#chase writes things | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

luxaofhesperides · 5 months

Note

Ghostlights as college roommates and maybe some identity shenanigans thrown in would be so fun! Maybe dannys doing a little vigilante work on the side as well to up the secret identity mayhem

Danny would like to say his college career is going well. Gotham isn’t where he was expecting to pursue higher education, but the engineering scholarship he got through the Wayne Educational Foundation was just too good to turn down. It even covered the cost of an apartment! Although, the apartment is shared with another student who got a Wayne scholarship.

Even with that, Danny lucked out and got a great roommate. Duke Thomas is chill, kind, respects Danny’s space and doesn’t throw wild parties or invite random people in at all hours of the day. He even joins Danny twice a week for study sessions!

Really, it would be the perfect college experience except for one thing: the ghosts.

Danny thought they’d stay in Amity Park. They had no reason to stray from the city where the portal was, and his parents are more than enough to keep most ghosts away. It took his friends, Jazz, and even Vlad to convince Danny that he wasn’t abandoning Amity Park and that the city wouldn’t fall while he took a few years to focus on himself.

He worried right up until he got to GCU and walked the campus for the first time. Then he decided to enjoy the four years he had on the scholarship to get his degree and live his own life like a normal person.

To say he’s pissed about the ghosts is an understatement.

The one thing he was looking forward to most is not being Phantom. Gotham is home to the Bats and they’re more than capable of handling everything in the city. It means there’s no need for him here and he can focus on school and enjoy going on invisible flights without worrying about being hunted down or having to fight a ghost.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” he mutters under his breath as he feels the familiar chill race up his throat, A cold mist wafts out of his mouth, curling around his words, and Danny quickly ducks his head and hides it from sight.

“Did you say something?” Duke asks, looking up from where he leans against the kitchen counter, squinting at a recipe on his phone.

“Nah,” Danny lies. “Just stressing.” He gestures to the papers he has spread out on the dining table, then stands up. “I’m gonna take a walk. Maybe that’ll get my brain to work correctly tonight.”

“Got your phone on you?”

Danny reflexively drops a hand to his pocket, checking that his phone is where it’s supposed to be. It’s what Duke asks every single time Danny mentions going out, worried about Danny being unprepared for Gotham. It’s nice of him, though Danny does wish he can say that he’s survived a lot worse than a few muggers.

“Got it.”

“Alright. I’ll try to work on dinner while you’re out.”

Danny nods and offers Duke a small wave before pulling his shoes on at the door. He grabs his keys and heads out, double checking that the door is locked behind him.

Then he glances around the hallway, checking that the coast is clear, and pulls up the chill of awareness in his chest. Slowly, he breathes out, watching the blue mist waft out and lead towards the stairwell.

“Wonder who it is this time,” he mutters to himself, going into the cold, concrete stairwell. It always feels a little off in there, as if he’s been removed from the rest of the world when the door closes behind him. His footsteps echo oddly in the space, so Danny chooses to fly instead, keeping his feet off the floor.

A few flights down is when he sees her: pale and translucent, a faint blue glow around her. She’s a familiar face. Emilia is one of the first of Gotham’s ghosts he’s met, leading to the rather unpleasant realization that ghosts don’t only come from the Infinite Realms. There’s a strange sort of magic in the very foundations of Gotham that makes it the way it is, creating ghosts that are different enough from what he’s used to that it leaves him off balance.

Gotham keeps her dead. Few get to pass on peacefully, and most have to wait until they grow weak and wither away, a second death, before they can be released from the living realm. The ghosts of Gotham are pale and weak, for the most part, and try to cling to him so grow stronger from his ectoplasm.

Most want him to help them pass on, or give them a way into the Infinite Realms. Some want him to bring justice to their killers. Others want to kill him and take his ectoplasm for their own so they can continue their reign of terror in Gotham, unable to be stopped even in death.

Emilia gives him warnings. It’s not always her, but she tends to be the one to draw him out of his apartment, pulling him into a vigilante lifestyle because he can’t bring himself to refuse anyone who asks for his help, and the dead in Gotham have no one else to ask.

“Danny,” she greets. “Nueve is out again. He’s going after the ghosts near Chantilly Street.”

“The sun isn’t even down yet,” Danny grumbles. Nueve, an old gang enforcer who died a few decades ago, cannibalizes other ghosts. It doesn’t destroy the other ghosts, not really, but it makes them feel pain when they shouldn’t be able to feel much at all. Taking their limited reserves of ectoplasm makes him momentarily stronger, and he uses that stolen strength to try to harm the living.

He’s been successful a few times. Danny makes sure to rip him apart as much as possible these days; he won’t be here forever, but he’s hoping that within his four years at GCU, he’ll be able to permanently stop Nueve.

Times like these, he misses having a Fenton Thermos with him. Though he’s not entirely sure it would work on Gotham’s ghosts with how different they are.

Emilia follows him down the stairwell to the ground floor. Once there, Danny shoves his hand into the floor, taking out the backpack he’s hidden in it. He’s done this change of clothes so often he can do it in just a minute now, hiding his face and pulling on gloves beneath a large hoodie with old ectoplasm stains along the sleeves and hem. A gas mask is pulled on as well, covering the bottom half of his face, a necessary addition to his Ghost Work Outfit™ after he almost got caught in some Fear Gas during Scarecrow’s last attack.

“Alright,” he says, “Lead the way.”

Emilia takes off through the wall and Danny hurries to follow, going invisible as he hits the streets.

It’s still early evening, the sun not yet fully set. Plenty of people walk along the sidewalks and cars pass by endlessly, honking at each other as they try to go twenty above the speed limit. Danny does his best to avoid running into everyone, deftly dodging the reaching hands of a few ghosts who spot him as he sprints by.

They only go a few blocks away from his apartment building, turning into a dead end alley where a group of teens (living, for once) are stuck with their backs to the wall, clinging to each other as they warily watch the man in front of them carelessly twirl a gun around his finger.

The man makes a strange clicking noise in the back of his throat, and it takes Danny a moment to realize that he’s trying to talk.

Still invisible, Danny sneaks around to stand in front of the teens, ready to bodily protect them. The man looks alive, and Danny see any ghosts around save for Emilia, standing at the mouth of the alley. There’s something strange about him; his movements seem just a little off, not quite as fluid as they should be. It’s not the movement of someone on drugs. It’s something that screams uncanny valley.

The gun’s handle drops solidly into the man’s palm. He makes another few clicks, then raising the gun to point at the teens.

“Bad idea, pal,” Danny says dropping his invisibility. The teens behind him startle, gasping and trying to press themselves further into the wall.

The man’s eyes flash weakly and the pieces click into place in Danny’s mind. Nueve must have gotten strong enough to possess someone. That is… alarming, to say the least.

He rips the gun out of the man’s hand and tosses it aside. Then he pushes away the man’s arm when Nueve makes a clumsy attempt to punch him. With his chest left wide open and undefended, Danny takes the chance to shove his hand into the man’s chest, feeling for the familiar chill of a ghost.

And then he wraps his fingers tight around it and pulls out Nueve, leaving the man to collapse.

The teens behind him scream and Danny winces.

Pulling out a faintly glowing human figure from someone’s physical body does not look good. It’s the best way to end a possession, but it does look alarmingly like he’s just ripped someone’s soul out of their body.

Keeping hold of Nueve’s ghost, Danny steps to the side. “You guys should go now. Take care.”

The teens don’t need any more prompting. They take off in a run, tripping over each other in their haste to get away.

Danny spares a glance to the man unconscious on the ground, but there’s nothing he can do with an angry ghost in his hands, so he has no choice but to leave him there as he flies up to a rooftop farther down the street.

“How many times do we need to do this, Nueve?” he asks tiredly, shaking the ghost.

“These streets should be mine!” Nueve howls, trying to break free of Danny’s grasp. But he’s quickly growing weak, his energy fading, and Danny’s holding back his own ectoplasm as tightly as he can. “They may have killed me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still take what I’m owed!”

“Dude, you’re dead. There’s nothing here for you. Move on.”

“You don’t get to speak on this, outsider. You think a freak like you has an say over us? You can’t stop us. You don’t even know what’s coming.”

Danny squints at him. “What, are you planning a heist or something? With your gang of dead people too weak to lift a piece of paper?”

“We’re not all dead. We’ve got living folk helping us and we’ll be taking you out first when we hit the streets.”

“Good luck with that,” Danny says flatly, “Begone with you.”

Without giving Nueve a chance to say another word, he rips Nueve’s head off his body. His ghost wavers, then dissipates like smoke, fading away.

Another side effect of whatever it is Gotham does to her dead: their ghost forms are remarkably fragile and it takes only a bit of strength to tear them to shreds, giving him some peace before they reform again. It won’t stop Nueve from striking out again, gathering enough strength until he’s able to possess some other unfortunate soul, but Danny’s bought himself some time to figure out what the hell was he talking about?

There are living folk involved with whatever he’s planning. It’s probably another gang, maybe someone with magic who is able to see ghosts? Which is not great. Danny doesn’t know much about magic; even when facing ghosts who used magic or magical artifacts, his go to method of dealing with them is to start throwing hands like there’s no tomorrow.

Well.

It’s a problem for later.

For now, Danny needs to get back to his apartment and work on his calculus homework. Hopefully he can finish it before he gets frustrated enough that he gives up and lies face down on the floor until Duke manhandles him onto the couch, where he’s less of a tripping hazard.

He’s just about to get back to street level when his Fenton Luck strikes again and he hears someone land on the roof, just a few feet behind him.

“Hey there, stranger,” the Signal says. “You know, we run into each other so often it feels rude not to introduce ourselves. Why don’t you go first?”

Danny turns to face the daylight vigilante, standing with his arms crossed as if that would make him look any more approachable. He’s been popping up wherever Danny’s out dealing with ghosts, which is very not great for Danny’s plans to have a peaceful, normal college life.

Biting his tongue, Danny gives the Signal a quick two fingered salute, then goes intangible and drops down through the building. His invisibility sweeps over him and then he’s running through the streets, hoping it’s enough to keep the Signal from following him to his apartment.

He skids to a stop in the stairwell, dropping his intangibility just in time to crash into the wall. Panting, Danny waits for a tense minute to see if he’s been followed.

When the door to the stairwell remains closed, he lets out a slow breath, then pulls off all the pieces of his Ghost Work Outfit, shoving it back into his bag. He takes a moment to fix his hair, messy from the hood, then shoves the bag back into the floor, safely hidden from curious eyes.

Then he very casually walks up the stairs to the fifth floor and walks down the hallway to his apartment. His keys clang together when he opens the door, and Duke usually hears it when it does, but just in case, Danny calls out, “I’m back!”

He’s learned to announce himself after a few late night walks almost ended with him tackled to the floor when Duke thought someone was breaking in.

Duke doesn’t respond as he toes off his shoes. The stillness in the apartment feels off, as if the world is holding its breath. Cautiously, Danny walks in, trying to find his roommate.

He’s not in the kitchen. The living room is empty. Duke’s bedroom door is open and he’s not in there either.

Something cold lodges itself in his chest.

“Duke?” he tries again, looking over their apartment again for any sign of struggle, or something terrible happening, or even a mess that Duke needed more supplies to clean up.

There’s nothing. The apartment is as it’s always been, just with an empty space where Duke should be.

Worried, Danny stands in the middle of the hallway, trying to figure out what he should do next. It’s because he’s standing so still, surrounded by silence, that he hears it: a light thud outside the window.

Danny turns and he can swear he sees something large moving outside the window, disappearing from sight just as Danny takes a step into Duke’s room to check on it. He rushes to the window and pushes it open, looking down at the street, then side to side, and finally up to the last three floors of the building.

Nothing’s there.

Slowly, Danny pulls his head back inside, closing and locking the window. “Must be my imagination,” he says, trying to convince himself it’s not a big deal.

He leaves Duke’s room and begins pacing down the hall, anxiety building steadily in him.

His phones in his hand before he can think his actions through, Duke’s contact pulled up on the screen. He should call. He should make sure Duke is okay, but Danny hesitates. Is this something to be freaked out over? Would Duke thing he’s clingy and nervous and a bothersome roommate? He doesn’t want to risk Duke asking for a new roommate next year when the lease renews.

But he’s worried. It’s Gotham and Danny just dealt with a violent, murderous ghost threatening him. Duke can deal with a stressed out, worried Danny if it means he’s alive.

He hits the call button before he can talk himself out of it. It rings on and on and on until Danny starts to panic about having to find Duke’s ghost to avenge his murder.

The front door is thrown open so suddenly and so loudly, Danny jumps and his phone clatters to the floor.

“Danny! Hey!” Duke says with a bright smile, trying to catch his breath. He’s still holding onto the doorknob, slightly hunched over as he pants for breath. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m totally fine.”

“Where were you?”

Duke straightens up and closes the door, kicking off his shoes. “Oh, just… out. Shopping. For dinner.”

Danny looks over his empty hands doubtfully. “No luck finding what you needed?”

“Nope!”

“What did you need? Maybe I can go to a different store and get it for you.”

“You don’t need to!” Duke says. “I just needed… tomatoes?”

Danny blinks at him. “We have tomatoes. Did you not know we had tomatoes in the fridge?”

“Oh, do we? Good to know.”

There’s something very weird about this conversation, but Danny doesn’t pry. Duke is weird sometimes, but it’s fine because he kindly ignores some of Danny’s oddities that come from being a halfa and a semi-retired hero.

“Do you… maybe wanna sit down? Catch your breath? I can make dinner tonight if you want.”

Duke waves a hand in the air. “No, no, it’s fine. I got this. Anyways, how was your walk?”

He definitely shouldn’t talk about the cannibal ghost and his threats to take out Danny with his gang. “It was nice. Very quiet. You know, for Gotham.” He punctuates this with an awkward thumbs up and immediately regrets it, but it’s already done so he commits to it.

“Cool! Great. Just wondering, did you see anything weird?”

“Depends on what you’re asking about?”

“Just some guy wearing black with a hood covering his face. He’s been active in this neighborhood and I saw some people talk about him online. Apparently he just appears out of thin air.”

Danny tries not to wince. That’s him, alright. Gotham’s newest neighborhood menace. “I don’t think so, but there’s a lot of people in Gotham that were all black and walk around with their hood up.”

“True,” Duke concedes. “Well, just be careful when you go out, alright?”

“I always am.” He gives Duke the same two fingered salute he gave the Signal. Duke stares at him for a moment, eyes dark and almost dangerous, then he smiles and walks into the kitchen.

“Wanna make dinner with me? I think we can figure out this recipe together. Unless you need to do your homework.”

“It can wait!” Danny hurries to join Duke, grateful for an excuse to push off calculus a little longer. He understands what he’s doing in the class, there’s just… so much work. He doesn’t even want to think about the tests. The tests make everyone cry.

“Alright, let’s get to it, then!”

“You’re in charge, chef,” Danny says, laughingly, and bumps against Duke’s side. He expects a light shove in return, something Sam and Tucker always did, but Duke goes tense instead, letting out a sharp breath that Danny is all too familiar with. “Wait, why are you hurt? What happened?!”

He goes to lift up Duke’s shirt to inspect his shirt, see the damage for himself, but Duke smoothly moves out of the way, grabbing Danny’s wrists and stopping him in his tracks. “I’m fine, Danny. I just got hit. Lightly. Minor bruising, really.”

Danny looks at him doubtfully, then wrenches a wrist free to lift up his shirt before he can move again.

Minor bruising is not how Danny would describe the blues and purples that decorate Duke’s entire side. He can see the outline of Duke’s ribs through the bruising. “How is this being lightly bruised? What hit you?”

“A car?”

“A car?!”

Duke winces, then pulls his shirt down. “I’m fine, Danny, really. It was just from a car that didn’t want to stop at a red light. I stopped another person from being hit, but the car got me pretty solidly. You know how bad Gotham drivers are.”

“Sit down!” Danny says, pulling Duke out of the kitchen. “I don’t understand how you’re still standing. I’ll get some ice, and I’ll handle dinner. You just stay there and stop pushing yourself for no reason.”

“Playing nurse for me now?”

“If I have to.”

“Would you wear a nurse costume for me, too?” Duke jokes.

Danny looks him dead in the eye and says, “If I have to. Would that make you follow my instructions? A tight little nurse dress?”

Duke sputters, cheeks darkening, and looks away. Danny grins, victorious, and darts back to the kitchen to grab an ice pack from the fridge.

“Maybe I’ll wear one for you anyways, once you’re all healed up. Only if you’re good, though.”

“Danny, you’re killing me here.”

“Better me than a car.”

Duke laughs and takes the ice pack, pressing it against his side carefully. “Oh, for sure. Thanks, Danny.”

“Hey, what are roommates for?” Danny shares a warm smile with Duke, then pats his shoulder and heads back to the kitchen to start making a simple pasta dinner.

Life in Gotham is weird and stressful and full of ghosts and heroes who won’t leave him alone. But it’s not all that bad, really. He’s happy with how he’s doing in college, and he’s beyond lucky to have Duke as a roommate. So long as Duke never finds out about his halfa status, then he’s sure they’ll be able to last all four years rooming together.

He just needs to keep a secret.

Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

#ghostlights #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp fic #dpxdc fanfic #my writing #prompt fill #3.6k.... still counting this as short. i have not failed yet at my goal of keeping these fics below 5k!!#i love this prompt so much it even got me making ocs... i love making ocs this is such a treat for me #will 100% be revisiting this prompt in the future to turn into a longer fic bc i have SO MUCH to write for this #had to cut it off here to have just one scene that shows them as roommates w secrets #truly a struggle to keep this short. this could easily be 30k. the amount of identity shenanigans i can write....#also playing around with the cursed gotham thing by making it affect ghosts :) perfect excuse to make my own gotham lore :)#btw duke 100% got injured chasing down criminals and thats how he got hit by a car. he wasnt fully lying abt it #he also tried to come in through the window of his bedroom. saw danny. quickly left and went up the stairs like a normal person #duke has his suspicions. danny is trying so hard to mind his business when duke acts strange and secretive #disaster in the making :)#thanks for the prompt!!

195 notes · View notes

happyk44 · 6 months

Text

i started writing this in my drafts weeks ago but didn't continue much farther than the first sentence - probably put it down to do something else and then passed out lmao. anyway after scrolling past last night wanted to continue it but can't be effed to scroll through my drafts rn (i save everything to my drafts to tag and queue later and my drafts ar like over 250+ rn)

anyway percy who becomes obsessed with finding this grim reaper he saw the night his mom killed his step-dad. he was an abusive asshole and percy helped his mom stage the scene to look like someone gabe owed money to came knocking. they don't have much in terms of expensive shit - just the TV and playstation. it's an old old model that one of percy's classmates was going to throw out as he wasn't into the games he had with it anymore and was getting the latest version for christmas.

it was nice that he gave it to percy with only a fraction of the cost in hand and a promise to give him the rest over time. percy paid him off every monday. it took sally weeks to pay it off, percy chipping in by donating cans and glass bottles he found lying around. the games were old and a little childish, but it was the only entertainment percy had aside from sally's old and crappy laptop that gabe hogged with online poker games.

so it sucked to watch sally dump it into an empty trash bag. it's small, she'd said. the tv would be too big to carry out without causing suspicion, even in mind-your-business new york city, but the playstation, her shitty laptop, and gabe's cell and wallet were things that could be dumped into a bag with no one giving a second look. percy crawls out the fire-escape grateful their shitty apartment building doesn't have cameras. he has to use a couple boxes to really rise himself enough to stuff the bag under the other bags. sally walks out the front door and they go have a late dinner at a nearby cafe.

then go home an hour later and scream in surprise at gabe's dead body in the bedroom, still warm from the heater in the corner boiling up the room that sally promptly unplugs.

percy doesn't think much about WHY his mom was so specific about how to clean his blood off the kitchen floor, about how to stage the scene, about moving gabe's body into the bedroom, about pulling him like he had been then letting him fall flat. heating up the room to keep him warm and fresh, while keeping the window cracked open so the heat doesn't stay by the time the police arrive.

he writes it away as her being a reader, a writer. maybe murder mysteries had been on her mind lately. maybe she watched too many cop shows. maybe she'd thought about this so many times she perfected it. his mom was not a repeat killer. gabe was her first time. her only time. and it was fine.

he sucked.

it's sitting in the chair, feigning distress but not too much, talking to a cop about the scene while he stares off into the air when he sees him. the boy is young, dark-haired and pale-skinned. he's startled by the presence, cutting off in his explanation about how people often came banging on the door for money gabe owed them. how he kept his poker winnings in the now open and empty safe in the bedroom. he wants to draw attention to the boy, but no one else seems to notice him.

he watches idly as gabe is carried out the front door in a body bag. then disappears towards the bedroom.

percy stands and mutters something about wanting to see his mom. the cop guides him to where she's sat on the bed crying thick tears. the boy is there. no one else cares that he's there. the boy reaches out and gabe's body shimmers into view. he's a visage of how he'd looked right before he died - the wide-eyed shock, tensing of his shoulders, mouth open wide because he'd been shouting at percy, threatening him.

he didn't realize how much like his mom he was until gabe fell flat with a knife sticking out of his throat. his mom standing behind him breathing hard. she'd squatted beside his head, pulled out the knife. stared at it. then stabbed stabbed stabbed until gabe's chokes turned to wispy gasps and his wispy gasps disappeared.

"four stab marks," his mom had said. "hopefully that won't look like overkill. but make sure to mention how many times people came screaming at the door just in case."

gabe's white glowing form dissipates into a ball in the boy's hands. he pulls out a baggie from his shoulder bag, then dumps gabe into it with a grimace.

he does suck, percy thinks. be annoyed.

the boy steps away. his eyes catch percy's. percy's arm tightens around his mom's shoulders as he looks into the endless void that is the other boy's eyes. flashes of his own death catch his mind. lying flat on the ground, weakly asking for help, and a dark-skinned man with black angel wings standing above him whispering, i'm sorry, but it's time to go.

then the boy looks away and disappears into a shadow.

grover believes him when he tells him about it. that's the thing percy loves about grover. the mystical and paranormal are easily believed. grover's parents are hippie-like green witches. percy doesn't really get it but has surmised from grover and visiting their house it means they really, really like plants.

"grim reaper," grover calls him. "or a psychopomp. collectors of the dead."

he lists a bunch of names from various cultures until percy cuts him off. "are any young boys?"

grover shrugs. "i mean life is bigger than what the stories tell. there's more people, more humanity. atheists even. where do they go? who collects them? there's definitely more gods and spirits than we think these days. it's not like they all stopped fucking just because the stories ended. there are definitely more gods than we think."

percy doesn't know what to do with that. grover asks him a lot of questions about the boy. but it's hard to answer them. they can't find a culture he could belong to, a way to summon someone without a name. the kid was young, dressed normal in black clothes with a normal black messenger bag. there were no signs of culture, religion, belonging.

he could've blended into a primary school playground easily.

"maybe you need to kill someone," annabeth suggests. the conversation arises a year or so after they first met and befriended her - a new addition halfway through the school year, a few months after gabe's unfortunate death. following a CPS check, her biological mother decided to take charge of her. annabeth spent a lot of time grumbling about her family in california while also missing california ("it's familiar, new york is not, i don't miss my step-mom, i miss the comfort of routine") and bitching about her bio mom's obsession with her grades and extracurriculars.

it takes some campaigning but the three of them manage to create an afterschool club in the new school year for her to find some time to chill and relax and get school work done. it took a lot longer to convince her mom to let her join their "magics and mystics club" - some nonsense about how it'll make her stand-out in college applications.

percy highly doubts any college is looking too closely at middle school extracurriculars, but what does he know? he's either lasting until graduation with grover and annabeth, or getting his GED and dropping out to immediately book it to the first basic entry-level job he can find. school already sucks ass, but his barely medicated ADHD and severely dyslexic ass already twaddles the line of a C average. What's the use of hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that's only growing frantically from interest and a degree he barely achieved with the lowest grades required to shake the hand of someone he's never interacted with?

annabeth spends most of her time in the club doing her homework, while percy gets reeducated on grover's witchy stuff. their club advisor is the drama teacher who only checked in at the beginning of that first meeting then dipped for the drama club. grover's putting together a presentation on the history of mysticism while percy glues pictures to poster board. annabeth will present their stuff. the three of them doubt anyone will care if they did anything productive with their club, but annabeth's mom will so they do their best to make it fancy as fuck.

she already doesn't like either of them.

in the spare times that annabeth isn't doing homework or studying for another class, they talk about the spiritual and paranormal, magic and whatnot. so percy mentions his experience with the reaper.

and annabeth's first suggestion is murder. it's hilarious. grover knows the truth but annabeth only knows the lie. percy makes a note of it in his head. maybe he'll hint around the truth. they're close, but there's still time needed between the two of them. the worst she's told him is about the spiders in her bedroom. but nothing about what kickstarted a CPS investigation and her subsequent arrival into his life.

"maybe he's a murder reaper," she says. she's intellectual, doesn't believe in the mystic magic stuff but tolerates it for grover. "so he only comes around when there's been a murder."

"i don't think reapers are split up by types of death," grover argues. "and even if they were, why would a little kid be sent to deal with murders?"

annabeth crosses her arms. "maybe he's not a kid. maybe he just chooses to look like that."

they get into a weird half-argument, half-civil discussion. to her credit, annabeth doesn't bring science into it. they both descend to the computers and the books grover brought in from his house to search through to prove whatever point they've landed on.

percy is too busy cutting out paper to glue to poster board. and thinking about the murder aspect. he doubts that murder matters. he's pretty sure grover's right, but he likes keeping his balls so he doesn't say. annabeth is probably right too. magical beings are always capable of changing form. maybe little kid is just easy. who would be afraid of going somewhere with a little kid. or a dog.

but death is needed to see the reaper again. percy doesn't live with anyone dying. and he's too young to volunteer at the hospital. besides death is random isn't it? everyone was convinced that their classmate who got diagnosed with stage four cancer was going to die but she returned a year and a half later missing a leg but recovering. and the gym teacher who ran marathons and was known for his obsessively healthy eating habits died of a heart attack over the summer.

and even if he hovered around people on the verge of death, it didn't mean he was going to be there when they died.

but murder? definitely. he'd be right there because it would be his fault.

at that, he dashes the thought away. murder is wrong. he can't kill people just to see a reaper he saw but never spoke to. it's not like he has any questions about his death. he'll die when he dies. dying isn't scary to him. what's scary is dying before his mom and leaving her childless and mourning. but death itself? he's unafraid.

but inside burns a deep need to see the reaper again. not even to talk to him. just to lay his eyes on that night sky hair and porcelain skin. then he'd be satisfied and the need would go away.

maybe.

probably.

hopefully.

it's on his sixteenth birthday that he sees another reaper. it's not the boy he's looking for. he's disappointed. he shouldn't be. he should be more concerned with the dead man lying in front of him.

the letter opener is sticking out just below luke's left armpit. it hadn't killed him. it was too delicate for that, and the spot wasn't vital enough. but it had shocked him enough for annabeth to shove him away in disgust. he fell back, tripping over annabeth's shoes, and smashed into the glass coffee table.

"shit," annabeth breathes. she doesn't notice the reaper - a slender arabic man appear from the darkness and pull luke's soul of his chest with thin hands. he pushes his hands together and the soul vanishes. then he turns into a dog, or... something like a dog, and disappears back into the shadows.

it's take a few minutes to figure out how to stage the scene. they get rid of the letter opener and shove a piece of broken glass into the spot. this time he doesn't escape through the window. just walks out of the room, calm and detached, and sits in his mom's car. when the police arrive, annabeth, crying thick tears, tells them that he had fallen over while she was getting her things ready after percy came to pick her up.

it's not technically a lie. the police wish him a happy birthday when he says he came by to pick annabeth up from her study session because they were going to do laser tag for his birthday that afternoon. when they don't arrest him in the weeks that follow, he relaxes. and considers his options. he googles arab dogs which is an odd search term but brings up jackals and anubis. cool, he thinks. he tells them both about it afterwards. despite the death, grover is excited. annabeth is less impressed.

"i would've noticed, i was there too," she huffs.

"maybe they don't like you because you're a nonbeliever," grover fires back.

is percy a believer? he's not sure. he knows that what he sees is real. if he was suffering from delusions or hallucinations, surely he'd be seeing them a lot more than twice over the course of four years.

"what if i asked them?" he suggests. "to make themselves visible to you?"

"planning on being around another newly dead guy soon?" annabeth asks with a laugh. grover snorts. but percy remains silent and serious so their amusement shifts to concern

grover leans in close. "percy-"

"just bad people," he cuts in with a solemn whisper.

"you can't be judge, jury and executioner," annabeth hisses. "what you think is bad is not always universal? think about jim crow laws or slavery-"

"annabeth," he cuts in before she can go on an historical tangent. "i was hoping you'd help actually."

it doesn't take long for her to click together what he wants out of her. she glares at him. "percy," she snarls through clenched teeth. "i'm not swishing my ass to entice seedy men for you to murder so you can maybe have a hallucination to process death."

"okay, okay." conceding, he raises his hands. "it was dumb, i'm sorry. i just... really wanna see this kid again. sorry."

annabeth watches him carefully the rest of the day. grover doesn't. he knows what percy is, even if he doesn't agree. so it's not too surprising to start seeing grover scrolling through the newspaper on his phone. he startles every time percy spooks him when he's reading. then laughs it off, swats at percy, and keeps reading. it's the obituaries that percy sees the most, but sometimes articles about a death.

whatever he's looking for, some kind of proof it's percy, he must not find because he doesn't say anything. but it's grover, percy's soulmate. so he's sure the slow side-eye that he gets some mornings are a knowing side-eye.

percy doesn't look at the newspapers. if he's gonna get caught, he'd rather be surprised about it other than worrying and getting sloppy.

it's hard to find truly shitty people from first glance. he doesn't have the patience to observe. just slight insomnia that keeps him up until one in the morning prowling the streets. he hovers around in his old neighborhood, where the cameras are for show and shitty people live. it's still difficult. he doesn't want to go around hurting innocent people. less so because he cares, but more because it would disappoint grover and annabeth and his mom. he can't disappoint them.

he does see reapers, including the one who will one day take him, but never the boy. percy tries to envision him older, but even then none of them match. he does try to speak to them, but they ignore him. he wonders if it's some kind of weird curse. he can see them but they can't. sometimes the ignorance seems intentional, but he can't really tell so other than a few short sentences that always go ignored, he gives up and heads home.

some days he wakes up and is certain the police will come for him. but they never do and so he gives it a few days or a couple weeks and head back out again. they're opportunity kills. random and haphazard. he keeps mittens on, which looks normal in the fall and winter, but sketchy over the summer. to counteract his want to see that reaper, he signs up to be a counselor for a summer camp. grover joins him. annabeth is dragged off to university summer classes by her mom. her emails are miserable. percy wonders aloud to grover if annabeth would be happier if her mom was dead. grover eyes him flatly and says he doubts it.

percy gets assigned to the little kids who tell him all kinds of family secrets. some are funny. some are not.

it's not that hard to get into the camp's directory and write down in poor handwriting and with tons of struggle the names and addresses of these secrets. it's not a lot, which is great. but it's more than it should be and come summer's end, he has his start for the fall.

it's clear grover knows what percy's planning. he was there after all when a little secret got whispered too loudly. but all he says is, "sometimes kids get things wrong." the newspaper on his phone comes back into play after summer ends. but he still says nothing, even when glances at percy from the corner of his eyes.

it's two years of scattered kills before he sees him again. the kid is older now. he looks about fourteen, maybe fifteen. but percy knows it's him. he's the only one who makes eye contact. this time percy doesn't see his death. but he sees the endless void.

purgatory, he thinks, before he blurts out, "i've been looking for you." the teen tilts his head and smiles, small, gentle. the sight of it slams hard into percy's ribcage and sinks messy into his heart. "what's your name?"

"what's yours?" the teen fires back, turning away from percy and collecting the pulsing orb into a little baggie like before. his voice is enchanting, smooth and crystalline. there's an edge of an italian accent in it.

"percy," he says without hesitation. "jackon. percy jackson." he shakes his head. "perseus, actually, but everyone calls me percy."

the teen laughs gently. the sound is haunting. somewhere in percy's subconscious he knows the sound should scare him. but instead he just craves it more. "well, perseus jackson, my name is nico."

nico, percy thinks. in his head, the name is surrounded by hearts like a schoolgirl writing out the name of their crush in a movie. "that's really pretty," he says aloud. mentally he slaps himself. that's really pretty? that's stupid.

but nico just laughs again. "thank you." he steps over the dead body and touches percy's face. "perseus was a quite the soul when he was collected." his fingertip ghosts down percy's cheek, leaving light phantom tingles behind. "will you be?"

then he dissipates into shadows, leaving percy with a heavy craving for his ghostly touch and hauntingly enchanted voice.

#percico #percy jackson #nico di angelo #annabeth chase #grover underwoood #happy talks pjo #my writing #my fanfic #maybe i'll add more to this later #i was thinking about adding jason to it but i wanna stick w/ percico and i don't wanna accidentally talk myself in perjasico #also how the fuck do i keep starting posts w/ the intention of it being a short ramble of thoughts and then turn it into a thing

134 notes · View notes