#she has always wanted to speak with them but her duty in protecting Danny and her curse made it hard

[bluerosefox]

Daughter of Phantom, Lady Gotham.

I love Lady Gotham stuff in the DCxDP stories, like a lot, so what if, hear me out (Long post is long, I rambled again)

Lady Gotham is Danny's daughter.

How? How about Danny is hurt (his parents? GIW? Vlad?), like badly, to the point even his core is damaged and the time needed to heal would take years, like a lot of years. Like it was bad that even his Rogues were shocked and shaken. They eventually get him to the Realms but are unsure what to do next. So they're scrambling trying to figure out how to save him.

So when CW appeared he asked to handed the Core because he knows what to do, where to hide him so he can heal they don't question it, everyone in the Realms know CW, the Ancient of Time itself, has a soft spot for Phantom. He opens a portal to a different world, not Danny's he can't run the risk of GIW finding him, to a just beginning world, the new world will help speed up his healing, and with Frostbite's help they set up a healing chamber deep, deep in the ground. Once they made sure everything is set up and safe, they place his core inside the healing pod and return every so often to check on him.

Over time though, above on the surface of that world it's timeline starts. Animals, creatures, humans, aliens, magic users, etc etc begin and with it, because even as a half healing core, Danny's power and ectoplasm starts effecting the area he's resting in (Ghost King Danny? Young/New Ancient/Eldritch Being? Or just an OP Danny?) (Clockwork and even Frostbite showing up every so often doesn't help either, it explains why Gotham is so cold sometimes or why time seems... off)

Anyways due to Danny's power (along with bits of Clockwork and Frostbite), magic of this world, and people beginning to build a small town on top of the land it gives birth to the namesake of the town.

GOTHAM.

CW foresaw her 'birth' and finds her sitting in front of Danny's healing pod. He always knew Gotham would eventually form, the belief/love her people have in her would had given her a form eventually he just wasn't expecting her to form so soon (this is why Danny remains his favorite person, he always did something CW never really see's to often) nor was he expecting her to become Danny's daughter. Gotham looks a bit like Danny, dark hair, blue eyes, pointed ears, sharp teeth, glowing star like freckles, but she also reflects her people, the ones that call Gotham home so her image shifts sometimes. But he can see small hints of maybe himself and Frostbite in the shifts.

She is 100% Danny's daughter via spirit/ectoplasm. If anything CW and Frostbite are like many times removed family members when it comes down to ectoplasm.

She's silent for a moment before she asks if "You and the other come here often to see him... The one sleeping is he my father?" Which CW does confirm, he explains why Danny is healing and who he and Frostbite are and why they show up to make sure he is doing better. How his healing will take many, many years. She goes silent again before saying "Teach me how to protect him. I am new and young compared to others... and yet I already know if anyone desires him for the power he gives, they will stop at nothing. He is my father and I am his daughter, I need to keep him safe just how I know he would keep me safe. This much I know."

CW agrees.

She learns, from her father's allies (CW, Frostbite, Pandora, etc etc) how to defend and fight. How to protect what she loves. She watches over her father and fights off demon's, monsters, sometimes an alien that senses the slumbering power, evil magic users. Etc. She watches over the town and people who named her as well, falls in love with the humans who call her home as well and defends them as well.

She even gets the blunt force of a curse a powerful old entity that tired to place it on her father after she had just banished it from her lands. It's an old powerful curse that CW or Frostbite can't rid of because it would weaken her far to much that they run the risk of her fading, the only way to get rid of it is if she had a family member feeding her ectoplasim to help sustain her. (Her aunts can't because Jazz isn't ghostly enough and Danielle can't because hers is limited due to being a clone (like she has enough for herself but does need to visit the Infinite Realms during her travels to get more ectoplasim to filter in and out). Danny is their only chance because he's constantly filtering ectoplasim in and out and even creating it because of how he died with a portal opening up at the same time)

The curse slowly starts eating away at Gotham, makes it hard for her to have a solid corporeal form because pain (when she has to use this form to fight off others she has to bare through the pain), her appearance starts changing (eyes turn from sharp ice blue to glowing yellow, skin turns deathly sickly pale, her star freckles slowly blinking in and out, hands become inked claws, her dark hair is unkempt and spills like an oil sludge down her body and face) and because Danny is still healing himself he can't help her and she can't see him all too often anymore because she doesn't want to run the risk of the curse effecting his healing core, she does get updates from the other ghosts that visit him and then her. She still defends him though, outside of his healing chambers should on the rare chance something finds it way down to him.

Eventually due to Danny's and Gotham's natural ectoplasim filtering on the lands, visiting and powerful ghosts, Gotham fighting off powerful beings trying to use her father for power, and the curse on Gotham herself, the town that had been built on the ground above by humans becomes the very city we all know.

Its a whole mixed bag do to so many factors, that's why Gotham is the way it is.

Gotham does her best to keep her people safe from well... everything but due to the curse and the fighting off another person/entity/demon/magic user/etc coming for her father's power, she can't always do much by the time one crisis is over and a new one pops up, she's slowly breaking down the longer it takes.

That's why she has a soft spot for her Dark Knight and his family and allies, they help her from the pain from the curse by trying as both the Wayne's and as the Batclan to fix up her city self, its not enough to really fix her fully but it helps with the pain that eats at her.

She does her best to give them tiny blessings though, but due to her duty of protecting her father she can't always do much (she wept when news of Jason, her second Robin, her rough around the edges bookworm, had died came to her. She couldn't protect him because he was out of her reach. Its why when Joker returned she made it very hard for him to really gain his foothold in her again but had to stop because CW told her if she kept making it too hard for the clown he'd go running off to 'play' with a different hero and that... that timeline would lead the world to ruin. She begrudgingly stopped but when Joker had taken her third Robin, her tiny Tim the one she loved watching shadow her knights, she did everything she could to keep him sane from the pain he had been put in, and lead Batman to the warehouse to save him. Also it turns out her heartbreak over Jason's death, her curse acting up, and her ectoplasim sparking off at the same time it helped bring him back from his grave not fully but somewhat, she was so shocked that she didn't have time to send hints to Bruce to get him when he was taken by Talia and once again out of her reach. She tried hinting it to Bruce that Talia had taken him but by the time he would check on the League, Talia would had moved him)

Gotham, depsite being young in the eyes of many other powerful beings and entities has held her own and kept those that wanted to use her father for power packing. Despite being cursed that is slowly eating her alive she still holds onto the hope her father will awaken and she will finally get to meet him. (She hopes she made him proud, he is a protector spirit core after all and she had been steadfast with keeping him safe all these years).

Things however take a turn for the worse when Gotham awakens from some sort of powerful slumber (she doesn't know what happened?! Did something knock her out?! When did she fall asleep?! Was it magic? Did the curse do it? Did someone or something-) And discovers someone or something had managed to steal her father slumbering core. (So close to healing, so close to awakening according to Frostbite, just a few more days he says. Just. A. Few. More. Days)

She tries to go find him but is suddenly hurting more, her curse has progressed even worse, she can barely stand, let alone fight whoever had her father. And she knows her father's friends won't be back to see her until far later.

And then all of Gotham shakes and shudders when her rage, panic, and terror are felt that early morning.

-×-×-

Deep in the Batcave, Batman and the others are searching for whatever caused that strange almost magical but not (ectoplasm) shudder that morning.

They were expecting a full scale attack. Magical, alien, maybe even all the Rogues in Gotham working together. An all scaled war. They were looking for any signs of it, maybe to by some miracle stop it before it becomes to late.

They however weren't expecting a strange sick looking woman with yellow glowing eyes, oil ink like hair covering her face and body, clawed hands like they had dipped in ink as well, star like freckles blinking in and out on her body and face, sharp ears, breathing heavily and coughing every so often to appear in the cave. Like she had sunk out from the shadows in pure silence. (Even Cass did not hear her)

Nor were they expecting her not to even flinch when they trained their weapons onto her. Instead all she did was laugh, a raspy low laugh, but it held warmth and mirth.

"Now, now my knights... No need for that. I come needing help and you are the only ones I will ever trust with this mission..." her voice was soft but harsh, talking seemed to hurt her though for she had to take deep breaths and suppress a cough. Her eyes trailed across them all, despite her sickly look her eyes gleamed with a motherly warmth in a strange sense, something all of them could feel "I can not hold this corporal form for long. Long story short I am cursed, have been for a very long time and whatever happened to me earlier this morning has aggravated it even more and thus I can not stay in the world of the 'living' to do much. My father, the one I have been protecting since my creation from all sorts of terrible and dangerous things, for should they get a hold of him it could spell the end of life itself for he is that powerful, has been taken from his healing chamber. I do not know who or where but I know he still remains in the city, that much I can sense."

She coughed and took a shuddering breath "But alas I can not go to his aid as I once has been able to, this is where you all come in. I need you to find my father, find his core. Bring him to safety. I had fought so many to keep him safe, to make sure he heals in peace for so long, and he... So close. Just a few more days he needed... then I could had finally had met him."

She lightly muttered those last few words, eyes looking lost for a moment before coughing hard.

"Who are you." Batman, Bruce Wayne, stonely demanded but for some reason he couldn't help but feel like he knows her, like from a foggy memory, and by the looks of his family they all could sense the same thing.

The woman, or whatever she was, merely smiled, sharp teeth bared in it as she looked him right in the eyes and said.

"Gotham, my dear Dark Knight. I am Lady Gotham herself. Its wonderful to finally meet you despite the circumstances."

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dp x dc #blue rambles #crossover #writing ideas #random idea #batman #danny phantom dc #Lady Gotham #Lady Gotham is Danny's daughter #his ectoplasm her towns people belief and love in her and the natural magic of the world gave 'birth' to her #danny is sleeping for a very long time #CW made him rest on a different world so he didnt have to run the risk of the GIW finding him or 'sleeping' well past his love ones time #this got long but its my brain being weird and coming up with a new AU #none of the bats was expecting Lady Gotham #she needs their help though #she has always wanted to speak with them but her duty in protecting Danny and her curse made it hard #Bruce has questions #like so many #Lady Gotham feels like 'mom' to her favorites #who has Danny? #idk someone #this... this got long #this is what happens when I'm fully allowed to ramble I've been let loose and been allowed gremlin hours #Lady Gotham takes after his human half when she was 'born'

[danddymaro]

Dio Brando X Reader

Pairing(s) : Dio x Reader x (somewhat ) Jonathan | Part 1 Phantom blood | word count:  1528

And of course she likes Jonathan. 

This is the first part. Fair warning,  It won’t go directly in line with the actual story/ cannon events, but rather, go its own direction. 

(no worries it won’t be too long.)

Ages: Geez we never find out Dio’s age, but they were around the same right?

In pt.1 Episode 1 Jonathan is said to be 12. So i’ll put the reader at the same age and Dio just one older, because it just feels right that way.

Right here, they are at those ages. (12-13)

Lets start off sweet, shall we?

Part. 1 | Pudding

She never asked for much, because she had a lovely life. 

She had a roof over  her head, a caring family, so to speak, and she was in good health.

She wasn’t blessed with finery herself, but her simple upbringing humbled her into realizing there was more to life than riches.

What mattered most was being a good person. 

To help others, to spread kindness to everyone despite their social status...

Just as she leaned from the Joestars.

As she walked along the hall, she made sure to be quiet and not make  a sound, knowing that it wouldn't be in her best interests if anyone found out where she was headed, much less to know what exactly she was doing at such a late hour.

With a stealthy, little tap to the door (f/n) waited patiently, hoping it was enough to grab the attention of the person inside.

Having no luck, she repeated the same action, but this time with a bit more force. To add on, she brought her mouth close to the crease on the door, her voice low and secretive, “JoJo...” she called out, hoping she wouldn’t have to go beyond that and be louder.

“JoJo...It’s me, (f/n)” She added, waiting. 

It took a moment, but he responded back, sounding surprised, “(f/n)?”

He opened the door with the same look of shock she envisioned right on his face, “What are you doing here?” he asked with bright eyes. 

Immediately he moved aside, letting her slip in so he could close the door behind her and lessen their chances of being caught. 

“I know it’s late,” she started, “ but I came to give you this,” she said while extending her arms out slightly, a small cup and dessert spoon presented to him.

" Pudding?"  Jonathan said confused, looking down at the small cup in her hand with widened blue eyes."...Butterscotch pudding,"  he added softly, his shining eyes softening as he brought them back up to the young lady's face.

"You brought this for me, right? " he said just as gently, glowing with appreciation, already knowing the answer, but being left stunned for a better choice of words. 

"Yes," she said with a small smile, handing him the cup.

" You really went through the trouble?" He asked her , a small smile of his own present as his hands momentarily grazed over hers, his slightly larger ones barley covering hers.

It hadn’t been the first time she’d troubled herself, and yet he always found himself agape. 

Ever since they were children, she’d shown to be sweet and thoughtful, as well  as a true friend.

Eagerly she nodded, " It's just… your father sent you to your room without dessert," she answered him, saddened at the idea. " And from what I saw, your plate seemed as though you only got a couple of bites out of it…" she went on, remembering just how untouched it seemed. 

" I contemplated on whether or not to bring you something else, something to keep your stomach full until morning time," she added, " But I...I'm sorry I just wasn't sure if you were truly hungry, or if you'd even accept this to begin with," she explained, having known that the possibility of rejection was there.

Perhaps he wasn’t hungry alt all...

Perhaps he was too upset to even think about eating...

Or maybe, just maybe, he’d decided he no longer needed her...

The latter of the first two was a far stretch, but sometimes, every now and then , it would run through her thoughts.

Lately, since she’d grown older, it became something she feared over more.

Ever since she’d become to blossom, her feeling also grew as well as the pain of possible rejection.

‘Jonathan’s rejection,’ 

It would surely sting.

“I understand if you wouldn’t want to take it, I knew it was a possibility, and yet I still came,” she admitted, “ But of course, if you want, I can still go back, I know everyone else has retired to their quarters, your father included!" She informed him, her eyes shining with determination as she informed him of the last part.

"If you wish so, I'll be as silent as a mouse and come back in no time!" She said with a sure nod, turning to sneak her way back when he stopped her , his unoccupied hand wrapped around her wrist. 

"That won't be necessary," he said with a breathy chuckle, both touched by her efforts and amused by her eagerness.

The surge of  energy within her dispersed and went away, causing her shoulders to melt down, her eyes large and doe like as she stared up at him, " Are you certain?" She said with concern. 

"Because… I c-can go," she said with less bravado.

“I wouldn’t want to trouble you more,” he started, “Besides, this was more than enough for me, “ he assured her, glowing soft pink, knowing she made such a fuss about him.

His face heated more as his eyes fell down to the hold, remembering he was still touching her , “ It's kind… you truly are a gem (f/n) ," he told her. " But you shouldn't be here to begin with," he added, his brows creased with worry. “I truly do appreciate the gesture, but if you were to get caught...I could never live with myself knowing you’ve taken such a heavy fall,” He explained.

“It’s not like when we were children,” he reminded her, knowing that now she wasn't just  a child, but growing into being a woman, A proper one at that. 

And he was also not a little boy anymore, but a growing man.

The sternness his father punished him with was evident that the time of mistakes was over, and there were true seventies to his blunders. 

‘The same goes for her,’ He reminded himself, knowing that as a man, A gentleman,  it was his duty to protect her. 

And as a friend, it was his obligation to steer her away from danger.

“I know,” she answered back, half-hardheartedly smiling, “But old habits die hard,” she said with chagrin.

She didn’t want to stop, because if she could, she’d dedicate herself to him fully, making sure his blue eyes never had a drop of sadness in them ever again.

Smiling he shook his head, “ I know, but for me...(f/n), please,” He pleaded her.

Sadly nodding she reluctantly agreed, “Very well...” she responded, though sounding ever bit as unenthusiastic as she felt.

Pursing his lips he held her hand, innocently squeezing it in comfort.

‘Do you remember when Danny tore apart you're dolly?’ He suddenly wondered, remembering how much she’d cried back then, realizing she wore a  similar look of sadness, 

‘We’d really been nothing but children, six? Seven? I remember he was still a puppy.’ He reminisced, beginning to notice how much she’d really grown, as well as how much time had passed between then.

‘I had to hold you're hand...Just like this, ’ he added, feeling her own hand melt into his,

‘ Only that got you to smile. ’

And sure enough, his action  rose a gentle smile out of her , and looking up at him she nodded , understanding.

‘I miss those days,’ He thought with reminiscence.

“Though we can’t do this anymore in the future, I think that perhaps we can enjoy tonight, right?” he asked her with hopefulness. “ For old time’s sake,” he continued,  a touch of mischief present in his tone while he grinned boyishly.  

She immediately perked, nodding. 

“I’d love that Jojo,” She said merrily.

She then plopped herself onto the ground, eagerly falling into conversation with him, watching him eat the dessert while chuckling at her ramblings, something they were well aware would normally bring forth punishment. 

It felt like they were children again, being able to talk about anything their hearts desired, being as close as they wanted to without fearing the consequences of their proximity.

Without eyes to judge them they fell back in time to moments where their innocence wasn’t deemed improper behavior.

‘ I wish it could be like this forever, Just you and I Jonathan. 

With no judgment.

 With no fear.

 With no one to tell us what they think is happening.’ 

Time passed them rather quickly, soon leaving them standing before each other, ready to say their farewells for the night.

Sweetly he stared at her, for reasons unknown to him, growing shyer as she kept her eyes on him,

‘How have I just realized how beautiful  you truly are?’ he wondered to himself, trailing his eyes down to her level, noticing how much her former chubby, cherub face had begun to mature. 

“Goodnight Jonathan,” she said softly, also feeling tickled at his presence, wondering herself how she’d yet to realize until then that his features had begun to become sharper.

He’d also outgrown her already , and she was certain he wasn’t done growing yet, 

‘He’ll without a doubt be a handsome man,’ she told herself, knowing it to be true.

Responding back just as gently to her, he also said his goodnight, his heart bouncing happily as he took a mental picture of her happy grin.

Pt. 2 : Silver Tongue Fiend 

#jonathan joestar #jjba #jjba reader insert #jjba x reader #jjba dio #jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo kimyou na bouken #jojo bizarre adventure #phantom blood #jjba phantom blood #phantom blood fanfic #jjba fanfic #jjba fanfiction reader insert #anime reader insert #anime #anime fanfic #anime fanfiction #jonathan joestar x reader #jonathan joestar x reader insert #jonathan joestar x y/n #jonathan joestar x reader x dio brando #dio brando x reader #dio brando x reader insert #Part 1 #jjba part 1 #jojo part 1 #jojo's part 1 #jojo's #jojo's bizarre adventure phantom blood #jojo fluff

[datawyrms]

Different

Dannymay 2020 Day 24: Mask

He wondered how important the masks really were for their work. Eye protection made sense, but did the glass need to be such a flat remorseless red? If he could take a photograph of how his parents looked now, he was fairly certain anyone he asked would see more humanity in the face of the ‘emotionless ghost’. He didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want or need to watch any of this. Yet they’d insisted this was something he needed.

He was just confused and biased towards ghosts. It was a very human thing to assign traits to something that weren’t really there. They just needed him to realize that for his own safety. Of course it was easier for him to see things that weren’t there, seeing as he was half a ghost himself. It was a comfort thing.

Ghosts don’t really have feelings. He’s ‘different’, an outlier, not like them. His humanity is simply pulling double duty, as his ghost side has nothing to contribute to his emotional state. It masks his ghost half entirely. Yes his eyes glow green when he’s angry, but it is a human emotion triggering the behaviour.

He hates this. They always have a reason to explain away how he isn’t different from other ghosts, that there are plenty of perfectly nice ghosts in the swirling depths of the ghost zone.

Yet they know better, and they’ll prove it to him.

He never thought he’d see the day that he’d desperately want the Box Ghost to shout out a stupid beware, or threaten him with a box. Down here in the lab with his insides doing their absolute best to fold themselves into agonizing knots, it was all he wanted. Then he could pretend the trapped ghost was totally fine. People generally were not fine with being strapped down to a table to be experimented on, but Boxy had always been a weird one.

“See sweetie? No bones or musculature. They’re all just ectoplasm inside.” She pulled him closer and he could only barely manage to suppress a dry heave. “There’s nothing to feel with”.

Not like him. Not that they could know for sure, they’d never gotten the chance to slice Phantom open. At least he didn’t think so. Of course they hadn’t, they could hear when he cracked his knuckles in ghost form, that’s all.

 “He was screaming” He didn’t want to answer, but they’d expect one.

The dead red eyes seemed at odds with the genuine smile. “To trick you, see how it’s stopped?”

Because the blue ghost was too tired, or in too much pain to keep it up anymore. The weak half clench of a hand and stiffness of his jaw certainly looked like an expression of agony to him. “Yes.” The sooner he ‘believed’ that, the sooner they’d let the ghost loose. Or at least stop toying with him.

The masked eyes that watched him could hear the lack of conviction in his voice, but he couldn’t muster it. If ghosts only faked emotions, he really wished he could fake the right one now.

“Aha, found it! Slippery ghost was trying to hide it!” Dad’s boisterous enthusiasm only sent a shudder up his spine. “You know what that is son?”

Of course he did. His own frosty core was practically keening in horror at the sight of the Box’s Ghost’s exposed core, dragged from safety by harsh metal tools. He could only manage a nod, wincing at the proud clap on the back that earned him.

“Course ya do! This is why you have to keep fighting the pests, that little baby is all they really need to heal up.” He had no worries about the green splatter on his glove, all the tools would be washed later anyway. “If you get ahold of this though Danno, you’d never have to worry about em again,”

“Don’t! Please, he’s harmless,” he couldn’t help speaking out, hands trembling. He’d suffer a million pointless bewares over this.

“It’s just a ghost. Besides, you don’t have any trouble squashing a few bugs, right son?”

“Now Jack, Danny’s always going to have a little trouble with this,” she was hugging him, and he wanted nothing more than to scramble away from the warmth and acrid stench of ectoplasm. “They aren’t like you sweetheart, even if you share some traits.”

It was pointless. He tried. “I’m not-”

“You are completely different. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll see it eventually.”

Her hug had felt like a trap, being released finally let him breathe again. Back to taking samples and talking to each other about fascinating discoveries, he could probably sneak away back upstairs.

This is why he didn’t want to tell them. To let them ignore any twinges and concerns that ghosts were in fact not all mindless beasts, because he was just ‘special’. They easily pulled on their masks, fooling themselves because it was more convenient. Yet he had to play along for now, try and get any ghosts out of town safely.

He was their son, he was safe from all of this. Yet part of him couldn’t help but fear that they would finally believe he wasn’t that different from other ghosts, but instead of stopping it’d be his turn on the table.

#dannymay2020 #Danny Phantom #Maddie Fenton #Jack Fenton #my stuff #random headcanon to why danny wants to prove ghosts are not mindless without revealing himself #this sort of being like a nightmare scenario for him #cus why would they listen to the ghost?

[crocodileniall]

Part 2 

Niall looked down at Quinn, a smile settling on his lips. “Did I tell you that you looked amazing?”

“You didn’t,” Quinn smiled. “Go on, then.”

“You look amazing, Quinnie,” Niall murmured softly, their fingertips brushing. “Absolutely amazing. You’re the best dressed.”

Quinn laughed, shaking her head. “There is literally a bride in there and I’m the best dressed?”

catch up here 

warnings: alcohol use & swearing 

                                                       ♡♡♡

There are girls that dream about their wedding day for their whole lives. Some have had them planned since they were eight years old. And some girls had a wedding fund they were saving for the big day. Quinn was not that girl.

It was hard for Quinn to imagine herself in love. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be in love, it was that something like that seemed out of reach. So when it comes to weddings, Quinn was admittedly a bit uneasy. 

Quinn was lucky she had Poppy to keep her head out of the clouds while they attended the ceremony. Evie was off doing her wedding duties which left the pair of them sitting with their parents in pews. 

Quinn already knew her mother, Brigid would be a blubbering mess, having seen Greg grow up over the years. Quinn knew there was no way she wouldn’t be embarrassed tonight but it was fine. It’d be fine. 

“Just look at all these pretty dresses,” Brigid whispered, patting Quinn’s knee. 

“I see them,” Quinn murmured, sitting back, exchanging a glance with Poppy. Her mother was the most wedding crazy person she’d ever met. 

“I just picture your wedding day,” Brigid whispered, smiling up at her daughter. “It will be beautiful. And your husband will be handsome too.”

“I sure hope so,” Quinn snorted. “If I’m getting married he better be fit.”

This earned glances from people around her which embarrassed her mother. Brigid pinched Quinn’s thigh and gave her a glare. 

Quinn laughed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Sorry, mum.”

“You just better behave tonight,” Brigid warmed. “You don’t have to be drunk to have a good time, you know.”

“Jesus,” Quinn muttered. “So what. I like wine. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Hush, child,” Brigid shushed her, turning away from her. 

It was her mother’s favorite way to end a conversation she didn’t want to happen. The fact that Quinn was 24 years old living in a completely separate country didn’t matter. She was still a child. 

“You just don’t know how to act at weddings do you?” Poppy mused, eyes glinting. 

“Is it that obvious?” Quinn asked with a laugh. “I am so uncomfortable.”

“Just relax,” Poppy laughed. “Plus you can literally stare at your man the entire time. I’m almost jealous.”

Quinn glared at Poppy knowing full well that her mother was listening intently.  On cue, Brigid asked, “who is your man, Quinn?”

“No one, mum,” Quinn responded quietly. “Poppy is a jokester. We say that Niall’s dad is my man. Just as a joke.”

“Now how would that be a funny joke?” Brigid asked, astounded. “He is a real person you know.”

Quinn groaned, tugging at her hair. “You’re right. Sorry. We’ll stop the joke now.” She turned to Poppy, eyes glinting, “not funny. If you keep this up mum’s gonna say we can’t be friends anymore.”

Poppy and Quinn both laughed, heads tipping forward. Brigid huffed and rolled her eyes. “Hush, girls. That’s quite enough.”

Just in time, the lights went down and Canon in D by Pachelbel began to swell. The wedding procession began down the aisle.

The wedding party was larger than Quinn had anticipated. It seemed like everyone in their town was here. Danny has a large family and Greg knows lots of people it wasn’t a surprise the chapel was full. 

Quinn felt herself flush when she saw Niall step out of the foyer. All of the groomsmen were wearing the same suit but in Quinn’s expert opinion, he looked the absolute best. They were wearing navy blue suites that were so simple yet one of the greatest things Quinn had ever seen. 

And Evie looked good too. On his arm. Quinn quickly looked to Evie and gave her a smile. Evie smiled back at them holding back a laugh. 

Quinn let herself look at Niall who’d been looking at her the whole time. She smiled at him and he gave her a wink. Quinn rolled her eyes and shook her head at him. 

“That’s weird,” Poppy whispered. “Niall just winked at me.”

Quinn looked at her, eyes narrowed. It only took a minute before Poppy broke out into a giggle, hiding her laughter in Quinn’s shoulder. 

“You’re a nut,” Quinn whispered, shaking her head. 

The whole church stood just as the music reached its climax. Danny and her father were at the end of the isle. They made their way down slowly.  

It was this part of the wedding that Quinn usually zoned out. Out of respect for Greg and his family she decided she’d remain present for the ceremony though she wasn’t going to be happy about it. 

Poppy was right, though, Quinn did get to check out Niall. It is also important to note that Deo was a groomsman so she had some eye candy too. Quinn didn’t forget. 

//

By the time they got to the ceremony, Quinn and Poppy were both tipsy. Brigid was embaressed but Quinn felt too bubbly to care. The reception was in a hotel which Quinn conveniently had a room booked at for the girls. Crazy how that worked out. 

They walked in, late, because for some reason their mothers felt the need to change beforehand. Quinn didn’t know that was something people did. Changing in between. While they were changing is when they got ahold of the liquor. If its anyones fault it’d be their mothers. 

But Quinn was starving and immediately she saw the cookie table. She wanted to devour it but resisted, following behind the mums like the good children they were. Quinn looked around the fancy room with chandeliers and white table cloths and expensive glasses. Everyone was dressed perfectly. It felt like a room they didn’t belong in. 

The lot of them sat in a table off away from the dance floor. It was a given that their mums would not dance tonight especially since their dads were working. Quinn was eyeing the dance floor, though. It seemed like a good place to embarrass herself. After all, she’d be back in Chelsea by Monday and the odds of anyone remembering are slim. 

“I need a beverage,” Quinn announced as soon as they sat down. “And we need to find our pretty friend Evie.” 

“Go on, then, girls,” Brigid waved them on. “It’s about time you get out of me hair.” 

“Do you know that when other daughters come home their mothers are happy!” Quinn exclaimed, laughing. 

“Hush child,” Brigid said laughing. “Let the adults talk.” 

Quinn shook her head, dragging Poppy along. Poppy was laughing at the exchange between the two of them. Like mother like daughter. 

“When people ask me if it’s hard living so far from my family I can say no and actually mean it,” Quinn laughed, shaking her head. They leaned on the bar. 

“I understand your pain, love,” Poppy laughed. 

“Can we have two martinis, please,” Quinn asked, leaning forward towards the bartender. 

“Two each?” He asked, putting two glasses on the counter.

“One each,” Quinn smiled. “But don’t worry, I always come back for more.” 

“Cheeky,” he laughed, shaking his head. 

Quinn gave him a grin and turned to face poppy. “I just remembered. Deo was in the wedding party! I bet you oogled him the entire time!” 

“I did no such thing!” Poppy cried incredulously. “Only like half the time.”

“Thats actually a fair amount,” Quinn conceded, nodding in appreciation. 

“Speaking of. Where is everyone?” Poppy asked, looking around. 

The bartender set their drinks down in front of them. “That’ll be 15 euros each.”

“Shit I don’t have any cash,” Poppy murmured, patting at her clutch. 

“That’s interesting,” Quinn nodded. “Considering it is an open bar. Therefore no it is not 15 each.” 

The bartender laughed, nodding. “Smart girls.” 

Quinn nodded towards the dance floor and laughed. “We’ll be back.” 

The room was bouncing. People were grabbing food from the buffet and others were drinking or taking photos at the photo booth. It was a mess of people. Somehow, though, Evie stuck out like a sore thumb. She was picking at the desert table. 

“Evie!” Poppy cried, pulling her into a hug. “Pretty little thing, you are.” 

“Oh stop,” Evie chuckled. “You’re gonna make me blush.” 

“How are you feeling now that your wedding duties are over with?” Quinn asked, stealing a cookie off of her plate. 

“Relieved,” Evie nodded. “I love danny with my whole heart but she was a bridezilla. Her first pick maid of honor had to step down because she had stomach ulcers.”

Quinn laughed. “Sounds like you were the right person for the job, then.” 

“I like to think so,” Evie nodded. “Oh by the way Niall was looking for you. Said he’ll meet you outside I think.” 

“When’d he say that?” Quinn asked. 

“About five minutes ago. I forgot,” Evie chuckled. “He’s probably out there.” 

“Would you guys mind if I go find him?” Quinn asked. 

“Not at all,” poppy waved her off. “We’re probably going to grab a bite.”

“Okay,” Quinn nodded. “I’ll see you guys in a little.” 

“Have fun!” Evie exclaimed. “And for the love of god use protection!” 

Quinn wrinkled her nose. “Rudely inappropriate Evelyn.”

“As was the use of my full name,” Evie retorted with a laugh. 

Quinn shook her head, laughing as she walked away. She was feeling kind of nervous to find Niall. The way they left things added some tension to the air. It wasn’t bad tension but she didn’t know what she’d be walking into. 

Quinn pushed through the big glass doors and looked around outside. Niall was leaning against the building, a cigar between his fingers. Quinn shook her head, walking towards him. 

“That is a nasty habit,” she murmured, taking the cigar from his fingers. She pressed it against her lips and inhaled. She handed it back to him, exhaling with a smile. 

Niall laughed, eyebrows raised. “Thought you were going to throw it out.”

“Nah,” Quinn chuckled, leaning beside him. “I smoked cigarettes when I studied in Paris.”

“Did you, now?” Niall inquired. 

“I did,” Quinn nodded with a smile. “Those were good times. But I did not picture you as a smoker.”

“Well in my defense my family’s got me stressed the fuck out and I found a cigar in my da’s jacket pocket so I stole it,” Niall told her. “And it’s not fucking working. I’m about ready to fuck off and leave.”

“What happened?” Quinn asked, turning to face him. 

“Greg is an asshole,” Niall shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m even his best man? We don’t get along. In fact half the reason I’m in Chelsea is because all we do is fight.”

“Because he loves you, I presume,” Quinn responded gently. “And I’m sure today was probably tough for him. It’s possible he wasn’t trying to be an asshole. Maybe he was feeling all sorts of emotions and you were just the closest person to him.”

“Well that’s shit,” Niall responded dryly, shaking his head. “That ‘I love you therefore I will take my personal shit out on you’ narrative. Toxic as shit.”

“I agree,” Quinn nodded. “Though growing up in Ireland was just that, wasn’t it?”

Niall hummed, taking another puff of the cigar. “It was. Did we have the same childhood?”

“It’s possible,” Quinn laughed. 

Niall tossed the half smoked cigar on to ground and smothered it. Quinn couldn’t help but relish in the way the vanilla sweet scent lingered in the air. 

“Are you going to finish that?” Niall asked, pointing to her glass. 

“All yours,” Quinn offered, handing it to him. 

“Thanks,” Niall smiled. He brought the glass to his mouth and took a sip which turned into a gulp and then he chugged it. 

Quinn’s eyebrows raised in amusement. He wiped his mouth, muttering, “fuck.”

“You better slow down,” Quinn laughed, taking the empty glass from him. “At this rate we’ll be doing hard drugs by the time they cut the cake.”

“Honestly I’d do anything right now,” Niall chuckled. 

“Well for your mums sake, don’t,” Quinn smiled. 

Niall down at Quinn, a smile settling on his lips. “Did I tell you that you looked amazing?” 

“You didn’t,” Quinn smiled. “Go on, then.”

“You look amazing, Quinnie,” Niall murmured softly, their fingertips brushing. “Absolutely amazing. You’re the best dressed.”

Quinn laughed, shaking her head. “There is literally a bride in there and I’m the best dressed?” 

“Absolutely,” Niall nodded, meeting her eyes. “Swear. I wouldn’t lie.”

Quinn tilted her head to the side, squinting at him, “I feel like maybe you would though.”

“I wouldn’t,” Niall chuckled, head falling back. “If I didn’t think you looked amazing I wouldn’t have said it. And I do think you are the best dressed but of course that is my subjective opinion.”

“Well thank you,” Quinn smiled. “I appreciate it. And I happen to think that you were the most handsome groomsman. By far.”

“Thank you,” Niall smiled. “Even though we are all dressed identically?” 

“Even so,” Quinn nodded. 

Niall let out a groan, scratching at his jaw. “Quinn...”

“What?” 

“When are you just going to admit that you want to kiss me?” Niall asked. “It’s getting to be a bit too much for me now.” 

“A bit too much?” Quinn laughed. “Sounds like a load.”

“You’re so stubborn,” Niall laughed, shaking his head. “The other night at the pub. I saw the way you were lookin at me. You absolutely cannot hide it.”

“You did not see anything,” Quinn smiled. 

“You almost drooled on me hand!” Niall cried. “And then when I didn’t kiss you, you were so frustrated!” He added. “I saw it with me own eyes.”

“Well that’s your subjective opinion!” Quinn exclaimed, looking up at him. 

“So if I did this,” Niall whispered, sliding his hand around her waist. “And then I looked you in the eyes.” He tilted her chin up to look at him. “And said, Quinn I can’t fucking take lookin at ya. I need to kiss you or I swear I’m gonna lose it.” 

“Then id tell ya to stop lookin at me,” Quinn whispered. There was a flutter in her eyelashes as his breath hit her mouth. 

“Or what if I...” he trailed off, hand wrapping around her throat. “Told you how gorgeous ya look when you’re staring at me like this. Or how good you look with my hand wrapped around your throat.”

“Fuck,” Quinn whispered, eyes slipping shut. “Then I’d tell ya how badly I wanted you to kiss me this whole time.”

“You look so good with my hand wrapped around your throat,” Niall whispered, noses brushing together. 

“Kiss me,” Quinn breathed out. 

“What?” 

“You fucking heard me,” Quinn whispered, eyes meeting his. 

“I think you should say it again,” Niall grinned, thumb brushing against her throat. “It’d make me happy.”

Quinn figured just this once he’d give him what he wanted. She licked her lips, nodding gently. “I want you to kiss me,” she breathed out, eyes fluttering. “I need you to kiss me, Niall. Please kiss-“

Niall cut her off, catching her lips in a kiss. Quinn moaned against his lips. He ran his hands through her hair, licking into her mouth. Quinn pressed herself against him as the pent up desperation left her body. Niall deepened the kiss, pulling her in. 

Niall groaned, pulling away. He whispered, “fucking hell.”

“Was that good enough for you?” Quinn asked teasingly. 

“Considering ya still have that smart ass mouth maybe I should be asking you that?” Niall huffed out, shaking his head. 

“Maybe,” Quinn shrugged. “Or maybe... you could kiss me just once more?” She looked up at him with soft eyes that made it impossible to say no. 

Niall hummed out a laugh, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He leaned down, kissing her again, tangling his fingers into her hair. Quinn deepened the kiss herself, tilting her head. She moaned against his lips just to see what would happen. Niall pulled away, dropping his head to her shoulder. “You have got to stop doing that. Seriously.”

Quinn laughed, running her fingers through his hair. “Was fun.”

Niall’s phone rang in his pocket. He lifted his head, shaking it. “I don’t want to answer it.” 

“Go on,” Quinn urged gently. 

Niall pulled his phone out of his pocket, answering it without looking. “Hello?” 

“I’m outside,” Niall said. There was a pause. “Okay. I’ll-“ another pause. “Fuck. Okay.” Another pause. “I get it. I’m coming in Jesus-“

Niall shook his head, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “It’s time for me to do the toast,” Niall said, straightening up. “How many kisses will I get if I don’t chicken out?” 

“Hm,” Quinn hummed, thinking on it. “I guess it would be fair to say that however long your toast is, thats how long I will make out with you in the bathroom?” Quinn offered. 

“That is a tempting offer,” Niall agreed. “And what if it’s really funny?” 

“Then for every time you make me laugh I’ll add on two minutes,” Quinn told him, pulling him away from the wall. 

“Wow,” Niall laughed, throwing an arm over her shoulder. “I think it will be the longest makeout sesh in the history of all the makeout sessions of all the world.”

Quinn laughed, shaking her head. “You sure are full of it.”

“I’m funny,” Niall nodded. “That’s why it’ll be extra long.”

“We’ll see,” Quinn smiled, patting him on the chest. “But I know you’ll do great. And to celebrate Evie has some mystery pills in her purse. We could try that out too.”

Niall laughed, nodding. “I just might have to take you up on that.” 

“Plus on the bright side this is like the last big best man thing you have to do!” Quinn exclaimed. “And then you can get very very drunk.”

“That’s aces,” Niall murmured, reaching around to open the door for them. Quinn walked in feeling the warm air hit her skin. 

Greg was standing in the foyer waiting for Niall with an impatient look on his face. “So that’s what you were doing? Off fucking with Quinn. Seriously? I thought you were done pulling this shit.”

“I’m here aren’t I?” Niall asked, eyebrows furrowed. “You want me to do this speech or not?” 

“I wanted you to do it twenty fucking minutes ago!” Greg exclaimed. 

“Guys,” Quinn interjected. “It’s just a speech, yeah? Niall’l do it. He said he would. And that it’d be a funny one. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes it fucking is!” Greg yelled. “If I- fuck if I can’t even do this day properly how in the bloody fuck will I be able to make her happy for the rest of her life!”

“Greg,” Quinn said softly. “Can I hug you?” 

“What?” He asked, anger deflating. He looked at Niall with eyebrows furrowed. Niall shrugged and shook his head. 

“Can I hug you?” Quinn repeated, arms extended.  

“I guess,” Greg conceded, wrapping her arms around him. 

“Greg,” Quinn whispered. “You are going to be a great husband. And the fact that you are trying so hard means that your head is in the right place.” She pulled away. “The way you are feeling is valid. And you have a right to feel this way. You cannot take this out on Niall. It is between you and Danny.”

“Yeah,” Greg breathed out. He nodded, running a hand through his hair. “You’re right. Shit. I’m sorry, Nialler.” 

“It’s okay,” Niall nodded. 

“I just... dont even worry about the toast,” Greg told him, shaking his head. 

“Are you sure?” Niall asked hesitantly. 

“Yeah,” Greg nodded. “Da has a whole speech planned. It’s- your fine.”

“Okay,” Niall nodded. “Thanks.”

Greg nodded. “Thanks Quinn.”

“Anytime,” Quinn responded with a gentle smile. 

“Excuse me,” Greg muttered, heading back inside. 

Niall breathed out a sigh as Greg disappeared. He let out a quiet chuckle, eyebrows raised. “That was like black magic.”

Quinn laughed and shrugged. “Everyone has a talent.”

“That was a superpower,” Niall shook his head. 

“Well thank you,” Quinn smiled, head tilting to the side. 

Niall wrapped his arms around her waist, looking down at her. “Did you eat yet?” 

“Mmm no,” Quinn responded. “You?”

“No,” Niall shook his head. “Want to?” 

“Sure,” Quinn nodded. 

Niall and Quinn went and got some food. Niall was bombarded by family members and friends the whole time they were up there but after they got their food, it was just the two of them. It might have had something to do with Niall pulling her into a staff only room which also happened to be filled with champagne bottles. 

“This is fantastic,” Niall smiled, grabbing a bottle out of the ice bucket. “Watch me open this.”

“Jesus,” Quinn whispered. 

Quinn couldn’t comprehend how he even did it but the cork flew out and hit the wall and champagne bubbled to the top, sloshing onto the floor. 

Niall laughed, wiping his hands on his pants. “I knew I could do it.”

“I didn’t doubt you for a second,” Quinn mused. 

“This is nice,” Niall commented, looking over to her. 

Quinn took the bottle from his hands. “What is?” 

“Us,” Niall responded softly. 

Quinn brought the bottle to her lips and took a gulp. She hummed, meeting Niall’s eyes. “Is it?” 

“Yeah,” Niall nodded, sitting down beside her. “I’ve never had fun like this with anyone.”

“Me either,” Quinn smiled. 

“After this and everyone’s lives go back to normal can I... can I see you?” Niall asked, looking down at her. 

“In London?” Quinn asked. 

“Yeah,” Niall nodded. 

“I suppose,” Quinn nodded with a shrug. “I mean I’m sure my London boyfriend won’t mind if I bring you home. You two would actually get along nicely.”

Niall shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not funny. At all.”

“Just a joke,” Quinn laughed, grabbing the bottle of champagne from him. She pressed the bottle to her lips and took a sip. “I’d love to see you in London though I am quite the busy bee. Got a proper nine to five which is actually a seven to seven.”

“I too am a busy bee,” Niall smiled, watching her with amusement. “But my job is a seven to nine. Usually.” 

“Very interesting that you felt the need to one up me on that,” Quinn laughed, pointing a finger at him. “Mr. barrister or whatever it is you claim to do.”

Niall laughed, heading falling back against the wall. “What I claim to do? Ya think I’m lying.”

Quinn held her hands up in defense. “Listen, mate, if you write off your golfing and fancy shmancy brunches as work hours that is your business.”

“I do not have an argument there. You did make some points,” Niall laughed. “And yes I am a Barrister. Not as fun as it sounds.”

“You get to yell objection don’t you? That’s like the ultimate power move.”

“I do,” Niall nodded with a smile. “And it is a great feeling but I spend a lot of time sitting on me ass reading. Quite boring.” 

“I can’t believe you practice law!” Quinn exclaimed, leaning forward. “I just can’t wrap me head around it.”

Niall laughed, “why?”

“Dunno,” Quinn smiled. “Maybe I’ve just got the image of seven year old Niall calling witnesses up to the stand.”

Niall chuckled, nodding. “Seven year old me had no idea where he was heading. And, lover, please could you get seven year old me out of your head. It’s just weird.”

Quinn laughed, nudging his leg with her heel clad foot. “You’re the one that’s made it weird.”

Niall laughed, grabbing the bottle of champagne from her. He took a big sip before setting it down between them. “Alright. Are you ready to dance?”

“The real question is are you?” Quinn asked. She took a sip of champagne. “I need to be drunk to dance.”

“Then drink up,” Niall urged, nudging the bottle towards her. 

“Okay I’ll chug it,” Quinn decided, picking up the bottle. “I might throw up but at least I’ll be drunk.”

“Don’t chug it,” Niall shook his head. 

“I think I’m going to,” Quinn nodded. “For wedding culture. I have to.”

“You literally don’t,” Niall laughed. “There is nothing that says you have to chug this champagne.”

“I’m saying it,” Quinn laughed. She pressed the bottle to her lips and took a sip. 

“This is the absolute worst idea ever,” Niall laughed. 

Quinn took a few large sips before setting the bottle down. She shook her head, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “I must admit that was not a brilliant idea.”

Niall set their plates on the table, standing up. He picked up the bottle of champagne and set it next to their plates. Quinn was still sitting on the floor watching him. 

“Up you get,” Niall murmured, holding his hands out for her. Quinn took them, letting him pull her to her feet. 

“Alright now I am setting some ground rules,” Quinn said, smoothing a hand over his chest. 

“Okay,” Niall agreed looking down at her. 

“You may not kiss me out there,” Quinn told him, adjusting his collar. 

“Okay,” he nodded. “That seems fair.”

“And you have got to loose the suit jacket,” Quinn added. 

“Right,” Niall nodded. He pulled his jacket off, smoothing it out. “I need to find somewhere to hang it up. Don’t want wrinkles.”

“Forget the wrinkles,” Quinn laughed. “Do ya need a drink?”

“I might,” he nodded, laughing. “I can’t just forget wrinkles.”

“Here,” Quinn handed him the bottle. 

Niall took a few sips, nodding. He let out a breath, relaxing his shoulders. “Alright.”

“We need to loosen this up,” Quinn murmured, unbuttoning two buttons on his white shirt.

“How do I look?” Niall asked, eyebrow raised. 

“Fantastic,” Quinn responded with a smile. 

“Are there any more ground rules?” Niall asked.

“Nope,” Quinn shook her head. 

“Okay,” Niall nodded. “Are we ready?” 

“Just one more chug,” Quinn told him, holding a finger up. Quinn picked the bottle up and took two long sips. 

Niall finally drug Quinn out of the little room and to the dance floor. From then on it was a blur. Quinn’s vision blurred with Niall’s bright smile. His hands on her waist, pulling her in. It was something Quinn had not considered when she agreed to dance with him. She wouldn’t dare complain about that. 

It wasn’t long before they were both drunk, glued to the bar with a group of people. Quinn didn’t know anyone but Niall was a million times funnier when he was drunk. And he liked to be the center of attention much like Evie does. Tonight Evie didn’t mind sharing center stage with him because he was making her laugh. Quinn watched in amusement, sipping her champagne like it was nothing. But she could feel herself slipping. 

By the time everyone took the party upstairs to the rooms, Quinn was ready to either fall asleep or vomit. Poppy unlocked their door. Quinn pushed it open and stumbled into the bathroom. “Poppy I think I am going to die here,” Quinn said, sitting down on the cold tile floor. 

“You aren’t,” Poppy disagreed, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. “Wish we would have eaten before we started partying.” 

“That would have been a brilliant idea,” Quinn breathed out. “And champagne? What was I thinking?” 

Poppy chuckled, “I’ve no idea. You were with Niall when that happened. He’s to blame.” 

“Fuck Niall,” Quinn whispered, head tipping back. “I’ll say it to his face too.” 

Poppy laughed. “Don’t go too hard on him. He adores you.”

Quinn smiled, eyes slipping shut. “Does he?” 

“Yes,” Poppy replied gently. 

“Good,” Quinn whispered. “Okay I think I’m okay. I’m not going to throw up. Want to get in bed.” 

“Okay lets stand,” Poppy said, taking her hands. Quinn got up on her feet, swaying for a minute. “Spinning?”

“Yes,” Quinn breathed out, laughing. 

“Still okay?” Poppy asked. 

“Yeah.” 

With Poppy’s help, Quinn made it to the bed. She kicked her heels off, falling face first into the pillow. She just knew this was the way this night was going to end. There was no wedding that Quinn was not smashed. It was the only occasions she completely lost it. 

“Hey where is Evie?” Quinn asked. 

“She’s in Shawns room with Niall and Deo and some other people,” Poppy told her. 

“You should go, P,” Quinn said. “Im okay. You should go have fun.”

“It’s okay,” poppy shook her head. 

“Poppy seriously go hang out with them. I know you want to,” Quinn urged, rolling over on her side to look at her. “You don’t need to take care of me. I promise.”

“Alright,” Poppy smiled. “But I’m coming back to check on you in like ten minutes and if you need anything call me, okay?” 

“Okay,” Quinn chuckled. “And fucking kiss deo, would ya?”

“Hush child,” Poppy laughed. She dropped a bottle of water, the remote and her phone beside Quinn. 

When the door closed, Quinn finally let herself relax. She closed her eyes despite the way the room spun. Of all the weddings Quinn had been to, this one was her favorite. 

A few moments later, the door opened back up. Quinn rolled over, looking towards the door. Niall walked in, a pillow clutched to his chest. He had a pouty look on his face which made Quinn laugh into her arm. “What’s the matter?” 

“I got kicked out,” Niall told her, jumping onto the bed beside her. “I asked them to be quiet so they said this was the sleeping room. Can I sleep?” 

“I suppose I can share me bed,” Quinn smiled. She rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling. “But if your side of the bed starts spinning I absolutely cannot help you out.” 

Niall laughed, “Ya got the spins?”

“Yes,” Quinn murmured, eyes slipping shut. “Did you come here to really sleep?” 

“Of course,” Niall responded softly. “It wasn’t to come see you if that’s what you’re thinking.” 

“Right,” Quinn smiled. “So then be quiet and go to sleep.” 

“Okay,” Niall whispered. “I just have one question.” 

“What’s that?” Quinn asked opening her eyes. 

“Did ya have fun tonight?” Niall asked gently. 

Quinn rolled over to face him. She smiled over at him. “I did. Did you?”

“Yeah,” Niall smiled. 

“Good,” Quinn murmured, eyes falling shut once more. 

“You’re so pretty,” Niall whispered, gently running his fingers through Quinn’s hair.

“You’re sweet,” Quinn breathed out. “Can you keep doing that… it stops the spins.” 

Niall hummed, “of course.” He ran is fingers through her hair again.

 Quinn sighed, pulling the duvet up to her chin. “You’re the best, Niall.” 

/// 

Hi friends thanks for reading! I’d love to know what you think! Tell me what you thought or your favorite part or whatever you are feeling! Or if you too would like Niall to wrap his hand around your throat! Tell me here. :) 

masterlist here 

and here is a board I created with Niall + Quinn content 

part 3 is here!

#lover #part 2 #niall horan fanfiction #Niall Horan #niall au #things are heating up my friends!!!! #This is obscenely long #what I’d give to have Niall with his hand around my throat! #and that is my subjective opinion! #I listened to Canon in D major for an hour writing the ceremony scene and I loved every minute of it

[iwillbeinmynest]

Hold On Loosely - Biker!Steve x Reader(f)    Chapter 13

Authors Notes:  If you’d like to be tagged please send me an ask. I keep better track of tags that way.

Word Count: 2k

Special Thanks: Here’s to @itsanerdlife for fueling my Biker obsession and being my Beta for this whole thing. To my girl over at @girl-next-door-writes who also beta’ed for me. And an extra shout out to @bettercallsabs for this beautiful graphic. She is amazing and y’all need to check her out!!

Notes/Warnings: (My notes and warnings are for the story as a whole. Some notes and Warnings will not apply to every chapter.) smoking (I do not support smoking. keep your lungs clean y’all.) drinking, (be of age, don’t be stupid) minor violence, backstabbing, attempted murder, anxiety, stress, mentions of death, car accident, trauma, …I think that’s it. let me know if I’ve missed something.

Master List

After the prospects arrived, Steve drilled them about various security duties. Three boys, no older than twenty-three, were stationed on the front porch and driveway and two more inside. The men inside with Y/N were older. One of them, Frank, looked as tough as nails and the other, Pietro, was younger but had a fire in his eyes that gave Y/N an odd sense of security. Who was she kidding, they all did. There was no denying the respect and loyalty they all had for Steve and she knew she was in good hands.

 Y/N kissed Steve good-bye and was almost relieved when he finally rode off. "At least, now, he won't be pacing trails in my carpet." She tried to smile at Frank as he escorted her back inside.

 "He isn't really the sit till type, Ma'am." He smirked.

 "No, he isn't." She needed to work before she thought too much about what he'd gone out to do. "You boys want some sweet tea or anything?"

 Pietro shook his head with a smile. 

 "No, Ma'am. Don't worry over us. You do whatever you want to. We'll be here if you need us." Frank nodded.

 Y/N gave them a smile and headed to her office. 

 She kept busy in her office for hours and her work did exactly what she needed it to. She was perfectly distracted, until her stomach rumbled. She looked up at the clock and saw that it was nearly eleven p.m.

 "No wonder." She mumbled to herself. It explained why her eyes seemed to be crossing a little.

 She went down the hall towards the kitchen. She saw Pietro watching t.v. while Frank's attention was drawn to the window as he peered through the blinds. Y/N ignored them and began to make enough pasta for all the prospects and herself. Bum arm or not, cooking was relaxing and she could use some of that.

 She didn't get farther than putting the water on the stove when a shuffling of feet caught her attention.

 She looked into the living room to see both Frank and Pietro at the door. Frank was already halfway out and Pietro looked back at Y/N. He held a hand up, signaling her to stay put.

 Y/N didn't really know them from Adam but she obeyed for Steve's sake. Then, she heard a familiar voice. 

 "And just who do you think you are?!" The attitude was as thick as her slightly northern accent. Y/N new that voice anywhere and she rolled her eyes.

 "Don't matter who I am, this ain't a good time, Miss." Frank tried to be polite but even Y/N could hear him about to lose his temper.

 "Y/N is my friend and now is as good a time as any!" Mandie argued.

 Y/N pushed past Pietro and put a hand on Frank's shoulder to catch his attention. "Mandie, what are you doing here so late?"

 "Well, I- Y/N! What happened to you?!" Mandie finally got a look at her face and was shocked to see her so beat up.

 Y/N bit her lip and reached out for Mandie's hand, tugging her in. She looked at Frank, who looked like he was about to physically remove Mandie from the property. "She can come in, it's fine."

 "Steve said no visitors." He countered, his brows full of conflict.  He wanted to follow what Steve said but Y/N was Steve's girl.

 "If he has a problem, he can talk to me about it later." She reassured him. "Come on, Mandie. I was just about to make dinner."

 Mandie sat at the island bar while Y/N cooked and told her all about the accident she'd been in that morning. 

 "Gracious, Y/N." Mandie shook her head when Y/N finished. "Sweetie, are you okay?"

 Y/N waved it off. "I'll be fine if I don't think about it. You sure you're not hungry? I made enough for a biker gang." She joked.

 "Really, I'm fine. Speaking of bikers, how long are all these men staying here? This is a southern town and people will talk, ya know."

 Y/N was a little put off by what Mandie was implying. "I'm not sleeping with them and really it's no ones business who I invite over. And furthermore, people talking is kind of the point."

 Mandie frowned. "What do you mean?"

 "The accident wasn't an accident. Someone planned it. That's why all these bikers are here watching over the house."

 "How long will they be here?" 

 Y/N shrugged. "As long as they're needed probably."

 "I'm so sorry." Mandie hung her head for a moment before looking up at Y/N with regretful eyes.

 "For what?" Y/N didn't know where this sudden turn in Mandie's emotions came from.

 "If I hadn't taken you to that biker bar, none of this would have happened. Your life could have gone on as usual and now look at you. Stuck in this house like a hostage by a bunch of dirty bikers." Mandie practically spit the last words out of her mouth like they were poison. 

 Y/N frowned and inhaled to defend them when the front door opened and she recognized the distinct gait of heavy boots.

 Steve walked into the kitchen and was surprised to see Mandie at the island. "What are you doing here?" He asked her impulsively.

 "I was coming to find out why my best friend hadn't been talking to me only to discover she’s been beaten up by your friends." She grumbled.

 "Mandie, stop." Y/N leaned back, subconsciously distancing herself from Mandie. "Not all bikers are friends and Steve has done nothing but help me from the moment I met him."

 Steve took a quick breath before finishing his walk to Y/N. He gave her a short kiss and then looked suspiciously at Mandie.

 When Mandie practically undressed Steve with her eyes, he snaked an arm around Y/N.

 "I'm going to send the boys home then grab a shower. You good here or should I keep Frank around?" Steve asked his best girl.

 Y/N shook her head. "Send them home. They can take this pasta with them, though. I didn't get a chance to feed any of them yet."

 Momentarily forgetting about Mandie, Steve was filled with pride that his girl was gonna feed the guys. That's something old ladies do. He kissed her a little harder this time. "Love you." 

 Y/N flushed red at the PDA but replied, "I love you, too. Go," She pushed him back slightly with a chuckle. "Send them home and shower. You smell like the road."

 Steve smirked as he walked backwards out of the kitchen. "I thought you liked when I smell like the road? Never heard you complain before." It reassured Steve to see her smiling and teasing him. Made him feel a little better about leaving her earlier to go to the club. 

 "Go!" She shooed him away, still flushing from his implication.

 When Y/N looked back to Mandie her chuckle faded. Mandie looked like she was about to explode. "What's wrong?" Y/N asked.

 "Are you out of your mind?!" Mandie’s voice was hushed but angry. "You love him? He's a biker! The only thing he loves is the club! And what, he's living here, too?"

 "Yeah, but he's protecting me. Why are you-" 

 "You're so stupid! He's only here to sleep with you. Once he gets that he'll bail and you know it. You're fooling yourself if you believe that he loves you. This is just because you've been in a dry spell since Danny. Shame on you for forgetting about him!"

 "Mandie, stop it! What is wrong with you?!" Y/N's voice had gotten loud enough that Frank stepped in. 

 "Everything okay in here?" He asked with tense shoulders.

 Mandie inhaled to speak but Y/N cut her off. "Everything is fine." She said with a hurt look at Mandie. "She was just leaving. Please make sure she gets to her car."

 Mandie's jaw dropped. "Wow, kicking me out. Some friend you are. I was just trying to help you."

 "Goodnight, Mandie." Was Y/N's only reply.

 Mandie scoffed before snatching her purse from the counter top and all but stomping to the door and down the porch steps. She got in her car with a slammed door and she hurried back out of the driveway and down the street. 

 "Quite a piece of work, that one." Frank growled when he came back inside. "You'll have to excuse my evesdroppin' but I didn’t like a thing she said to you." When Y/N looked a little surprised to hear he'd been listening, he clarified, "VP's orders."

 Y/N nodded and leaned on the back of the couch, running her hands over her face with a sigh. "Yeah, well, she's always been a fair-weathered friend. I just don't know what got into her all of a sudden."

 Frank shook his head. "Don't know but I get a funny feelin' about her."

 "I know." Y/N sighed. "Well, now that she's gone you boys can head home, too."

 "Maybe we should wait until VP is outta the shower." Pietro suggested.

 "No," She offered a tired smile. "Y'all go home. I'm sure he won't be in there long."

 Frank and Pietro shifted their weight but conceded. Frank made her set the alarm behind them and she could tell he listened for the beeps from the other side of the door, which made her chuckle and call out another 'good-night', which he returned. She peeked through the blinds and watched all five bikes ride off.

 Y/N went into the kitchen and swore under her breath. She'd forgotten to send the pasta back with them. Oh, well.

 After she'd cleaned up, she could hear Steve using the blow dryer. She needed the trash to be taken out as it had started to smell from who knows what. She thought about waiting for Steve to do it but when she got another whiff of something rancid, she couldn't take it.

 She tied up the bag and hurried out the front door to take it to the outside bins. She groaned to see that the bin had already been taken out to the curb. With the bag at arm's length, she walked down her driveway and tossed it quickly into the bin.

 Y/N grinned at herself. This was the most mundane thing to happen to her in a while and it was ridiculous how much it entertained her.

 The sound of a bike heading toward her gave her pause. Had Frank or one of the boys forgotten something?

 She slowly backed up to give whoever it was room to pull into the driveway but when the biker drove slowly past, Y/N's blood ran cold.

 He wore a black bandanna across his nose and mouth and sunglasses to cover his eyes, despite the fact that it was nearly midnight. He wore a long sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows that showed off his ink. On his forearm was a cassette tape and a blue skull with a red mohawk. 

 Frozen in place, Y/N couldn't breathe. A flash of the accident. Pain in her chest.

 A rev of the biker's engine and he sped off.

 Y/N ran back inside and when she opened the door she collided with Steve. He kept her from falling and she buried herself against him as she started crying.

 "What are you doing outside?!" He yelled. He was more scared than angry but it didn't sound that way.

 "He- He- That man- it wasn't Frank. I thought it was- his tattoos. I think he was- from the accident-"

 Steve moved Y/N out if his way and set the alarm before shutting the door behind him. He could still hear the distant rumble of a chopper. He hopped on his bike and took off, following the sound.

 Y/N grabbed her phone and a knife from the kitchen before locking herself in her room. She dialed for Nat and silently begged that she would pick up.

 "Hey, you."

 "Nat! Please send someone! TheguyfromthecrashwashereandStevetookoffafterhimandimalone-"

 Nat cursed. "Whoa! Y/N, slow down! Where are you?"

 Y/N tried to slow her breathing and stop crying so she could be understood. "In my room. Steve took off after him. I'm alone, here." A sob ripped through her.

 "After who?" 

 "The biker from the crash."

 Nat cursed again. "Stay where you are. We're coming. Don't leave your room!"

 "Okay," Y/N's voice was a little calmer now. "Okay."

**************

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A Three String Heart-Shaped Harp - Story 1: My Heart’s In A Pocket Watch

Collection Summary:  Danny’s a boy with a half-beating heart, and he’s got ghosts haunting it.

Story Summary: Snow White and his ruby red wine

Danny’s staring at a couple of specks of blood on his shoes as he goes to open the door. ‘Nice going Fenton, this pair was already red enough’, jerking out of his thoughts as an all too familiar hand ruffles up his hair. 

Snapping his head up with a jerk, “Clo-!”, cutting himself off with a, definitely not subtle, cough, “uh, Horace, uh, what’s up”. Batting away the playful hand, “is my hair a dog to you?!”. Horace simply grins softly and gives three tiny nods; before stepping around Danny, to enter the living room. 

Danny huffs at them indignantly before going wide-eyed and gaping, realising that not only are his parents at home but that this lovable little shit knew that. Speaking sarcastically, “of course your timing is absolutely perfect, like always”. Groaning as Jazz, sticking her head over the hallway railing, snaps at him, “I would think you, of all people, wouldn’t be rude. Especially as it’s clear you know this unexpected guest”. 

Horace chuckles as they speak up for the first time, while Danny blushes furiously, “oh but of course, we’ve ghosted over enough time to have a level of intimacy”. 

Jazz squints at the blonde but doesn’t get to dwell on it as Maddie sticks her head out of the kitchen, “oh! Hello? Danny, who’s this?”. Eyeing her son curiously as she goes to shake the visitor's hand, “I don’t believe we’ve met before”. 

Danny groans again, mentally grumbling ‘well I guess like everything else in my life, I’m doing this without a damn plan. Greeeeaaaat’. Rubbing his neck and looking anywhere but his mom, “uh, mom, this is Horace. They’re, uh, my other”, rolling his hand exaggeratedly, “partner, lover, romantic interest, cuddle buddy...whatever you wanna call it”. Maddie raises an eyebrow and gives Horace a visual once over, placing her hands on her hips to make it clear she’s going to play protective mother hen. Horace, maintaining their soft smile, sticks their hand out and ruffles Danny’s hair further in response; utterly unfazed. Even maintaining their composure when Jack, summoned by the universal fatherly duty to know all of his children’s love interests, practically speed walks to be directly in front of the pair. Danny only blushes furiously after glancing at his parents, even if he’s mentally cheering, ‘well, there’s no Fenton Creep Stick in sight’. 

Horace chuckles at the large man’s antics, before flicking their, nearly closed, eyes to Danny, “oh I think mate is far more suiting, Daniel”, Horace speaks softly with a faint smile, “much more... timeless”. 

Maddie smirks slightly and pushes Jack back a bit, nodding at Horace faintly, “well, you seem well spoken”. Jack sighs and nods, “nothing like that Johnny rascal”, glancing at Jazz as she groans before continuing, “who will NOT be dating any Fenton”. 

Neither Danny nor Horace even bother to stifle their light chuckling, while Jazz looks to be heading towards the kitchen. Stopping short to spin back towards the pair, pointing her finger in a show of aggressive protectiveness, “you best treat my little brother like a dream come true. He may not look it, but he’s the best soul there is”. 

“Jaaaaaaazzz”, Danny tilts his head back, utterly embarrassed. While Horace nods their head at her, “if anyone recognises timeless purity and knows a star when they see one, it’s me, Jasmine”. 

Jazz clearly finds that statement weird but is overshadowed by Jack straight up beaming, “oh! Stars! You know Danny-boy loves those twinkling things! Always wanted to be a little astronaut!”. 

Danny is currently endlessly thankful for Horace’s insanely high level of patience. Watching them side-eyed, as they close their eyes; seemingly smiling with their eyes as well as their mouth. Though it’s a soft, subtle smile; easily missable if you don’t know it, and Danny knew it well. ‘How is their smile always so freaking cute. It feels like a blanket made of fuzzy glowing stars...and damnit, mom totally noticed me stargazing’, pulling out of his thoughts and pulling his eyes away, catching both Horace’s slight smirk and Maddie’s knowing smile. 

Jack, ever unobservant, yammers on about food, “Mads here made fudge Fiddle Diddles!...oh and spaghetti, but mostly fudge!”, tapping his chin, “or I guess things with fudge”. Shrugging before pointing over his shoulder into the kitchen. Maddie rolls her eyes and nods, watching him scurry off with a fond sigh. 

Turning back to the pair, “there really is spaghetti, and you certainly must stay”. Giving Danny a pointed look before looking at Horace sternly, “I won’t have my baby boy dating someone I know nothing of”. Horace chuckles lightly, “but of course, I wouldn’t want to be an  unknowable ghost; in that sense”, speaking quietly enough so only Danny could really hear them, “that’s precisely the reason I’m here, some secrets aren’t meant to be kept; and others just shouldn’t be”, while Danny just wonders how the heck they manage to talk without moving their lips ‘they’d make one hell of a ventriloquist’. But he does still look rather sheepish at their words, he’s probably a little too used to keeping secrets; especially keeping important things a secret. And this, this was definitely one of those important things. 

Maddie nods curtly, while she feels this Horace person is genuine and, so far, decent enough; she still watches to make sure both of them follow her into the kitchen. Though she can’t help but be curious as to what kind of hair care routine Horace has, to achieve such an almost ridiculously fluffy hairstyle. 

Danny catches Horace’s glance and knowing smirk, flicking his eyes over to the new device his dad’s working on. Groaning, ‘oh great, now what’s that going to do? Something tells me that’s the real reason they’re here, here today specifically’. Muttering at Horace as they sit down, Horace beside him, his dad on one end with Jazz on the other, his mom directly across from the pair. “You're a little shit, you know that?”, Horace doesn’t even glance at him, while Danny mutters into his hand before grabbing his fork, “an infuriatingly cute one”. 

Danny’s honestly impressed his dad actually stops fiddling to eat, though there’s something with fudge in it for desert; so it isn’t that surprising. Looking Horace over, having not really gotten the chance after his earlier mild panic and blatant embarrassment. Noting the plain brown cargo pants, purple pinstriped dress shirt, and black crushed velvet vest; accented by a bronze steampunk watch necklace.  “I’ve never seen you in something so, dare I say, basic?”, Jazz gives Danny an incredulous glare, but redirects that look to Horace as they speak. Sounding almost smug, “well, I will have you know, I am capable of some level of modesty”, at Danny’s snort they concede, “occasionally”, Danny only snorts louder, ‘modest hardly exists in their wardrobe and they know it'. Horace, sighing fondly, “rarely”. Danny chuckles with a smirk, “that’s more like it”. 

Jazz puts her fork down at this, raising her eyebrow questioningly at Horace, “you know, most people dress up, not down, for first impressions. And this-”, gesturing at Horace’s outfit, “-hardly qualifies as dressing down”. Maddie nods in agreement, while Jack simply shrugs, “so long as he’s-”

“They’re”, Horace doesn’t miss a beat in interrupting him, making Jazz giggle. While Jack just keeps talking, “wearing clothing I’m good. Hey! Maybe he-” 

“They”, Horace interrupts again. While Danny’s once again thanking how patient Horace is, Jazz and Maddie both wince a little; futilely hoping Jack gets the message. The fact that he doesn’t even seem to notice either correction as he keeps speaking doesn’t give them hope though, “-usually wears suits! Like Vladdie!”. 

Danny can’t help but smirk, catching Jazz’s shock over Horace chuckling; clearly not offended in the slightest, “never worn one, of all the things I’ve done; wearing a suit is not one of them”, smilingly fondly, “I prefer robes and cloaks, maybe dabble in the occasional frock coat or corset”. 

Danny points at them with a shit-eating grin, “but never capes”. Danny knows Horace’s shudder was fully intentional and done to amuse him. ‘At least my parents won’t be fazed by odd fashion, considering their daily “fashion” choices’

Jazz can’t help but chuckle, Danny clearly hearing her mutter, “I really shouldn’t be surprised Danny’s tastes have aimed for someone with some, unusual, qualities”. Danny coughs and glares at her, Jazz sighs, “strange as they may be, I’d say they’re good for you”. 

Danny only gets a second to blush as he stutters, “uh, t-thanks?”. While Jack grins wide, practically talking over Danny, “odd’s the way of every Fenton! Shows character!”, looking over Horace as they flawlessly twirl their fork full of noddles and glides it into their mouth without losing so much as a drop of sauce, “good character”. 

Maddie smiles at Jack and gives Danny a small nod, Danny’s flat out elated ‘holy shit, they’re usually really off-putting or confusing to other people. But I guess they haven’t exactly gone off on any tangents...yet’. 

Horace nods their head towards Jazz, “my idea of dressing up is often others idea of overwhelming or startling. That’s hardly my intent here, quite the opposite actually”, even Maddie can pick up on the mischievous twinkle in Horace’s eyes, “I’m sure they’ll be quite enough of that, in time”. 

‘Oh great, what game is that cheeky bastard playing?’, pushing them playfully, “mysterious as ever, Pocket Watch”. Horace leans over, whispering into Danny’s ear; resulting in two snickering girls and a widely grinning Jack. “Pet names already, little MoonFlower? As I always say, you should worry less; even if to protect is to worry. Though my protection only has eyes for my Raven Boy”, Danny rolls his eyes, failing to hide a blush. Muttering, “you watch over so much more”.

“Hmmm, protective protection and watchful protecting are not necessarily in the same vein”, Horace ruffles Danny’s hair before returning to their food. 

With a cough, Jazz returns the other onlookers attention to their own food; even Jack has the awareness to feel slightly invasive. Though he takes it as a good sign, that this Horace can make his son blush so easily; clearly he, they, knows Danny’s really well. 

 “Anyways...”, Jazz breaks the unusual silence, unusual only because the Fenton household was rarely quiet. Though she has a suspicion Horace is quite comfortable with silence, but with how rarely Danny shuts up (when he was comfortable anyways), she wonders how that works out. Picking back up and leaning towards Horace, “so you know us Fenton’s are a crazy bunch, right? Not much startles us”. Maddie smiles softly, looking at Jack, “that’s true, Jack dear, you might not even notice if they came in wearing a clown suit”. Jack shrugs, accepting the lighthearted teasing. 

Horace and Danny glance at each other, both sharing feelings of mischief and trickery. Danny mentally laughing, ‘they still can’t find the ghost under the same roof’.

 Horace places both theirs and Danny’s plates in the sink, talking with their back to everyone, “yes, well, you may find I am one of few who only grows stranger with time”. Smiling slightly as they turn back around, with eyes clearly only for Danny, “and one of even fewer who understands that strange and broken are not one and the same”. Jazz is certain Horace is laughing more to themselves than anyone else, as they walk back around, head tilted back and still speaking, “ocean eyes always seem to find themselves on the faces of the impossible and the odd, don’t they?”. With that she watches them sit down and blinks, realising Horace’s eyes are literally the same colour as Danny’s. Muttering to herself that Horace really does get more unusual, the more she notices about them. Maddie’s found herself thinking the same, while Jack is just wondering why Danny seemed almost sad for a second. 

 Danny knows Horace means everything they say, pretty well always, especially towards him. But, ‘a freak is still a freak’, is a thought still nestled in the back of his head most days, however, ‘just the good kind...maybe’, is the thought often following it nowadays. 

Horace nods curtly at the family as they sit back down, “besides even broken is beautiful, glance at any glass mosaic and try to argue otherwise”. Leaning their back against Danny’s shoulder, folding their hands on their chest, while Danny unconsciously leans his head into Horace’s shoulder; blatantly unused to having onlookers, and it’s far too late by the time he has the awareness to feel embarrassed. 

Maddie covers up her snicker with a gloved hand before speaking, “those indeed are pretty, you’re quite the unbashful type; aren’t you? Well, maybe you can get Danny out of his shell some”, pushing Danny’s shoulder playfully, which he rolls his eyes at, before continuing, “Zone knows you could use it, you really are quite shy sweetie”. 

Danny has to suppress a chuckle at that ‘one of the last things people would describe me, well Phantom but still, as is shy. I’m secretive, not shy, that would actually be horrible if I really was shy...or anti-social, damn that would suck’. 

Horace closes their eyes softly as Jack gets back to fiddling with whatever, as Maddie’s putting away hers and his dishes. Horace, sighing, “I would say “shy” would be rather...incorrect. There are simply different ways one can be open to the world”. Maddie’s a bit startled as Horace looks at her with eyes that seem far too old and shadowed by something close to regret or pity, “if you are looking for someone to bring him into being an open book, I’m the last one you should be asking that of. Even the most far-reaching all-seeing eye could never read all my pages”, closing their eyes again, “only one has taken the time to try”. 

Jazz finds that incredibly sad, even Jack frowns a bit, but it’s clear Danny’s used to Horace’s occasional lonesomeness.

 As Danny pokes at Horace lightly, “those eyeballs can stuff it, Time Pants”. 

“Hmpf, that one was weak, Moon Child”, everyone but Jazz chuckles as Danny mutters, “do I need to start calling you Ruby Fine Wine again”. Earning a smirk from Horace, only loud enough for Danny to hear, “sure thing, Snow White”. Danny snaps his head over, pulling himself over and in front of Horace; gaping all the while, conveying as much fake offence as he can. Horace snorts as they rest their arm on the chair backing for support, previously given by Danny’s back, “Snow Bunny”. Danny scrunches up his face, “Fun Sized”. 

“Oh how that could change, Frosty”, the other three occupants aren’t sure if they should leave or not, since the two are clearly off in their own world. Jazz is flat out tempted to smack Danny as he smirks, “and let me guess, Batman, I gotta find the bat cave for the answer to that skill”. 

Maddie officially thinks Horace has zero sense of shame, as even Jack coughs and blushes awkwardly from their response, “only after the timely return of my probe into your ice fortress, Iceman”. Jazz blinks and coughs, while Danny blushes furiously and rights himself back into his seat. 

Danny looks around awkwardly, not about to meet anyone’s eyes, nearly inaudibly muttering, “...Puppet”. Horace nods with a frown, muttering in return, “Soldier”. 

 After some nearly crushingly unpleasant silence, their eyes meet again; and with a shit-eating grin, “Time Daddy”. Resulting in both girls choking slightly, while Jack’s too focused on finishing touches. Horace shrugs exaggeratedly, matching Danny’s grin, “well, time’s my bitch after all”. Jazz facepalms at this while Maddie gapes, “language!”, pointing at Danny, “and you! You knew they’d respond with that”. 

Danny jerks, having actually forgotten about their audience. Rubbing his neck as he responds, “heh, guilty as charged”. Horace leans back into their chair, “yup, caught you dead handed”. Danny can’t help but snort while Jazz groans, muttering, “oh god, they’re too similar”. 

Pointing at his sister and leaning towards her, “jokes, the universal road map out of any dead end”. Horace joins Danny in leaning towards Jazz, “and in a perfectly timely fashion, might I add. Any slower and it’d be Davey Jones’ locker for the pair of us”. 

Jazz groans exaggeratedly and mockingly covers up her ears, before placing her head on the table, but Danny’s more caught up in how Horace is blatantly eyeballing his dad’s invention; clearly annoyed. Not getting to dwell on all the “why”s, as the machine starts beeping...and then talking. 

“WARNING, GHOST DETECTED. ONE FOOT. WARNING, APOCALYPTIC ECTOPLASMIC THREAT WITHIN ONE HUNDRED FEET. IDENTITY UNKNOWN. POWERS UNKNOWN. POWER LEVEL TWENTY-EIGHT”. 

Danny pales at every word, mentally freaking out a bit, ‘oh, oh no. I mean, I guess, it’s-it’s not like either of them could actually hurt, injure or trap them. But-but they better not shoot. I- what would I even do?’, blinking and scooting closer to Horace protectively, ‘protect, always. Always protect. But, but I don’t want to have to! I shouldn’t have to!’. Feeling Horace sigh, ‘they knew this would happen...but then why?’. Danny easily hears Jazz suck in a breath, while Horace mutters into Danny’s ear, “I am not a secret for keeping, calm your snow storm mind, MoonFlower”. Jazz mutters into the table, “stuff detecting Danny, again?”. 

Maddie stands, glancing at the device before glaring at Horace and responding, with a strained voice, “no, Jazz. Danny’s excluded from our stuff now”. Shaking her head, but eyes staying locked with Horace’s blue ones, officially very suspicious of where they got the jagged scar over their eye. “No, it’s detecting them”. 

Jack doesn’t know what to do, surely his son would have known if his partner, or whatever, was overshadowed and he-they-clearly didn’t appear ghostly. 

 Horace sighs, their eyes leaving Maddie to glance at Danny’s. Conflict clear as day in them, but eventually he straightens up; Horace watching him softly as he does. Both of them understanding that this is going to be rather...unpleasant, for everyone. 

Danny officially gets why his other showed up so early, good impressions. Warm his parents up to them, both Horace on their own and the idea of the two of them as a pair. For once Danny’s awful sense self-awareness was actually helpful, otherwise, he’d have never loosened up over dinner; at all. 

Smilingly fondly at Horace, eliciting another sigh from them; but this time it’s laced with contentment and, of all things, pride. 

Horace turns their head back to the two Fenton parents, both of them are now flicking between glaring at Horace accusingly and at Danny, who’s practically pressed into Horace, worriedly. “Indeed, I did tell you as much”, rolling their hand in the air, “albeit, rather covertly”. 

 Jazz blinks at this and lifts up her head, squinting at them before groaning, “you literally said you were an unknown ghost”. Looking almost exhaustedly at Danny, speaking near silently, “how did you find someone as punny as you but somehow more reckless”. 

While Jack knocks his chair over as he stands, Maddie tightening her grip on the ectogun strapped to her belt. Flicking her eyes over to Danny, “Daniel, explain”. 

Horace smirks slightly, leaning back, “well, for hunters, this is a pretty preferable outcome. Not pleasant per se, expected though. But of course, you’ll ignore my words as you believe what you know to be something of a universal truth; when such things do not exist”. Ruffling Danny’s hair, which Danny gapes at him for ‘because how does this situation call for that? If they were anyone else they’d have to have a reckless deathwish’. Horace, continuing to speak as they fiddle with bits of Danny’s hair, “but, just like this celestial one, you have to learn everything the hard way”, closing their eyes with a soft smile, “but of course, my Raven Boy is all the better for it”. 

This finally gets one of the Fenton parents to respond to them, with Maddie practically growling, “he's not “your” anything, ghost”. Stepping closer to the table, ectogun actually drawn now, “how do you even look human? How dare you go after our son”. 

Jazz reaches over the table, placing her hands on the ectogun, “mom, at least let Danny actually explain”. While Danny sighs, “because they want to and, um, I’m more of the, uh, chaser”. Maddie blinks, caught a bit off guard by Danny’s comment before glaring at her daughter, but softens under her pleading face. Jack mutters, “but he’s probably being mind controlled or something”. Earning eyerolls from the couple, “dad, that’s not really something they can do”. Easily catching Jack muttering, “that’s what they want you to think, what they make you think”. 

 Groaning slightly, Danny rubs his neck; he’d look around, avoid their eyes, if it wasn’t for the justified concern they’d assault his other. ‘Well isn’t this just damn peachy. I guess here’s hoping I don’t want to toss myself fully into the Zone after this’. 

Electing to throw his arm around Horace and smush their face into his, effectively making their human face look even less threatening; though Danny just wanted them closer for their protection, regardless of how unneeded that protection was. “I know they’re a ghost, I don’t care. I always knew, I never cared. Ghost aren’t evil, unfeeling things. They aren’t impressions of post-human consciousness, especially the ones that were never human, or alive, to begin with”, even Jazz is a little thrown by the last bit. Raising an eyebrow at Horace, earning a soft smile and nod in return, effectively answering that they indeed where a born, or in their case more correctly called a created, ghost. 

Jack mutters incredulously at Horace, “born a ghost? But ghosts? Nothing but ectoplasm and leftover human thoughts, so how could? How is that?”, Jack cuts himself off with a head shake. It’s clear he was talking to himself but Horace answers anyways, “born ghosts yes, created ghosts as well. We near never leave our Ghost Realm homes, no reason”. Smirking slightly, “my reason is currently treating my face like it’s made of play dough”. 

“Pfft, not sorry”, ‘besides, it sort of is. In a way. So’s mine, technically’, Danny does loosen his grip a bit though, before continuing, “besides that shouldn’t matter, what they are shouldn’t mat-”. Maddie cuts in, “ghost. A ghost. Ghosts are made of ectoplasm, sweetie. How it-”. This time Horace isn’t the only one doing the correcting, joined by both Danny and Jazz, “they”; Horace, patient and softly spoken as ever, Jazz sounding exhausted, and Danny practically growling. ‘They are not an it! Ghosts are not an it!’. Both Danny and Jazz are a bit surprised Maddie actually looks a bit apologetic, still continuing with what she was going to say though, “-came to exist. Still a ghost. Daniel, how could you? Could you be close with one like this? Even friends, haven’t we taught you how dangerous ghosts are?”. 

Danny can’t help but glare, “anything with power is dangerous and loving anyone is dangerous, powers or not. Doesn’t matter”. Danny shuffles a bit, “it doesn’t matter what they’re made of. What we’ve got, odd as it is, is real; is good. They’re good, especially to me”, locking his eyes with his mom determinedly, “that’s what should matter. That they’re good to me”. 

Horace nods, seeming as if this should be obvious, and frankly, it should be. Watching their mates raven black hair, highly tempted to ruffle it again, borderline purring, “and you do nothing but grace me with ocean blues and star fire”. 

Jack can’t help but flop back into his chair at the sight of Danny’s flustered blushing, not sparing a thought as to how the chair is somehow back upright. And Maddie, looking around the table and catching Jazz’s soft but encouraging smile, stiffly lowers herself back into her own seat; though still glaring daggers at the ghost, at Horace. 

 No one does or says anything for a bit, until a squinting Jazz blurts out, “Horace?”.

“Hmmm?”.

“How old are you?”. Now Danny’s face is beet red again, and he groans, knowing full well the spiel Horace is about to go into, “that hardly applies to me, Jasmine. I’m a timeless being, ageless. But I’m certain that age isn’t really what you’re asking, but rather how long, in earthly years, I have been in existence”, at Jazz’s nod they continue, “that question hardly applies to me either, as the answer simply doesn’t exist. You could ask the first human to ever exist and they’d say they saw me yesterday. Ask the first Raptor to ever lay an egg and she’d say we had delightful tea and cakes tomorrow”. 

Horace’s slight smile doesn’t falter as Maddie interrupts them, “enough with the riddles, ghost”. Sighing almost pitifully at her, “now was the best time for them, I would know”. Tilting their head to Jazz, “the simplest answer there is, is always. I have always been here, I am as “old” as existence is. As the earth, as the Ghost Realm. But I am also younger than everything”. 

Jack mutters, “pretty sure that’s still a riddle...and makes no sense”. 

 Danny can’t help but chuckle, even if it’s a bit strained. Leaning into Horace and whispering to them, “it cool if I just tell them who you really are? You’re pretty well incapable of not being confusing here”. Horace’s eyes twinkle mischievously, speaking near silently, “I’d say the time has certainly come. This falls into the space of shouldn’t be hidden, rather than can’t be. So it is truly your choice to make Daniel, but then again, so is everything”. 

“Hmpf”, Danny rolls his eyes before turning back to his family, ‘well they were exactly as helpful as expected, meaning not at all’. Clasping his hands together on the table before unclasping them to gesture at Horace, reclasping them together again as he talks, “Horace...is not their real name...just their chosen human one. To go with the human form”. Horace nods, amusement barely hidden on their face, “Horace is the English derivative of Horatius, it’s a Latin name”. 

While “Horace” has a blatantly shit-eating grin plastered on their face, Danny shuffles and clears his throat a bit, before talking again, “it means “hour in time” or-”, chuckling faintly, “-time keeper””. Gesturing again at “Horace”, while Jazz goes slack-jawed; knowing full well who this is now. Danny ignores her gaping, “their real name, is ClockWork. The Time Master, Guardian of the Time Stream, Protector Of the Timeline; there’s a lot of ways to say it”. Shrugging and rubbing his neck, “basically it’s their job to make sure time itself doesn’t get destroyed. Because of that time doesn’t really apply to them”. 

ClockWork nods, “I am simultaneously young, middle-aged, old, and ageless. And I see all of time, every action anyone or thing has, is, or will, ever take. I knew this conversation well before any of you were born. Before the human race even existed”. 

 Uncomfortable silence settles again as the Fenton parents attempt to process that, the silence was broken by Jack muttering, eyes on his invention, “no wonder you’re a warning class. That kind of power...”. 

Jazz nods awkwardly, looking to lift the mood some, “while that is startling, mom, dad, that means they could have willing avoid this...but didn’t”. Flicking her eyes to Danny, “I’m pretty sure Danny didn’t know they were coming over today, so they clearly wanted you to know about them; know about this relationship”, squinting at the invention before continuing, practically whispering, “without hiding what they are...”. 

ClockWork smiles softly, nodding approvingly at her, “intelligent and observant as ever, Jasmine. But fret not, I alone, did not make this choice”. Nuzzling their nose into Danny’s cheek, which he leans into, “Daniel could have simply had me leave, there was time enough for that”, smirking, “but of course, I knew he wouldn’t”. 

Maddie watches the two, finding it a bit hard to glare with the pale soft looking blondes face, who hasn’t even seemed slightly threatening or even unpleasant the entire night, nestled into Danny’s neck. While Danny is clearly leaning into the affectionate display, only a slight blush showing his awareness of the presence of the rest of his family. 

Maddie fiddles with the ectogun in her lap, while she stares at the table. Flicking her eyes up at Danny, who’s now watching her cautiously, “they...this ghost...they have so much power. How? How does that not bother you? They could probably destroy you, this whole city, before you could blink”, shaking her head, “that kind of power, no one or thing should have that”. 

ClockWork chuckles, “oh but I was created for it. Without me, well, time would be quite...unstable”, frowning slightly, “me not existing would be far more destructive than any of my powers”. 

 Danny can’t help but snicker slightly, ‘that’s right, they don’t really have any actually offensive powers’, patting ClockWork’s fluffy hair, “ClockWork doesn’t really have the powers other ghosts do. They’re powers start and end with time stuff”, snorting and muttering to himself, “add in those stupid eyeballs”. Clearing his throat, “plus they’re bound, they can’t harm or destroy anyone or thing except to protect time or the future”, shrugging, “you know, world ending kind of stuff”. Muttering to himself, “it’s shocking ClockWork’s even able to date”. 

ClockWork snorts into Danny’s neck, while Maddie shakes her head, “still, a ghost’s a ghost. They shouldn’t be here”, gesturing at the couple, “this shouldn’t be happening. A human...and a ghost”, shaking her head, and locking her eyes with Danny’s, “we’re Fenton’s, hunters...”. 

Jack nods awkwardly, “son, Danny-boy, how can this be ok?”. Danny’s groans and tilts his head back, rubbing his face before looking to his dad, “it’s not really for you to decide if it’s ok. I’ve already decided it is, so it is”, shrugging, “you just have to, um, accept it and, um, not hate it... not hate them”. 

 Danny, glancing down in the direction he knows his mom’s ectogun is resting, “and ClockWork, they’re immortal. You can’t destroy them, mom, no matter what you tried. You’d have better luck blowing up the whole planet”. 

Maddie tosses the gun onto the table and puts her head in her hands, while ClockWork nods, seeming almost sad, “yes, I’m will always be here. Even when nothing else is”. Danny nods lightly, muttering, “time doesn’t go away just because no one’s there to count the seconds”. 

“And I am time given conscious form”, though ClockWork’s words were borderline silent, everyone clearly hears them.

 Again, silence, until Jazz breaks it again, looking down at the table, “that’s...actually kind of...awful”. Danny smiles somewhat sadly at Jazz, as she flicks her eyes up at him. He nods slightly, “that’s why they’re so um, unbashful? No reason not to be and they don’t really get to do things purely for themselves...much anyway”. 

Maddie and Jack glance at each other, Jack smiling a bit forced, “love is kind of selfish, isn’t it...”. Shaking his head, “love... and ghosts, who would have thought”. 

This gets Maddie to blink and really study ClockWork, who’s full body leaning on Danny with their eyes closed; content and...in love. Something she never thought a ghost even capable of understanding. 

Danny nods, seeming rather embarrassed, “it’s not really that, um, uncommon”, rubbing at his neck, “ClockWork’s not really the, um, first ghost I’ve dated. Though me and Kitty didn’t exactly last long”. 

ClockWork snorts, “she’s hardly your type. Needy in all the wrong ways”. Danny nods, “oh yeah, big time”, shrugging, “besides, she and Johnny really are meant for each other”. Jazz groans, muttering at him, “did you have to bring him up?”. Making the couple snicker at her. 

Maddie nods, feeling a bit of guilt and shame, “and you, you didn’t tell us. Because you were worried, afraid, of how we’d react”. Danny nods stiffly, but ClockWork’s the one to speak, “and rightfully so. Things are different with me, I know all the ways you could react and the likelihood of each”, lifting up their head and pushing their forehead into the side of Danny’s head, “and this Space Boy knows that, so he really should stop worrying”. Danny rolls his eyes though blushing faintly. 

 Jack nods strongly, looking at the two before pushing a plate of fudge Fiddle Diddles at them. Danny can’t help but smile, ‘dad’s...sharing his fudge...I just, wow. Okay, this actually worked out...somehow’. 

Maddie sighs as she watches Danny and ClockWork take turns biting into one Fiddle Diddle. “So ghosts eat now”, looking down at the table, “I guess...I guess there’s a lot we don’t actually know”. 

ClockWork nods, “and I know everything, you are better for not having all the information. To learn is to grow, those that can not learn can never grow nor change”. Danny grunts, “oh you learn plenty, just weirdly”, rolling his eyes, “stupid fluffy purple batman”. 

ClockWork leans closer to Danny’s ear, “I think you’ll find, I’m more fine silks and satins than fluff”, resulting in Danny covering up his blushing with his hands, as ClockWork leans back init their chair with a faint smirk. 

 This time the silence is more comfortable as the plate gets passed around, everyone eating more or less comfortably. Though both Jack and Maddie still glance cautiously at the, uncomfortably human-looking, ghost. 

Jack can’t contain his curiosity anymore, “you, ClockWork or Horace?”, shrugging, “the human look, Danny-boy said you were doing it willingly”. Maddie blinks a bit, but leans over the table a slightly, staring at ClockWork, “what do you actually look like?”. Jazz blinks, unable to help being curious herself, having never actually seen what the enigmatic time ghost truly looked like. 

 ClockWork cracks open one eye, “it’s Horace for those that do not know what, or who, I truly am. Same goes for the human form, I’ve been simply maintaining it to allow you time to adjust to me and the knowledge of me. Particularly, knowledge of me with your Raven Dove son”. 

Jazz nods, thoroughly impressed with ClockWork’s level of forethought and sympathy. Surely they could have simply made this very jarring, instead, they’ve been easing into every aspect with practiced grace. Smiling at them, “well, I think we could all do with you being fully honest now”, chuckling, “besides, dad’s curiosity is ravenous. He’ll never stop pestering you”. 

Even Danny can tell Jack has gone from cautious and confused, to uneasy acceptance, to giddy curiosity. Nudging ClockWork and smiling, eliciting another proud smile from the time ghost, “if you’re comfortable with it, Daniel, then I see no reason not to”, chuckling, “human forms are hardly comfortable to maintain”. 

 “So you’ve been intentionally making yourself uncomfortable just so your boyfriends' parents would at least not hate you?”, Jazz groans as ClockWork starts nodding, looking at Danny and playfully muttering, “you’re dating yourself...punny, secretive, powerful, enigmatic, mysterious, self-sacrificial...”. Danny snorts and rolls his eyes, while Jazz squints at ClockWork, “your human form, looks nothing like you actually do...does it?”, groaning as ClockWork actually laughs, “looks a lot like Danny though”. 

 Danny blushes as ClockWork shrugs, “what can I say, I like what I see. Who wouldn’t want to look like the living embodiment of sunlight and star fire”. ClockWork ruffles Danny’s hair as they drop the human disguise, fading away with dramatic sparks and sparkling, Danny can’t help but smirk, “drama queen”. Though rather impressed that ClockWork stays sitting in the chair, ‘sitting down with a ghostly tail isn’t exactly the easiest thing, but it’s not like they weren’t expecting to be sitting’.

 All three regular humans gape, slack-jawed; at the blue-skinned, purple cloaked, and red-eyed ghost. Danny can’t help but snort as ClockWork shifts into their child form. “As I’ve said, I am every age and no age. My natural form constantly and unconsciously changes to reflect this fact”. Danny can’t help but snicker, “makes cuddling a trip, when your other is constantly changing height and size”. 

“So you...can’t control it”, Jazz isn’t sure what else to say right now, they’re literally a toddler right now. ClockWork shrugs before shifting into a teenage form, “I’m hardly aware of the changing, though I can slow it down or speed it up. All things normalised with time”. 

Maddie blinks and leans back, pulled out of her stupor by the pun, looking the teenage ghost over, “does this, age changing, affect your...behaviour? And how does your chest even work?”. ClockWork smirks, flicking open the clock case door-window on their chest, “it does not. My clock reflects the state of time around me. The pendulum swinging to the speed of time, or not at all if time is stopped”, flicking at the neck of the pendulum as it swings back and forth lazily, “the clock face itself is my core”. Closing the clock case window, while Danny sticks his hand under, the now adult, ClockWork’s hood; toying with the hidden blonde locks. Prompting ClockWork to ruffle Danny’s, before smushing Danny’s head into their chest; cloak draping over Danny’s shoulder in the process. 

Jazz can’t help but giggle, muttering into her hand, “okay, that’s adorable”. 

 Danny blushes and huffs at her, while Maddie sighs, “I can’t say I like this, but I guess I can...accept it”, looking into ClockWork’s eyes, and getting startled by them becoming wrinkled and old. Shaking her head, “that’s incredibly disorienting”, sitting back up, “but know this, ghost, if you harm him. Then I don’t care how immortal you are, I will hunt you and I will destroy you”. 

Danny groans loudly, “could we not with the death threats?”. ClockWork pats his head, “nonsense, I would desire nothing different. The feeling is quite mutual after all”, smiling down at Danny, “only difference is, I understand intentionally seeking revenge on your behalf wouldn’t exactly please you”, shrugging, “but if say, someone’s future suddenly started taking all the wrong twists and turns...then who’s to say if it was really my meddling that caused them to get exiled to the void of space”. 

Danny squints up at ClockWork, “that is suspiciously specific...”, trailing off as ClockWork shifts to a toddler again, “...Fun Sized”. 

Jack, on the other hand, is flat-out impressed and likes that this ghost is clearly protective without being flat-out obsessive. Nodding strongly, “I don’t approve of this, but you’re clearly not looking to harm. So...I guess it’s fine”, looking down at Danny, who’s clearly beaming, “still beyond weird and not really okay, especially for a Fenton”. 

Jazz nods, “well look at it this way, Danny isn’t as uninterested in ghost stuff as you thought?”. Maddie glances at her, slightly unimpressed. While Danny snorts, pulling teenage ClockWork’s cloak around himself a bit more, “my interest is friendly and affectionate, not really the same Jazz”. Maddie frowns at Danny, but nods with a sigh, “and I’m guessing you’re pretty set on your feelings and-”, gesturing at ClockWork, “-on this, on them”. 

Danny nods almost aggressively, “yes, mom, ClockWork is my other, my mate”. Jack takes in Danny firm face and intense gaze, before nodding at him, “well that settles it then”. Turning to ClockWork and awkwardly holding out his hand for a handshake, “I guess, welcome to the Fenton family, ClockWork”. 

 Maddie stares at her husband a bit as he shakes hands with a ghost, glaring at ClockWork, “I wouldn’t say you’re part of the family, ghost, but if Danny is as certain as he clearly is, then our home, our family, will allow you in”, muttering to herself, though easily heard by the two ghostly mates, “pretty sure you’d get in any way though”. 

Judging by the mischievous twinklings in the pairs eyes and the smirks, Maddie knows she’s right. She’s pretty well certain this ghost, ClockWork, has been over multiple times. 

 Jazz, blinking a bit and staring at ClockWork’s hand and wrist, lazily resting on the backing of their chair, “what’s with all the watches? You’re practically covered in clock imagery”. Instantly regretting her question and showing it with a groan, as the pair smirk. 

“I’m the time master, everything is time with me. I also have a pocket watch wrapped around my belt. My cloak clasp is a clock gear, my name is a time pun, Jasmine. You should expect as much”. Danny sticks out his tongue at her, but answers his dad’s confused expression, “clocks count time, keep track of it. And time is ClockWork’s job, their work. So they’re a clock that works. ClockWork”. Jazz groans, “you’re awful, both of you”.

Jack shakes his head, amused, at the, clearly mischevious and jokester, ghost. Before gesturing over to the living room, “so movies? I’d say pull out Danny’s baby home videos....but with what I’ve learned of you, that’d be really pointless”. Maddie nods, following Jack to stand in the doorway, watching Danny untangle himself from ClockWork’s purple cloak, “they probably watched him grow up”. 

Maddie gets startled by ClockWork, clearly not expect them to actually comment on what she said, “indeed I did, I knew how important he’d be, especially to me. Of course, I paid more attention to his growing up than most”, ClockWork smiles fondly while Danny just blushes, blushing even more as a child ClockWork sits on his shoulder, ghostly tail lazily wiggling and occasionally tracing along his collar bone. 

Jazz mutters, “again, adorable. Weird, but adorable”. While Maddie shakes her head, “how is that not rather creepy”. Danny just shrugs at her, walking past her to the couch, he’s really got no way to explain why it’s not; it just isn’t. Letting ClockWork float off his shoulder, changing into their teenage form, before sitting on the couch; Danny cuddling into them. Jazz puts herself in between Danny and their parents, obviously playing the role of protective, and overbearing, sister. 

 Jack eventually settles on some sci-fi movie, Maddie eyes ClockWork’s tail as Jack puts in the movie, “why the constant tail? Wouldn’t legs be more comfortable?”. ClockWork gives her a warm smile, “I always have a tail. As Daniel has said, I’m not like other ghosts. I don’t have things other ghosts do, legs are one of those things”. 

“Huh”, with that everyone settles in and watches the movie mostly silently.

Danny, chuckling after a while, “I’m going to guess that it’s a little early to drag everyone to ClockWork’s lair, ain’t it?”, Danny can’t help but tilt his head back and laugh as both his parents speak up at the same time. Mixtures of excitement, worry, and mistrust in their voices. 

“You’ve been to a ghost lair!?!”.

“You went into the ghost zone! Danny! You know how dangerous that is!?!”.

“What’s the air like?!? Does h-they have furniture?!? Is it all green?!?”.

“Were you safe? Please tell me you were at least together the whole time...”.

ClockWork raises their hand, “I might be able to control time and in general be quite content to indulge curiosities, but even I’ve got a limit to my tolerance. Patient as I may be”, frowning slightly before continuing, “this is far more socialising than I get in an entire year, I’m a solitary thing; with nothing but silence for company for most of my existence”. 

Jazz mutters, “once again, that’s kind of awful”. ClockWork shrugs, “it’s my existence, and it will never change. I’m made for it, meant for it; so push aside your pity, it is misplaced”. 

 “Anyway...”, Danny chuckles, rolling his eyes at his long-winded other. Leaning forward and looking to his mom, “it’s perfectly safe, mom. Especially the clocktower citadel, there’s probably no better protected or harder to find places in the whole Zone”, chucking and shaking his head, “you can’t even find the place at all, unless ClockWork here wants you to. Same for getting inside, or finding ClockWork themselves. That’s not even mentioning that the place exists in a different state of time and gets visitors from other timelines”. 

Maddie mutters, “well I guess that’s secure enough”. Danny nods curtly before turning to his, practically bouncing and bursting with curiosity, dad, “yes they’ve got furniture, mostly purple or black though. Lots of gears and bits of clocks, viewing screens and portals to timelines, pasts, presents, and futures”. 

ClockWork chuckles, “at least you’ve learned not to jump through them, without at least asking, now”, ruffling Danny’s hair, “even if you did have to learn that the hard way, like usual”. Danny looks away and makes a show of pouting, “you can’t present someone with the option to time-travel and expect them to not take it, Gears”. ClockWork tilts their head down to look at Danny’s face, “yes well, most folks don’t mess up the past every single time. How you manage that is both endearing and ridiculous”. Tilting their head over to Jazz, “it took a whole year to fix it last time, and all he did was pick up a rock”, turning back to Danny, “out of all the rocks you decide to poke, of all the possibilities, you manage to grab the only one stopping a river from collapsing”. 

Danny just shrugs guiltily while Jack chuckles, “wow, sounds like you’ve dragged Danny-boy on some adventures”, chuckling again, “or more so, he’s dragged you on them”. While Jazz snickers, quietly speaking, “reckless as ever”.

ClockWork easily catches Maddie glaring at them, waving their elderly hand dismissively at her, “I’m aware of all of time, I was fully aware of where and when he was at all times. I also knew what and how he was going to mess things up well beforehand”, shrugging, “but he had lessons to learn, so I let time take its course. We met when he was fourteen, so there was plenty he had yet to learn. As I’ve said-”, patting Danny’s head, “-he likes to learn things the hard way, or weird way”. Danny grunts, “least I’m not boring”. 

 Jack can’t help but chuckle, slapping his knee, “well that’s a Fenton for you!”. Maddie points at them, “you better not have been together when Danny was that young”. 

ClockWork puts up one hand to pacify her, “but of course not, it was by no means the time for this. I was simply a friend and occasional guiding hand”. Danny pokes their cheek, “you and your soft spot for me. Wouldn’t have done all that for anyone else”, smirking mischievously at the teenage ClockWork, “and imagine my surprise when I discovered that soft spot was heart-shaped”. Danny doesn’t even attempt to hide his wider smirk, hearing ClockWork’s steadily ticking clock core tick a bit louder. 

Alt Ending:

“WARNING, GHOSTS DETECTED. ONE FOOT. WARNING, APOCALYPTIC ECTOPLASMIC THREATS WITHIN ONE HUNDRED FEET. ONE IDENTITY KNOWN, DANNY PHANTOM. TYPICAL GHOST POWERS, ICE POWERS, GHOSTLY WAIL, ONE UNKNOWN POWER. POWER LEVEL TWENTY-FIVE. ONE IDENTITY UNKNOWN. POWERS UNKNOWN. POWER LEVEL TWENTY-EIGHT”. 

Danny pales at every word, mentally freaking out a bit, ‘oh, oh no. This is so not how they were supposed to find out. But-but would they shoot? Shoot me? My other? I- what do I even do?’, blinking and scooting closer to Horace protectively, ‘protect, always. Always protect. But, but I don’t want to have to! I shouldn’t have to! Heck! I might need the protection myself!’. Feeling Horace sigh, ‘they knew this would happen...but then why?’. Mentally pausing for only a few seconds, ‘of course, they, they’re looking to protect, protect me...oh god this isn’t going to go well, is it?’. 

Danny easily hears Jazz suck in a breath, while Horace mutters into Danny’s ear, “not every secret can be kept forever, you’ve had enough resets by now to know this. I’m sorry for this, my MoonFlower”. Jazz mutters into the table, “stuff detecting Danny, again?”. 

 Maddie stands, glancing at the device before glaring at the pair and responding, with a strained voice, “no, Jazz. It only detects ghosts”. 

Jack doesn’t know what to do, surely he would have known if his son was overshadowed and he-both of them actually-clearly didn’t appear ghostly. So what was the truth, “Danny?Phantom?”. 

 Horace sighs, their eyes leaving Maddie’s to glance at Danny’s. Conflict clear as day in them, feeling his grip tighten on their dress shirt sleeve; Horace watching him sadly as he does.

Maddie interrupts their slight intimacy, “ghosts, no games. Where’s my son, the real one”. 

Danny sighs, giving Horace a pained smile, eliciting sigh from them as well; but this time it’s laced with resignation and, of all things, determination. 

 Horace turns their head back to the two Fenton parents, both of them are now flicking between glaring at Horace accusingly and at Danny, who’s practically pressed into Horace, hatefully. “Indeed, I did tell you as much”, Horace says through a frown as Danny phases the two of them through their chairs, but, due to their physical closeness, Maddie and Jack can’t tell who did it. Horace wraps their arm protectively around Danny’s shoulder, Danny does the same around Horace’s waist. 

 Jack jerks out of his chair, sending it crashing to the ground; while Maddie goes to aim her gun. Jazz practically jumps out of her seat and slams her hand onto Maddie’s gun, “mom! Stop! Don’t, that’s Danny, the real Danny”, quickly sparing Danny a sympathetic glance, “he always has been”. 

Maddie ignores Jazz and practically growls, “that’s not “Danny” anything, Danny’s no ghost”. Stepping closer to the table, “how do you even look human? How dare you pretend to be our son, our Danny”. Glaring even harder, “and that other thing is almost just as bad”. 

 ‘Well isn’t this just damn peachy. I guess I always was going to have to fling my self into the Zone eventually. Here’s hoping I can do that with getting fully offed’. Clearing his throat, hoping to at least buy time or maybe, just maybe, get them to understand; to not hate him or his other, “I know we’re ghosts. Phantom, yes; but I’m still Danny. I always have been, I’ve never been pretending. Ghost aren’t evil, unfeeling things. I’m your son”, shuffling a bit, “only half ghost though, me. But that shouldn’t matter, none of this should mat-”, Danny gets cut off by Maddie firing her gun off at the floor. 

 Jazz jerks back, startled, unsure if that was just cause of her mom’s extreme grip or if she did that intentionally. Jazz gets her answer as Maddie snaps, “that’s not even possible, ghosts are nothing but liars and evil. Ectoplasmic scum!”, Jack grabs and pulls Jazz to the side as Maddie storms towards the couple. 

‘Oh god, she’s-she’s really going to, going to shoot at me?!? What the hell?!?’, Danny can’t help but curl into Horace’s side like a kicked puppy; tears welling up in his eyes. 

 Maddie snaps again, though not lifting her gun up, “how dare you tell me lies about my son! How dare you come into a hunter’s home and think you can trick us!”, sneering at them, “ectoplasmic filth always thinking so little of humans, but Fenton’s aren’t your usual and we won’t be trick by such filth”. 

Horace then does something Danny’s never seen them do, they snarl; teeth bared and eyes red, full-blown snarling at Maddie, “you’re already believing lies, but the one telling you those lies is yourself. Little Raven Dove deserves better than that”. 

 Horace’s glaring doesn’t falter and their teeth stay bared, as Maddie sneers at them, “enough with the lies, ghost. Things like you have no place in this world, even if half ghosts were possible; a ghost is still a ghost. Half of one is just a bastardised monster”. 

Jazz gapes at Maddie while Horace sighs pitifully at Maddie, giving Jazz a soft apologetic smile before returning to snarling at Maddie, “you mortals always insist on learning things the hard way, but this is a lesson you don’t get to rewrite. Pick your actions carefully”, feeling the slight shaking in Danny’s tightly gripping hands and slight wetness on their shoulder, Horace stands defiant, holding one hand behind their back, and spits their words like venom, “though your ill-chosen words have already failed you”. 

 Jazz tries to pull away from her dad, but his grips firm though he looks at her confused; not understanding why she appears to be crying. Jazz cries out, though her gut tells her words are pointless, “mom! Don’t! Please! Can’t you for once in your life realise your science isn’t perfect! That you could be wrong! Because you’re wrong!”, struggling more, “Danny is strange, yes! But that’s ok! That’s good! He does good! Leave my little brother alone!”. 

 Maddie flinches from her daughters' words, but only looks at the two with more hate, hissing out, “you corrupted her. You messed with my baby girl”. 

Danny nearly whimpers, “no...”. But he can see there’s no arguing with her and Horace knows there’s not, they always knew such. Horace, pushing Danny behind them slightly, feeling Danny’s fingers brush against theirs behind their back; knowing that Danny knows what they intend to do.

 Snapping at Maddie at the feel of Danny’s slight shaky nod, “the only one corrupting anything is you. You were blessed with a celestial child, a son of star fire. One blazing more pure and bright than any sun, yet you refuse, you reject. But I expected as much, I knew as much, I saw as much”. Shaking their head disappointedly, “in another time you may have earned the right to see me, to know me; but not in this one, not this time. You deserve nothing more than to crumble and fall with the sands of time, and you will, times told it so. Horace means time keeper for a reason, I keep times truth and times truth is thus”, frowning sadly at Maddie as she slowly, attempting subtlety, charges up her gun. Catching Jazz’s nearly inaudible whisper, “ClockWork...I...thank you...”. 

Attention squarely back on Maddie, “truth will forever be a mystery to you, you’ll grow old and die; without a son, without a daughter. You will join the Ghost Realm, bitter, lonely and endlessly resentful. You will be rejected there, you will reject yourself; though Snow White, far to fair, will forgive you. You’ll be too far gone and so you’ll join that foolish power-mad space nomad, exiled. But he’ll destroy you, fuelled by his own bitter, lonely, resentment”. 

 Everything is silent for a second, an all too familiar calm before the storm; familiar especially to Danny, one far too used to living in storms and awaiting the next one. Mentally muttering, ‘oh look, another tornado to destroy my whole life’. 

Jazz tries her damnedest to pull away from her father as she watches her mother jerk the gun up, finger on the trigger. Seeing Horace, ClockWork, pulling out their staff seconds faster. Slamming away Maddie’s gun as they spin the staff, creating a portal. Jazz cries even harder and slams her fist on Jack’s chest after she can see Danny disappear safely with his other. An other she knows will protect him and help him heal from this, she doesn’t have to worry about him but she’ll be damned if her “parents” get away with hurting her little brother so. 

The last thing Danny sees of his family is Jazz slamming her second fist into Jack’s chest. Blinking and staggering away from ClockWork a bit, as he sees they’re on a grassy hill; countless stars above and Amity’s city lights in the distance. 

Whipping at his eyes before collapsing back into ClockWork’s satin cloak, “I’m sorry Daniel, my little stargazing Space Boy, but it’s all I could do”, cradling the young halfa they love into their chest, his tear-streaked face pushing harshly into their neck. 

“I know”, comes out quiet and broken; yet ClockWork feels the words echo like a gong and scream beyond any ghostly wail.

End.

#Danny Phantom #danny fenton #fanfic #phanphic #Maddie Fenton #jack fenton #jazz fenton #clockwork #agender character #they/them pronouns #romance #ship #danny/clockwork #danny x clockwork #temporal trust #puns #pet names #my writing #have a fic suck my dick

[seanshumblehome]

American Dragon:Jake Long in: A new day, a new problem.

       It was an early Saturday morning in New York but already the hustle and bustle of the city caused the sounds of car horns, disgruntled shouts, and sirens to echo and bounce off the buildings, but in a dark quiet room of an apartment a young man laid in his bed sleeping peacefully in his bed.Suddenly the blinding light of the morning sun filled his room and stirring him from his sleep.Looking up from his pillow the young man could see the silhouette of his mother sanding in the window fastening his curtains. 

“Come on Jake it’s time to get up.” Susan said, turning around to face Jake.

“Ah mom come on, just a few more minutes.” Jake said as he squeezed his pillow and pulled his blanket over his face.

Susan rolled her eyes before grabbing her sons blanket and yanked it off of him with on hard pull.Jake groaned in frustration as he sat up still squeezing his pillow, Jake tossed down his pillow and got out of bed following his mom out.

“Why do I have to get up so early on a Saturday?” Jake asked as he rubbed he morning grogginess from his eye’s.

“Because your Grandfather called, he said he needs you at the shop.” Susan said as they walked down stairs. “But that can wait until you’ve eaten breakfast and changed.” Susan continued as she put her arm around his shoulder. 

“Yeah, thanks mom.” Jake said with a smile as he and his mother made there way to the kitchen where his young sister Haley and his father sat enjoying the eggs and bacon Susan had cooked for them moments earlier.

“Well-a good morning to you Jake.” Jonathan said before taking another bite of his bacon.

“Grandpa called he said it was very important.” Haley cheerfully said before taking a bite of eggs.

“I heard.” Jake grumbled as he sat down to eat.

  Just as he prepared to eat his food, there was a knock at the door, watching as his mother got up from the table to answer the door Jake just knew that no matter who was behind that door, he was going to have to eat and fast, in one swift that surprised his father and disturbed his sister, Jake slid the contents of his plate into his mouth then bolted from the table to his room to change out of his pajamas.

“Meanwhile, elsewhere.”

  The wind blew gently, the morning sun shined brightly, and Danny stood atop the Empire State Building, enjoying the view and planning his next move. he had come to New York to find the American Dragon but how could he, Toronto was nothing compared to the massive sprawling city that was New York, Danny let out a sigh, he had hoped that finding a large fire breathing flying reptile in New York would be easy but it seemed that he was wrong.Danny didn’t care, he came to New York to get a Dragon, and he wasn’t leaving without one. And he certainly wasn’t going to find one just standing around.

“Meanwhile at the Long residence.”

  Jake ran out of his room as he zipped up his jacket, he round the corner and leaped down stairs, he looked up to see that his unexpected guest where his best friends, Trixie and Spud, relived Jake let out a sigh, thankful that it wasn’t Grandpa.

“You guys don’t know how glad you guys aren’t gramps.” Jake said as he bumped their fists.

“Thanks man, but why.” Spud asked, slightly flattered and confused.

“Because Spud, Jakey’s Grandpa is probably gonna have him do something wack as usual.” Trixie said sassing Spud.

“Oh...right, but hey at least we’re with you bud, so it won’t be all bad right?” Spud as Jake followed his friends outside.

“A few minutes later.“

   Lao Shi paced impatiently as he waited for Jake to arrive while Fu dog flipped though a magazine.Suddenly the shop’s bell rang, he turned and there stood Jake and his friends.

“You are late young dragon... again.” Lao Shi said annoyed.

“Ah come on Gramps, everything's been quiet for awhile, can’t blame me if I’m taking things a little slow and steady.” Jake said as he sat down on the couch.

“Just because there has been little activity in the magical world young dragon, does not mean you get to laze about all day doing nothing.” Lao Shi said as he approached Jake. “You must always be on the look out for danger young one.” Lao Shi continued as Jake sighed in aggravation as he arose from the couch.

“Grandpa, the huntsmen are history and the Black Dragon is probably stuck in some hole somewhere, the biggest threats to the magical and nonmagical world are toast, I think that deserves some R&R time for the Amdrag.”  Jake said frustrated.

“He’s gotta point Gramps, the kid has been though a lot.” Fu dog said as he briefly looked up from his magazine.

Lao Shi hung his head and sighed before looking back up at Jake, somewhat remorseful.

“Perhaps you are right Jake, you have worked quite hard to protect both the magical and non-magical world, so I guess you have rightfully earned some well deserved rest.” Lao Shi said happily as he patted Jake on his arm.

    Suddenly Jake wrapped his arms around his Grandfather, holding him in a strong and thankful hug.

“Thanks Gramps!” Jake shouted happily, causing Lao Shi to smile knowingly and pat Jake on the back. 

“Yes, Yes, now go and enjoy your time off young one.” Lao Shi said as he gently pushed Jake off of him.

   Jake, Trixie and Spud, ran out of the shop and hopped on their skateboards and quickly made their way towards the skate park.As they made their way to the skate park Jake just couldn’t shake the smile from his face.Today was going to be great, he just knew it would be.

“Meanwhile with Danny.”

   Danny flew through the city growing ever more aggravated and bored as his search for a mythical fire breathing flying reptile seemed to be more and more fruitless by the minute.Danny decided to land on a close by building, to get his bearings.Surely there had to be someone who knew where a Dragon might hide in New York but who would ever tell him something that absurd.Suddenly a loud bang sounded from behind and Danny soon found himself tangled in a net.

“Ah! Hey what the hell!” Danny shouted as he struggled to free himself, not noticing the cheerful sound of laughter and self-congratulation.

“Ha take that you magical fool.” Huntsboy #88 chuckled as he holstered his net launcher.

“Yeah, he totally didn’t see it coming” Huntsboy #89 sneered as they both approached Danny.

“Let me go you little turds!” Danny shouted at the boys as he continued to struggle.

“Not happening you magical beast, we’re gonna take show you to the world and get super famous and restart the Huntsman.” Huntsboy #88 gloated, placing his hands on his hips.

    Danny glared at the gloating boy’s before finally phasing through the net, Huntsboy #88 and #89 stood in stunned silence as they realized that the person they captured, may not just be a regular magical creature.They turn and ran but soon found themselves being lifted off the ground.Danny threw the boys on top of the roof of a tall building before landing on it himself.Grabbing the boys by their collars and lifted them off the ground.

“Who are you and why did you attack me!” Danny demanded as he pulled the boys to the edge of the roof.

“W-w-we’re sorry!” Huntsboy #88 whimpered pathetically.

“W-we just thought y-you where a magic creature so we tried to capture you.” Huntsboy #89 answered with a whimper.

     Danny smiled as he realized that maybe theses two idiots might just help him find the American Dragon, Danny threw the boy’s to the ground, point his fist at the boy’s, charging a ghost.The bright green glow of Danny’s fist obviously scared the boy’s, cracking them would be easy.

“Say, would you guy know anything about the American Dragon, like... where he lives.” Danny said in a calm yet commanding tone.

“Um well we did know where he was.” Huntsboy #89 timidly answered.

“Until we both forgot.” Huntsboy #89 mummered.

      Danny smiled once again, he had wanted to test his new ghost power and now seemed like the best time.He grabbed Huntsboy #88 by his collar then grabbed his head, Huntsboy #89 watched in horror as Danny’s eye’s glowed a bright full green and #88 screamed in what seemed like agony.Danny raced through the mind of the boy, seeing flashes of his memories, He saw not one but two Dragons, then another flash, of a building.The name barely visible, he could just make it out.

“Canal Street Electronics, so that’s where he is huh?” Danny said calmly as he dropped Huntsboy #88. “Then that’s where I’m going, you two takecare and don’t follow me.” Danny continued before flying off towards the electronics shop.

      The Huntsboy’s watched as Danny flew off, they arose to their feet promising never to speak of what happened today.Danny couldn’t wipe the smile from his face, he was giddy about meeting an actual dragon, but what would he say to them?How could he convince them that his problem was big enough to warrant the intervention of a dragon?What if his problem was so big that it required more than just a dragon and a ghost?They would need another, after all a dragon and a ghost does not one team make, but he would worry about that soon enough, right now, all that mattered was getting that dragon.

“Meanwhile with Jake.”

       The there teens strode down the sidewalk content with the amount of fun that they had been enjoying for the past few hours now, Jake starred blissfully at the orange evening sky paying little to no attention to what Spud and Trixie where talking about.Thoughts of Rose, his future, his duty to the magical creatures, and other things ran through his mind until the loud and sudden ringing of his phone broke his train of thought, quickly he answered.

“Hey Gramps, what’s up?” Jake asked somewhat dreading his response.

“Jake get to the shop as soon as you can Jake, something important has come up.” Lao Shi said calmly before hanging up.

       Jake was surprised, usually Gramps shouted over the phone but his tone was pretty calm this time.As much as he didn’t like it, he sighed and said his  goodbye’s to Spud and Trixie before he transformed into his dragon form and flew towards the shop.It was a brief flight as he wasn’t that far away, he landed adjacent to Gramps shap, after transforming back to human Jake enter the shop.Upon entering, Jake heard his grandfather shout for him from the back. Jake was cautious but upon entering the backroom he saw a his grandfather sitting on his couch, sitting across from him is a teen probably a little older than him holding a cup of tea which had been made for him.

“Yo Gramps, what’s up? Who’s the new guy?” Jake asked as he sat down on the couch with Lao Shi.

       Jake watched as his grandfather waved towards the teen across from them.

“Hi, I’m Danny Fenton.” Danny said as he put his hand forward for a handshake, which Jake cautiously accepted.

“Uh Jake Long, so what brings you?” Jake asked as he reclined back putting his feet on the the table.

“Ah well besides wanting to take in all the wonderful sights and sounds of the big apple, I’m mainly here to find...the American Dragon.” Danny said his tone changing from seemingly naive to a stern understanding of what he was looking for.

       Hearing this Jake looked at his grandfather who was still silently enjoying his tea.

“And why exactly would you be looking for him?” Jake asked again as he looked back at Danny. 

“To help me with a problem, someone stole something from me and I believe they are going to use to do bad things, terrible things, things so terrible I decided that I couldn’t possibly defeat them on my own, so I’m making a team, that’s why.” Danny answered calmly as he reclined against the back of his chair.

“Jake, I think it’s time you stop asking questions and show him what he seeks.” Lao Shi said as he placed his empty cup on the table,

“You sure Gramps?” Jake asked confused.

        Lao Shi nodded, Jake sighed before standing up, he guessed this means Amdrag R&R would have to wait.Danny watched as a ring of fire engulfed Jake, when it passed there stood before him, the American Dragon, Jake Long. Danny smirked then stood up, Jake watched as two rings passed over Danny, revealing his phantom form.

“Glad to see I’m not the only one with secrets.” Jake smugly replied.

“Ditto, but I need to know, will you help me?” Danny asked, causing Jake to turn towards his grandfather.

“Jake you know that magical creatures must remain secret, you are taking a big risk accepting the phantom’s plea for help, but if you can find a way to help while keeping your magical nature a secret to the public at large, I will allow it.” Lao Shi said wisely as he refilled his cup of tea.

“I’ll keep a low profile, you can count on that.” Jake said confidently.

“Might wanna pack a large bag, Norrisville’s the last stop and that’s on the opposite side of the country.” Danny said causing Jake to sigh in disappointment.

         Danny and Jake transformed back to their regular forms and went to the front of the story to discuss what they might need for the trip.As they spoke they didn’t notice the  sound of the toilet flushing followed by the bathroom door flying open revealing Fu dog carrying a newspaper under his arm.

“Woo-wee, might want to let that air out, smells worse than my great aunt Molly’s cooking in there.” Fu Dog said as he closed the door.

         He paused for moment upon seeing Danny, he looked over at Lao Shi gesturing towards Danny.

“Uh yo, who’s the new kid”” Fu Dog asked pointing at Danny.

“Jake’s new friend, they need to get to Norrisville.” Lao Shi said before taking a sip of tea.

“Yesh that’s on the other side of the country.” Fu Dog said, slightly concerned.

“Would you be so kind as to whip-up a teleportation stone for them?” Lao Shi asked as he got up from the couch.

         Fu nodded as he went to his desk, grabbing several potions and a rock on his way there while Gramps called for the boys, Upon entering Fu handed Jake a stone emblazoned with a fancy glowing blue rune on it.

“What’s with the fancy rock Fu?” Jake asked inspecting the stone.

“It’s a teleportation stone, you think about where you want to go then bada bing bada boom you’re there, but it’s only got three charges so be careful.”  Fu explained before going back to his newspaper.

“Well that help’s.” Danny said as he put his hand on Jake shoulder.

“Yes, here Jake you might also need this, now you should hurry to Norrisville I doubt your enemies will wait for you to make the first move.” Lao Shi said as he gave Jake several hundred dollars.

“Oh um, thanks Gramps, this’ll help.” Jake said as he stuffed the money into his pocket.

        After collecting his bag and trench coat Danny rejoined Jake in the backroom.Danny stood next Jake and placing a hand on his shoulder.

“You ready ghost bro?” Jake asked, Danny responded with a confident nod.

“Be safe young dragon, do not worry about your parents, I will handle them.” Lao Shi said as he waved to the boys.

        Jake and Danny closed their eye’s and in an instant, they where teleported to the city of Norrisville.There in the cool midnight air Danny and Jake stood in the parking lot of an unknown building.

“Hey Danny?” Jake said in a dead pan tone.

“Yeah Jake.” Danny responded in kind.

“Let’s get a hotel.” Jake said.

“Good idea.” Danny replied as the boys began to walk down the side walk in search of a place to sleep.

To Be Continued in, Randy Cunningham in:Three’s a crowd.

#Danny Phantom #american dragon jake long #adjl #dp #Jake Long #danny fenton #Lao Shi #Fu Dog #Trixie Carter #Arthur Spudinski #Susan Long #Jonathan Long #Haley Long #reblog #fanfic #fanfiction

[diinofayce]

Shadows on the Horizon - 11

Pairing: Winter Soldier! Bucky Barnes x OFC! Layne Hardin | Word Count: 2k | Warnings: no Bucky this chapter, minor swearing| A/N: This is a sequel to my story Like a Whisper in the Night | Shadows on the Horizon Masterlist

“Why weren’t we told that there was an Amber Alert out for our niece?” Layne asked the room of men.

“It looks like it flew under our radars entirely,” Tony answered, his nose buried in his tablet.

Danny and Layne stood in front of Director Fury, Tony, Natasha, and a hologram of Charles Xavier. Layne watched as a hulking man in a too-tight black shirt and black jeans pace back and forth out of image behind Professor Xavier, his pacing and heavy footfalls made her anxious.

“Logan, you’re making the live feed glitch,” Danny quipped having felt his sister’s underlying distress and the large man looked at the camera, blinked twice in realization, and then moved off screen.

Tony flipped through digital pages on his glass tablet as he read through the reports on Layne and Danny’s seventeen-year-old niece, Madeline. “It looks like she ran away from your brother’s care. He and his ex have seventy-five, twenty-five split custody with him getting the kids every weekend. She and her father got into a disagreement, which the younger kids didn’t know what it was about but reporting quite a bit of fighting, and then she took off in the middle of the night after he grounded her to her room. Apparently.”

Layne and Danny looked at each other with quirked eyebrows. Madeline had only been six when they last saw her and Lucas had to have been two or three, they didn’t even know Michael and Cheryl had a third child - a little girl by the name of Rosaline. Lucas was now fourteen and Rosaline was twelve, so while their reports had been coherent enough they still weren’t much help.

“I already talked to Cheryl,” Layne said with a slight wince. Her ex-sister-in-law had always been much more kind than Michael but having always been almost thirty years her elder, the two women were far from close. “She’s very sorry to hear of your passing,” Layne added with a smirk, looking at Danny.

“That’s very kind of her,” Daniel murmured with a roll of his eyes. To everyone outside of the immediate Avengers Initiative and the X-Men Force, Daniel had died in the line of duty while performing an undercover mission. It made his job of infiltration and espionage much easier. His persona of Specter was kept extremely classified and when he was required to attend briefings outside of the need to knows he wore a full hooded gas mask like covering that had a bit in vocal distorter.

“Apparently,” Layne continued, “When Tony held the press conference confirming my official place with the Avengers she had a bunch of questions. Cheryl made sure to press to not bring any of them to Michael and that she would try to get a hold of me. Cheryl was afraid that Madeline was exhibiting powers but apparently, after the initial round of questions she didn’t have anymore and Cheryl dropped the subject entirely.”

“So, what do we know?” Natasha asked, propping one hip up on Fury’s desk despite his scathing glare and crossing her arms over her chest.

“We know she does, in fact, have powers, powers that hide even from Cerebro,” the Professor spoke up, his fingers laced under his chin as he ran his fingertips back and forth over his bottom lip.

“That doesn’t surprise me seeing as she’s basically a blind spot and a dampener to us,” Daniel quipped, running his fingers through his chocolate curls.

“So how did Hydra find her first?” Layne asked looking between the spy and the genius.

“Well, the two of you threw a major wrench into their operation. Taking out Ava List and a handful of bases. Daniel has a very solid lead on Colonel Stryker,” Natasha listed, ticking the items off on her finger. At the mention of Stryker’s name a low growl was heard from the Professor’s side of the feed just off the view of the camera. Natasha paused, casting a glance at the outburst before continuing. “Even though Daniel is listed as dead I’m sure someone over on Hydra side doesn’t believe it. You’re actively and publicly dating Hydra’s best and favorite weapon, who they got back for all of thirty seconds before you stomped on that again. I’m sure they’ve been watching your families for a very long time.”

“I think, if I may, that if young Madeline was asking for Agent Hardin to begin with that maybe we’ll only get anything further than speculation by having them speak,” the Professor offered carefully.

Layne had known it was the next logical step and she had been fully prepared for having to go and speak to her niece, but there was a niggling habit that she had formed of separating herself from her family. She reminded herself again that Madeline was still just a teenager and that she had been picked up from wherever and then tortured, she was scared and alone and Layne was probably the only one that could make her feel a little better at this point.

“Do you have a room for her, Charles, when we’re done?” Daniel asked the hologram and the elderly man smiled.

“I always have rooms, Specter. I’ll have Rogue set one up for her arrival.” With that, the hologram closed and Fury stood up.

“And who gave you the go-ahead to send her upstate?” Fury asked calmly, staring Daniel dead in the eyes.

“Her mother,” Daniel growled protectively. “She’s still a minor, Fury, it’s not your call. It’ll also be good for you to remember that I don’t work for you, I work for them.” Daniel smirked at Fury’s impassive face, noting the seething hatred in his good eye, before spinning on his heel and exiting the conference room.

“What do you think?” Fury asked rounding on Layne.

Layne shrugged and kept her face neutral. “It’s her and her mother’s choice, not ours. I could have chosen to stay down in the labs full time if I had really wanted, but at the end of the day they’re an academy whose sole focus is teaching and strengthening those kids. When she gets a grip on her powers fully and comes of age, she can decide what she wants to do. I know you think we’re pawns in your chess game, Director, but until you take away our free will you can’t force us to do anything.”

Natasha’s expression glowed with disguised pride, while Tony openly beamed - he loved when the Hardin’s snarked at people that weren’t him.

“You will keep in mind, Agent Hardin, that unlike your brother - you do work for me,” Fury scolded.

Layne quirked her head to the side and furrowed her brows. “Funny. I feel like Ms. Potts signs my paychecks. If that’s all then,” Layne smiled brightly and gave a little wave as she turned and strutted out of the director’s office.

Fury sighed heavily and tilted his head towards Natasha. “She’s around you too much,” he bemoaned as he sunk back down into his chair.

~*~

Twenty minutes later Layne entered interrogation room six with a few sodas and a box of pizza from her favorite pizzeria down the block. Madeline was still sitting stoically at the table and staring at herself in the one way mirror. Layne looked at the glass and frowned, taking her key card and swiping it along the frame causing a set of shutters to slide down and block the reflective surface.

“When Hydra took me, I couldn’t look at myself for months, every time I did I just relived it all,” Layne said softly setting down the pizza and drinks on the table.

Madeline looked slightly relieved as the shutters slid down and looked up at Layne for the first time.

“When?” she asked, her voice thick and raspy.

“A little over a year ago,” Layne answered sitting down across from her niece.

“Did you hurt people?”

“I thought I did, but your Uncle Daniel was protecting me. I didn’t know about it for a while, though.”

“Mom said he died,” Madeline commented, looking up at Layne with fiery amber eyes. “But I see him.”

Layne reached out slowly and wrapped her hand around Madeline’s wrist, rubbing the skin soothingly with her thumb until the girl’s gaze cooled.

“We don’t want to let people know that he isn’t. Did you tell anyone that you could see him?” Layne asked carefully and Madeline shook her head, pulling her wrist out of Layne’s grip.

“No, they were too focused on you and the man that they put in the chair. That’s your boyfriend, right?” Madeline questioned and Layne nodded.

“Yeah, he is.”

“He’s kind of scary.”

Layne smiled softly and folded her hands in her lap. “Sometimes, when he has to be. He’s actually a giant teddy bear though.”

Madeline picked at the broken skin around her fingernails nervously so Layne just sat and watched, not wanting to press her too hard and too quick. “They…they said they were going to make me use my powers to hold you back so that you couldn’t use yours. Then they were going to make him kill you so that he would listen to them again.”

Layne nodded slowly and swallowed a lump that formed in her throat. “Yeah, yeah that sounds like them.”

“Why didn’t you call Mom back?” Madeline asked suddenly.

Layne shook her head slowly, “I never got a call from your mom.”

Madeline pursed her lips and picked at the skin around her nails, Layne ran her hand over her mouth to cover the quirk in her lips at the familiar mannerism.

“Your mom filed a missing person’s report on you. Lucas said in the report that you were fighting with your dad, can you tell me about it?”

Tears swam up and surfaced on the girl's eyes but she blinked them back and swallowed heavily. She stalled momentarily by pulling one of the boxes of pizza to herself and inspecting the inside. Simple five cheese blend which seemed to satisfy the need for distraction as she pulled a piece off of the pie and took a large bite. Layne waited patiently, grabbing one of the diet sodas and cracking it open.

“I told Dad I wanted to call you myself. I saw you on another news conference, it was with the Black Widow, I told him about my powers. I told him I wanted to see if you could teach me how to use them so that I could help save the world too. He got really mad, screamed about how you were a disgrace to the family and how you were dating a monster because of everything,” Madeline’s voice was barely above a whisper as she chewed at her pizza.

Layne nodded and sighed, that definitely sounded like her eldest brother. “Do you remember where they found you?”

Madeline looked up from the soda she had just opened with confusion. “They came and got me from the house. Dad grounded me to my room, but I heard him on the phone calling one of those…conversion camps? The ones where they take your powers away. I tried to call Mom to come and get me, but my phone wasn’t working.”

Layne tried to keep her face neutral despite the burning anger she felt in her gut. Her brother, possibly knowingly, called Hydra to his front door. But whether out of ignorance or not she knew she would have to step in. Fishing her phone out of her pocket she slid it across the table to her niece.

“I told your mom you were safe, you should give her a call and then we’ll get you to a real room so you can get some sleep,” Layne said softly and pushed her chair back to stand up.

“What about Lucas and Rosie? What happens when Dad finds out they have powers too?” Madeline asked playing with the phone in her hands.

Layne froze with her hand on the door handle and looked back down at her niece. “I’m going to take care of them, don’t you worry. Call your mom, eat, and then I’ll have an agent take you to your bedroom, okay?”

Madeline nodded her head. “Thanks, Aunt Layne.”

“Anytime, kiddo. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

Daniel rocketed out of the observation room when Layne closed the door.

“Go bags, now. Wheels in ten,” Daniel barked and him and Layne both ran to the elevators.

#bucky barnes x layne hardin #winter soldier x layne hardin #bucky barnes #winter soldier #bucky barnes fanfiction #winter soldier fanfiction #avengers fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #avengers #marvel #shadows on the horizon

[dp-pastandpresent]

Past and Present: Chapter 26

Sam was in her homecoming dress, staring over the side of the high school roof.

'No, Sam, don't even think about jumping…'

She looked down, the ground below feeling further and further away the longer she stared.

'Tonight was supposed to be a good night, but instead it's the worst. I just need it to end…'

One foot off the ledge, Sam was feeling dizzy. Her heart was beating fast. She couldn't breathe.

"No turning back now."

She looked down again. The ground was right there. She could just take one more step and keep on walking.

Closing her eyes, she began to count out loud.

"One…"

"Two…"

"Three…"

Her second foot left the ledge.

She was falling, closer and closer towards the hard concrete below, her dress blowing around her.

There was no time to scream, no time think. She just kept falling…

-- Sam lurched forward, waking herself up from her nightmares only to find a set of glaring red eyes looking down at her.

'Great, another nightmare.'

She blinked, hoping he'd go away, but he just floated there waiting for her to say something.

"Would you stop staring already?" she said angrily.

He just grinned.

"Seriously dude! Can't you just take me home? I've been here for days, and you don't really need me for anything!"

"That, my dear, is incorrect," he finally said.

Sam raised an eyebrow, questioning once again her captor's motives.

"Which part?"

The grin returned to his face as he let out a small chuckle.

"You have not been here for days. Not really..."

"Well it sure feels like it!"

"That's the temporal time system of my realm, you silly girl. Making you think you've been here for days when in your world it's only been hours."

Sam got up, still adapting to the unsteady ground, and lunged forward, ready to smack the ghost in front of her. But he disappeared and reappeared behind her, causing her to fall forward.

"When will you learn that it's pointless to attack me? "

"When you learn it's pointless to keep me here. Clearly I know nothing about Danny's destiny."

"Incorrect again," he replied slyly, changing forms.

Sam stopped, confusion clear on her face. She had known that there must be a reason they were drawn to each other, she and Danny, but she had always assumed it was because of her Grandmother. She had never really thought of it as much more.

"His humanity," she finally said after a few moments of contemplation.

The ghost looked at her; his young eyes had a playful glow to them.

"I thought I 'wouldn't understand'" she asked, adding sarcasm to her last part.

"Time changes things, child, and in the time you've been here, I've discovered just how smart you are. So, why don't you tell me what you think about his humanity?" Clockwork grinned.

She looked back at her captor distrustfully before finally speaking. "His humanity only started to return when he saved me. When we started hanging out. When we…" She blushed, not wanting to discuss her intimate affairs with a ghost, even though she was sure by now he had watched them happen.

He returned to his adult form and floated closer to her.

"Smart indeed. And now you are beginning to understand. You, my dear, are the key to Danny's destiny. Without you, he cannot possibly fulfill the prophecy he was born for."

--

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Clockwork rose from his chair, the book falling to the floor. He quickly turned to his screens, which were all currently showing different scenes from a young boy's life, and flipped them all off.

"What is it? Can't you fools tell I'm busy!"

He waved his staff, releasing the protection shield from his door and allowing several ghosts to come floating in.

The three ghosts were each wearing a nice looking robe paired with a vampire-like cape. Their bodies were green, and they had domed heads with a single eye in the middle. Around their necks, a medallion like the ones Clockwork kept on his back wall glistened in the green light.

"You're shirking your duties again Clockwork!" the first one said.

"Ghosts are running rampant, attacking each other and breaking down realms!" said the second.

"You need to restore order before it's too late," the final one added.

Clockwork just rolled his eyes.

"You observants. You don't see anything important. It isn't my job to keep the peace around here, remember? That's what we hired Walker for."

"This is beyond Walker's scope, Clockwork," the first one said. "These ghosts are talking about invading your graveyard. They want to move on…"

Clockwork shook his head, "Lowlifes. It's not that simple! You can't simply find a plot and expect to leave this place!"

"They need your guidance to remind them of that," the second one chimed in. "Remember why you were created in the first place?"

Clockwork froze, trying to remember the last time he had actually helped a ghost move on.

'Has it been that long?' He thought, before adding, "Does it really matter anymore?"

Returning to reality, Clockwork gazed at his visitors. "I have other priorities!" he said loudly, glancing at the book on the ground.

The third observant caught his gaze and floated over to where the book sat. Picking it up, he looked at the open page and read aloud.

"One day there will come a being strong enough to wield the power of both realms…"

"Not that stupid prophecy again!" the first Observant shouted. "When will you learn that it has no importance. It's just a story!"

Clockwork's eyes turned a brilliant red as he glared at his visitor.

"WRONG. This prophecy has bearing on everything! And until I can finally figure out who that being is, I do not need your interruptions!"

Without even waving his staff, he flung the three ghosts backwards through his door. He allowed the shield to lock itself again before picking up the book.

"I'm so close to figuring out how this boy will save us all. I just need a little time."

--

"I've been studying ghost lore for centuries, trying to find the precise moment when the savior would come along and free us all from the darkness. It took countless hours and days and years to finally discover Daniel, and it's all thanks to you."

He grinned at the girl, who was sitting in a chair in front of his largest screen. He had been debating for days (hours) now how and when to finally tell her the whole story, and this morning's spat had finally convinced him.

'If I want her on my side, I need her to know the role she plays.'

"By now I'm sure you know about the prophecy."

She nodded, and before she could say more, he continued.

"I was certain for eons that I was the one destined to fulfill it, but as hard as I tried, I just could not remove that amulet. And then, one evening, this scene appeared on my screen."

He turned, flipping the channels with his mind to the scene with Danny and Sarah sick in bed.

Sam was taken aback. While she had viewed the photos on the Fentons' computer, she hadn't seen anything quite so personal.

"And that one scene told you….?" She crossed her arms.

"More than you can know, dear." He transformed to his older self and the screen next to the first flipped to a second image.

Sam gasped, unable to believe what she was seeing. There, on the steps of her house, were her and Danny, attempting to eat ice cream. What had shocked her wasn't the scene itself, but their appearance in the scene. While Sam was in her usual goth attire, Danny was fully human: Black hair, t-shirt, blue eyes. Not even a hint that he could be a ghost. And even if she had remembered the scene, the time stamp above told her otherwise: 2019

"How?"

"Exactly what I asked myself when I first discovered these two scenes. How could one human be in two different times, yet look as if nothing has changed?"

Sam was speechless, taking in his comments.

"And then it occurred to me. He had to be a ghost. But not just any ghost; a special one. No other ghost looks and acts like their human selves when they return: there's always some sort of change. Not to mention ghosts don't eat, sleep, or breathe, and they rarely leave the Ghost Zone. In fact, without me they rarely remember their past. "

"One of both realms," Sam said quietly.

"Exactly!" Clockwork almost shouted. "And so, my research began. I started watching scene after scene of Daniel and your grandmother, trying to find the exact moment when he would pass on. And I began researching resurrection, because I knew he wouldn't come back on his own."

"You planned this. The whole thing? Even Danny's death?" Sam asked, suspicion growing.

"What can I say? Fate was out of my control."

Sam jumped up from her seat, once again glaring at Clockwork.

"Out of your control! You've been controlling him since his first life! I'm pretty sure you could have let him say goodbye!"

"Don't test me, girl. Remember, you know NOTHING about how my job." His eyes were bright red again, and this time he found himself taking a mental hold of the girl, sending her back to her seat.

"I'm starting to get a pretty good idea," she muttered as she found herself forced to sit down.

"You should feel lucky I'm telling you these things at all."

"Why are you telling me these things?"

'I'm starting to regret this decision,' he thought.

"Like I told you, as much power as I have over the dead, I can only do so much to help him. But YOU…YOU are a part of his destiny. Without your support. Your friendship. Your… bleh… LOVE, he can't ever fully take on both forms."

Sam was about to interrupt, but stopped when she heard Clockwork mention love. Did she really love Danny? Yes, she had been feeling like they had a connection, and they had kissed and gone on dates multiple times, but could it really be true love? Or just another manipulation?

The mention of 'both forms' also caught her interest.

"Both forms?" she enquired again, raising the other eyebrow.

"Picture this: I, Clockwork, the master of all time, finally figure out resurrection and bring one Daniel Fenton back from the dead, only to find that he is a full ghost, not the human I hoped he'd be."

"So?"

"So, in the scenes I saw of him with you, he's always a human. As much as I looked, I never found a scene with him as a ghost, but yet, when he came back, there he was, full ghost. Something must have blocked my screens from picking up all the things that have happened until they happened. Things were clicking in Sam's mind as she did the math. Was it possible that Clockwork's vision only extended so far? And even more so, was it possible for Danny to fully regain his humanity because of her?

"I realized that he was truly both. Not just a human who had been resurrected, but a ghost with the power to become human. And that power, my dear, is linked to your love."

--

Sam was holding the book, having just finished reading the prophecy for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"But he already removed that amulet," she said at last, then added, "and it's starting to give him power."

Clockwork smiled.

"Yes, girl, it is. But remember what we discussed? How his humanity begins to return when he's around you, or even when he's thinking of you? It can't just be a coincidence."

She had replayed the scenes in her head over and over again. The flickering glows, the hunger, even the complete transformation. They had all happened when they were together, and their emotions were high.

'Why me?'

"That still doesn't explain why he was able to remove the amulet," she sighed.

"Well of course not. I only showed you the prophecy. I didn't explain the true power behind it all. I'm sure even that fool Dora didn't know the whole story when she let Daniel take it."

Smirking again, he allowed Sam to let go of the book, and it floated up into his hands. He flipped the pages until he came to one a bit further back.

"The Amulet of Aragon is one of two amulets that exists in the realm of dragons . While the amulet belonging to the Prince Aragon is one of darkness, the Amulet of Aragon worn by the princess is that of light. Given to her by her true love, it became bound to her the day he died in the dragon's war. Drowning in depression, the princess took her own life shortly after, leading her kingdom into despare until finally it was eliminated from human existence. Since the day of her appearance in the ghost zoneshe shall be destined to transform whenever her emotions are high. Blah… blah… blah… You get the point." He shut the book loudly and looked back down at the girl.

"How come she didn't tell Danny all this when he took it from her?" Sam asked.

'Seems fishy to me.'

"Given how long it's been bound to her body, I doubt she even remembers its source anymore, my dear. Even ghosts tend to change and forget things with age."

Sam looked dryly back at Clockwork, unconvinced.

"Plus, she was probably so relieved to have it gone, she didn't have time to think. After all, if you had something bound to your body for eons, wouldn't you just be glad to be rid of it?"

'Well…'

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

"Don't roll your eyes at me,!"

Sam found herself succumbing to Clockwork's powers again as her legs moved against her will to stand up.

Clockwork blinked, and his eyes dimmed back down as the power left her body.

--

'What am I doing? I've never allowed my powers to control anyone, let alone a human, in this way. I need to focus. Regain control of the mission at hand!'

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." he apologized sincerely.

"It's… ugh… fine. Just please tell me what this has to do with my connection to Danny. I get that 'our love can bring him power' but…" she put the last bit in air quotes.

Clockwork floated down to her level, his eyes becoming soft.

'Be nice.'

"It's exactly what I read, Samantha. The amulet he has, it's made of light. It's connected to love. The same love Daniel has for you. It's what fuels its power."

Sam jerked back. She had been here for what seemed like days, and this was the first time Clockwork had called her by name.

'Say something, girl, anything. You can figure this out. You're smart.'

When she didn't respond, he added, "Think. Every time he's begun to turn human, it's been because of you. And every time he's needed his ghost powers, it's also been because of you. Because he needed to SAVE YOU."

He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder as a small tear appeared in one of her eyes.

She shuddered as his cold hand touched her shoulder, but she didn't jump back. Instead she allowed it to rest there for a bit as her teary eyes looked into his.

'Show some compassion. Make her see that you're right. You aren't the bad guy here…'

A wave of warmth flooded through his body down towards his hand, transferring to Sam's body through his touch. Upon feeling the warmth, Sam's tears stopped and she blinked.

"I'm, just so, so tired. And ready to go home." She sighed.

Clockwork removed his hand, but a little warmth remained in Sam as he turned to the screens behind him.

"Unfortunately, by now Daniel is on his way to save you. So sending you home would do no one any good."

Her tears stopped as her expression returned to that of worry.

"Danny? He's on his way?"

"Oh yes, precisely as I had planned, of course."

The warmth that he had shown momentarily vanished as he turned to his largest monitor and let it turn on, revealing what looked like a very scared Danny in a full-on body suit taking aim at another ghost holding up his own ecto-gun.

"Although, I didn't plan on him getting lost and running into an old friend."

Sam watched as Danny blasted the ghost, sending him flying across the realm before the screen went black.

Seeing her expression, Clockwork quickly responded.

"Oh, don't worry child. Skulker is harmless. Danny is fine. In fact, he's more than fine. Didn't you see? He's back to being a full ghost. All thanks to that amulet, and his desire to save you."

'Just as planned. Another test: Passed.'

He noticed a small grin and a look of revelation cross Sam's face as he said these words.

'I'll win her over yet.'

"So, he's in the Zone? And when he gets here? Then what?"

"We'll figure that out if he arrives. He has to pass my time barriers first." Clockwork smirked.

'The hardest test yet.'

"Time barriers? What else aren't you telling me about?"

By now Sam was standing again, and the warmth she had just felt had all but left her body. In its place was more anger.

Clockwork just laughed as he found himself aging up.

"The workings of my realm are a story for another day." He said as he allowed Sam's body to fall back into the chair.

#danny phantom #sam manson #clockwork #dpau #danny phantom fanfiction #phanfiction #fanfiction #danny phantom fanfic

[rwdestuffs]

Done dirty: Worldbuilding.

Not pictured: Actual worldbuilding.

In all honesty, I don’t know how to start this post.

Yeah, I have the image that’s there to help inform people about the subject at hand, but it’s hard to do a post about something that’s practically nonexistent.

Like, doing a post about how Yang got mistreated in certain volumes, and not getting development from facing the stigma from her Vytal Festival incident is one thing. So is pointing out how Sun is literally just there to be eye candy for Blake’s arc with little to no development to his character whatsoever. Same with how Pyrrha is just a prop for Jaune and a plot device to set off Ruby’s plot device. Same for the grimm in general, or dust.

Talking about writing concepts is hard because it has to be there for a person to talk about. Most mediums that take place in fictional worlds at least understand how to properly world-build.

There’s a show from the 80s that had better worldbuilding in it. And that show has a half-naked superhero cheap action figure as their main protector from an ineffective villain who needs a friend so that he could feel good about himself!

Joking aside, other worlds also have very little issue with worldbuilding. Like the Legend of Zelda games. Thanks to interaction with NPCs, the bits of lore that are scattered around, and the ways that it’s made, you can get a good idea as to how the world works. Hell! There are different species, and they all have different cultures and societies that are unique to them!

Zoras are prideful and are often talented musicians. They pride themselves on their sense of duty and order.

Gorons are prideful of their strength. They feed off of rocks, and they greatly enjoy competitions that show off their strength.

Gerudos are terretorial, and don’t like strangers. They’re a warrior race, and are proud of it. They only have one male child every hundred years.

This is from a Video Game. Admittedly, a Video Game with over twenty-five years of history and other mediums, but still! They managed to have distinct races and cultures despite their limited medium.

Look, the primary reason I’m avoiding the subject is because… there’s is no subject. There’s hardly any worldbuilding, and whenever there is, it’s often contradicted in a later episode, or through the director’s commentary. The same could be said about character traits, but I think I’ve covered that pretty well in other Done dirty posts.

Take the thing about gods, for instance. Qrow says, in the same scene I might add, this:

Which is it, Qrow?- Are people not religious, or have they made gods of their own?- Like… You have literal relics from the past that definitively proves one single religion. Sure, you’d have a few holdouts, but still!

Now that I think about it, uniting under a single religion would probably be enough for dickhead god 1 and ass-face god 2 to say “Yeah, humanity’s united. Okay, you’re all good.”

But we don’t get that.

Even in Marvel, where a literal Norse God regularly visits New York, there are a few skeptics. Here’s an article that details that storyline: https://arousinggrammar.com/2013/02/19/life-questions-with-thor/

Like… All I’m saying is that when you place something extraordinary into the real world, people tend to take the effort into thinking how society would adapt to it. Some people would adapt by thinking nothing is wrong at all, some would adapt by obsessing over it, some would make statues, some would resent the extraordinary, and so on. There are also ways in which the government could adapt. Like in the X-Men series, where the subject of mutant rights is often brought up so often, that you kinda want to see how other countries are handling it (Sidenote: Someone send this idea to Marvel so that the aren’t recycling and reusing the same storyline over and over and over again).

And if it doesn’t have that big of an impact on the ‘real world’ then they tend to find a way to showcase why. In Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Stands are invisible to normal people, so there is no reason for society to have adapted to their presence. In American Dragon Jake Long, the magical world is kept secret, so there’s no reason for there to be big societal adaptations for their presence. Same thing with the show The Life and Times of Juniper Lee (Does anyone remember these shows?- They were pretty good). And when the “fantastical world” does get exposed, like in X-Men or in Danny Phantom, there are societal adaptations. People and society adapt to what is new and not normal. It’s ultimately an interesting way to create a world based on the real world, but still feels separate from ours.

So yet again, we circle around to how the show fails at this. We don’t get the little interactions that make it easier to understand the world. We don’t get the moments that detail how dust changed society. The faunus racism is hardly a thing, and we don’t know if there are clothes specifically designed with faunus traits in mind. There are no societal protections against the grimm like walls around the cities or more emphasis on the importance of Hunters. Apparently the maidens have been around for a long-ass time, but there’s no recorded history of them despite the selection process being random at certain times.

Like, what?- Was there never news about sweet young Olive suddenly summoning the winds without dust or aura consumption?

And speaking of aura, does that cut down on accidents or murders?- What about semblances?- do they cut down on death caused by accidents or murders?- Do they contribute? We don’t know. And that’s because the writers didn’t want to create a. fantastical world that makes sense. They just wanted to get their characters from point a, to point b, and have a few fights along the way to build up tension that ultimately goes nowhere because the fights have no real stakes to them. Because the heroes always win. The only times they didn’t was the fight where Yang’s trauma got fixed the moment she put on her arm and the one where Qrow’s poisoning got fixed thanks to a Deus-Ex-Machina airship to Mistral.

Without stakes, the viewer is left to try to make sense of the world. Which they can’t do because there’s hardly any worldbuilding at all.

We know jack shit about Vale culture or how the society works, and what we do know came from Qrow’s biased review on the continent in the WoR video. Same with Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, and even Menagerie.

No worldbuilding. Just a travel pamphlet.

And I don’t want no stinkin’ pamphlet. I want a freaking book or website that details all the attractions, and the history of the place. What the people are like. What are the main means of trade. All the things that you could get out of good worldbuilding.

If I can’t have that, then at least build the actual overall world of Remnant. Like how dust effects society and makes it different from ours.

But we also don’t get that.

We get just some generic talks about how “Jaune used to go to a certain town with his family” or Generic backstory about the village that Ren’s family was slaughtered in.

Nothing special. Nothing to make me actually care about the towns.

Just some generic stuff that is never brought up again.

And I for one, am really sick of the world not actually feeling like a world.

I’m not asking for worldbuilding or made-up cultures on the level of Star Trek, but I am asking for is a bit of effort so that it doesn’t feel like the bare minimum was put into it.

#rwde #done dirty #writers crit

[cowandcalf]

H50 9.02 - Steve’s Oath

It’s this one scene that won’t let me rest. It’s always there, at the back of my head, poking, nudging my thoughts. After I’ve watched the episode last Friday I was all in to write another one-shot with Steve’s thoughts, but it would have eaten up too much time and because I’m busy with other writing on my to-do list I’ll go with a post on Tumblr. I try to explain what keeps my mind busy after I watched this scene with Steve and Greer in the interrogation room for a second and a third time.

During all the episodes of the last eight seasons, I’ve never experienced this special feeling that has been stirred to life watching this one scene, watching Steve and his reaction when Greer talks to him about her reasons why she has chosen another way, to regroup with the enemy. It’s nothing new to Steve to deal with people who have turned their back on their belief and their oath but this talk shifted something in Steve’s soul.

In a former episode Steve talked about his country, his America he as given the oath to serve and to protect. He was referring to it as she/her - “You swore to protect her and defend her.” Something like that. It’s always a moving moment to listen to Steve when he talks about his country he would give his life to protect. And America isn’t just a country to Steve, no, it’s a purpose to live for. To serve is in his bones, it’s something ancient that buzzes hidden but rhythmically in Steve’s cells and pulses through his whole body. It’s in his genes. (I dare to dramatically emphasize it like that.)

I’ve spent a lot of time to ponder about Steve and his dedication to being a servant for his mother country. And I try to catch this spark, this notion which is there but so very difficult to form into words. I never will fully understand what goads Steve to freely hand over his heart and his soul and serve as a SEAL. I’m not good at Military stuff and all the Navy and Naval intelligence information, ranks and what comes with all the education. But I’m good at reading people and I’m good with emotions. I try to make my explanation work.

I dare to say that nobody, not even Danny, nobody but Steve’s SEAL buddies know and understand what moves Steve when it comes to America and his duty to protect her. Freddie Heart was in tune with the same dedication. Steve’s motivation could be compared to the knight of the blackboard serving their king, King Arthur.

The oath Steve has sworn stays above everything else - and I mean everything. This oath has this touch of divinity and I also dare to say, that the attitude, this inner need, which forces Steve to make such a choice is the glue that holds Steve’s soul together. (And I don’t know if Steve had had the choice to be a SEAL without being sent away if he had made that choice and if he had followed that path - a whole other thread to talk about.) It’s in his genes to bow to such a task in the way he does.

To be a servant needs humbleness, it needs a pureness of a kind that’s very rare. There is loyalty and honestly and never ever is there a rear exit and a chance to change the mind. It’s not about what they choose, this is about what they are - what Steve is.

I’ve read the Artus Trilogy by Gillian Bradshaw (one of the best ever) and there is Gawain (he reminds me of Steve) - and he stole my heart. His story moved me beyond words and the love he has for his king is so big, that I won’t find the right words to describe what drives him closer and closer to King Arthur, with this single aim, this intense wish: to be a knight for his king, to present him his life and to fight for him, to die for him. I’ve never found more accurate words which are able to describe this dedication, to paint the undying love with words, to let me feel this everlasting and divine love, this fearless strength, this stamina to stand proud for their king, to fight till the last drop of blood, to defend their king with every inch of their soul. In the end, Gawain he’s one of King Arthur’s knights, his closest and his most dreaded knight, who goes berserk in battle, feeling no pain, no fear, being inhumanly strong - to fight for his King. Just like Steve and the way he fights for his country and for his people.

Steve’s belief in his country, in his oath, in his choice is set in stone, immovable and everlasting. He doesn't have seconds thoughts. He has never had them.

Betrayal of trust, to sell out this said oath, this belief in America is unforgivable for Steve. Btw, if I had to describe America in a mystique way I’d say: she is this female, ageless entity, old and beautiful and precious, a wise lady who truly owns Steve’s heart (like Galadriel from LOTR). Once someone has crossed this line, there’s never a way back. Steve suffers every loss of his fellow comrade.

And Greer was such a comrade and even a special one because he had feelings for her. This group of unique members speaking a language of their own, trusting each other with their lives, blindly and unconditionally. This group is small - and it gets smaller and smaller. Steve doesn’t have new comrades. The tightest bond has been build during his training and education days, during becoming a SEAL and being sent on missions. The group members get diminished and each and everyone who is lost to betrayal destroys something in Steve’s soul.

Greer’s betrayal destroys a part of Steve. It came out of the blue, unexpected - detonating like a meteorite in his heart. I’m sure he would have sworn under oath that she’s an honest soul. I guess the shock to misinterpret her character was as big as a shock as to find out she works together with the Chinese. Steve tries to fight all the fallout. And in the end, there is disgust, antipathy, and a deep-rooted aversion. This chasm isn’t to pass ever again. Steve won’t let this person back into his inner world. It’s over - forever.

But Greer does not only cut deep into Steve’s soul by turning her back on everything his life is built upon, there is something else she causes - it’s way crueler (from my point of view): she’s planted a seed of doubt in Steve’s soul when she said: “You think you’re such a good guy, Steve. But you’ve done things. Bad things. You can tell yourself they were in the name of doing some greater good. But were they, really?”

I have to admit that Greer has a point with what she's saying. And Steve doesn't want to hear it. His doubts flair up, being there, hovering in the air for a fraction of a second and I can almost see him squash them down where they can never arise again. I get the impression that Steve has a movie, racing through his mind, with all the terrible things he'd done in the name of this greater good, in the name to defend America, his Lady. I got the impression that Steve watches all the action, all his past (or at least a part of it) from a different angle for the first time in life. And maybe it's also because he has suffered so many losses and so many betrayals: from his mother, from Catherine and now from Greer. He desperately needs to understand, what the hell is wrong!?

Freddie got killed in action and cut a hole in Steve's heart. So far, he has faced every tragedy but somehow Greer and her speech get to him. And I wouldn't wonder if, for the shortest amount of time, there was an understanding forming in Steve’s mind why she did it. Or let me say, he wishes to understand because everything else kills him and chokes him and he can't grasp the logic, the hurt, and the failed trust.

I can't get rid of the image of the "Last Man Standing" when the world went to shit and crumbles to dust and there's only Steve trying to find kindred spirits to not feel so alone anymore.

Something bad has happened in Marrakesh and Steve hates to be reminded and his question "You threatening me?" tells me about this bad shit, that something epic went down and it went south and somehow Steve was able to sit on that lid of that pandora box and kept everything hidden and stored away – until now.

Have you ever witnessed this odd, strangely unfamiliar expression on Steve's face? He seems torn as if the memories itself deform his face, and suddenly this onslaught of memories are attacking him from different angles. And the worst is to know that his ally has just turned his back on him, being a fraud and a terrible disappointment. Two heavy blows to his heart. Again, Steve stands alone, bereft of this invisible strength that always keeps him upright. It's part of his backbone, this belief in his country and in his oath and in his comrades.

I can't get rid of the feeling that Steve starts to think about his actions and if it was the right thing to do. I guess I could go on for another hour, but the most important fact from this scene is the way Steve's inner world crashes down. Losing Greer to the enemy has a severe effect on how Steve sees himself - I guess? At least I've got the impression that he's struggled a moment, stumbled and caught himself. He walks tall again, but there's this heaviness now wafting around his chest. Something is off, and it worries him deeply.

And Danny – Danny can't help him, because Danny doesn't belong to this world. The Navy is like a separate realm in Steve's mind and in his life. He only can share openly with comrades who have sworn the same oath.

I'm interested what others think about this scene. Have I exaggerated? Have I interpreted too much into that scene? And after I've written that long essay, I'm still convinced that this scene was so painful for Steve because again, it has caused a major shift in his tectonic plates within his soul.

#steve mcgarrett #meta #steve and his oath #steve and his relationship with greer #steve and greer #h50 9.02 #my personal opinion #this one scene #other opinions? #if you like to chime in?

[lordofpinecrest-blog]

SEASON 8 EPISODE 6 THE FINAL THE IRON THRONE

In this Lord’s opinion, it was going to be impossible to please everyone with the last episode of what is arguably the greatest show ever on TV. Plots had to closed and we needed to see what the future would bring. So in the end, I really liked it. Not the action of the last two weeks, but it brought the closure we needed. It all started with the Starks, and it all ended with the Starks. Back to the basics-family and trust and hard choices that had to be made to do what was right. And while I did not predict Bran be the King, I did predict the Iron Throne being melted and Drogon flying away.  And for those who didn’t like the final episode, as Ser Carl said to me-What did you want? Tell us. So let’s get to it.

We start with Tyrion, as he walks in silence taking in the total destruction of what was formerly his beloved city, Kings Landing. Bodies burned, buildings in rubble and ashes tumbling to the ground. In the visions, I think all of us mistook what we thought was snow, for what we now know is ash. A different type of Winter has besieged the capital. Behind him, also in silence, are Jon Snow and the Onion Knight. Tyrion finally saying he is going on alone, with the Onion Knight saying it wasn’t safe. Tyrion knew he had to go alone to search for his brother and sister.

Back on the streets, we see that the Queen is Mad. Grey Worm is set to execute prisoners on their knees on his Queen’s orders. A repeat stare down from last week between Jon and Grey Worm until Ser Davos wisely tells Jon to retreat and to speak to the Queen. I recall Ned Stark and Jaime Lannister in a similar scene in Season One.

Three things. First, As Jon walked away, I thought he and Grey Worm would come to blows later on and that Jon would kill him. I was wrong. Second, when Rob Stark was King of the North, some of his men killed Lannister prisoners and Rob actually killed one of his own men as punishment.  One of the results of that event was Roose Bolton turning against Rob and conspiring with Tywin Lannister which led to the Red Wedding. Third, it did reinforce our feelings that Danny was mad.

And as expected, the Imp goes down to find his fallen brother and sister and weeps over their dead bodies. Digging them out to see their faces. I guess we had to see them to prove that they were dead. As Tyrion bangs the bricks in frustration, was he more frustrated with Cersei’s hubris for failing to surrender or was he more upset with himself for failing to see that Daenerys was mad? Either way, he knows he has betrayed her Grace for the last time.

Next we see Jon, with head down, walking toward the steps of what is left of the Red Keep. He is  surrounded by the Dothraki and Unsullied armies and not looking so sure of himself. We see the Targaryen banner flying high. Arya is there too. Last last time we saw her we  thought she left on a white horse. Could she be back to kill our Queen? As Jon climbs the steps, it looks like there could be that confrontation with Grey Worm, as they engage in another stare down. That is avoided as the Mother of Dragons arrives on the back of the mighty Drogon. As Her Grace comes out,  the cameras make it look like she has wings!! I give them an A+++ for great cinematography.

As The Mother of Dragons begins her speech,  we know who she is and isn’t. She starts her speech by shouting to her troops “Blood of my Blood.” What does that mean? To me, it means that Daenerys is a foreign invader. She does not consider the heritage of what, over centuries, it meant to be a Targaryen in Westeros. And her troops stomp their spears in approval. Sort of savagery and she eats it up. She names Grey Worm commander of all her forces, Master of War. But why need a Master of War after she won? The answer comes quickly. She is not done but is consumed with power. She believes she is the Great Liberator. They have liberated Kings Landing from the grip of a tyrant. But they will not lay down their swords until they have liberated all the people of the world. And next came the words that I believe helped seal her fate—From Winterfell to Dorne. After that would come the rest of world to break the Wheel. Isn’t that how every despot thinks of him or herself?

Tyrion comes out and joins Jon in looking totally terrified as to what could come next. And Danny does look consumed with mad power. Great facial expression on her face. As Danny looks down at the Imp the lines were fantastic. “You freed your brother. You committed treason” To which Tyrion replies “I freed my brother. And you slaughtered a city.”  As Tyrion abdicates his position as Hand of the Queen, Daenerys hesitated. She could have burned him as she did  Lord Varys. But I saw a hint of regret and feelings in her eyes as she just ordered him taken away.  Danny stares at Jon-was she looking for his approval as to what she had done? I say yes.

And what followed next was what the Game of Thrones was all about from the beginning. The Stark family. Sure they were almost wiped out and down on their knees. But look what Arya says to Jon when Jon says Daenerys is everyone’s Queen. “Try telling  Sansa. She (meaning Danny) knows who you are; who you really are. You will always be a threat to her.” And finally, from a true assassin, “ I know a killer when I see one.” Chilling words. Nobody could disagree with that assessment. Family has to come first.

Next we have Jon visiting the Imp in jail. To me, it reminded me of Season One when Lord Varys visited Ned Stark in his cell. And as Tyrion takes confession, he says that he would do it again, that he chose his fate, that Kings Landing didn’t. What was behind that? Was he saying his reasoning  for following Daenerys was right, but that the result wrong? A bit strange. And how foolish did Jon look when he said the war was over? HELLO? I guess he missed Danny’s speech to her armies as the Imp had to remind him of what it meant. The Mad Queen will continue to wage war until, in her mind, she liberates all the people of the world. And as they argue the rights and wrongs of what the The Mother of Dragons did and what the Lannisters had done, the overwhelming question came to light again “Would you have done it?” Like last week, Jon doesn’t answer but we know his answer is no.  Tyrion goes on with one the best speeches and explanations the show has ever done. When Jon asks what does it matter what I do, Tyrion replies “It matters more than anything.” He then goes through Her Graces history of killing evil men to liberate the innocent. And that each time, they cheered her and she grew more powerful and more sure that what she was doing was good and right. She believes her destiny is to build a better world.  And who wouldn’t kill everyone in their way to achieve that noble goal?  Tyrion, tearfully, admits his love  for Danny. He believed in her with all his heart, and that “love is more powerful than reason.” But then Jon replies “Love is the death of duty.” Which was a quote from Maester Aemon from the Wall. For those of you who don’t know, Amon was a Targaryen who became a Maester and served in the Citadel. He was offered the Iron Throne, but declined in favor of his younger brother, Aegon V, who was the father of the Mad Kind.  Things might have been different if Aemon had accepted the Iron Throne. But is amazing how they tie everything together. And that leads to Tyrion’s reply “Sometimes duty is the death of love.” Jon is the shield that protects the realms of men, always tries to do the right thing. “Do you think I am the last man she will execute? Who is more dangerous than the rightful heir to the Iron Throne?”(Did he warg with Arya to say that??) Tyrion, in the space of a few minutes, has explained the Mother of Dragons perfectly and given the most thoughtful and best speech over the Eight Seasons. But was it Tyrion’s last line “What about your sisters. Do you see them bending the knee?”  And that while Sansa doesn’t get to choose, Jon does and it has to be NOW! And as Jon walks out, we learn that Tyrion’s and Arya’s speech have sealed Daenerys’ fate.  For Jon must do his duty, despite his love for Danny. This scene, which lasted 9 minutes, may be one of the longest one on one scenes over the Eight Seasons. The dialog was brilliant! So stop complaining my loyal subjects.

Jon is on his way to meet Daenerys when Drogon rises out of the ashes. Drogon senses a Targaryen coming, but does he sense something much more? Or did Drogon just let Jon pass because he was a Targaryen? Could Bran have warged into Drogon to give him safe passage? Food for thought.

Think how the next scene develops. Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, sees the Iron Throne, but SHE NEVER GOES TO SIT ON IT! She turned away from the ultimate prize to face her lover and rival. And while Danny cheerfully gives a brief history lesson of the formation of the Iron Throne, Jon takes away that smile with the accusation of Her Grace giving the order to execute Lannister prisoners. In a way, Daenerys was right that Cersei was using the innocent as a weapon against her, to weaken her. So in her mind, her actions, as horrible as they may have been, were justified. Many agree. Jon begs Danny to have mercy, but her vision of mercy is far different from John’s. And then the tell tale line. Danny is going to build a good world.  Jon “How do you know it is good.” Daenerys “Because I know what is good.” That is the line of every mad despot who has ever been in power. You can see it in her eyes.  Jon “and what about all the other people who think they know what is good.” Danny’s reply is what the fear is “They don’t get to choose.” As she says they will do it together, break the Wheel together, the last word our Mother of Dragons hears is Jon saying “You are my queen, now and always.” And then WOW WOW. Jon stabs and kills The Mother of Dragons as their lips are locked in a final kiss.

What happened next, I partially predicted. Drogon comes to the side of his fallen Mother. He senses her death. I also think he senses Jon’s love for his mother. It sounds as if his first moans are ones of grief. Then he growls in anguish and then anger. He faces Jon with flames rising in his throat. But he turns and unleashes his flames elsewhere, finally melting the Iron Throne. He then carries his Mother and flies away. Drogon, the breaker of chains. To where? Back to his home as I predicted he would. I thought this was a GREAT scene. Jon had to make the ultimate choice, to kill his lover and do his duty. How magnificent was it to see Drogon just fly away?  Drogon knew it was right to melt the Iron Throne and go home. For those that did not like it, tell me: did you think Daenerys should die? If not why? And if so, by somebody other than Jon? I think they got it right. Before Drogon demurred to Jon and flew away, did you think Drogon was going to burn him and would Jon be flame retardant? That might have been a good scene before Drogon left. And where did Drogon go? Must guess Valyria as that is where the dragon started. But I don’t think so, as that is where the Doom occurred.  I think he went back to where he was born, the only place he felt at home.

Next we have Tyrion contemplating what he must think are last minutes of his life as Grey Worm leads him out of his cell.  Tyrion is led out from to the Dragon Pit where somehow, all the Lords of Westeros have arrived to sit judgement. The problem is that until seeing Jon with his beard, we did not know how much time had past, but it does appear that weeks have past. They are there to pass sentence of Tyrian. And who was there? Front and center, are the Starks-Arya, Sansa and Bran. Sorry Ser Lane, looks as if Rickon did die. We also have Ser Davos, Gendry, Brienne of Tarth, Edmure Tully, some Dornish Prince, a more gown up, if you call it that, Robin Arryn and the ever irritable Asha Greyjoy. The most powerful group in Westeros. Good thing Drogon didn’t come back to toast them in revenge!! Some criticize the inclusion of people of lesser stature, but who was left???

Sansa asks Grey Worm where Jon is as they were both supposed to be brought before the council. Grey Worm, in complete defiance says “We will decide what to do with our prisoners.” Grey Worm, after all this time, with his master dead,  has joined the ranks of choosing. And as Sansa and Grey Worm go back and forth to jockey to see who is the most powerful, Asha take Grey Worm’s side as the Iron Throne are not so quick to forgive. She wants the Unsullied to execute Jon. But not to be undone, Arya jumps all over her “Say another word about killing my brother and I will cut your throat.” Family; Jon is still her brother. The voice of reason, as always, is the Onion Knight. Enough with the killing. Grey Worm, who is not totally wrong, says they don’t need payment, they need justice. After all, to Grey Worm, Daenerys freed him and his people and Jon is a Queenslayer.

Tyrion to Grey Worm-it is not for you to decide to which Grey Worm replies “You are not hear to speak. Everyone has heard enough words from you. “ Tyrian the wise, agrees and adds “and nobody is any better for it.” Hard words for him to say as he has misjudged so many which, unfortunately, resulted in great death and destruction. The problem is that Jon’s fate is for the King or Queen to decide, but as Ser Royce pointed out, they don’t have one.

Thus began the process to choose a new King or Queen. Edmure babbles on until Sansa “politely” says please sit. She knows he is a fool. Next up we have Sam, who proposes that the people have a say in it. The others laugh and make fun of him. Asked, the Imp says he doesn’t want the crown. Instead, Tyrion says it should be Bran the Broken. And why? Because stories unite people, nothing is more powerful than a good story as nothing can stop them. Think back to season one, the stories Nan told a young Bran. And who better to tell those stories than Bran? He is our memory, the keeper of all the stories. And isn’t that why the Nigh King wanted Bran dead? Another magnificent speech by Tyrion. Did Sansa show her true colors when she “objected” to Bran becoming King? I think she did! But in the end, they all agree that the King should be chosen not by birth, but by a vote of the Noble Houses. As they vote Ban King, he says “Why do you think I came all this way?” The wheel that Daenerys broke, is now put back together in a different way. So in the end, it was Bran’s purpose and destiny to become King. All say “aye” except Sansa. She loves her litter brother, and thinks he will be a good King. But says the North will remain an independent kingdom, she will not bend the knee to him. And as his first decision as King, Bran  nods his head and Bran the Broken, the First of His Name, becomes King of the Six Kingdoms. Bran’s second action is to appoint Tyrion as the Hand of the King to fix all the mistakes he has made.

Then we Jon, with a weeks old beard and looking tired. Tyrion tells him that to avoid a war, King Bran is sending him back to rejoin the Nights Watch. I liked Jon’s reaction “there is still a Night’s Watch?” Good question since the purpose of the Night’s Watch is gone. And in another poignant moment, Jon asked Tyrion if it was right what he did, to which Tyrion says “What we did.” And when Jon says it doesn’t feel right, Tyrion looks him in the eye and says “Ask me again in 10 years.” This time the Imp hopes he has backed the right horse. They end the scene with Jon saying “I don’t expect we will be seeing each other again” to which our little Hero says “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Great ending to their scenes together. And didn’t Tormund say something similar to that to Jon last week? I think he did.

As Jon leaves, his eyes lock with Grey Worm’s hatred stare. Grey Worm and the Unsullied are headed to the Isle of Naath, which is an island in the Summer Sea and the home of Missandei. The island of butterflies. Maybe Grey Worm will find his peace there.

But then he is met by his FAMILY. Sansa, saying it was the only way and can he forgive her. He forgives her as she freed the North. And when Sansa says the North lost their King, Jon says they got the best they can ask for, the daughter of Ned Stark who can speak for him. They embrace in big and real hug.

Next in line is Arya, always Jon’s favorite. Arya tells them she is going to a place nobody knows-west of Westeros, where all the maps stopped. She still has Needle, and they embrace as well. Tear jerker!!

And finally Bran. Jon bends the knee and says “I am sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.” To which Bran replies “You were exactly where you were supposed to be.” The Tree Eyed Raven speaks as Jon sails away to his destiny with the Starks looking on.

I am going to fast forward a bit. We see Brienne write in the White Book where each member of the King’s Guard has a page to detail his deeds. Brienne is finishing Jaime’s page and writes he died protecting the Queen. Nice twist leaving out the bad. In the books, it is the responsibility of the Lord Commander of the Kings Guard to update the entries in the White Book. Does that mean she is now Lord Commander of the Kings Guard? Presumably so.

Not going to spend too much time on the Small Council. It was funny how Tyrion re-arranged the chairs. Was it a political comment on our times how those in the military want the most from the  treasury while other, more meaningful people, want it for things like clean water?

And then there is Sam with the Song of Ice and Fire. The history of the world since the death of King Robert. But Tyrion is not in the book. For those of us who read the prequals, it is fitting. For as Tyrion says, he might have been mentioned less than favorably. Some had surmised that the entire show was a look back through Sam’s eyes, like the show Lost, that it had already happened. So much for that theory. What was curious was the reference to Drogon. In an early Season, there was a reference in the Small Council to the reappearance of dragons. They scoffed at it. But now they know Drogon is out there and maybe Bran can warg into him. Maybe he will need Drogon to return to hold the peace.

North to the Wall, or what is left of it. The horn blows signaling Jon’s return. The gate opens and we first see Tormund. And then scenes cut to Arya and Sansa. Each looking to complete their journey. I loved the way they went back and forth.

Sansa, declared Queen of the North, Queen of the North!

Arya walking on a ship to sail to nowhere on a ship with a Direwolf curved into the bow

And Jon walking amongst people who care and look up to him. And YES!! The reunion with GHOST!! They smile at one another as Ghost gives him the lick!  Jon and Tormund, led by Ghost, and followed by “his people” leave the Wall and head north. For you see, Jon is home and king again, this time King Beyond the Wall. The end!!

Again, I know many of you and some, if not all critics, didn’t like ending or the final season but I did. Watch it again to see what you missed. The last episode came full circle and answered many of our questions. We found out what the Wheel was and how it could be fixed. We saw an end to a tyrant who didn’t know she was a tyrant and would have kept the killing.  We saw Tyrion complete his circle, now for third time being the Hand, with the promise that he has learned from his mistakes. And such Emmy winning dialog on his part. We discovered that Bran knew all along where he would end up-King of the Six Kingdoms. Sansa filled her destiny by becoming the opposite of what she started out to be, Queen of the Six Kingdoms. Arya fulfilled her destiny by doing what she always wanted to do-explore and not be subject to anybody.

And finally it ends with Jon Snow, Fire and Ice. When Tyrion told Jon his fate, I think Tyrion knew is wasn’t a punishment. Where else could Jon go? And wasn’t the Wall and that part of the North his home? Jon, back with GHOST was special as they rode off into the woods with the knowledge that the Starks reign supreme! Fantastic fade out.

Just an FYI-choosing a picture to accompany my blog isn’t always easy. So this time I chose two, I hope you approve.

So there it is. My last blog for the Game of Thrones. It has been an honor and pleasure to write this and I hope you enjoyed my endless and much too long tales as much as I did writing them. But now, My Watch is Over.

GEROS ILAS!

The Lord of Pinecrest

[replicarters]

hellraiser 3 funtime carnival, pt 1

it has been an age since i've done an old school picspam like this. back in the livejournal days, i lived for this shit. i took my f-list through a horde of awful, awful films starring very attractive women, but everybody had a good time along the way and i miss that rush of communal drunken laughter. so when i texted kristen and i said "will you watch hellraiser 3 with me" and her response was "ughhhhh do i have to", she suggested maybe i just livetweet it. i said to her no buddy, i'll do you one better, i'll do this. i think this is the kind of experience that's going to be much better with visual aids, because i gather it's disgustingly violent.

i don't know anything about hellraiser. i'm not into horror movies; i'm actually several levels of baffled by the legions of horror movie aficionados in the world who are passionately drawn to the aesthetic quality of blood and guts and buy these movies on vhs, ld, dvd, bluray, and watch hacking and slashing over and over and over again and take screenshots of the artsiest parts of people having their brains splattered on walls by hideous monsters. i don't get it, but there's a part of me that wants to understand it? wish i could be an art house horror movie critic like the cool hipsters. PERHAPS i can get a little closer to the delightful rainbow horror vortex through hellraiser 3, which horror movie people apparently don't like that much. is it because there's not enough killing in it? are there not enough visible intestines? well, i won't hate it, i don't THINK, because i'm here for one reason and one reason only and that reason is terry farrell, exactly one year before ds9 and cute! Cute!!

maybe be wary because i'm not going to shy away from nasty screeshots, but otherwise, pull out your genuine hasbro ouijas and get ready to commune with zozo because we're goin in babyyyyyyyy

the year is 1992, dan quayle has just harangued murphy brown for having a baby out of wedlock, and that's the only timeline gauge i have for 1992. i was a child. i was in kindergarten or some shit. i barely had a handle on my right hand vs. my left hand and was not old enough to watch a horror movie; i wasn't old enough to watch sister act. some of you reading this were not even born in 1992 and that's perhaps more nauseating than any severed body part i will see in this movie.

lmao the music is so orchestrally spooky and i'm like, "ohhhh no this was a bad idea" asldfhlahsld. i'm NOT a weenie, i can watch a shitty horror movie... it's a pretty sweet song actually, it's like, "satan is coming, and we're all going to suffer, but beautifully!" well, i hope that's true.

this kid with roaring red cowboy boots walks into an art gallery in the middle of the night and gives me the finger with his cigarette. IS THE HELLRAISER IN HERE? IS HE GOING TO RAISE HELL INTO THIS BOY? ARE THERE ANY SECURITY GUARDS ON DUTY PAST THIS GALLERY'S REGULAR BUSINESS HOURS?

a statue of tits and asses and whatever else slowly spins. art!

rebel boy approaches, ignoring the really fascinating painting behind him of a scabby spooky ghost man realizing he's just run out of scrubbing bubbles and will have to disrupt the whole rest of his saturday cleaning day to head to fred meyer to pick up some more. damn it, gerald, if you'd gone to costco like everybody else, then you'd have 99 scrubbing bubbles AND you'd have gotten free trail mix samples.

AAHHH THAT'S IT THAT'S THE ZOZO CUBE. that's the THING that the THING is in DO NOT TOUCH THAT. it's gonna get touched. a lot, i'm sure.

uh, okay, where's that museum security because this guy just got in here. "you want it?" he asks. do i want... a 99 pack of scrubbing bubbles? yeah, i mean, i can always use more... you can never have too many scubbing bubbles.

that's not what he's asking, he's asking whether rebel kid wants to have the naked zozo obelisk. rebel kid asks how much he wants for it. hobo man says "whatever you think it's worth".

and they make a drug deal out of it while an Evil Beast Sound plays in the background. if there's anyone i don't trust with a cube of vacuum-sealed evil, it's this wannabe edgelord danny from grease. hell is that much closer to getting raised!!

oh my god, yes. this is joey and she's my daughter and i love her. I WILL PROTECT HER FROM THE CUBE MAN WITH MY BARE HANDS. actually i think she's going to protect me, you, and all of creation from the cube man, so that's good i'm really looking forward to it.

oh no she's extremely cute. and struggling with journalism things, but that is something i can only marginally pay attention to because...

...off to the side here nurse nancy is laying out all sorts of tools while ill-boding sounds happen. it has only been 6 minutes.

DUDE! you guys fucking remember GTE??? holy fug that's a blast from the past... damn. so's this giant phone, which the cameraman picks up while just saying, "speak." love it.

wh-what is the significance... ahhhh......

cameraman is getting called away to some BREAKING NEWS, and he's a good old man so he tries to bring joey along but they're like nah. he says things'll be okay, the story of her life may be just around the corner! yeah, and it's gonna be something not even klonopin could take the edge off of.

oh god. nurse nancy takes out a saw and strokes it.

WHY IS IT DARK IN HERE I THOUGHT THIS WAS A REGULAR HOSPITAL. i mean, obviously not with nurse nancy's jagged metal fetish.

suddenly there are sirens, and paramedics burst through the door carting a guy with...

BLOODY CHAINS???? FROM WHERE????? WHAT???????

i can't begin to understand this. there's a guy, just here all of a sudden, with bloody fucking chains hanging all over him. but most hilariously, one of the paramedics says, "you ever seen anything like this before?" and the other one goes, "yeah, yeah, sure!" YEAH, YEAH, SURE? you've seen a guy before with chains protruding from his epidermis? fucking WHEN? don't say the last time you got the marijuana munchies because that doesn't count.

ohhhh shit, that's NEWS! how did the cameraman miss this cavalcade rolling into the er on his way out the door? from where in time did this all COME FROM? oh my god i'm so confused.

this girl from hot topic keeps saying this had nothing to do with her, she was just there, can she go now? dude. the guy. has chains. coming out of his skin. i know that's more of a party city at halloween kind of thing but you have to be at least a little more concerned, i would think.

hot topic girl says this happened at "the boiler room", so, i'm definitely crossing that right off my list of places to visit in my lifetime. all places named boiler room, in every corner of the 48 continental united states. don't care, not going to them.

all of a sudden there's a huge pop from the or along with flashing lights. aaaahhh!!! joey runs toward it, eager for news that not one sane person will believe, while hot topic girl is like "fuuuck that" and leaves.

well, this is what's going on in the or. somebody touched the side while trying to get the charley horse...!

mmmyeah everything is disgusting. this guy's seizing, the chains are yanking on him, electricity is crackling, all the doctors are like ahhhh what the fuck!

VERY SAME

oh, and then?

the guy's head explodes.

it has now been... 8 minutes and 44 seconds. i have at least 82 more minutes. of this. this was a baaaaaaaaaaad idea. maybe the worst i've ever had. i'm scared, you're scared, heads have exploded, and there's 82 minutes left for it to get so much worse.

this nurse is sobbing, i don't know how that bloody hand print got there, there is blood all. over. the floor. blood is dripping from chain guy's corpse, which incidentally now has no head. closed casket for sure!

joey literally falls her way out of the or and tries not to vomit. pretty normal reaction to watching the very real consequences of too much margarita monday at the boiler room.

prepare for it? uh, i don't know if you were paying attention but it just fucking happened, at the darkest hospital in the city which apparently hasn't paid its electricity bill in three years.

we all gotta decompress from that shit. let's all breathe, do some light meditation...

NO, NO TIME FOR DECOMPRESSING, ONLY JUMP SCARES NOW. this HAND comes out of GODDAMN NOWHERE to slam on the window of this MOVING BUS WHAT'S HAPPENING I DON'T KNOW ARE YOU SCREAMING BECAUSE I'M ALSO DOING THAT! MY EARS ARE FULL OF SCREAMS AND THEY'RE ALL MINE!! WE CAN'T BOTH SCREAM TOGETHER THE DECIBELS ARE TOO HIGH!!!

oh, just kidding, it was only some hobo banging on the bus for no reason. haha! gotcha! oh, post traumatic stress disorder from watching a guy's head go off like your uncle's 4th of july fireworks show, it's hilarious.

back at the studio, joey and cameraman and other guy whose role i don't know at this point in time are all watching tapes, and other guy is like "listen you gotta show em some thigh and then you'll be an anchorwoman." i mean, just show me some thigh, just a little. i don't need a whole lot. well, joey wants to do this the right way, because she's an upstanding heroine who's not gonna sell herself out.

also she told them about the hospital horror show and surprisingly, they're not jumping all over that to believe it instantly. well, joey knows what she saw gosh dang it, and you do, too, unfortunately, thanks to my screenshots.

other guy's name is brad, which is very much an other guy name. brad.

ohhhh nononono, i don't want to be here, i'm not going in there.

the boiler room is a shitty club you have to pay $10 to get into, then once inside you have to look at, like, artists' renditions of death metal baby cirque du soleil performers. i don't know about you, but i feel right at home.

hey can anyone make sense of this outfit? asking for a friend.

joey tells a bartender she's looking for a pretty girl, and he's like, "oh yeah go that way." shocked that he wasn't like, "mmm, have you looked in a mirror? asking for a friend."

okay, and then we're in this place, with class and violins? is this part of the boiler room? is this an off-shoot of the boiler room? is this a restaurant next door whose owners lament "those fucking punk kids" next door with their rabble-rousing and their bloody chains?

oh hey, it's mr. late-night art connoisseur. he owns... either the boiler room or the restaurant, or both if i could figure out the relationship between the two. he tries to give joey a rose and she's like no thanks pal.

meanwhile hot topic is right over here. just... just look a little... a little farther to your left... just a little more...

and now we're doing saving private ryan! if i had an explanation for this aside from "somebody slipped me acid at work and i didn't notice until now", i would tell you.

joey didn't realize she had tickets to saving private ryan but here she is, watching the carnage. anyway spoiler alert it's all just a dream of her dad dying in vietnam or something.

the phone wakes her up and it's hot topic, calling to say she'll come over for a chat. her boyfriend threw her out so she'll trade her, they'll have a chat in exchange for hot topic having a place to sleep. joey's on board so let's see what's up with this girl.

this is how i sit everywhere i go, real fact.

hot topic's first question is what joey was dreaming about, and joey's like girl why do u care? it was just scenes from apocalypse now, don't you ever dream about that?

that fucking music starts again, the orchestral devil summoning one. they talk about dreams, and hot topic says it sure is cool, being able to have a dream, because she never has. girl... have you ever reached REM? are you all right? how are you alive?

"hey, this is great, isn't it? i mean, just, uh... two girls talking. having a conversation." yep, just in here having a conversation, delicately dodging the fact that beelzebub is out there waiting to knock down everybody's doors.

hot topic peer pressures joey into a cigarette and says, "what, do you think you're gonna live forever?" um, YEAH, she's gonna live like nine hundred years thanks to the worm inside her, thank you very much.

"OH," hot topic says, "you wanna talk about THAT?" yeah, that, the six flags halloween fright fest show that happened in the hospital. she says she doesn't know the kid, that he must have taken "it" from "the statue". ohhh dear. there that cube goes, getting touched all over by wandering hands.

OH GOD NO IT'S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT SHE HAS THE CUBE, I REPEAT, SHE IS IN POSSESSION OF THE CUBE. get that out of here it's dirty and you definitely have no idea where it's been. you have no idea whose guts have been splattered on it.

back at the weird boiler room ranch, danny zuko overlooks his bizarro domain, thinking about all the good times he's had here, all the sweet nights, all the instances of kids picking up devil cubes on his property and being speared with the metal that flies out of them.

pitiful crying noises there's the hole where the cube used to be and i'm peeing myself. god don't let anything come out of that hole i am BEGGING YOU MERCIFUL LORD

don't TOUCH IT OH MY GOD DO NOT STICK YOUR HAND IN THAT HOLE! OH MY GODDDD

I'M GONNA LOSE ITHFKDGHKAFKLG don't go digging around in this portal to the 9th circle oh my god please i'm holding my face bracing myself for this guy to lose his arm and spray blood like a hose

YEP SOMETHING CHOMPED DOWN ON HIM OHHHHHH SWEET JESUS i regret this i regret every choice that brought me to this moment in my life

here's the thing, all it was was a giant rat? but now...

something's happening...

theeee statue's sucking his blood in nnnoooohohohoho

ohhhhhh no HANG UP ZOZO. GET OUTTA HERE.

but this idiot's having the time of his life while the rabies from that rat sets in.

i can't take any more of this tonight i'm TOO PEEPEE SCARED and also it's after midnight and i need sleep. which i CAN'T GET NOW having gazed into the vortex of my demise.

scale of one to ten, this was a thirteen on horrible ideas, my computer is haunted now, i'm haunted, the hellraiser is coming FOR ME PERSONALLY, just as soon as he's done siccing his rats on unsuspecting frat bros slash business owners. ugh. UGH.

anyway, check out the hellraiser theme, it's tight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kswWeezE7hA

i'll see you again soon for more abject terror!

#picspam #terry farrell #ds9

[brokensoulstory]

Broken Soul: Thirty One

Night had fallen. Leighton's home was silent except for the back terrace where October was training Dannie. Evan watched from his window, making sure nothing would happen to her. He knew October wouldn't hurt her but there was always a chance that something could go wrong.

Dannie was able to swim through the first lesson effortlessly. She levitated objects with virtually no difficulty and practiced making darkness and light again. But, when she was told to control a small fire in the grass, that was where she started to feel drained.

"Danielle, are you alright?" October asked her once she noticed she had trouble focusing. "You aren't concentrating."

"I... I'm fine," Dannie uttered and kept her eyes locked on the flame despite the fact they felt too heavy to remain open. Her mind ordered the fire to die down but it only flickered once and then continued to crackle as if only the light breeze passed over it. She kept trying and the more she tried, the fainter she started to feel. It came to the point where her heart was pounding, breath was quick and her head was spinning. Her legs shook and she tried to stabilize but couldn't. "Danielle!" October exclaimed and caught her in her arms just after her legs had given out. She noticed Dannie's eyes were closed and she waited a moment to see if she'd respond in any way but she didn't. October wasn't sure of what to do or how to help her.

"What happened?" Evan asked her, even though he just saw the whole thing from his window.

"She passed out," October replied and they decided to take her inside to rest.

Dannie laid unconscious on her bed while Evan sat at her side. October stood in the open doorway, waiting to see if she'd awaken. Evan slipped his hand around Dannie's, hoping she'd feel his coldness and come to.

Leighton stepped into the room and passed by October who watched him closely as he approached the other side of Dannie's bed. He took her other hand and sat next to her as he felt her pulse, then studied her breathing. "So, what exactly happened?" he asked the other two. "She's exhausted. What was she doing when she collapsed?"

Evan spoke up. "She was outside with October. Training."

"Training for what?" Leighton asked and looked at the demon.

"I gave her some of my powers," October confessed. "I was trying to show her how to use them."

Leighton's expression turned horrified. "But why would you do that? Humans can't have demonic powers for long. Their bodies aren't strong enough to handle them. No wonder she collapsed."

"She seemed fine until now," October added. "I didn't think she would have any problems with them."

"How long has she had them?" Leighton asked.

"Just a few days."

"You have to take them away from her," Leighton advised. "It's the only thing you can do."

"I can't just take them from her," October told them. "It has to be done willingly. If I just take them, I could hurt her."

"I guess all we can do is wait for her to wake up," Leighton said. "Hopefully, it won't be much longer."

It felt like hours, but only minutes later, her eyes slowly opened and all three of the others hovered above her. "Danielle, how are you feeling?" Leighton asked her. "Do you remember what happened?"

She looked up at them with fuzzy vision and blinked a few times until their faces came into focus. "I... I think so," she uttered and tried to sit up. "I was outside with October and fainted, I guess. I'm not sure why it happened..."

"I think I do, love," Leighton declared and she watched him speak to her. "The powers October gave you are taking their toll on you. In short, you must give them back to her."

Dannie remembered how drained she felt last night fighting the demon. She didn't realize her powers had that effect on her, she thought she was just tired then. It appeared to be the same circumstance now. Of course, she knew she needed these powers to defend herself but if she couldn't handle them, she had no choice.

Evan and Leighton moved aside and let October approach her bedside. She sat beside Dannie and held her hand. "I must ask for this to work. Do you wish to release the abilities I have given you?"

Dannie actually wished she could keep them, at least one. But she replied, "Yes. Take them."

It only took a second and Dannie felt a shot of warmth rush from her hand into October's. She couldn't help feeling disappointed. "They're gone," she sighed and laid back on her pillow. "I barely even got to use them..."

"I'm sorry, Danielle," October said, still holding her hand. "I never should have given them to you."

"You were only trying to help," she replied and cracked a smile at her. She knew October didn't know it would have hurt her. She still believed October would never do anything to bring her harm. And the fact that she expressed remorse for her mistake made her wonder if she truly meant it.

"I'll leave you to rest then," October told her and Dannie watched her walk out of the room. Leighton quickly followed but Evan remained. He didn't want to leave her side knowing she was even more vulnerable now that her powers were gone.

* * * * *

The night air was dead. Not even a breeze went through the trees Erick stood in front of as he watched Leighton's home from a distance. He had been pondering the proposition Dusk had mentioned hours ago. With each minute that crept by, he wanted to give in more and more. It seemed so easy. All he had to do was kill Leighton and steal a human soul. He already decided to take Amanda's if he went through with it. Everything seemed doable. The only reason he hesitated was his lingering fear of getting caught. If that happened, he'd probably get banished from Earth and would never have the chance to be free again. Every time he thought about it, his entire insides ached from fear and felt like they were being torn out of him. His black eyes stared at the house anxiously. His feet stood motionless, his hands clenched into fists at his sides and his whole body was shaking uncontrollably. His unblinking eyes widened and part of his long bangs curtained over his face. He looked very disturbing and unstable. "Kill Leighton...." he whispered to himself. "I must kill Leighton..."

The sound of a stick breaking made him turn around. He saw someone trying to sneak into the back terrace. The stranger was dressed in all black, carried a silver sword, a knife and had a crossbow and silver tipped arrows. Erick knew exactly what this person was. He was a slayer.

"Stop right there!" Erick ordered after he had caught up to him. The slayer heard Erick's voice and spun around and saw the angry demon glaring at him. The slayer showed no fear. "Leave now and I will spare your life."

"Demon, I have no time for this," the slayer replied. "You leave now and I may spare you. Nothing personal."

Erick almost laughed at his absurd response. "I am warning you, slayer, don't you dare go near anyone in there or I will gladly make a lawn ornament from your head. Leave."

The slayer shrugged and chuckled the warning off. "Have it your way then." He lifted his crossbow and aimed it at Erick but before he could pull the trigger, he found himself on the ground. Erick had him by the throat and leaned down in his face and asked, "Who sent you??"

"I work alone," he managed to say as Erick strangled him with one hand.

"Liar!" Erick wanted to rip his throat out but refrained. "Who are you here to kill?? Are you here to kill Evan??"

"What's it to you?" he remarked as he struggled to breathe.

Erick tightened his grip even more. "Wrong answer! You're here for him, aren't you? Aren't you??" The slayer couldn't even speak now, Erick was choking him so tightly. "No one touches him, do you understand? Harm him and I will kill you." Finally, he released the slayer and he coughed and gasped for air. "Leave. Now." Erick hoped the slayer had gotten the message and turned his back to walk away. The slayer rose to his feet, aimed his crossbow at him and fired at Erick back. Erick heard it snap and quickly turned around and caught the arrow in midair and then threw it back at the slayer. It landed right in the slayer's left shoulder and he yelled in pain and tried to pull it out. "Slayer, look at me," Erick commanded and held his hand out toward him. The slayer couldn't resist obeying so he locked his eyes on his.

Erick stared at him for a few moments and then eyed the knife the slayer kept on his ankle. Using his telekinesis, Erick forced the slayer to drop his hands from the arrow stuck in his shoulder and he made him grasp his knife and lift it out of the holster. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't resist. "Please..." the slayer begged as Erick forced him to hold the knife up against his own throat. "Please, demon, don't do this... I'll leave, I promise...."

Erick could see the fear in his eyes but he didn't care. His first and only duty was to follow his orders and protect Evan and Dannie and he was going to do it. "Sorry," Erick replied and the slayer's expression turned even more fearful. "I don't trust you." Erick moved his own hand left to right and the slayer unwillingly had to follow the gesture. The knife plunged into his throat and he sliced his own neck open and Erick listened to his gurgling scream of terror as he fell onto the ground and bled. Erick smirked a little as the slayer was dying. "Nothing personal."

October had heard the screams and decided to investigate. When she reached them, she saw Erick hovering over the dying slayer and heard him announce, "Because you wanted to kill me and those I was ordered to protect, I will take your soul. You shall never rest in peace."

"Erick, no!" October exclaimed and stopped him from raising his arm so he could claim the soul. She held onto both of his arms and he tried to shake her off. "Erick, calm down!"

"No!" he screamed and tried to escape her tight grasp. "Let me go! I want his soul! He was going to hurt Evan and Dannie! He deserves it! I need his soul..." He started to break down and knelt on the grass and October loosened her grasp on him. "He was going to kill them..."

"Even so," October said softly and moved in front of him and took a knee so she could look directly at him, "you don't want to be a soul stealer again. I know you don't."

"Why do you care, October?" he snapped at her. "That's right, you don't! What does it matter to you if I take a soul??"

"Why do you want it?" she asked.

"I just need it," he told her and tried to stop control his emotions. "If I can get a soul for Evan, he can become human again...I wouldn't be a failure if I helped him and Dannie..."

"Erick, you know it doesn't work that way," she reminded him. "You can't just give him a soul, it doesn't belong to him."

"You don't know that," he said desperately. "It's at least worth trying, isn't it? I have to do something! I just want to help..."

"Well you won't be able to if you steal a soul," she pointed out. "You could get caught."

"Why do you care if I get caught or not?" he asked harshly. "You always lie to everyone, October! I know you do. I'm not sure why you're even here but I'm not falling for it."

"Believe whatever you want to believe," she declared. "Just dispose of this corpse and leave the premises before you end up killing someone else."

Erick was disappointed since the slayer was dead now and his chance to take his soul was gone. But he got another idea. He took the body into the forest where October couldn't see and took a small vial out of his pocket and caught a few drops of the slayer's blood in it. The blood of a vampire slayer was like poison to vampires. Slayers constantly consume herbs and elements that are dangerous to the creatures they hunt so that if they ever get bitten, the vampires would either become ill and easier to kill or they'd die. Erick knew exactly what he was going to with it.

#br0k3ns0ul

[wavenetinfo]

Ever since Christopher Nolan’s last great Batman film, 2008’s The Dark Knight, DC has been in a pretty brutal big-screen slump. Watchmen. Jonah Hex. Green Lantern. Suicide Squad. The various Superman movies. Some of these films have managed to make a nice chunk of change at the box office. But they’re the kind of hits that exist more on a studio’s balance sheet than in the hearts and minds of moviegoers. Unlike its crosstown rival, Marvel, DC has had a hard time finding the right mix of darkness and light, seriousness and humor, gravitas and fun. They just haven’t been able to crack the magic nut. It would be insane to think that the suits at Warner Bros., the custodians of the DC celluloid franchise, weren’t getting twitchy and envious every time a new Marvel flick hit theaters. But now, with their latest superhero saga, they can finally stopping chewing their cuticles — if there are any left. Wonder Woman is smart, slick, and satisfying in all of the ways superhero films ought to be. How deliciously ironic that in a genre where the boys seem to have all the fun, a female hero and a female director are the ones to show the fellas how it’s done.

Ever since her comic-book debut in 1941, William Moulton Marston’s groundbreaking superheroine has been ahead of her time. A girl-power icon in a male-fantasy universe that rarely had much use for powerful women — just damsels looking to be undistressed. But Wonder Women always (or most of the time, anyways) refused to play by those rules. A demigod warrior-princess sculpted from clay by her Amazonian mother, Queen Hippolyta, Wonder Woman was a distaff badass with the courage, superpowers, and gee-whiz doodads to match her male peers: The Lasso of Truth, indestructible golden bracelets, and even a sword that could bring down the Gods. She used them all to shatter the superhero glass ceiling.

That’s the same protagonist we first meet in Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman — a rollicking origin story with a clear and distinct feminist message that never bludgeons you with its gender politics. It’s far too assured and sly for that. The film opens on the island of Themyscira, an idyllic paradise with chalk-white cliffs and turquoise waters that was gifted to the Amazons by Zeus. Invisible to the rest of the world, the island is hidden by a protective atmospheric cloak. It’s like the Bermuda Triangle if the Bermuda Triangle were inhabited solely by a race of she-warriors living in harmony and training in combat under Robin Wright. Zeus created the Amazons to put love back into mankind’s hearts and restore peace. But under Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), they’ve remained in hiding, practicing the ancient martial arts in strappy gladiator sandals and on horseback while speaking in a thick Slavic goulash of accents that give you the impression that Themyscira might just be located somewhere near Transylvania. Hippolyta has a young daughter named Diana — a curious, rebellious, bullheaded little moppet eager to learn how to fight like her elders. She’s not like the others, though. There’s something special about her — a secret link to the Gods that no one told her about. But as Diana grows up to become Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, her gift reveals itself. And just in the nick of time, too.

When the plane of an American spy named Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) pierces the island’s force-field whatzit and crashes into the ocean, Gadot’s Diana dives in and saves him. He’s the first man that she’s ever laid eyes on. The first man that any of the Amazons have laid eyes on. All of them want him to leave. But Diana is curious. Especially after he tells her about the horrific war that’s raging back in his world. It’s 1918 and it’s being called “The War to End All Wars”. Diana, raised on the Amazonian creed of peace and her people’s duty to fight against Ares, the God of War, sees his war as her war. She has found her destiny. World War I and the Allies have been Waiting for Gadot.

Clay Enos/Warner Bros

Gadot, an Israeli actress with piercing dark eyes, is probably best known for playing Gisele in several of the Fast & Furious movies. But there was nothing in those installments that hinted at the undeniable star power she gives off as Wonder Woman. Granted, the Fast & Furious movies aren’t exactly acting showcases, but still…. Her Diana is both awesomely fierce and surprisingly funny, especially when she arrives in war-torn London with Trevor and gets her first taste of 20th-century modernity. Whether she’s reacting to the unfamiliar sight of automobiles or constricting early 20th-century women’s fashions, she takes it all in like a fish-out-of-water naïf. When she has her first taste of ice cream, she swoons and enthusiastically tells the salesman, “You should be very proud,” as if he’s performed some kind of miracle. Gadot sells the innocence and humor in these moments every bit as convincingly as Daryl Hannah in Splash. Her chemistry with Pine is just as unexpected and electric. Catching him in the nude back on Themyscira, she takes a peek at him in the buff and asks: “Would you say you are a typical example of your sex?” He replies, “I am above average.” Screenwriter Allan Heinberg (Grey’s Anatomy) deserves as much of the credit for their sparks-filled duet as the stars.

As World War I seems to be winding down and an armistice is about to be signed, a holdout among the German high command, the evil Gen. Ludendorff (Danny Huston), is busy creating a poisonous biological super-weapon to turn German defeat into victory. His chief chemist, a disfigured sadist named Dr. Maru (Elena Anaya), is a vision of villainy right out of comic-book nightmares, wearing a prosthetic faceplate that hides her hideous scars. Diana, Trevor, and his trio of mercenary pals (Ewen Bremner, Said Taghmaoui, and Eugene Brave Rock) race to the Belgian front to stop Ludendorff and “Dr. Poison” before it’s too late. Some might wonder why a character who was first conceived in 1941 and who’s finally being brought to the big screen in 2017 has been plopped into 1918? But I’d argue that Wonder Woman’s time period is a pretty clever stealth weapon to explore some of the movies more progressive themes (more on that in a sec), not to mention the fact that it gives the film a retro-cool charge reminiscent of Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger. We’ve grown so accustomed to seeing superheroes flash their powers on screen that it’s refreshing to see people react with awe, like they’re witnessing miracles. The miracle of the movie — or at least the fantastic first two-thirds of it — is that the audience feels that same novel rush. As Diana deflects machine gun-fire with her bracelets, flips army tanks with one hand, and whips German soldiers around like ragdolls with her luminescent Lasso of Truth, we feel like we’re watching her feats with new eyes.

The setting also helps to make the film’s resonant feminist subtext feel more organic and less forced. At a time when women were still without the right to vote and were subjugated to a position of being seen and not heard, the fearsome Diana becomes a spokeswoman in word and deed of resistance and empowerment. She refuses to be treated like a second-class citizen by politicians and generals. No one puts Wonder Woman in a corner. On the battlefield in Belgium, she displays a martial courage that her brothers in arms (even including Pine) don’t possess. She’s completely fearless…not to mention a long way from Lynda Carter.

It’s only in the movie’s unnecessary final half-hour or so that Wonder Woman finally meets her match: the special-effects imperatives of contemporary blockbuster filmmaking against which even the Germans onscreen seem insignificant. When Diana realizes that the villain she’s been chasing all this time is, in fact, not the end but just the beginning to a line of villains to be trotted out, no doubt, in subsequent chapters, the movie turns into an eye-rolling digital smackdown that mirrors every other late-period DC (and, to be fair, Marvel) movie smackdown. It would be nice one of these days if some heroic editor just lopped off the last 30 minutes of all of these things. But it’s hard to quibble about what’s wrong with a movie that gets so much right, especially when it comes to Gadot’s revelatory portrayal of Wonder Woman. The wait is over, folks. The DC movie you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. A-

30 May 2017 | 4:00 am

Chris Nashawaty

Source : EW.com

>>>Click Here To View Original Press Release>>>

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