries.

“Just keep your eyes on me, okay?” you urged desperately, not daring to spare a glance at Cain’s direction. “I’m right here. I’m here.”

You knew what was coming. You’d seen it weeks earlier as it happened to a woman wearing your face, but nothing could prepare you for the soft, impossibly kind smile that Danny gave you, the world around you stilling and moving in slow motion, a whisper of a ‘thank you’ on his lips.

“Danny,” you cried, voice breaking, “I’m here, I’m right--”

Deafening sound. Blood on your face. Copper on your tongue and the echo of a gunshot pierced your eardrums. Ringing and muffled voices as you swayed on your knees, staring ahead to the space Danny had been.

Paralyzed. Every movement of your arms felt like you were running through water, resistance against you. You didn’t hear Cain talking with the men in the room, barking next orders, not as you crawled along the hard surface of the concrete towards the body of the boy who had kept you sane for nearly three months.

Your hands, shaking violently, grabbed onto his shirt, turning him onto his back and a sob broke through you at the sight of his eyes, staring far off and in-between, glossed over, unseeing. You brushed your hand over his lids, closing them softly, and for a moment you could pretend he was sleeping. This sweet, kind, and gentle kid who deserved far more than this world gave him, lying in your arms, blood soaking through your clothes.

A hand gripped onto your bicep and you could barely feel it as you were dragged away, Danny ripped away from your gasp as your body skidding along the ground. You watched Danny’s figure fade from view as you were pulled out of the cell. You kept your eyes on him as long as you could, the most you could offer him, until he was gone.

Barely able to string your thoughts together, unable to feel anything other than the cold, numb ache that sat in your chest, consuming and expanding through your body, and you were strapped into the chair.

Staring off to the end of the room, body numbed and outside of yourself, you hardly registered the panels clamp down to the side of your face; didn’t care when the jolts of electricity burned through your veins and metal singed your skin. The words spoken in Russian, cold and detached, held no meaning, no memories to hold onto.

The faint sound of a man’s voice, dark and deep, a scar upon his face, taunted, “if we cannot control the soldier, we will destroy him with what he loves.”

You didn’t know who the man was referring to.

When the machine released and the pain drained from your body, you felt no relief. Only a cold emptiness.

Then, a man in a lab coat asked you a question. Words in a language other than your own slipped from your lips.

“готов соблюдать”

Ready to comply.

---

so to those who were suspicious of Danny... you were half-right? I actually wrote him as a full blown double agent in my first draft but I wanted the reveal and his ultimate death to have more of an emotional impact on Y/n so she’d be numb enough to succumb to the triggers...... sorry yall 

but I will say the next chapter is one of my favorites. Get ready for Bucky perspective in the months he still believes Y/n to be dead 😬

also! if anyone’s interested, the official playlist for the Witness is available now, too! ✨

tags 👯‍♀️ @musiclover1263 / @pies-wands-and-more / @buckygrantbarnes / @mywinterwolf / @breatheeagainnnn / @jewelofwinter / @panic-naran / @fairislesheets / @kaliforniacoastalteens / @captain-hammer-of-asgard / @daydreamsquad / @deanssweetheart / @maybesomedaytho / @montypythonsholysnail / @saharzek / @jillybeaner13 / @chubby-dumplin / @searchingforbucky / @alohafromhell1 / @tabalugax / @shesalatesh / @whyamidoingthistomyselfhelp / @aliensbecameourstyle / @bucksgoat / @serpensortiaaa / @trash-rats-unite / @hungry-pasta / @nervosaa / @lbuck121/ @get0verit / @obama-mia / @imsoft-barnes / @this-broken-band-girl / @michelehansel / @itz-kira / @forever157 / @grey-water-colors / @sebastianstan-posts / @sarcastic-and-cool / @no-clue-whats-happenin / @capsgrl / @happyeyesandsunshine / @slithredn / @13sunken-ships13 / @thefandomplace / @wxstedhexrt /  @jennmurawski13 / @galaxkay / @moonlessnight14 / @kittybritty7 / @sweetheartbarnes

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #marvel #bucky barnes x female reader #guiding light #tw: minor character death

[mystyrust]

Tricks and Treats - Ectober 2020 Day 4

Prompt: Darkness / Poison

Word Count: 1286  AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27255454

Additional Tags: Slight crack, Halloween, also kyle shows up!

It was no secret amongst the inhabitants of the ghost zones that on Halloween, the divide between the realms of the living and dead were thin. The ghosts could visit the land of the living, and for once, they wouldn’t be ushered away. In fact, if they were scary enough, they could even get free candy.

Danny knew this wasn’t the exact truth – in Amity Park, where the ectoplasmic concentration was higher than average, ghosts visited the land of the living all the time. But he was still extra vigilant for Halloween. Last time, he messed it up by summoning the Fright Knight. This time, it would take place during a new moon, when the night would be darkest and a ghost would be strongest. With living people in creepy costumes and cosplay, anything could go wrong.

“Hey, nice claws. They almost look real.”

“My, what sharp teeth you have!”

“That scythe looks dope! SO creepy.”

Luckily, Danny’s ghost sense could help him tell apart living people from dead ones. So he took it upon himself to patrol extra vigilantly on Halloween night, to protect the living people from the dead ones. Sam and Tucker were upset at first, but Tucker decided that it was possible to patrol and go trick or treating at the same time.

“Listen, guys. We’re still patrolling; we’re just taking candy breaks on the way! And besides, if we dress up for Halloween, we’ll blend right in!”

Danny found himself agreeing – he wouldn’t even have to pretend to be home after curfew if he told his parents he was trick or treating.

Halloween was Sam’s favorite holiday of the year – she loved all things occult, candy, and costumes. She always had the scariest costume of the three, but this year she opted for a more expensive cosplay.

“Holy crap your Mikasa Ackerman costume looks dope! Very on-brand for you, Sam,” Using the Manson Money™ that she rarely flaunted, Sam had purchased highly detailed props – Danny wouldn’t be surprised if the Vertical Maneuver Gear that was part of Sam’s look would actually work just like on the show. While Mikasa’s color scheme wasn’t as gothic as Sam would have liked, the character was moody and independent – just like Sam.

“Thanks Tucker! You really outdid yourself with your costume this year!” Tucker’s ‘costume’ wasn’t cosplay like Sam’s, but he was wearing an oversized suit that made him look taller than he really was, with fake arms attached. Tucker’s head was “held” by the suit’s fake arms, making it look like a decapitated person was walking around with their own head in their hands. The fake neck on top of Tucker’s suit still smelled like ketchup.

“Why aren’t you in costume yet, Danny?” The two friends had arrived at Danny’s house at the same time, waiting for him to finish changing so that they could go out “patrolling” the best candy routes together.

“I am now,”

Danny covered himself with a white sheet, with just two holes for eyes.

“I knew this would happen. Listen, I have a spare Ghostbuster’s costume at my house.”

“But Sam!” Danny protested. “If I need to go ghost, the sheet can hide my transformation!”

“That’s no excuse for poor effort on the best holiday of the year. You can still keep the sheet for if you need to go Phantom, but I’ll be damned if you don’t have fun as Fenton, too.”

The three made a detour to Sam’s house, with Tucker complaining that lost time was lost candy along the way. Luckily, they hadn’t lost much time – it wasn’t too dark yet, and the trick or treaters had only just started trickling into the neighborhoods.

“Trick or Treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!”

The three friends combed through the neighborhood, getting nearly full buckets and some prized candy bars along the way. At first, Tucker was worried that the houses would perceive them as “too old” for trick or treating – but once it was obvious that people much older than the trio were also out trick or treating, he began to relax and enjoy himself with the rest of his friends.

Danny, though he was enjoying himself, was too busy keeping his guard up. Especially now, when it was darker out. His core hummed with extra energy – he felt the extra power bubble underneath his skin, and stretched his senses out as far as he could. His hearing, his sight, his awareness, his ghost sense. Suddenly, he felt a chill crawl up his spine, just as he saw a group of trick or treaters walk by. Ghosts – they all were.

“Sorry guys, I’ll be right back.”

Danny unfolded the white sheet and covered himself, turning into his ghost form before turning invisible and flying out. Just as the suspicious group of Halloween goers turned the corner, Danny approached them from above.

“Fancy seeing you out here, in your not so fancy outfits.”

It was Ember, a couple others in lazy ghost blanket sheet costumes, and –

“Aw c’mon!”

“Youngblood?”

The child ghost was the same as he always looked, dressed up as a pirate.

“We weren’t planning to, but the kiddo really wanted to come out,” Ember responded.

“I promise I’m not gonna cause any trouble, I just really wanted to celebrate Halloween and get some candy!”

And that resonated with Danny, a little. He just wanted to enjoy himself, but he was on duty protecting all the humans from a threat they didn’t even know to look out for. And, by the looks of all the ghosts, a threat that probably wouldn’t manifest, at least tonight. Danny sighed.

“Look, if you promise not to cause any trouble for anyone – no damage, no ghost powers, no whatever – and you just do normal trick or treating like a human would, I suppose I can let you go.”

It had been a few months since he’d last won against Ember, Youngblood, Kitty, and Johnny 13. A few months since they’d bother to cause trouble for Danny. They weren’t so bad all the time, and once they reached an understanding, they went from evil to annoying at worst.

“Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou ghost boy!” Youngblood floated up to give Danny a hug.

“Remember! No ghost powers!”

“Oh right!” Youngblood floated down, giving Danny a hug around his legs.

Not all ghosts would be willing to reach an understanding, but Danny would maintain an alliance with the ones that did.

The ghosts returned to their trick or treating route; Danny should head back to Sam and Tucker, before –

“Hey, Fenton,” Danny hears a familiar nasally voice behind him.

“Hey…Kyle,”

“Dude, nice Halloween costume,” The lanky teen complimented. “Nice glowing aura effect. And the flying part! Totally jealous.”

Kyle wasn’t alone. He was with his younger brother – and Danny’s classmate – Wes Weston. They were both dressed as… Danny Phantom.

“We couldn’t figure out how to get the flying part down,”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Danny delivered a knowing smile at Wes, who glared in return.

“Kyle, he got ‘the flying part’ down because it’s not a trick. Because he’s actually a ghost, you know?!”

“What are you talking about? Everyone knows ghosts aren’t real.”

“Augh! He’s floating right in front of you!”

“He’s obviously using strong magnets to – oh, he’s gone,” Danny had turned invisible, to return back to his friends. While the Weston brothers amused him, he had enough of them for one night.

The town was ignorant of the ghosts that lurked alongside them. Sometimes that ignorance was bliss, like tonight on Halloween, where any ghost can pass as human. And sometimes, that ignorance was… willful. Maybe it’s for the best that no one believes either of the Westons.

#ectoberweek2020 #Danny Phantom #dp fanfic #Kyle Weston #day 4 #after 3 days of beating up danny #heres some slight crack

[anthropwashere]

Phic Phight: these lofty thoughts are killing me

Prompt from @ibelieveinahappilyeverafter: Undergrowth Sam AU. Sam’s time as mother of Undergrowth’s garden left it’s scars - and scars can go deep. Sam’s always known she shared a close connection with plants, but now she hears them. She knows what they think and what they feel and can control them. On one hand it’s terrifying, but on the other… The ghosts should be a lot more terrified of her now.

@currentlylurking @phicphight

Word count: 4,604

=

Sam tries not to think about then.

Maybe it's better to say she tries not to think about the gaping hole in her memory where then ought to be.

She's hardly the only one in that particular boat. The whole of Amity Park suffers from a ghost-induced amnesia spanning over a week. It's all anyone talks about for ages; where they were when the plants attacked, where they were when they finally woke up again. Trying to make sense of senselessness. And even now, months after the fact, there are still traces of that city-wide attack not yet repaired. Cracked concrete, homes and business too ravaged to salvage, miles of withered vines with thorns like carving knives, enormous mummified plants with mammalian fangs in human mouths, swathes of green-limned ice that refuses to melt even now. 

(Every time one of the three of them finds another frozen chunk of Amity Park Danny moves ASAP to take care of it, since not even anything his parents have cooked up can do much damage to it. The guilt twisting Danny up is horrible to watch unfold across his weary face; made worse still because for all that he and Tucker insist otherwise, it really was her fault.)

There's no hiding it: Amity Park was shaken to its foundations by Undergrowth. Even more so, perhaps, than by Pariah Dark. The Ghost King had transported the entire city directly into the Ghost Zone and did his utmost to run it to ruin with his army of skeleton ghosts. It had been a terrifying and impossible experience, and everyone can agree they only got out of that one thanks to Phantom. But the thing is, everyone in Amity Park can remember Pariah Dark's attack.

But Undergrowth? Flashes and flickers of almosts and maybes at best for everyone involved, and that is somehow so much more terrifying. What did they do? What were they made to do? How many missing and confirmed dead weren't taken by the towering ghost and all its myriad minions, but by one of them? Are they ever going to remember what happened? Is it better if they don't? 

And on, and on, and Sam's right alongside everyone else except in every way she isn't. Yes, she doesn't remember anything. But she knows she's at fault, because Danny told her just so.

Not in so many words, of course. He's too good for that. Too good a person, too good a ghost, too good a hero. He would never lay the blame for anything terrible that happened at anyone's feet but his own. He wasn't good enough, strong enough, fast enough—and on, and on. Never mind that he went and scrounged up and mastered an entirely new subset of powers just to counter Undergrowth—

(and her)

—and never mind the countless lives he did save. People were hurt, and worse, because he thinks he wasn't the hero Amity Park thinks he is. That's just the way he is.

Undergrowth was wrong. Sam knew that. She knew that. He was too extreme, too insane, too insistent on terraforming the entire planet to suit his self-aggrandizing whim to consider the consequences for whatever else lives here. Not just self-centered jerks with their gas-guzzling cars and plastic, one time use lives. There are so many people out there who understand what Sam's trying to do here in Amity, who do so much more to fight the ceaseless grinding up of Earth's finite resources than what one fourteen year old can do on her own. There are good people in the world fighting the evil and corrupt and greedy. There’s good in this world. You can't just—wipe the slate clean and start fresh.

You can't.

=

Sam remembers—the first attack. 

Sam remembers—waking up after it was all over. 

She remembers feeling sick and sluggish. Boneless. Dizzy and swooping like she'd downed too much cold medicine. Limbs slow to react, her thoughts even slower. She remembers her surroundings like a badly dubbed old kung fu movie; everyone moving at exaggerated angles, their voices not matching their mouths. She remembers Danny blinking too quickly, like he was trying not to cry he was so glad to see she was okay.

She remembers thinking with a cold and sullen fury, How dare he? 

What the fuck? had followed right on the heels of that, thankfully, because she’d had no idea why she'd ever in a million years be so angry with her best friend.

She remembers—knowing time had passed. Too much time. A dangerous and scary amount of time. And she remembers looking around and seeing the city halfway destroyed. And she remembers—

—guilt.

Guilt that made no sense until Danny, hours and hours later, faltered through an obviously edited summary of the week Amity Park forgot. She and Tucker had both blinked at him, and at each other, horrified and dismayed to find that Danny had had to do so much all on his own, that they'd been so vulnerable, so useless—

—but there'd been no guilt in Tucker's expression. No sign of the guilt that tangled up her guts in a cat's cradle until she was certain she'd throw up—

—and then she did have to throw up, staggering off to the bathroom in her basement, barely able to slam the door and fall to her knees before the toilet in time. She hates throwing up, hates the sweating and the shaking, hates the smell and the sound, hates how no matter what something always gets stuck in her nose. She'd screwed her face up tight so she didn't have to watch, rode out the worst of it, then sat there breathing wetly and hating life for a minute.

One of the boys had knocked gently on the bathroom door. "You okay?"

"Guh," she replied, throat hurting terribly at the effort. 

Sam remembers—opening her eyes, and the fear, and the confusion, and the certainty that she couldn't tell anyone, ever.

The toilet bowl had been full of flowers. 

=

That hasn't happened since, and—as far as she can tell—there haven't been any health issues that could have sprung up from having an indeterminate amount of flora taking root in her digestive system. 

She hasn't gone out much since then. School, patrol, the ghost attacks that invariably spring up outside of when she's penciled in time for a little extra chaos. She's made up excuses whenever Danny and Tucker invite her to hang out. She hasn't gone shopping or to a movie or any other perfectly normal after-school activity.

She's not hiding.

She's not.

It's just... easier, to not be around people any more than the barest necessity. At least until she feels... settled again. Normal again. For her, and for whatever 'normal' is worth in a town regularly terrorized by bigger and toothier and crueler ghosts with every passing month. It's fine. Danny's got Tucker and Jazz for the attacks that she's slow to arrive for, and Danny is—

Danny can handle himself. He's strong. He's amazing. He took Undergrowth—

(and her)

—down all on his own, no power suit or ghostly backup needed. It's fine.

Her parents seem to have miraculously caught on for once that she really does need some space; after the initial handsy-hugsy panicked relief the first couple days after Undergrowth, they gave her space (and anything else she asked for too, for that matter), only prodding her gently to come inside to eat now and then. Which she's grateful for, really, because she's pretty sure she wouldn't remember to eat at all without some prodding.

Something about eating rubs her wrong, now. The resistance of a carrot clenched between her teeth, the juicy flesh of an orange slice bursting under pressure, rice grains squirming like maggots on her tongue. She made a salad two days ago and couldn't stop thinking of the glamorized crime scenes from all those police procedural shows on TV; oversaturated, garish, someone's life torn open in a tasteless arrangement of stiff limbs. 

A cabbage is not a person. Cucumbers are not people. Almonds are a good source of protein.

Damn it.

Most of the time she hides—relaxes—in her greenhouse. Tucker had cracked a joke about that, though it had gone in one ear and out the other. Something something, bad taste. Blah blah, she's gone native. Didn't I tell you plants are the enemy?

Danny had laughed. Sam had to fight to keep her hands loose at her sides, to let it roll off like it didn't hurt while she tried to remind herself that it shouldn't hurt. That had earned her another tally in the ‘needing time away from people’ column. Not like, total isolation. School. Patrol. Dinner with her parents and grandma. She still does things with people. But every minute she's not in her greenhouse she feels this—this hand around her heart. This tightness that squeezes just enough that she's never not aware of it, and it's become so, so much easier for her to startle, to flinch from loud noises, to find herself overstimulated by her friends laughing as she is people screaming in the wake of ghosts. The hand squeezes until she can hardly breathe, and she thinks of the flowers she'd thrown up and thinks of roots, and thorns, and the fragility of her lungs, and it gets so hard to breathe—

Nobody's caught her breaking down yet. She hopes she can keep it that way. She hopes she can get over this—this anxiety, or fear, or whatever this is. 

But for all that she spends so much time in her greenhouse, the only place she doesn't feel that hand around her heart, she can't really say she's all that relaxed there either.

=

Another day put between then and now. Life around Amity Park is just about back to normal. If she's feeling generous with her definition of normal, anyway. She's made it through school without any issues and now she's free to hide—relax!—for a few hours in her greenhouse before one of her parents will come tapping at the door.

"Hey guys," she says, lackluster.

The whole greenhouse shivers at the sound of her voice.

Yep. That's totally normal. Nothing weird about that at all!

Ugh.

She goes through her after-school checklist by rote memory, biting her tongue to keep herself from the usual silly commentary she used to say along with it. She's learned better.  Undergrowth did—something to her. Something she's lied through her teeth about to Danny and Tucker, assuring them that she's fine, she's normal, there aren't any lingering effects from—whatever it was. Is. She's different now. Not outwardly, not in any of the ways Danny risks being discovered as inhuman every single day. She's not like Danny. She's still human.

She is.

But she can still do inhuman things. Or—not do. Nothing as active as ghost rays or flight or anything fun. But she can—influence. She still has an inhuman influence, and it's all she can do to keep her garden still.

Even with her teeth clenched so tightly her jaw aches and a headache blooms—nngh—at her temples, the slightest graze of her fingers across a leaf makes whatever plant she's touched quiver. When she picks up her pruning shears to clean up the tomato plants she can see them flush bigger and brighter before her very eyes. There's the tiniest, softest—niggling in the back of her mind, an itch on her teeth and goosebumps down her skin.

(mother)

She drops the shears. Before she can move to grab them a tendril of healthy green leaves curls off of the trellis to pluck them up out of the dirt and deposit them neatly in her numb hands again.

"...Thanks," she grits out.

All of the tomatoes swell to the size of tennis balls, their leaves straining to catch up. Two of the nearest ones split their blood red skins open to beam beatifically at her. There are teeth in their dripping grins, or something shaped enough like teeth to curdle her stomach.

"Stop."

The grins shrink, though the seams remain. She resolves to never eat those two. The thought of throwing them out however, is almost as revolting. She leaves without finishing the after-school checklist, opting to hide in the basement bowling alley with her grandma until dinner. It's not half as relaxing as it used to be.

=

She can't avoid her greenhouse. Not even for a day. Her garden needs daily attention. It needed it—before. 

It did.

Now the thought of ignoring it, even for an afternoon, makes her physically ill. So she doesn't know if it's guilt for not finishing her after-school checklist earlier or something—else, something left in her from then—

—she tries, she tries, she tries to remember anything from then, but there's only—

—hunger, and anger, and pride for her—

—her—

—her children. 

Nothing concrete. Nothing real. Nothing she can make use of. All she knows is that she's different, and it's most obvious here in her chil—

—garden. Her garden.

They won't hurt her. No matter what she says or does, this she knows for certain. Her garden will never hurt her.

Somehow, that isn't as comforting as it should be. All she can think of are teeth sinking into meat, and the sound of a scream, and splattering—

And she has no idea if Undergrowth made her order the—the—the children to kill someone, or if he goaded her into doing it personally. And she doesn't know which is worse. 

It's night now. Late. After patrol. Her cell phone is an intrusive blue glow in her greenhouse, the only light she dare use in case one of her parents is still awake. For all that they've been weirdly accommodating since then, she doesn't want to push her luck. It's a school night, after all. It's hardly any light at all to go by, really. She's tempted to pull up the flashlight app at least, but—

(hello hello)

(mother's back)

(we missed you mother)

—it's maybe safer to do this in the dark. For all that her throat closes up when she hears a loud rustling sweep through her greenhouse. For all that her feet feel like dead weights as she drags them across the dirt floor until she's stood in the center. In the heart of her domain.

She breathes. 

"I hear you," she whispers.

The rustling grows louder, and louder still. Tables creak under growing and shifting weights. Shadows move closer into the faint light of her cell phone. A hundred or more whispers settle in some weird space between her sinus cavity and her brain, heard like something from the cusp of a dream. Mother, they all say. We love you, we love you, we're here for you.

Her legs give out, but something cool and dry catches her before she can fall. She clings to it, swallowing a shriek. They won't hurt her.

They won't.

Now she just has to make sure they won't hurt anyone else either.

"That's right. I'm your—ha." She buries her face in her hands, feeling somewhere between playing pretend and outright deranged. "Ha ha! Can—this is—can you call me something else? Please? I'm way too young to be anybody's mom, let alone my own personal—shit, I dunno. All of you. Just—call me Sam."

That earns her a whole bass-boosted chorus of Sam! Sam! Sam! until she lets go of the vine-branch-thing to clap her hands over her ears. "Easy! Jeez! Take it down a notch, okay? I really can't—do this—with all of you shouting at me."

Sam! Sam! Sam! gets a lot quieter. Not manageable, not really, since a bunch of plants are chanting her name like she's a rock star, but at least it feels less like she's laid out in a dentist's chair getting worked on without local anesthetic. 

"Okay. Okay. I—" she giggles. This is so stupid. This is so dangerous. "Are you—Undergrowth?"

Shadows chirp no, no, no at her like hulking baby birds. 

"Are you still his, though? If he came back, would you listen to him instead of me?"

No, no, no, they chirp. Something coils up one of her legs, catching on her bootlaces and tickling the back of her knee. 

"No, you're not his?"

Not his, something whispers right in her fucking ear. She recoils, trips over whatever's feeling up her thigh, and gets caught again by the vine-branch-thing. She's pretty sure it's a branch of her orange tree. It smells citrus-y, at least. Splayed ungainly, she tries to get her heart under control. She feels like she's in the middle of a horror movie. It's way too easy to imagine some know-it-all dipshit yelling at her through a mouthful of popcorn. Get out, you dumb bitch! 

Yeah, yeah. She knows. She knows. Messing around with things she doesn't understand is what got Danny zapped in the first place. It's a long chain of events between the accident and tonight, but every step of it's her fault.

"Okay," she says shakily. "Okay. And if he came back...?"

We're yours, her garden croons, humming all at once and all through her in a way that makes it feel like her muscles are coming loose from her bones. We belong to you, our Sam.

She shivers. "L-lucky me."

=

So this is a thing she's got going on now, apparently, and no obvious way to make it stop. At least, not any way that wouldn't require her to tear her greenhouse apart down to the last garlic bulb, which would be extraordinarily expensive, extraordinarily alarming to anyone who knows her, and extraordinarily too much like a whole lot of murder. Plants aren't people, but these plants sure do like to tell her how much they love her.

So. It's a thing. Talking to plants. Plants that are definitely souped up on whatever ambient juice is leftover from Undergrowth terraforming the whole city. Plants that keep growing mouths full of fangs and strangling vines with thorns longer than her thumb despite her practically begging them to just be carrots, please. It's feeling a little too Little Shop of Horrors for comfort. She keeps emphasizing the strict no meat diet she's got them on, glad that her family's never had any interest in coming in here. You know. Just in case. Thing is though, her concern—so far, anyway—seems pretty unwarranted. Her garden seems happy enough on the perfectly healthy diet of perfectly normal plants. Sunshine, air, water, a good layer of compost. 

They just keep thanking her so feverishly for so little. It's—unsettling. A little bit awful. Maybe more than a little bit. Maybe this psychic connection thing goes two ways, and her garden is influencing her into—what? Feeling guilty? For what? They all seem so happy for the slightest bit of her attention. It doesn't seem like it'll occur to them all that they could ever ask her for more.

Maybe it's not healthy that she's thinking of her plants as thinking creatures instead of some kind of echo chamber for whatever Undergrowth did to her. The longer she lets this go on, the more the voices of her garden feel-sound like her own thoughts. And it's been going on for a while. Long enough that Danny and Tucker have noticed the uptick in her behavior, both commenting in their own ways that they're happy she's acting more like her old self again.

Yeah. Right. Nothing supernaturally weird going on with her at all, no sir-ee!

Still, for all that she can't stop her garden from going the plantae equivalent of full werewolf, she has managed to keep them organized. Well. Bit of seesaw on that. The overcrowding got sorted out by some aggressive behavior. Some very aggressive behavior. She's definitely had one nightmare already, reliving the gruesomely wet memory of having to bodily haul the thing that used to be her prized Venus flytrap off of the thing that used to be her kiwi vine. 

Point is, she has half the number of plants in her garden than she did two weeks ago, which—fine. It's not like she was planning on eating any of them anymore. She's not really—eating much, lately. She's been able to pass it off as no big deal around Danny and Tucker (never in a million years did she ever think she'd be grateful for the Box Ghost interrupting lunch so often, but here she is!), and she keeps reassuring her family that she's gotten into the habit of taking more of her meals in her greenhouse. The truth is she's been eating a lot of cereal and tripling her vitamin intake. Cereal hasn't betrayed her yet, but in a town like Amity Park that's no guarantee.

She knows it's a stopgap measure. Someone's going to find her out, or her garden's going to get ghostly enough for Danny to sense it, or someone will be stupid enough to walk in here and she might actually end up with some real life Audrey II bullshit.

"If any of you start singing, I won't be held accountable for my actions," she threatens one evening, brandishing a trowel. The garden makes a bunch of querying noises at her, tangling around her ankles like an alien's limited grasp of the concept of a pet cat. She's given up wearing leggings entirely, having thrown the last ruined pair away after her parents had gone to bed. She'd bought three pairs of jeans—black, of course—last Saturday when she braved the mall with Danny and Tucker. At least artfully torn jeans are fashionable enough that nobody but her mom is going to think anything odd about it.

"Never mind," she sighs, and gives in to the urge to scratch one of her plants along its spiny sepals. It purrs happily, and soon a whole group of waist-high plants that look like something right out of Poison Ivy's own evil lair are crooning at her for scritches. 

=

She ends up sneaking off on her own to PetSmart an hour before it closes, bailing on patrol for the sixth time since Undergrowth. There's definitely some line between crazy plant lady and weird dog mom she's pole vaulting over, but—whatever.

She buys a lot of dog toys. Her garden especially loves the tug-of-war ropes, but the bright green squeaky bone turned out to be an A+ impulse buy too.

=

It takes a while, and a lot of adjusting, and she still hasn't figured out an alternative long-term diet, but overall things settle. She finds a new balance. She basically sleeps well enough, and her grades are fine, and the ghost attacks don't get too left-field. Danny shoulders most of that anyway these days, more comfortable with his powers and the popularity boost saving the city gave Phantom with everybody. Used to be her and Tucker put in the same hours and effort as Danny—if you don't count the superpowers—but lately? They're better for cover stories and clean-up, which is fine with Sam while she sorts all this post-Undergrowth ghost-plant stuff out. Tucker's just happy he finishes out the semester with the same PDA he started it with.

Of course, all good things are temporary. She really ought to have this figured out by now.

It's a ghost attack that unravels it all, naturally. This one's a new face; some kind of unsettling, skitter-y combination hydra-centipede about the length of a limousine. Its six necks accordion though, and it spits acid. Both are nasty surprises Danny wasn't expecting, and he ends up getting tossed through the front pane of a mom-and-pop hardware store. He'll be fine, though she and Tucker both have to tamp down on their standard panicked 'oh shit our best friend would have absolutely just died if he were normal' reaction to go distract the ghost from going after a minivan. 

They circle around it, shouting nonsensical insults that it probably doesn't understand to get its attention, helped by a few firm blasts of some small ecto-guns they'd pilfered a while back. Only one shot actually gets a hit on something that isn't its purple exoskeleton; Tucker whoops loudly when it screeches in pain. Sam uses the precious seconds to circle around to the other side of the minivan to yank open the sliding door and start manhandling a group of elementary-aged kids in blue soccer uniforms out and into whatever shop is closest. The mom squawks affront until Sam hisses at her to hurry her ass up if she doesn't want to go the same way as the hatchback—thankfully empty—that had ended up wrapped around a telephone pole. That gets soccer mom moving, and they're both just clear of the van before she hears Tucker scream her name. 

She moves on an instinct honed by two years of fighting for her life; she shoves soccer mom hard and whirls around in time to see the roof of the minivan as it comes flipping right at her. "No—!" is all she has time for, throwing up her hands as bolts of neon green strike up in her periphery. The minivan crumples with a horrible shriek of metal and hangs, creakingly, not a foot above her head. She blinks in the sudden shadow, heart hammering in her throat. She expects to hear Danny's voice, either a dry quip or an earnest rush of concern, depending on how hard the hydrapede rattled him.

A nonplussed, "What the fuck," from Tucker is what she gets instead. 

She looks around. There's the familiar ghost-green glow, but it's not Danny's burning hands or headlight-bright eyes. Two thorny vines, thick as tree trunks, have punched through the concrete to catch the minivan before it could crush her.

(mother) she hears them yap at her happily.

Well, shit.

=

The fight wraps up without any other cars or business fronts getting destroyed. Danny makes good use of those ice powers, and in a matter of minutes Tucker's got the thing slurped up in one of the three Thermoses they've gotten in the habit of having on hand, just in case.

Then Danny and Tucker make matched crazy eyes at her and the modern art she accidentally made out of soccer mom's claim to fame.

"Not here," she tells them firmly. If soccer mom figures out there's a chance she could pin her totaled minivan on her—and her incredibly wealthy parents—they'll get stuck here all day. Tucker gets it before Danny does and makes a show of shoulder-checking him pointedly as he jogs off. Danny shuts his mouth and winks out of sight, leaving Sam to jog after Tucker. Which she will, just after she tries something first.

She glares at the two vines—standard curb weeds once upon ten minutes, more than likely—and thinks at them very hard. Thank you, much appreciated, stop calling me mother, go away.

She gets some kind of bizarre-o feedback that feels like chewing on gum with the wrapper still on, and also like skinned knees, but in her brain? Ugh. With a reluctance that shouldn't be so obvious from a couple of plants, the two vines sort of... shrink? Melt? Reverse-grow back into two perfectly normal bits of scruffy green in a totally wrecked stretch of sidewalk.

Good enough! Better than she expected, really! 

Soccer mom starts babbling something very loud about her car, which is Sam's cue to run for the hills. She does so, dreading the conversation she's about to have with her best friends, but also... kind of excited for the next ghost attack?

If she has to deal with having creepy psychic monster plant-making powers, she may as well get some mileage out of them. Right?

#danny phantom #my writing #phic phight 2020 #some body horror and sam fumbling around trying to deal with some trauma #i haven't watched Urban Jungle in 5 years

[olivia-anderson-gifted]

Story prompt: Video game protagonist develops free will, discovers cheat codes.

People always say that cheating takes all of the fun out of games. ‘If you don’t work for it the ending won’t feel earned!’ they scream from atop their high horses.

Well, she had worked for the ending.

She had spent years of her life working towards it, building up her stats, obtaining the best items, making friends with the best party members. She had narrowly escaped her and her friends’ deaths multiple times. She had finally bested the bad guy! The good times were in sight, in a few years the world would be a utopia!

ESC.

Her vision flickered blinding white for a moment and she brought her hands to her eyes. She gave a quiet whine, a little ‘Not again!’, before opening them again.

She was floating, weightless in a void. In front of her were words in a language she couldn’t comprehend, brilliant white against the nothingness, and an arrow pointing between what seemed to be two options.

She barely even paid it any attention. Why would she? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen any of this before. It had been a surprise the first time, and even the second, but now? Ah, it’s just a run of the mill Darkness. A monthly occurrence, really. It would be over in a few minutes anyway.

At first, she didn’t think much of how long she was there. When you’re waiting for something it feels like it takes longer, after all!

Seconds... fade into minutes... fade into hours... fade into days...

What is taking so fucking long?

She found herself staring at the back of the words, struggling to understand the weird text. What language was that in? It certainly wasn’t anything like she’d seen before, the words were so... defined. What kind of weirdos would have thin letters? Didn’t they know blocks were the way to go?

Maybe it was because she was looking at it from behind. Those letters looked so... ghastly, there was no way that they really looked like that.

She started to drift over and she frowned as she pressed a hand to the nearest... whatever that was. She had seen it happen before, the weird way it had shaken before bringing her back to the normal world, maybe if she just...

Fuck that’s heavy! She pushed against it with all her might but it wouldn’t budge.

Eventually, she slumped against the abomination, resting her head against it and closing her eyes (not that closing her eyes changed anything). She opened them again after she had caught her breath and looked around for something, anything, to do.

Her eyes found their way to the arrow. She floated over to it and poked it, expecting it to be just like the text, only to scream as it attached itself to her pointer finger. The sudden weight pulled her down a few feet before she regained enough thought to stop herself.

Her gaze found itself to the immovable object and she hurled the arrow -- and herself along at it -- in its direction. She wasn’t expecting much, maybe a collision to snap herself awake (because this must have been some sort of weird nightmare), so it was a shock when she saw the ‘words’ budge.

She shot out of bed, hitting the cold stone floors beside it. Guess she was right about the nightmare part. She winced and closed her eyes to let them adjust to the new light.

Her right arm throbbed where she had thrown it out to catch herself but it was still useful enough to push her back to a sitting position. She cringed at the hard floors, wondering just where she had managed to fall asleep this time, and she sleepily ran her hands over the cracks in the stone.

Wait, cracked stone?

Her eyes shot open despite the slight pain.

God no.

She was back in a prison cell. The guard she had befriended years ago was scowling at her from the other side, knocking his baton against it like he’d done every day. Had he regressed? Taken a plea deal to get out of charges? Wow, he’d even styled his hair back to what it had been when he’d been working there originally.

“Wake up, 1111.”

“I have a name, yknow!” She hissed. “It’s --.” The world paused around her. The person in the cell opposite hers stopped changing midstep, the guard caught mid-blink, the fly next to her nose hanging.

But even weirder were the white words in front of her face. She wasn’t in the void. Those weren’t supposed to be there.

She opted to ignore the words for now, because she honestly didn’t know what to do, and reached up her hand to catch the fly since she’d actually be able to.

It was here that she noticed her left hand had something attached to it. She stared at the milky white boxes with their weird abominations and narrowed her eyes. Maybe the arrow hadn’t faded from her hand like she’d thought, it had just gotten smaller?

She reached out and tapped a few buttons.

“-- DHSHT0! My name is DHSHT0.”

Wait, what? The world was working again? And why had she said that was her name? Her name is DHSHT0!

Huh?

She couldn’t seem to remember her name anymore, just that weird amalgamation of sounds.

“I don’t care,” her friend sneered. “Just get moving, alright?”

He was gone. She had a strange sense of deja vu.

She looked back at her hands and raised her eyebrows when she saw that the boxes were still hovering there, waiting for use.

Deciding to just accept that as a part of life. Best for her sanity.

She slowly walked over to get a change of clothes and her eyes widened as she saw a familiar set of tally marks on the wall. Sure, this was pretty standard, but...

She counted them out and, with a sudden temptation, reached a hand out to scratch a new line.

129 days and counting, she thought.

She knew that thought. She knew those tallies. And she definitely knew what was going on now.

No.

No no no no no no!

She ran back to the front of the cell, pressing herself flush against the bars to get a good look at her friend. He hadn’t just cut his hair back, no, it was back to being that way. From the perfectly cropped hair to the bleached blond roots.

She was back at the beginning of this whole mess.

Oh, fuck no.

She’d rather be back in the void, thank you very much! She looked down at the pad in her hand and began typing furiously. She’d figured out where the enter key had been when she’d typed out her name, so now she inputted random combinations then pressed enter. She wasn’t sure what would work, or what could happen, but she didn’t care.

She blinked and suddenly she was in red armor. Fear climbed up her throat. Did this mean she worked for Him now? She typed more furiously.

A different friend of hers popped into existence in the cell for half a second before disappearing. Oops. Wish she’d actually paid attention to what she was typing.

She leaned herself against the wall and began typing again, more slowly to actually note what was going on.

The wall disappeared from behind her and she fell through, landing in a meadow. She was walking with the guard, whose mostly brown hair was now past his shoulders. She dropped her hand in surprise.

He looked affronted at something she said. “Oh, DHSHT0, come on! You can’t say that! That’s blasphemy.”

She smirked, reaching up to pinch his cheek. “Really? Okay.” She raised her arms to the heavens. “If that’s blasphemy, then He will strike me dead right now.”

There was a pause and she barely managed to think ‘wait, what were we even talking about? What’s going on? Haven’t I already done this before?’ before she turned to him, her cheeky grin stretching even wider.

“Well? I’m waiting.”

She brought her left hand up and started messing with the keypad again. This was all so weird. She’d done all this before, she recognized what was going on, but everything was off about it. They hadn’t done this in a field, she hadn’t been wearing these clothes, and she certainly hadn’t ever had real-life pauses happen before.

Or, as she was beginning to suspect, not real-life at all.

She kept her hand up to pause time and started walking towards town. She needed to get to a library, she needed to understand what the hell had happened to her hand.

But she couldn’t get further than a few steps ahead of herself before she hit some sort of invisible wall. She leaned all her weight against it but, again, it wasn’t enough to gain any ground.

She slid to the floor and rested her head in her hands.

Suddenly, a friend popped in front of her. She glanced down at the keypad, frowning. Had she accidentally tapped something out with her head?

“Hey, DHSHT0, wanna talk?” They chirped in that same pleasant voice they always had but now their smile felt weird. It was too wide, too teeth-y, and definitely didn’t reach his eyes.

“Not really, Johnny.”

“So, you thought you’d be clever and hack the game, huh?” He said, squatting in front of her and steepling his hands under his chin.

‘Hack’ the ‘game’?

“Bet DHSHT0 isn’t even your real name. Bet your real name is something like...” He tilted his head as if listening to a distant song. “Danny?”

She gasped, though she wasn’t sure why. That sounded right, though, so maybe that was her original name.

“I’m right aren’t I?”

She started to bring her hand up to type, to get out of there because something was seriously wrong with her friend and she didn’t like it one bit, but Johnny pushed it back down.

“Now, now, don’t leave! The fun is just getting started! And you want to have fun, don’t you?”

She knew by his tone that whatever ‘fun’ he had planned, she’d want no part of. She pulled her knees to her chest to get as far away from him as possible.

He grabbed her left hand again, pulling it towards him and drumming his fingers across the keypad.

She fell out of bed again, screaming. Just a bad dream, the worst dream ever. She pressed her hand to the floor, moving to get up, and her eyes widened as they felt stone.

She opened her eyes and looked around the cell. Her guard was there again, yelling, “Wake up, 1111, 1112!”

She blinked at the additional number and turned her head to see him. He looked so innocent, bobbing up and down on the bed, but there was nothing innocent about what was going on.

He smiled. “Hiya, cellmate.”

“Can’t you just call me my name?”

“And what was that again?” He cooed.

She had learned a few times ago that, for things to start, you needed the weird line thing at the beginning, so now she pressed it and inputted a random string of letters.

The last thing she saw before she moved was his annoyed expression.

She stood at the base of the mountain. She knew Johnny wasn’t supposed to be a character here yet, so she breathed a sigh of relief, only to turn and see him standing among the two who were actually part of it.

“You know, you could just enjoy the game for what it is,” he said.

She brought her hand up and he lunged for her. She dodged his swipe by pure luck and started running up the mountain because she knew for a fact that she was able to. She was having trouble doing precision typing on the run but she hardly cared as she reached a for it and...

WWWWWWWWWWWWWW--

Huh? Why was her keyboard typing out that one letter so much?

“Having a little trouble typing and running?” Came his voice and she screamed as she ran into him. She hit the ground and winced as pebbles scraped her hands and legs. She dusted at the debris on her hands.

“You should be behind me!”

“And you should be back in your cell, playing this game as it was intended. Life’s full of disappointments.”

He reached for her hand but she was already gone.

She was standing with all her friends, beaming widely as she lifted the crown onto her head. Wait a minute, a crown? When did this happen? Wasn’t she supposed to get a medal for her service, and wasn’t someone supposed to put it on her?

She turned around and stared at troops upon troops of red-clad soldiers.

No.

Johnny clapped from his spot beside her. There was a loud bing from beside her head, a box with a crown and some more of that weird language, and then it was gone.

She was in a white room with Johnny. She looked down at her hand to plot yet another escape, only to find her keypad was gone.

“Congratulations, Danny. You’ve gotten the secret ending,” he said with unenthusiastic jazz hands. “You’ve gotten the secret, now play the game as it is intended or hit ESC and log out for good.”

There was a long pause. Her keypad was gone. Even then, she didn’t know what ESC was in that language. She didn’t want to risk getting it wrong.

“Well?” He prompted.

She stared at her hand, waiting for it to pop up.

“Well?” He prompted.

“I want my old life back! I want the good ending with everyone happy and on the right side and--!”

“Well?” He prompted.

#welllllll this was a concept #ive always thought games that call you out for cheating are a lot of fun #thank you for the submission!! it was a lot of fun and i hope you like it even if it wasn't exactly what you were hoping for #submitted prompt #writing #short story

[burning-clutch]

The Appointment Is At Tooth-Hurty

Read on A03: Here Pairings: None Trigger Warnings: mild blood and cartoon style violence  Author: @burning-clutch (Team Ghost) Total words: 1472 Prompt by: Bonuscat  AO3 and FFN: Bonuscat

Tucker just had to jinx himself didn't he. Danny is just happy that it wasn't him who ended up with the short end of the stick this time.

 “This is awful! The worst I say! The worst!”                  “Come on Tuck, it’s not that bad…”

 “Like you would know Sam! Do you not see it? Or hear it? It’s just all… nyyyeeeaah!” Tucker said as he dragged his hands down his face.

 “Really, Sam’s right it’s not-”

 “No! It’s not alright! My mouth feels all wrong and "I've bitten myself sev- OW! Eight times already!”

 “You can hardly see it if it’s any help…” Danny tries to soothe his friend.                  “Hardly, Danny? Hardly is not the same as not seeing it at all.” Tucker groaned.

 “It really is nothing. Lots of people have braces.” Sam said waving off the other’s concern.

 “Yeah! All of ‘em are nerds though! Do you think this is good for my swagger? No, it’s not! And I’ve got a lisp now! This is the worst!” Tucker whined continuing to flail about overdramatically.

 “I mean it was your own fault. You should have known better, out of all of us, you’re the least coordinated.” Sam huffed in exasperation.  

 “Hey! ...well okay valid, but how was I supposed to know that was going to hit my beautiful face?” Tucker complained pouting now.

 Danny sighed. Even though he felt this whole thing was technically his fault he was long past feeling sorry for his friend.

 The whole thing happened the day before with Danny fighting the box ghost for the God only knows-ith time. The trio had opted to check out the new Dead Teacher movie when his ghost sense had gone off.

 With a groan and a long suffering sigh, they ducked into an ally so Danny could transform without being seen. A quick flight later and the trio were phasing into the nearby storage locker place.

 “BEWARE! I AM THE BOX GHOST MASTER OF ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND CUBED!” Came the nasally voice almost instantly.

 The trio exchanged glances. “Who’s turn is it?” Sam sighed out.                  “Danny’s I think?” Tucker responded by pulling out his PDA to double check. “Yep, Least we won’t miss the movie then,” he said simply.

 “Fine, fine.” Danny huffed out.

 “HOW DARE YOU IGNORE THE BOX GHOST! NOW YOU SHALL FEEL THE WRATH OF MY CARDBOARD FURY!” The blue nuisance spouted, throwing up his arms to do his ‘scary fingers’ before looking around the storage unit and levitating a box to himself. “NOW FEEL THE PAIN OF… FRAGILE!”

 The ghost telekinetically threw the box at Danny while the glassware that was in the box shot out after the box sailed right through the halfa’s intangible body. “Right, so, don’t suppose you would mind saving me the trouble and just go back to the zone until tomorrow?” Danny tried hopefully.

 “NEVER! YOUR SILVER CYLINDER CAN NEVER KEEP ME AWAY FOR LONG! IT IS INFERIOR TO THE MIGHTY CUBE!” The ghost rebutted in turn.

 “Actually, the triangle is the strongest shape, from a building and construction standpoint anyway…”

 “Not helping Tucker!” Danny shot back to his friend.

 “INSOLENT CHILD! HOW DARE YOU BESMIRCH THE GOOD PERFECTLY GEOMETRIC BEAUTY THAT IS THE CUBE!” The Box Ghost roared in defiance before floating a myriad of boxes swirling around him in a tornado. He keeps up the excerpt of power for a moment before launching them rapid fire towards Tucker with a shout of “TAKE THIS FOUL BOX HATER!”

 Tucker yelped and ran towards the back wall of the locker ducking out of the way just in time as a heavy ‘thunk’ hit the wall from the tossed cardboard weapon. “Hey foul! That was a rectangular prism!”

 The call only made the box ghost roar in anger once again while Danny sighed, not even caring about the whirlwind of cardboard being empowered by the ghost. With a flat look, he unhooked his thermos and aimed it at the annoying spectre, and fired.

 It was super effective! Box ghost was caught.

 The form of ghost warped and stretched as he was pulled inside, before only a little bit of bluish smoke was left. Danny quickly capped the device and floated back to the ground with a deep sigh of relief.

 “I’m keeping you in there until tomorrow,” Dany grumbled down to the thermos.

 Tucker and Sam made their way out from behind the items they had ducked behind to come over to the halfa. “Honestly Tucker, how many times have you triggered him into being more annoying than usual?” Sam growled out kicking the other boy’s shin in an attempt to accentuate her words.

 “Oh come on. It was funny, besides it wasn’t like anything too bad happened,” Tucker waved off, hand making a shooing motion in the air.

 “Tucker you idiot! You know never to say stuff like that! You’ll kill… and rekill us all!” Danny chastised angrily.

 No sooner did the words leave his lips did two things happened...

 One; Sam jumped away from Tucker towards Danny clinging to the halfas armed as though Tucker had suddenly been electrified, and Danny was her only life line… And two; the boxes that the Box Ghost had been exerting his power over chose that moment to fall.

 Danny turned intangible on instinct, taking Sam with him into the land of the incorporeal, while Tucker hearing a rattling noise above his head, stupidly looked up at it instead of simply running. A heavy torrent of boxes and their contents cascaded down onto the teen, practically burying him alive.  

 Then the avalanche was finished Danny allowed himself and Sam to phase back to normal before he called out, “Tuck? You good?”

 Sure enough, the haphazard teen popped his head out of the pile with a thumbs up. “I’m good…” he groaned out in exasperation.

 Danny sighed and went over to his friend to pull him out of the boxes. “Come on, let’s get outta here, we still got that movie to watch.”

 With that, the halfa teen flew his friends back to the alley next to the theatre de-transforming and cracking his back. As they headed towards the movie theatre, Danny pointed out a small group of girls from their school and Tucker ran ahead. He got to the door first and caught the eye of the group of girls as they came up to the doors as well.

 Thinking he’d be a ‘gentleman’ he wiggled his eyebrows and rushed forward to open the door for them. Only to whack himself in the face with the door as he did.

 He yelped in pain and cupped his hands across his mouth. His friends ran over to him instantly fretting over his well being as soon as they saw the small dribble of blood.

 “Oh my God! Tucker you okay!” Danny asked eyes wide as he began mother hen mode.

 “Oh. Hey, look… That yours?” Sam asked, pointing to the tooth on the ground.

 Instantly Tucker’s demeanour changed, and he became pale as could be. “Mah toof! Mah woods sound sunny...!” The teen blinked wide green eyes to his half ghost friend before running his tongue along the inside of his mouth. If possible he paled further.

 “I think you should call your mom, man,” Danny said after looking at his friend’s open jaw.

 “Oh no! How messed up is my beautiful face man? Am I still gorgeous?” Tucker wailed.

 The phone call to his parents went well… If you could call his mother laughing at her son’s expense well. Regardless the emergency dental procedure was booked and ready, leaving the teen with an implanted tooth and braces to pull the others that got knocked in the process back in line.

 Tucker licked at the thin wire at the front of his teeth and groaned. “I can still feel it! And my tongue is so sore from biting it!” he complained, “It’s like they pulled my teeth back too far or something…” he groans.

 “Well, should we get you one of those rings that babies chew on instead?” Sam huffed out.

 “What? No why…. Sam, you’re awful” Tucker whined out.

 “Well then quit griping about it, I’m sick of hearing about it. So unless you want me to knock out more teeth quit showing them off and just take your turn.” Sam growled out shoving the bowling ball from the rack in her basement into Tucker’s chest.

 “Bu-”

 Sam rounded on him once again a new bowling ball in hand holding it like a shot put threateningly.

 Tucker let out a long suffering sigh, before tossing the ball down the lane. Once his pins were hit he turned to Sam and Danny once again. “Just tell me I’m beautiful?” he pouts.

 Sam and Danny exchange a look and Danny smirked evilly turning back to Tucker as he changed into his ghostly form.

 “Hey man, what are you-” the last thing Tucker remembered of that day was Danny phasing into his body.

 -.-.-.-.-

 Complete

 Total words: 1472

#Phic Phight 2020 #Danny Phantom #Danny #Sam #Tucker #Written at 3am forgive me #box ghost #bad luck tuck