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help-itrappedmyself · 2 months

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Dead on Main AU

Masterpost

Guys, I'm so sorry. But here's this!

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Danny blinks and he is somewhere else. He’s sitting at a dining room table, surrounded. There are so many people here. They’re all talking over each other, some yelling, some laughing. This scene comes as a great surprise to him, who -one blink ago- was trying and failing to do his homework at home in his room. Danny shoots up, his chair making a horrible noise as he pushes it away so fast it tumbles over. Everyone in the room turns to look over at him like he’s insane.

“Oh my god, who are you people?” Danny did not mean to say this out loud, but at the sound of his voice he startles. Danny takes a moment to assess, and then, “Oh my god who am I?” He is tall, and big, and this is certainly not his body, what is he wearing.

The boy sitting to the right of Danny, a little shorter than he is, with black hair and blue eyes (though now that he’s paying attention that does describe most people in the room), starts chuckling lightly. “Uh, Jason? Are you good?”

Danny turns to stare him right in the eyes. “What day is it?”

And he can tell the concern around the table is just ratcheting up every time he opens his stupid mouth.

“Did you hit your head on patrol?” The voice comes from the only blond and one of the only girls in the room, who's to the left of the person across from him. The person across from him is another boy with black hair and blue eyes who is studying Danny in a way that makes him uncomfortable, that under-a-microscope look that makes you feel like you’re failing at something.

“I have no idea if Jason hit his head.” Danny says. “I was just trying to remember if it was my birthday.”

And if he thought the room was busy when he first arrived here it is absolute pandemonium now. Everyone starts shouting and asking questions that he can’t even hear over the shouting. Someone with white hair in a suit just came through a door he didn’t even see earlier to stand by the only person not shouting, who -Danny would guess- is the only other adult in this room, witting at the head of the table. He also has black hair and blue eyes, and where almost everyone else’s reaction was panic, he froze instead. The person across from Danny also isn’t shouting, but the person next to Danny on his right has now fully stood up and looks like he might actually jump across the table to win the argument he ended up in.

“Are you Jason’s soulmate?” is the main gist of the shouting that Danny can interpret but he’s more concerned with actual Jason at the moment. If they switched bodies... Then Jason might be in trouble…

“Hey, I forget, how long is this body swap supposed to last again?” Danny asks.

“Until you and Jason have physical contact. You have to actually meet.” The boy sitting across from him explains. He seems like one of the only ones that heard Danny talk, everyone else was still shouting.

“Oh, that just seems terrible. What if we’re in different countries or something?” Danny complained. “Everyone in the world is just supposed to be able to drop everything and afford to fly across the world. The universe is really trying to screw people over now. Honestly, am I in a different country? Where even are we right now?”

“You’re in Gotham.” This voice was new, coming from the head of the table to Danny’s right.

“Oh no. Nope.” Danny started backing away from the table, almost tripping on his overturned chair. “Absolutely not, no, how do I get out of here?” He starts earnestly looking for a door to get out of this place, but there are three doors he can see and he has no idea where any of them go, and doesn’t this room have any windows? What kind of a room doesn’t have any windows? Do they like to eat in a basement?

“Jason- not Jason. Uh, you need to calm down, everything will be fine alright, We’ll get you and Jason introduced no problem.” Danny swivels to track the voice and it’s the one who was sitting next to him, he’s walking towards him with his hands up and out in front of him.

“I have to get home.” Danny breathes.

“We can get you there, promise. Now, I’m Dick, can you tell me your name?”

“Your name is Dick? Who named you Dick?” Danny is so confused he’s stopped panicking. “How old are you for you to go by the name Dick?”

“Okay, rude.” Dick sounds like a petulant child so Danny’s estimations for his age are continuously dropping. “I’m 24.”

Danny snorts. “Okay.” The blond girl starts laughing over at the table. “I’m uh, I’m Danny.”

“Nice to meet you. Sort of. I’m Tim.” The guy from across from him had made it over to stand next to Dick. “There’s a lot of us here today so the one laughing like a hyena is Steph. That one there is Duke.” African-American, still with black hair but he has brown eyes and waves once introduced. “Damian is the short one next to him, and Cass was sitting across from Dick earlier. Our dad, Jason’s dad-”

“Not my dad!” Steph interrupted. Tim waves her off.

“Everyone but Steph's dad, is over there, Bruce. Alfred, our butler is the one next to him.” Alfred gives a slight nod to his head. Bruce is just staring at him.

“So, names out of the way. You said you wanted to go home, where do you live?”

“Amity Park.”

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sykloni · 11 months

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Dannymay 2023

15. Full Hazmat AU & 23. Rogue Gallery

#danny phantom #dannymay2023 #full hazmat au #rogue gallery #(the thing I love about full hazmat au is that unless Danny shows his face)#(it would be totally reasonable to assume that he is an adult)#(especially if you don't want to believe a child beat you)#comic #(just gonna add this here since it seems to be coming up a lot)#(This is not a fan art of any specific fic!)#(When I do fanart of fanfiction I always link the fic and tag the person who wrote it)#(I know this is not that original idea and people have already linked multiple good fics in reblogs)#(And I'm sure there are probably even more with similar concept)#(BUT this is still not fanart of any of them)

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dollya-robinprotector · 7 days

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Dress me up, make it tight, I'm your dolly You're my doll, rock'n'roll, feel the glamour in pink Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky~

Inspired from This post of @just-dol-headshots and this ask from @hakusins. Don't worry I'm still aiming for your ass Haku-Dean :) References and something under the cut

We all have to agree Bully Robin should have some softer and caring sides. When there's only them two and no one else is around to judge, he can let loose and slip back into that kinda of "Original Robin" we know and I love. I mean, that's what JDOLH made that got me into these swap messes from the beginning jsjkhskjhd you knowww the HUG!!

Reference: Barbie Girl (Aqua) and this cute ecchi Clamp Chobit piece

All in all I'm a pink bietch and Dollya won't be losing her V-card anytime soon that I can promise so hang in there okay mr.Bully.

edit: OMG THIS IS MY 1000TH POST TTOTT)) JKSDJLASKJKDLA

SELF-INDULGENT HERE WE GO

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blue-mood-blue · 5 months

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I’ve grown to appreciate the aus where Shen Yuan enters the story as “Shen Yuan” - same name, probably similar face, generally able to interact with PIDW as himself and change the story through his added presence. I like the sense of “if only you’d been here, things might have been better the first time around” of it all.

And I was thinking, it’s a funny coincidence in that scenario that someone named Shen Yuan gets put into… another Shen Yuan. What are the chances? What a weird twist of fate that Airplane would pick out the name that his most dedicated critic could slip into seamlessly.

What about a version where it’s not coincidence at all?

Airplane goes to school with a kid named Shen Yuan. He’s prickly and hard to approach and a little intense, but Airplane is persistent. In fairness, Airplane is relentless - and maybe it’s a good thing that they end up being friends, because they’re a little too much for anyone else to handle. They balance each other out. They’re the “weird kids” in class and they’re okay with that, because even when they don’t have any words for it, they know they’re not like their classmates, not really. That’s okay; they don’t want to be.

Recesses and breaks are consumed with the elaborate stories that Airplane wants to tell, and all the holes Shen Yuan pokes into them. It’s not mean-spirited, though, even though Shen Yuan isn’t the kind to temper his words. It’s passionate. He cares about those stories the way Airplane cares about them, and it can’t be mistaken for anything else when they lean together conspiratorially across the lunchroom table. They’ve both got notebooks filled with details and characters and monsters. Shen Yuan’s practically got a whole bestiary sketched out in wobbly childhood attempts at art, entries fervently scrawled beside them. Airplane prattles out plots nonstop, always with the promise of shining eyes and being asked “what happens next?”

They come up with a whole world together. Airplane’s going to write about it someday. Shen Yuan is going to read every word.

Shen Yuan misses school. Shen Yuan starts missing school a lot.

Airplane goes to the hospital room instead. He doesn’t think to worry, because Shen Yuan is okay - that’s what he says. He looks okay, and he’s a kid, and it doesn’t feel real that anything bad should happen to a kid. He doesn’t think to worry. He doesn’t think to say goodbye.

It’s one of the older Shen brothers who catches him on the way up to the room one day, in the hallway just outside - snaps at him to go the fuck home, and when Airplane hesitates, pushes him into the elevator and tells him not to come back. “Tells” is a generous way to describe the way the words come out - a growl, a hiss, the sound an animal would make when a hand got too close to a wound.

(It’s not fair to name a villain after him, even if the name never really comes up in the story. He wasn’t trying to be mean. He’d lost a brother minutes before, and he was getting his brother’s friend out of the way so he didn’t have to… see. It isn’t fair, but then, none of it is fair.)

Death feels very real after that.

The notebooks get shoved into a closet, and it’s not until Airplane’s moving out and one falls on him from a high shelf that he thinks about it again. He’s written things, lots of things, but nothing as ambitious as this - nothing as important. It could be good, he considers. He’d promised. Shen Yuan wanted to read it.

The problem was that no one else does, not for a long time, not until Airplane has whittled himself and his art into a corner and into such an unfamiliar shape that he has to wonder how it’s still his own face he sees in the mirror. He has to eat. He has to pay rent. Shen Yuan would yell at him, but Shen Yuan isn’t there to yell at him, and who cares. Who cares if it could have been better? The people who actually are here love it, and it’s paying his bills, and sometimes stories don’t go the way they’re supposed to and the world is fucking unfair. It doesn’t matter.

(It does. But he shoves that thought away along with styrofoam cups and soda bottles to the bottom of a garbage bag.)

Authors are not gods and their power is limited, but Airplane exercises just a sliver of what he’s been granted and gifts an inconsequential sort of immortality. He thinks about making him a rogue cultivator, maybe the kind that goes around documenting beasts and compiling his findings. He thinks about making him someone too powerful for death to touch, or too important to threaten, but when Airplane looks at the world he crafted and everything that’s become of it, it feels like the kindest thing he can do for Shen Yuan is a childhood where he’s loved, and a death that’s peaceful. What does it say about that world, that he’d kill off his best friend too early again instead of making him live there?

(The best writing he ever does is the only, shining moment of humanity that his scum villain ever displays: a lament about death that comes too early, about a brother gone too soon. The commenters praise him. The commenters flatter over how real the emotions feel. The commenters don’t get any response from Airplane on that chapter.)

Death is incredibly real when it comes for him too early, too, still hovering over his keyboard with the story technically finished and incredibly incomplete. Airplane could tell himself that’s because the written version can never be the version in the writer’s head, always shifting and with every possibility still on the table, but he knows better than that. The System knows better than that, with its condescending message about “improving” his writing and “closing plot holes” and “achieving his original vision”...

…and he’s a child again. He’s a child in his own story, he’s Shang Qinghua now without the benefit yet of a peak or cultivation or anything, and maybe he’s a little bitter, and a little scared, and…

And Shen Yuan - with longer hair, with robes, with a couple of older kids watching him from across the street, but undeniably the prickly little boy who used to sit down imperiously across from him and tell him everything that was wrong with the chuck of writing that had been handed to him last period, but with that smile that said he was only invested because he knew it could be better and they were going to make it better - marches up to him with a fire in his eyes and a frown that warns of a coming tirade.

“You told it wrong,” is the first thing he says.

Shang Qinghua wants to ask how him how he’s here, how this is possible, or maybe laugh because, yeah - yeah, Shen Yuan has no goddamn idea how wrong he got absolutely everything.

(Shang Qinghua wants to say “I missed you” and “why did you leave so soon” but he’s here now. He’s right here.)

“I know,” he says instead. “I’m sorry. It all kind of… spiraled out of control.”

Shen Yuan frowns, but then it dissipates the way it always does, and his eyes shine with ideas the way they always used to. “That’s okay,” he relents, grabbing for his hand. “We’ll fix it. We’ll make it what it was supposed to be.”

#scum villain self saving system #svsss #shang qinghua #shen yuan #airplane shooting towards the sky #this got more into the feelings than i thought it would #surprising no one #anyway just! childhood friends au! as a reason for a shen yuan insert!#obviously he is not going to die as a child in this version #shang qinghua would not have that nope not again #also pls consider poor shen jiu who looks at this child that shen yuan has picked out for a best friend like '...really? that one??'#(it's up to you if he's shen yuan's actual brother from his first life)#(put there's a part of me that likes the idea that shen jiu also gets a second chance to spend more time with his brother)#a second chance for them to grow up together!#THAT SAID #RIP TO SHANG QINGHUA #WHEN SHEN YUAN IS OLD ENOUGH TO LEARN ABOUT ALL THE PAPAPA #the LOOKS shang qinghua is going to get #anyway here have a thing because I CANNOT add another au to my drafts thank you and goodbyyyyye

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builtintripping · 3 months

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never forget...

read again?

no you did not see me repost this, shh

hemlo!! thank ya'll so so much for enjoying this lil comic series!! i know it's been a year since the first part, but most importantly i finished it 💀✨️

every single tags ya'll leave on me posts and past questions i recieve about this au is super appreciated, they make me smile the widest you have no clue!! im just a lil mad at myself that i couldn't expand on this au more so yall could have had more crumbs. irl stuff happened + still getting the hang of drawing and socializing again after years of doing neither of those 😭

but still, im glad i could share this comfort comic i made for myself, and for you guys too. it's a pretty personal one despite the characters not being mine 😅 i hope that you can walk away from this story believing (entirely or not) that someone out there still thinks of you, whether they're from a late/absent loved one who still wants the best for you or a dear friend who will make room in their hearts for you. life will never not be hard, but if you keep them close to your heart, adulting will be bearable 🫂

thank you so much for reading 💕

#as for this au's future (from me) i actually also have a spongebob and jimmy version of how timmy reveals to them the forgor thing #but i honestly dunno if i can get back to them soon. i'm working on a go comic that i already started #plus burnout. i wanted to take a break 🥲 maybe someday i'll revisit the idea #but go hogwild on playing around this au yourself idc how much u wanna strangle them i am still gonna cry at that shit 😭#but seriously thank you everyone. i wish i could have done more but thank you thank you thank you. really #nicktoons unite #danny phantom #timmy turner #the fairly oddparents #fop #nickelodeon #comics #fanart #my art #artists on tumblr #fancomic #i forgor lor

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bixels · 4 months

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While I do think anon was rude, I do think it's pretty shitty to set up all this stuff you were going to add the au and then just drop it. It's disappointing. Definitely unfollowing.

Bye.

#ask me #anon #once AGAIN.#I am not dropping anything #the au is not getting cancelled. more than likely i'm gonna take a break from it until i find motivation again #But I've been drawing the AU for half a fucking year #In that time I've only drawn 5 things that aren't mlp related #I'm getting tired and my last few posts didn't do as well as I'd hoped #And I'm not about to burn myself out on mlp au art even if I really do love making it #I'm still gonna make comics. I have a bunch of ideas.#Tulli and I still wanna do the limited run merch shop #Discord is still coming. Sunset is still coming. Sombra is still coming. I have so many ideas #But I need to do something else for my own sake. Did you know I was supposed to get the background 6 designs done by now #But I didn't because I'm TIRED #I've been keeping myself on a schedule to keep content pumping despite travel and school and family and I'm tired #what i'm getting isn't matching what i'm giving and that's nobody's fault. i'm not frustrated at anyone. a slump was bound to happen #drawing the au was fun until it become my Thing. Because when your Thing––your identity––starts to faulter #it can really make you freak out #And that's not healthy for the project or for myself. I need to find the fun again and I'm sure I will #I'm really appreciative of everyone's support in my inbox and replies it really does mean a lot especially given that about 2/3 of my #followers followed for mlp. But if you're gonna react to me saying “i'm gonna cool down on mlp art and draw my own stuff” with “i'm #disappointed in you." then Leave! I think it's good you're unfollowing #you are not obligated to stick by my side! But don't act like I'm doing you a disservice by turning my attention elsewhere #I didn't promise anyone anything and I definitely didn't say I'm breaking any promises.

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vitocosas · 6 months

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ok so hear me out... camp staff in charge of the activities for the kids, this is the campfire safety booth so it's pretty boring, so the mascot usually dances to get kids attentions

but who is this mysterious costumed dancer?

he comes out of the suit absolutely drenched but he enjoys getting the kids attention and brags about it to the others

#total drama #total drama au #td noah #td alejandro #i have more ideas for this thing i want to draw #vitocosas

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puppyeared · 5 months

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doodles of my fav sillies

anton belongs to @poicyss

#my brain is a barbie dreamhouse and theyre all just living in it #im especially fond of the second one because my mom used to hold me like that all the time <3 #im drawing them a lot lately because im being crushed by the horrors and have to compensate for it somehow #homemade comfort blorbos......#watch me draw anton inconsistently bc i can never decide if i wanna draw him close to how he actually looks #or yassify him and give him soft fluffy hair and kind eyes and defined features. head in my hands #i dont really have a lot of drawing ideas for them bc they dont have like. a canon storyline or anything methinks #its just stuff me and bow toss around and giggle abt thru messages lol. maybe ill draw infant vincent one of these days #i just come up with stuff and draw them doing it. it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside #cuz like anton works for lobocorp as an abnormality BUT hes super duper chill and cute and does his funny little tasks so its fine #AND hes unkillable. auggie is an oc ive had since like 6th grade and i smushed them together. and vincent was for fun but i got attached #i dont have much of a read on anton either bc i think hes meant to be more of an insert character??? if im using that right #on one hand i dont think too hard abt anything being ooc since im not taking it seriously. on the other hand i just hold them in my hands #and stare into space until i can come up with something to draw since i dont have much to go off of. but its fun to build on small tidbits!#i think bow called it an au so i guess??? its an au????? im not really sure. bow if youre reading this im just willy nilly #the only thing i know for sure is that they boink like rabbits. im talking gomez and morticia levels of boinking #maybe ill go back and look at my old doodles for them and redraw em lol #myart #my art #my oc #oc #friend oc #augusta #anton #vincent #sillies family #doodles

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blackkatdraws2 · 10 days

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Giggling about this [Achromatic Loop AU/non-canonical]

Original Image:

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betweenblackberrybranches · 1 year

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First meetings part 2

<< < >

In which Sun has a panic attack and Y/N tries their best to help.

Sun and Moon do not share the same memory pool, if they are "sleeping" when the other is active they do not automatically know what happened in that time. Though they do usually tell eachother everything imidiatly after "waking up". They often stay awake when the other is active though to keep eachother company.

But yea seems like Moon was the last one active before, well, whatever happened to them, while Sun had a lil nap.

#dca fnaf #fnaf sun #daycare attendant x y/n #sundrop #automaton au #my art #tw anxiety #tw panic attack #dunno what else to tw if you have any additions tell me #i know that update is a lil more cartoony and has no nice backgrounds im sorry #i hope yall still like it #i just wanna hug sun in this #y/n also wants to hug him but isnt sure if thats a good idea #asking before touching someone is always a good thing #well atleast sun is not naked anymore with his blanket not that there was anything to see anyways but it seemed to really stress him out

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whollyjoly · 13 days

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hot in the day, hot in the night, hot as the coal coming to tread, light on your bed, here we go oh, listen whistle roll (baby the, the sun is getting low)

the bucktommy cowboy au nobody asked for part two (part one) (part three)

(song insp.)

#these two have me in a chokehold FR #look i just love the idea of them lying on the hood of their truck in the middle of the night sharing a beer and looking at the open sky #buck has one hand in the air tracing the constellations while the other is tangled loosely with tommys at his side #he's talking about how cool it is that different cultures will look at the same stars and draw different pictures #and isn't that a wonderful thing about humans? that we can look at the same set of dots in the sky and through them tell different stories #about what is SO important to us that it must be literally written in the sky? isnt that just amazing?#and tommy isnt looking at the constellations - how can he when theres a star of his own right next to him?#so its evan he's looking at when he softly lets out a quiet “...amazing”#...whoops my fingers slipped #ANYWAYS #stay tuned for more in this moodboard series because it WILL happen #the bucktommy cowboy au nobody asked for agenda is REAL #bucktommy cowboy au #otp: better ways to get your attention #bucktommy #kinkley #tevan #firepilot #fireflight #evan buckley #tommy kinard #911 abc #911 on abc #911 moodboard #em's moodboards #mine #im back on my cowboy bullshit

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brbsoulnomming · 2 months

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Static

Steve's never certain if he hates walking through the crowds after a match or not. Sometimes, when he walks back to his flat, all bloody and bruised and exhausted, the press of so many other people feels oppressive. Sometimes he wants nothing more than to pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist, that he's in a little bubble of his own space and nothing can touch him. But sometimes, even though there's an edge of pain in every step, the bustle of people reminds him of why he does this, reminds him of everyone he's trying to protect and everything he wants to be able to keep on going exactly as it is.

Today is not a hates day.

Today the crowds feel warm and full of energy, and he basks in it, lets the feel of so much life wash over him.

Today he buys sunflowers at his favorite florist, listening to the soft hum of bees he can hear in the back of their shop. Today he asks if they have any honey, tucks a bottle of it into his pocket and sucks on a piece of the soft, sticky candy that Mrs. Anderson makes from it. The augment he keeps for show chimes softly in his ear, alerting him that funds have been withdrawn from his arena account. He doesn't know how much, but it doesn't matter. He trusts Mrs. Anderson enough not to rip him off, and anyway, he makes more than enough from his fights to get anything he wants.

It'd be enough to get out of this place ten times over, if the credits Creel gave his gladiators were good anywhere else but the citydome he runs.

Mrs. Anderson wraps up his flowers for him, and Steve gives her a warm smile when she gives him an extra one for his girl.

He can't remember if she thinks his girl is Robin, or Nancy, or Max, or Erica, or El, but it doesn't really matter.

They're all his girls, and he'd do absolutely anything at all to give them the world.

He settles the bouquet under his arms, counts the flowers - there's enough to give each of them two, but he knows he won't see them in person any time soon.

It's been quiet enough that he might have suggested a meet up, but there's… something that stops him. Steve doesn't know what it is, can't put words to what he's picked up on, but it settles heavy in the pit of his stomach. He's learned the hard way to listen to it.

They can't risk it.

Static blares in his mind as he opens his communication link, feeling out for who's listening in and smiling to himself when he senses El.

El's favorites are sunflowers, same as him. They're Max's favorites, too, but only because he knows they remind her of El.

‘Sunflowers!’ El says immediately, delighted.

‘Fresh cut,’ he tells her. ‘Want to smell?’

Her presence is suddenly much stronger in his mind, and he dutifully leans in to pull in a deep breath, holds it for a few moments, then lets the honey candy in his mouth settle right over his tongue.

There's a pleased little sigh, a soft touch of gratitude, then she withdraws.

‘When's your next match?’ Lucas asks.

‘In two days,’ Steve replies.

There's no response, not even a wordless one, but Steve knows Lucas well enough to tell that he's disappointed. Two days isn't enough time for him to sneak out, let alone have a Creel sanctioned vacation.

‘It's not the same without you here.’ Dustin's voice is colored with disappointment, too, and Steve can feel the sharpness of what he isn't saying.

‘I know, buddy. I miss you guys, too.’

He wishes he could tell them that it wouldn't be much longer. Steve's got plenty on Henry Creel, more than enough to have made this mission a success already, but they're never going to get an opportunity like this again.

He needs to stay as long as possible.

‘I'll ask for a vacation after my next couple of matches. How did your collaboration with Suzie go?’

Steve listens to the Party over the comm links for a little while longer, just to keep his own longing for home at bay, until he gets out of the busy part of the citydome and has to say goodbye.

His head goes silent as he closes his comm link, and he's alone once more - aside from the ever present trace of Robin, all wrapped up in his neural pathways that are more circuits than synapses these days, but she doesn't count. She's as much a part of him as his own thoughts are.

Tension prickles at the back of his neck when he picks up on footsteps approaching, more purposeful than anyone else passing by. Sure enough, someone falls into step with him, and his head jerks over - then relaxes.

“My liege,” Munson greets, throwing a grin at him.

Steve rolls his eyes. “What do you want?”

He didn't think it was possible, but Munson's smile widens even more.

“To celebrate!” he announces, arms spread as though gesturing to the wide expanse of celebratory pleasures to be had around them.

Which are exactly none, considering Steve'd already passed the pleasure district. He raises one eyebrow to convey just that.

Munson is undeterred.

“Come on, your Majesty,” he cajoles. “Look at you! First time in weeks that a gladiator walked away from a match with barely a scratch on them! Surely such a transcendent performance from the King is worthy of deigning to mingle with the Freak?”

Steve's going to say yes, he already knows he is, but he makes him wait a little longer, making a big show of sighing and crossing his arms and looking him up and down.

It's then that he sees it.

If Steve was everything he was pretending to be and nothing more, he never would have picked up on anything. There's nothing in Munson's demeanor that is any different from the handful of other times they've caught up with each other for a drink after a match.

It's only because his scans pick up so much more that he detects the unsteady beat of Munson's heart, how he holds himself ready the same way he does in the arena.

And the gun tucked in the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

Right.

Looks like he's out of time here, then.

If Steve's honest, he's a little surprised that it's Munson. The rivalry between the Freak and the King is all for show in the arena - not like it is between him and Billy Hargrove or between Munson and Jason “the Prophet” Carver.

If Steve's even more honest, he's disappointed, in more ways than he can spend time sorting through right now.

“Fine,” he says, letting himself sound long suffering. “Where are we going? I'll swing by home to drop these off and meet you there.”

Something tense but otherwise unreadable flickers behind Munson's eyes, and Steve wonders if he's been ordered not to allow him to leave his sight. He doesn't have a choice, though - it's a reasonable request, exactly what Steve would have said if he hadn't caught on, and his only other option is -

“Allow me to accompany you,” Munson says, bowing low in a show of gallantry.

It's a risk.

Steve's never let another gladiator come to his flat before, and there's very little chance that he'd let Munson come now, even if he didn't realize what Munson's true intentions were. He wonders what the back up plan is if he says no, wonders if Munson will do it right here in the open.

“Why?” Steve asks, unable to stop himself from pushing, even though he knows it's a bad idea.

Munson peeks up from his bow, flutters his lashes, all playful exaggeration. “And risk you backing out and abandoning the likes of little ole me?”

“Never backed out before after I've said yes,” Steve points out, digging in. Pushing harder. “Unless you have a reason for inviting yourself over? Maybe a different kind of celebration in mind?”

Munson tips his head back down, but Steve's scanner can pick up the way he swallows, harsh and rough. “Yeah.” It's flat and hollow, and it immediately sounds wrong to Steve's ears. “Yeah, maybe I had something different in mind.”

That's -

Not what Steve was expecting.

Would he, Steve wonders? Would Munson play that card, even though he clearly doesn't want to, even though he kind of sounds like he hates himself a little for it?

“Hey,” Steve says, unbidden. “I'm just messing with you, man. It's fine, you can come with me to drop them off.”

Steve might be well aware that he's going to have to kill Munson, but he doesn't want to be cruel about it.

Munson straightens, his usual smile back on his face, and he checks his shoulder into Steve's hard enough that it stings a little. “Asshole,” he says.

“You're the one who hangs out with me,” Steve replies.

The crowd thins even more as they move into the residential blocks. They're not going in the direction of Steve's flat - but they are going in a direction that he could live in, and it's not like Munson knows where he actually stays. It's not like Munson knows that Steve's already activated his comm link and told the Party his cover's been blown, and that he has to get out of the citydome tonight.

“Hey, Munson?” Steve asks, slowing to a stop.

Munson hums, looking over at him with a brow raised in question.

Steve pulls the extra sunflower that Mrs. Anderson had given him free from the bouquet, tucks it into the front pocket of Munson's jacket.

“I really am sorry about before, I shouldn't have messed with you like that,” he says.

He's sorry about a lot more than that, but this is what he's got.

Munson's lips twist down, and he sighs as he pushes Steve's hands away - though he leaves the sunflower there.

“Steve,” he says, soft and filled with something like regret.

Nothing follows it.

There's a beat where they look at each other, and Steve thinks -

And then there's the sound of harsh laughter, boots dropping onto the ground as someone swings down from one of the platforms overhead.

“King Steve,” Hargrove drawls. “Sweet on the Freak. You're really making it easy to knock you off that throne, aren't you?”

Shit.

Steve's in worse trouble than he thought.

He steps back automatically, shooting a betrayed little look over at Munson - it's one thing for Munson to be planning on killing him, it's another for him to lead Hargrove to him.

But Munson looks surprised, and then furious, and Steve realizes -

Hargrove isn't here for Steve. Or at least, not just for Steve.

“I told Creel you couldn't do it,” Hargrove tells Munson, voice conversational. “You're all bark and no bite, aren't you?”

“Get the fuck out of here, Hargrove,” Munson says tersely, teeth gritted.

“No can do, Junior,” Hargrove replies. “I have to clean up your mess.”

“You set me up,” Munson bites out. “This was never going to be a fair chance, was it?”

Hargrove shrugs, unconcerned. “You want me to drag you back to Creel to explain yourself, or should I just put you out of your misery here?”

The thing is, Steve thinks Munson would have done it before Hargrove showed up. Steve and Munson are friends, maybe, but loyalty to other gladiators only goes so far, and Creel keeps them all under a heavy thumb. It wouldn't have been anything personal - it would have been just what Munson had to do to survive in this place.

The thing is, Steve knows he would have put a bullet in Munson's brain right here. It would have destroyed a piece of him to do it, he can acknowledge that now, but he would have done it without hesitation if it meant keeping the resistance in general - and the Party in specific - safe.

The thing is, even if Hargrove does kill Steve - even if Munson kills Steve, even if he manages to kill Hargrove before he can report back to Creel - Munson is finished, now. Unfair or not, he's failed the test. There's no going back, not if Creel doesn't trust him, and Steve knows Munson's smart enough to have realized that.

The thing is, if Creel suspected Munson enough to have Hargrove follow him to make sure he got the job done, there must be a reason why, and Steve wants to know it.

‘Change of plans,’ he tells Robin, even though he can already feel her at the back of his mind like fingertips ghosting through his hair, downloading his memories until she's caught up. She already knows exactly what he's going to do.

The piece of him that would have died with Eddie Munson finally settles into place, the circuitry that makes up more of him than he usually lets on humming softly in his veins as it adjusts to account for it.

Steve swings around to stand in front of Eddie, and plants his feet.

“If you want him,” he says, and he can hear the echo of it through the static of his communication link, calm and determined.

Steve's never felt more steady than he does when he's standing between a looming threat and one of the people who've become part of the very core of him.

“You'll have to go through me.”

Hargrove sneers at him. “You can barely hold your own against me in the arena.”

“The arena’s all show.” Steve laughs, a little mean. “You think I'm sitting here with prototype Harrington augments and all they've got is what you've seen?”

He's not sure why he's keeping up the pretense that he's nothing more than what he seems. If Creel is sending people to kill him, he has to know Steve's part of the Party. But it's ingrained in him, somehow, to protect them until his last breath, whether it's artificial or not.

The question makes Hargrove scoff, and Steve swings at him.

Hargrove lets it hit, laughs at him again with blood dripping from his mouth, and then -

They've fought in the arena, before. Not often, because they're brutal with each other, and because Creel knows their matches always draw a massive crowd and likes to drag out the tension, keep the audience wanting more.

This is nothing like that.

Despite their brutality, there's an element of safety in arena matches. The punishment for killing one of Creel's gladiators is harsh and swift, and so they're almost never in any real danger.

This is - Steve can see the hatred in Hargrove's eyes, same as he always does, but now there's intent, now Hargrove's own augments have been let loose, and there's more power behind every punch than Steve's ever felt before.

Steve's starting to think the only way he can beat Hargrove is to really let himself go, and it makes his heart quicken, makes the dread in his chest coil tighter and tighter - makes Robin even more present in his mind, makes her whisper ‘you have to, it's okay, I'm here, I won't let you lose yourself,’ -

Until a shot rings out, clipping Hargrove on the shoulder.

It's not that Steve forgot Eddie.

It's just that he kind of assumed that Eddie would run off after Steve took his first swing at Hargrove. It'd been part of the reason that he pulled Hargrove's attention onto himself in the first place.

The expression on Hargrove's face says that he'd assumed the same thing, and he shoots a venomous look over at Eddie.

“Who's cleaning up messes now?” Eddie asks.

Hargrove snarls, drawing his own gun on Eddie, and -

Steve's too close for Eddie to get a clear shot at Hargrove, and by now he's starting to think that Eddie won't take the shot if it means he'll have to shoot through Steve, but he knows damn well Hargrove won't have the same reservations.

‘Robin,’ Steve says, even though she's already there, flooding his mind until she's all he can feel.

He can't lose himself when he does this if he's so much her that they can't separate each other out.

Steve lets go.

Electricity flares under his skin, crackling and humming, and when he grabs Hargrove's hand it immediately shorts out his gun. It flows out - and out and out and out and out, overloading the circuitry of Hargrove’s augment and threatening to burn it through completely if it keeps going, and he needs to -

He needs to -

‘Stop.’

Steve can't tell if it's Robin's voice or his, but it doesn't matter.

It's enough to get him to pull himself back. He lets go of Hargrove, breathing heavily as he shuts himself down. Steve's expecting to have to fight with himself, with the way the power in him wants an outlet, but it simmers back down with little more than a whisper. It's easier than it's ever been before, and he can feel Robin's pride whispering through him.

Steve looks up, just in time to see Eddie pointing his gun at Hargrove.

“Don't,” Steve says, stepping between Eddie and Hargrove.

It isn't the same as when he stood between them last time.

For one, Billy Hargrove isn't exactly conscious. For another - Steve doesn't care about Hargrove himself, not the way every part of his being screamed at him to protect Eddie. The only reason Steve's standing here at all is for Max.

“He'll tell Creel,” Eddie says. “You know if he's still alive, if he gets back to him, we're finished.”

“We're finished here either way,” Steve points out. “And Billy Hargrove isn't our decision to make. It belongs to someone else.”

Eddie looks at him searchingly, for a long moment. “If not you, then who?”

It's a fair demand.

As far as the general public knows, as far as Henry Creel knows - the rivalry between Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington is as intimate as it is intense. Steve would be lying if he pretended like he didn't know that there was a fan favorite theory that there was something more behind their fights.

But it's never been true. Steve's only ever hated Hargrove for what he did to Lucas and Max.

“Come with me,” Steve says. “And I'll introduce you to her.”

Eddie's eyes are dark, unreadable.

Except -

Except.

Except Steve can read into them, can read hesitancy, longing, hope.

He reaches out, snags Eddie's hand, links their fingers together.

“Come with me,” Steve says again. “And I'll protect you.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, soft and almost surprised. “Okay.”

#steve harrington #steddie #eddie munson #stranger things #steddie fic #robin buckley #stobin #dustin henderson #pre steddie #cyberpunk au #but also kind of a gladiator au and a dystopian resistance au?#yeah i have no idea what this is #meant to be a one-shot but i might do a few more

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