#? kid notfic?

[ideas-ideasideasideas]

JayTim omegaverse AU where Tim presents as an omega when he’s stalking Batman and Jason-as-Robin. Jason finds him collapsed on a rooftop and tries to help him but the proximity triggers his own presentation as an alpha. From there things go to hell in a hand basket and they ride out their first heat/rut together. In the immediate aftermath, once they have both recovered enough presence of mind, they agree that this is no one’s fault but it doesn’t stop Jason from feeling guilty about taking advantage of Tim so he escorts Tim home (in the process finding out they’re neighbours) and asks if there’s anything that he can do for him to make up for whatever the hell just happened.

There’s a lot of trauma to unpack here for the both of them but Tim is barely a teenager and Jason has emotionally repressed Batman for a parental figure so they just mutually decide not to mention it ever again because if you pretend it never happened then it can’t hurt you right? (Wrong.) Anyway, Tim tells Jason that if he really wants to do something for him then maybe he can just not tell Batman that Tim was on a rooftop at night, pretty please? At which point Jason, horrified that a boy Tim’s age is running around on rooftops unsupervised in the most crime-ridden parts of Gotham at the most crime-infested time of the day, makes it his personal duty to figure out why Tim does this and also how he can convince him to NOT do this. What he did to Tim was wrong on so many levels but oh god, what if someone so much worse found Tim instead? He agrees to Tim’s request on the condition that Tim carries a beacon at all times during his nighttime extracurricular activities.

Jason brings the beacon over as soon as possible, which turns out to be the next day after school (as Robin of course), and the sight of Tim alone in a giant house compels him to stay for a while, and a while turns into the rest of the day. Tim shows off the photos he’s taken of Batman and the Robins, and Jason is reluctantly but appropriately impressed by Tim’s stealth.

A friendship grows between them.

And then Jason dies.

And Batman grows too reckless.

And Dick refuses to be Robin again.

And Tim becomes Robin—

Except he doesn’t. Not really. He wears Jason’s Robin suit for a very short time before random bouts of nausea take him off the field. But Batman is still beating the shit out of petty criminals and Tim is desperate to help, so he allows Alfred (bless him) to call him a discreet doctor to ensure that his illness is not due to anything he was exposed to while Batman-wrangling before he’s allowed back on the field. Tim just wants it over and done with quickly so he can get back out there and—

He’s not allowed to back on the field.

He’s holding a little black-and-white picture of a literal human growing inside him and he is absolutely benched until there is no longer a literal human growing inside him.

Doctor Thompkins lays out his options, is brutally honest about how his body (too young, too small) will handle a pregnancy (not well), and asks if there is anything he wants to tell her (if there’s anyone Batman needs to put in jail for touching him). Tim doesn’t have long to consider his options—he’s nearly too far along for most clinics to be comfortable performing an abortion (although, given his age, they might be sympathetic enough to bend the rules if Doctor Thompkins can’t perform the procedure for him).

He decides to keep it, a parting gift from his friend Robin to be cherished beyond his death. There is a difficult conversation with Bruce about the child’s father (no, you can’t arrest them, they’re already dead, no, I’m not defending a heinous rapist, it’s your goddamn son, Bruce, this is your grandchild). An unforeseen but extremely welcome consequence of this is that Batman starts pulling his punches, now that he has something to live for again. He looks only half-broken now and he offers Tim a room at the Wayne manor when he finally learns about Tim’s extremely absent parents.

(Tim worries about how to break the news to his parents until he no longer has to worry about it because his mother is dead and his father is in a coma and god he wanted to avoid having that conversation with them but this wasn’t how he wanted it to happen.)

Properly benched now for the foreseeable future, Tim picks up remote vigilante-wrangling instead (from Babs?) and makes headway in some cold cases. He pulls out of school to be homeschooled instead, keeps out of the public eye, and generally avoids leaving Wayne manor because a thirteen-year-old pregnant omega living alone with an adult alpha (and his butler) is a Very Bad Look even for Brucie Wayne and Tim would rather not be known as Bruce Wayne’s child bride thank you very much.

Life proceeds in this manner, the child is delivered by Caesarian with very little fanfare. It is, unfortunately, very difficult to hide the presence of a whole infant. The public settles on the theory that the child is Bruce’s illegitimate son from one of his many dalliances and Tim allows the misconception to propagate simply because no good can come out of him, all of fourteen, publicly claiming his child. But it still stings, just a little. He made this child, held him safe in his womb for eight months. He puts him to bed and nurses him and loves him so much but nobody outside the manor will see it.

Tim bursts back into society when he’s officially adopted by Bruce. He refused to register his son as Bruce’s (it takes some extremely deft work by Oracle to file the appropriate documents for Tim’s claim on his child to be legally valid without alerting the press) but he also understands that Bruce wants a legal connection to his grandchild, so he becomes his son’s dead father’s legally adopted brother. It’s a mess, but at least people who should be are allowed into hospital rooms. It’s not like it will matter, right? Jason’s dead, right?

Wrong.

Jason is very much not dead and very much bewildered by the presence of a baby Wayne that isn’t Damian and it completely derails his plans to exact revenge on Bruce for not killing the Joker. It fucking hurts to see that he’s been replaced by not one but TWO new children but at least they aren’t Robin. At least no one is Robin. At least one of them is Tim, his lonely friend who deserves a family. He returns to Gotham, heads to Crime Alley, becomes Red Hood, and buries himself in shooting out enough kneecaps to push Bruce and Batman from his mind. That was another life. He’s fucking furious at Bruce and his replacements but god the baby has the same curly hair that Jason did and Jason can’t help but think that Bruce might actually have missed him, at least a little.

But probably not enough to love Jason as he is now, full of anger and rage and impulse to hurt hurt hurt the people who hurt others. He channels it all into cleaning up the Alley, perhaps more aggressively than Batman would (should) have, but Batman doesn’t give enough of a shit about the Alley to know that what he’s doing isn’t enough and it’s up to Jason to get his hands downright filthy if he wants to make any changes around here.

Tim notices Red Hood, because of course he does. And it takes him no time at all to realise, oh, that’s Jason. That’s Jason.

[bropunzeling]

hello jess bropunzeling i am pulling an all nighter for my 15 hour flight and i was wondering if you could send some rat baby girl leon girl dad matthew vibes my way. thank u or sorry in advance

15 hour flight?!?!?!?!?! jfc. im so sorry. some important, not especially coherent and perhaps inconsistent with previously posted vibes for u:

i think in my drama-loving heart of hearts leon absolutely goes into labor while matthew is on a road trip with the team. he has to catch an early flight back and spends the whole time texting his mother-in-law for updates and then is on the phone in the cab to the hospital and fully the stereotype of frantic messy dad-to-be. just like can we please go faster my WIFE is having a BABY i need to BE THERE so she can BREAK MY FINGERS AND SWEAR AT ME

(in the meantime the team is like uh yeah personal emergency and the twitter speculation is wild. lots of examining matthew's twitter and insta for Clues)

they decide not to learn the baby's sex until it's born bc fun! a surprise! and it takes matthew 1 microsecond of looking at baby girl's big blue cranky eyes to fall deeply irreversibly in love

(somewhere in here is a big emotional moment about leon being kind of scared to have a girl bc she has a complicated relationship to/navigation of femininity and is scared she's gonna mess something up and they have hard yet loving conversations while sleep deprived out of their little gourds. also they are so enamored with the baby.)

matthew shows up when the team comes back home all exhausted and euphoric like no yeah all good thumbs up bags under eyes looking like he’s optimistically gotten four minutes of sleep

you know the guy at your work who has to show you baby pictures or talk about their kid's milestones every time you stop by their office to ask about something else. that's matthew.

as leon starts gearing up to make Her Comeback she brings baby girl with her to the rink so matthew can watch her while she's working out. their teammates, who by this point are like chucky please give it a REST re: baby pictures, have to admit that is one cute baby.

everyone gets a chance to hold the baby while leon is skating. the rookies are terrified of dropping her, less bc of matthew and more bc of leon, despite the fact that leon won't be the one getting to them first

there are several very cute moments of matthew hanging around near the glass, baby girl in baby bjorn and enormous pom-pom hat, as leon skates up and waves to them. there are pictures

these are the pictures the team gets to post the summer after they win the cup/the draisaitl-tkachuk family goes public

somehow the fact that they are so cute makes the obnoxious girl dad behavior so much harder to bear. the team suffers.

[hubba1892]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers ♡

oh I haven't gotten one of these in a long time! (also hi @khalaris I followed you because of Tatort Wien and I'm enjoying the text/writing posts in case you were wondering :D)

the made up scenarios about fictional people of course aka the only part of writing I'm currently engaging in

hugs

seeing fairylights everywhere atm

my aunt's dog

that I managed to find the scent they used in the Airbnb in Wien, so now I can us it whenever I need a Wien moment

[lu-sn]

The man tilts his head back leisurely, blows out a thick haze of smoke before leaning forwards and sliding a photograph across the low table.

"His name is Vegas," the man says. "Vegas Kornwit Theerapanyakul."

The boy sitting on the other side, who up until this moment has carried himself with an infuriatingly self-righteous air, blanches at the sound of the name. "You want me to take out a Theerapanyakul?" he hisses.

The man laughs, deep and full-bodied and condescending. "Believe me, kid," he says, gesturing at the photo with his cigar, "this one's gonna be real easy."

"He has recently, shall we say — fallen from grace," a smooth voice says from the darkened corner of the room. The woman standing there swirls the wine in her glass delicately, blood-red lips curving into a smile. "Stripped of his title, exiled from his mansion to a small apartment on the west side of the city. He's injured, too — multiple bullet wounds to the stomach, still in recovery. And his bodyguard count is pitiful."

The boy stares at the photograph of Vegas. The fire slowly returns to his eyes. "How many guards? Do you have their patrol schedule?"

The man passes him a folder, and the boy flicks through it rapidly. "Four guards in total. Their rotation puts two of them on the property at any time, but their coverage has lots of gaps." He nods at the floorplan that the boy is now scrutinizing. "Optimal entry points are marked on there, along with the time windows when they're most accessible. Your odds are best at night."

The boy grins. "Sounds easy." He looks up at the man, then glances over to the woman. His grin falters. "Is there a catch?"

The woman glides over, perches on the settee next to the man as she flicks another photograph between her fingers. "This might be the catch." She slides it over, rotates it to face the boy. "Pete Phongsakorn Saengtham. Vegas's boytoy of the month."

The boy snorts at the plain, placid-looking man in the photo. "So, not a threat."

"Not quite." The woman crosses her legs, rests an arm on her knee. "He's an ex-bodyguard. Used to work for the main branch of the Theerapanyakul family."

"Apparently Vegas rotates through men like tissues," the man sneers. "Uses them," he waves his hand aside, "and tosses them away. But his type is skinny twink, or overly fawning. Pete doesn't... quite match his MO."

"He's seduced other men away from the main branch before," the woman adds. "Never a bodyguard."

"He any good?" the boy asks.

"We don't think so." The woman purses her mouth. "He was guarding the main branch's castoff son. The invalid who never leaves the house. If he was of any use, he would have been guarding the real heir."

"Kill him if you need to," the man says boredly. "It's probably easier that way. Expect him to put up a fight, otherwise."

The boy nods sharply. "Understood."

The man looks at him for a long moment. Then he smirks. "You get this right, kid, and you're in."

The boy straightens up immediately. "Yeah?"

"Yep. Boss says so. You'll be family proper. This job's a big one, important client and all that."

The boy smiles wide, crazed with adrenaline. "I won't let you down, sir." He rockets up, drops into a deep bow.

"Good," the man hums. "Dismissed."

Once the boy leaves, the man turns to the woman. "Want to make a bet?"

The woman scoffs. "The kid's dead meat. You can't get me to bet on him." She sips at her wine. "No one's expecting him to pull it off."

"You think this Pete will be an issue?"

"If he's gullible enough to switch sides for a man? Not in the slightest." The woman leans back, self-satisfied. "But Vegas always has a trick up his sleeve. Time to find out what it is."

[whatatwistedworld]

twst incorrect quotes

cater, during riddle's overblot: am i the only one who heard the taco bell notfication?

azul: i don't know how i'm doing mentally.

kalim: where's my hand?

jack: that sounded very wrong.

sebek: yes, it did.

ace: i think i'm going to jail.

deuce, remembering his delinquent years: not the first time i've been in that situation.

cater and rook, filming a tiktok:

vargas(or any of the teachers honestly): stop doing weird things in front of the door.

riddle: is something wrong with you?

ace, depressed: yes.

idia: if a child is on my stream they should get off, i'm not a channel for children so fuck off kids.

crowley, to anybody: please don't overblot.

[brawltogethernow]

How would you, personally, go about writing a plot where twenty-something Dick Grayson has to take care of suddenly-deaged-to-just-after-his-parents'-deaths Bruce, who doesn't remember anything of his adult life? (I mean, other than Necessary Alfred.)

Well, the part of this concept that can really sock you in the face is. Dick knows exactly what Bruce needed to hear right after Martha and Thomas died.

Bruce, though not lacking for people trying to take care of him, did not get what he needed after becoming an orphan. He grew up, and he made the best of things, and he thought about what he needed from the world and didn’t get, and he became that, and that’s Batman, and that’s Bruce Wayne. When he saw a kid go through trauma very similar to his own, he had an entire playbook written by his own suffering and fixer tendencies ready to go. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best thing in the world for Dick Grayson short of his family spontaneously coming back from the dead, and things were good for a long time.

And now Dick Grayson, age, I don’t know, maybe the same age Bruce was when they met to intensify the parallels, has this playbook memorized. So.

Brief, miscellaneous scenario that’s about to cause the de-aging, to establish adult Bruce’s voice. He is motivated and capable with a strong sense of deadpan humor, and there is a large mishealed wound at his core. He is aware of this. He is used to working around it. He isn’t even that bitter about it, most of the time. Basically any supporting cast members filling out the scene could be interesting, so lacking an established roster to pull from you can use anybody. I think I'd use heroes who aren’t in the Batfam - characters with their own concepts of Batman but who don’t all know Bruce’s entire life story from a personal or Gothamite perspective. Dick is not present.

So something goes zam or zap or “Go back to your beginning, hero!” —Actually yeah, I like someone using magic to try to turn Batman into a baby but the symbolism catching wrong and rewinding him to when Batman was “born” instead. Some heavy-handedness is good with DC.

Elementary age Bruce Wayne is deeply unsettling. He intuits most of the situation without assistance or effort. He also doesn’t care. You can’t expect a pile of shattered glass to care about some sci-fi nonsense suddenly happening. He is a million years old. He hates you. He should be dead, they shouldn’t be dead, nothing is right. Breathing hurts, or, doesn’t, but should. It’s unconscionable that it doesn’t hurt to breathe. This child's despair is actively uncomfortable to be around. The grit of a nascent Batman grants him immunity to being comforted by the surrounding gaggle of semiprofessional child comforters. —I’m of the opinion that Bruce Wayne was probably a weird child to match the weird adult he grew up into, just initially happy about it, which I’d gun to make clear in his reactions even with the bottomless agony.

You could also snug a very traumatizingly timed identity reveal moment in here if somebody was tagging along who can go, WHY do I recognize this face from old news... WAIT.

Now Dick can show up. To a JL workroom, or the batcave, or maybe the manor, because I would want to demonstrate that Alfred is well versed in this and is sent back to a not great mental place by it. The old coping methods rise easily to hand even after decades, but he feels he never properly figured out how to fix the problems Bruce had in this period instead of just working around them. Eventually Bruce started working around Alfred’s inability to help. —But anywhere you put that sequence seems like it would drag the pacing.

So Dick shows up, and he crouches down with his characteristic gymnast’s fluidity, and he puts his hands on this kid’s shoulders, and he says...something. It’s not going to be okay. How could this ever be okay? The people assuring you it will aren’t trying to lie to you, there just aren’t words for this. But you can stop this from happening to anyone else. Opening with a conscious deployment of Bruce’s own words from a decade and then some ago, because Dick has always understood this element of their dynamic.

Except then he’s touching this real child who is warm under his hands and small. The shoulders under Dick’s hands are bony, which is a brain-meltingly irreconcilable detail with adult Bruce Wayne the meat slab. When Dick says, “My parents were killed when I was your age, too,” it’s a completely unintentional verbatim quote that crawls up out of his throat like a toad in a fairy tale. He hates that; he has a whole snarled up capital-T Thing about unconsciously parroting Bruce. But also it’s not like he’s going to stop comforting the actual child who now has a complicated look in his eyes—like he was drowning and then Dick threw him a life preserver and told him to hang on until they get to land because it’s impossible to reel him back up to the boat.

So then we go to the manor, and finally get to do some domestic nonsense, but hideous. Ugly conversations about coping and grief in your socks in the kitchen—when your parents just died, the sentence “The weather looks bad” is about your dead parents—because Alfred is coping by airing out whatever rooms Bruce used when he was smol he doesn’t now so hard you’ll never know they were shut up, which leaves Dick free to feed the child a fortifying dinner of instant oatmeal. (Mourning and food have a complex relationship, and I don’t feel food you actively enjoy is always a good choice!) This process involves Dick walking on the counter unnecessarily, which entertains Bruce for a quarter second before he’s swamped by guilt at having the audacity to enjoy something.

It’s miserable, but there’s a distinct glimmer of something promising under the murk. There’s this building surety that this could lead to something good. Bruce gave Dick the tools he needed to heal once, and as an adult Dick could repay that to this version of Bruce with interest.

And then Bruce pops back to normal, because that’s not how time works, with all of the ways that his emotional wounds healed wrong and healed open intact. But also with this Escher-like doubled recollection of the most formatively terrible point of his life, a short new version layered over the original that was pointing distinctly in a direction that would have sucked less.

[nevergoinganywherearewe]

Do You Even Lift, Bro? AU Episode 19

“Come on, it’s just another week. He’ll be healed up enough for physical therapy soon.” Dean tried to reason.

“But the car rides to the gym, to work and literally anywhere are so...lonely without him, man.” Tharn countered.

“...but all you do recently is bicker?”

“Yeah but it’s basically his love language. I don’t know, I just...miss him.”

Dean shot Tharn a fondly exasperated glance usually reserved for Pharm. 

“Isn’t he just about done with recuperating? Post-OP usually doesn’t take that long, does it, Beam?”

“Depends on the surgery but since it was just a minor injury of the knee and nothing bigger, he’s about due for physical therapy, yeah. I know the doc who stitched up our little hothead, there shouldn’t be any complications that prolong your...misery.”

“Very diplomatic way of putting it, Doctor Beam.” Dean commented.

Tharn barely reacted to his well-meaning gym buddies trying to cheer him up. His mind was still with Type, at home, in bed, grumpy from the lack of movement he’s been allowed post surgery.

Type would probably sooner die than confess that half of his bad mood was due to the lack of ... physical activities he was allowed to engage in with Tharn. 

Tharn is trying to be reasonable most of the time but he’d be lying if he said he’s not affected somewhat himself. Although...the sheer amount of cuddling as of recent is rather nice.

Since Type was not able to go the gym, the gym went to him. Tharn and Type’s house has never seen that many visitors since they moved in two years ago. 

Usually, they wouldn’t be all too happy about it but Pharm had offered to cook for everyone and relieve Tharn of yet another chore. The combination of Pharm and Tharn and Type’s frankly enormous kitchen was a lethal one.

Pharm gushed about the appliances and “oh my god, Dean, do you see the amount of storage?”, needless to say, Dean took notes and had a very serious discussion about real estate with Tharn later that day.

Looks like Dean and Pharm might be moving soon.

At some point, their discussion moved from “do you know a house in the area that has a similar kitchen set-up as yours by any chance?” to “actually, I would recommend you try and keep Type away from weight lifting and send him off to the swimming pool on the lower level, much easier on the joints”.

Type still being at the gym without straining himself and barely clothed at that? The thought alone made Tharn quite agreeable.

The day Type finally returns to the gym, he’s greeted with balloons and protein bars courtesy of Korn and Knock, who were too busy to visit all that often. It’s rather endearing.

[jupitermelichios]

Not-Fic Amnesty: Rorschach Kid-Fic

About 3 years post the Keen Act, and the Roche case, and everything going so wrong, Dan’s at home one evening by himself (as usual) when he hears a noise from the basement.

He goes to investigate, expecting rats, or raccoons, or a pigeon. Instead he finds a kid, scrawny and ginger and ugly as sin, wearing a man’s dress shirt that reaches nearly to his knees and nothing else.

Dan has no idea what the hell’s happening, but the kid is clearly cold and scared and hungry, and he’s not a monster, so obviously he takes the kid up and feeds him, and tries to get him talking. The kids not chatty, but he warms up a bit when Dan doesn’t stopping him having 8 sugars in his coffee, and the more he says, the more the suspicion grows in Dan’s mind.

He puts the kid to bed in his spare room, and calls Jon who confirms what Dan’s been fearing. The kid sleeping upstairs is Rorschach, somehow de-aged to 9 or 10.

Dan has no idea what the fuck he’s supposed to do. He knows what Rorschach would want him to do, but Rorschach is an asshole and sometimes an idiot, and Dan’s not going to abandon the kid to fend for himself just because Rorschach doesn’t trust Dan to know his secret identity.

Jon comes to examine the kid, and try and figure out what’s happened, and of course when she hears what’s happened Laurie insists on tagging along, because this is way too good to miss. Except that it turns out Rorschach as a kid isn’t prime teasing material, it’s just fucking tragic. He’s so small, and so scared, and so desperate to find anyone he can trust that he’s imprinted on Dan like a baby bird, and he’s awkwardly polite to her and so worried when Jon’s teleportation makes her barf like it always does, and godamnit it she hates Rorschach but it takes all of five minutes for her to decide she would die to protect baby Walter.

Jon can’t figure out what’s happened to Rorschach, something is blocking his future vision, and that’s unusual enough that he actually engages with the problem, promises to investigate. He suggests that Dan speak to Adrian as well, but Dan’s wary to when Rorschach always disliked Adrian so much. (He would never admit that it’s also because Adrian has a tendency to take over any situation, and he’s guiltily enjoying being the one in control for a change.)

Laurie agrees to go shopping for clothes for Walter, since he won’t let Dan out of his sight, and Dan’s wary of taking him outside when he might suddenly revert at any minute, and she tries to pretend that she’s just helping because of how pissed Rorschach will be when he comes back and realises what happened, but really she’s just gone all in on being Walter’s cool vodka-aunt.

After a week of not much happening, they realise that this might be a long-term thing, and people are going to notice that Rorschach hasn’t been out on the streets. They debate just leaving it, but even though they’re both retired and legal now, it feels disrespectful to retire Rorschach even temporarily.

Dan would never pass as Rorschach in a million years, but with a binder and a little strategic planning Laurie is surprisingly convincing, and Dan is very confused by how ridiculously hot he finds that fact. They fall into this domestic routine, Dan home-schooling Walter in the day, then Laurie giving him boxing lessons and having dinner with them before she goes on patrol, and Dan isn’t surprised in the least at how damn happy he is, even though he’s desperate to be out on the street with her, but it comes as a shock to Laurie. She hadn’t even realised she was miserable, but suddenly everything is so much better that it’s been for years. She’s missed being out on the street, but more than that she’s missed having people who actually pay attention to her. Jon cares about her, but it’s all so distant and abstract, but Walter thinks she’s the coolest person in the world because she showed him how to throw a proper punch, and Dan is a perfect gentleman but she’s not an idiot and she can see he’s falling in love with her, and she almost hates how good it all feels.

Eventually Jon admits he’s not getting anywhere, and Dan has to suck it up and go talk to Adrian. Naturally Adrian thinks it’s all hilarious, but promises to look into it.

He’s Adrian, and he’s a dick, so he doesn’t update them, or tell them what he’s doing. They say goodbye to Laurie and go to bed one night, and the next day Dan wakes up to find the spare room empty, and a note in familiar handwriting that just says “don’t look for me”.

When Adrian phones later to say that it was an accident resulting from an experiment he was running involving tachyons. Rorschach must have been close to one of his research labs during one of the test runs, and somehow been exposed.

Dan’s too fucked up to be suspicious. When Laurie turns up the night after Rorschach’s disappearance, he just fucking collapses, sobbing his heart out. She does her best to comfort him, but there’s not much she can say, and when in a moment of emotional weakness he kisses her, she stops coming visiting him, too guilty over how much she wanted him too to see him again.

He spends weeks drifting, feeling like a ghost in his own home. It’s not even the loss of his almost-kid. He’d never really forgotten who Walter was, had never let his feeling get more paternal that strictly necessary, as opposed to feeling like an older brother. What’s fucking him up is realising how pitifully lonely his life is. How he has no friends who aren’t superheroes, and now even they aren’t talking to him anymore.

He doesn’t let himself hope when he hears noises from the basement, he honestly feels like he’s beyond hope that this stage, but he still nearly fucking breaks down crying when he finds Rorschach waiting for him. Not Walter – real grown up Rorschach. His Rorschach.

Turns out he’s been investigating Adrian, trying to figure out what the fuck really happened because he didn’t believe for one second that his de-aging was really an accident. And he’s got proof.

Dan pretty much started suiting up as soon as he saw him, because he’s spent 3 years benched while people he cared about fought crime with no protection and no back up and he is done, okay, he is totally fucking done with that. But he nearly gives himself a concussion that would have benched him for another month when Rorschach casually mentions that they need to go get Laurie first.

Jon doesn’t seem surprised to see them – Walter is the only thing that’s managed to surprised him for decades – but does seem real sad. Laurie takes one look at Rorschach and goes running for her costume, because in some ways she’s been even worse of than Dan. She’s had a taste of it again, a chance to do what she was trained from birth to do, and then had to give it all up to go back to playing house with a man who barely speaks to her.

She tells Jon she’ll be back later, and he just says “no you won’t” and goes back to his work, and she doesn’t press it.

In Archie, Rorschach tells them what he’s figured out – that Adrian is behind a series of death of retired superheroes and villains. That he’s been building a secret base in the arctic. That he’s been doing experiments in ways to block Jon’s vision. That he knew Rorschach’s identity.

Put like that, it’s pretty clear what’s going on, if not the reasons for it, but Dan doesn’t want to believe it. Yes Adrian’s weird, and intense, and thinks he’s smarter than everyone else just because he’s better at math, but there’s a big gap between that and full on supervillain. But Rorschach is sure. And Dan has been following this man’s hunches into certain death for a decade, and just because they’re all old enough now to know better isn’t going to stop him.

They go to confront Adrian in his penthouse. He’s ready for them of course, is sure he’s planned for every circumstance. But he never expected them to be a family. He understands comradeship, even friendship of a sort, but he’s never understood family. Laurie has spent weeks using all Rorschach’s signature moves, Walter spent weeks studying Laurie’s style, both of them know Dan inside out. They work together seamlessly, and for a moment it looks like it’s going to be enough. Adrian’s good, but they’re spectacular.

But Adrian really doesn’t plan for everything, and they’re in his property, in the middle of New York. The highest paid private security in the US are only a button push away, and there’s only so much even the best spandex can do again machine guns.

That’s when Jon shows up.

It only takes him vaporising a couple of guards to make the rest of them realise no paycheck is worth this. Adrian tries to play it innocent, but it doesn’t matter. Rorschach’s return hadn’t been part of Adrian’s plan, for all that he’d been happy to take credit. He’d assumed the affects would be permanent, or at least long term enough to keep everyone distracted.

When Rorschach came to Manhattan’s labs to get Laurie, Jon had been able to trace the tachyon field around him, unravel it, undo it’s affects on his abilities. He can once again see all the branching realities, and he knows what Adrian is planning. How he was experimenting with ways to block Jon’s vision, to cover up his plans for the world. Mass death, destruction on a terrible scale, as a way of preventing nuclear war.

He tries to convince Jon that it’s the only way, but this Jon hasn’t been driven to the drink by a campaign of psychological warfare. He atomises Adrian, and then for good measure, he atomises every single nuclear weapon in the world.

Even with the horror of what Adrian was planning, and seeing their old friend killed, there’s still the elation of having won. Having saved the day. This time when Dan kisses Laurie she doesn’t stop him, and before Rorschach can edge away from the display of affection, she grabs him and kisses him too, right on the mask.

They all go still, waiting for the violence, but to their surprise it doesn’t come. The mask patterns move very fast, like maybe he’s blushing, but he doesn’t do anything more than adjust his hat and move a little closer to Dan. And when Dan takes his hand, he doesn’t pull away.

Jon is by the window, looking out at the city he just saved. Laurie comes over the join him. She hadn’t know she was making a choice, but she can feel the finality of it now, and she doesn’t regret what she did. They’re better together, the three of them, they’re a family. She and Jon were never a family, just two lost souls clinging to one another because the familiar is less frightening than change. “I’m leaving,” he says eventually.

“I know. I’m not coming with you.”

“I know that too. I’m glad you have them, Laurel. They are good for you.”

“Yeah. I think they are.”

They keep watching for a while after he’s gone, but he doesn’t come back, so all that’s left is figuring out to get back out without being seen, and figuring out what to do with the rest of their lives together.

[justastraightupmess]

@snw-cnvs go tf to sleep

[businessbois]

Can we just talk about Tommy's viewer average tho? It's at worst 100k, and at best fucking 600k. I can't get over it, sometimes.

Wilbur was right, the world is indeed not ready for Tommyinnit

god i remember when i was proud as shit of this kid for getting 40k, hell when he was getting 1k like,, to see the number is one thing but to think about it is like??? nobody else on twitch compares. tommy walks along a wooden path on the same server as lilnasx and gets 160k viewers. today, twitch notfications didnt even go out and he got like 180k viewers and then 60k on his ALT. i think karl and quackity are the two streamers right behind him and even then, they’re tens of thousands behind. like how do you even?? kid’s insane. absolutely insane.

[vagrantblvrd]

that sweethearts notfic killed me in the best way.

!!! Did not mean to murder, apologies!!1!

But also, okay, also.

Say Luke’s in one of those - I’m sure - many, many situations in which he’s a bad way, injured or some such and rescue almost certainly too far to make it?

Someone’s there to pull the stay with me card, patting his cheeks to get him to open his eyes and don’t you dare, Skywalker, don’t you dare, and need to keep him talking?

And it’s like. What’s something that will work? Something that doesn’t hurt like the memory of his family on Tatooine or that old hermit Han talks about sometime, odd look on his face. The one Leia looks sad about too, and -

“Hey, is it true that some guy almost killed you on Tatooine for saving his life?”

That’s really the main thing people take away from that story when Luke tells them, because everything else is just. This side of too much to think about, that kind of life when they don’t know if they’ll live to see the end of the day let alone the war, but that?

The way Luke gets so exasperated about them bringing it up over and over again, because how is that something that happens to anyone, let alone some dumb kid like Luke?

(Really, though, they all know something like that could only happen to a dumb kid like Luke. Anyone else would have been killed for sure.)

But also?

Luke being captured or what have you by s Imperials or some other baddie and about to be killed, but first the thing where he’s left in a cell all alone for hours, nothing to do but think. And he’s like, idk, thinking about the people in his life and how his death will affect them  - wow, getting morbid here, sorry - and his mind is like, what about this asshole? And he’s thinking about the guy - Din - and that day in the hangar working on the speeder, that drive they went on afterwards. (The kiss, even if he hadn’t realized what it was at the time.)

And then the cavalry comes busting in, drags Luke out of there and hauls him to get medical care and lectured the whole way because what kind of idiot does he think he is?

Hero-play that saved so many lives, and really, he’s just a dumb kid from Tatooine, and oh, wow, the lectures get so much angrier after he says that out loud because painkillers and whatnot, and anyway, yes.

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[goodduckingomens]

Not! Fic: Carnival AU

This AU was inspired by @luckyspike who saw a magician that was 100% Crowley. And also p dorky. So, here we go: Carnival AU!

Both of them grew up on the carnival. Crowley developed a huge crush on him when Aziraphale gave away a really neat toy plastic saber (it could make wooshing noises) to some kids who had to go home late and needed a light.

Aziraphale has a win a book stall. He reads on the job and also puts his own books in between the prize books on accident. Hence, he ends up fighting children way more than anyone on the carnival should.

Crowley is the magician who also may or may not be kind of a con man, exchanging your money for fakes during his show. Problem is he's actually pretty terrible at the conning part. They have an arrangement where Aziraphale swoops in and distracts people if things get dicey, and Crowley distracts parents when Aziraphale needs to get back a book from a child. Crowley also maybe sometimes stresscleans Aziraphale’s booth and alphabetizes the books, which Aziraphale hates, but he loves that Crowley finds his books when he misplaced them so it’s ok.

There’s a big romantic moment when Crowley improvises a show and swipes back three books from a german family.

But then their families get in a big fight and want to stop the fair… FOREFAIR.

They try everything they can to stop it, including increasingly convoluted plans that MAY end in kids getting swapped and raised with the wrong families, but that didn’t even work out because those families were kinda ok with one another anyway.

In the end they just leave and start their own fair with Tracy the fortune teller, Anathema and Newt who man an amazing food stand, and Shadwell, who noone knows what he does but they don’t have the heart to tell him to go away. Which is good, because as it turns out later he was the fair’s lawyer all the time and he got ALL the dirt on the families.

For example there was a biiiig con scheme, and then that story with the lady that somehow left the fair with an extra nipple… In the end everyone agrees the new fair will be left alone, and they all are happy.

This notfic is up for  adoption! If you want to write this, go ahead.

[clotpolesonly]

Asked and Answered

for @laurahale-appreciation week’s day one theme: Laura Didn’t Die

this is my first year not adding on to that one notfic i started in 2016, haha, but i have finally deemed that one finished so i had to come up with something else (very last minute, because who would i be if i was not a procrastinating mess?)

| 1.4k | Gen | Canon AU | Laura Didn’t Die | Laura & Scott | Scott Asks For The Bite |

(also on AO3)

---

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Scott resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Stiles, beside him, didn’t bother restraining himself.

“Yes,” Scott said patiently. “I want to do this.”

Laura bit her lip, toe tapping against the floor. Derek had his arms crossed and his attention focused elsewhere, apparently still peeved that his sister was even considering this. He had tried just about everything to get them to go home and stay out of it, but that just wasn’t how they worked. If there was a mystery to be solved, Stiles would be there with bells on, and no amount of growling and threatening from Derek was going to stop him.

As for Scott, well…

“I want this.” Scott tried to inject every ounce of sincerity he could into it. “You saved my life, Laura. If I could have the power to save even one other person—”

“So that’s why you want it?” Derek cut in. “You want power?”

Stiles surged forward, fully intending to say something that was going to get his ass kicked. Scott grabbed his arm and yanked him back before the words could escape. At Scott’s raised eyebrow, Stiles huffed and fell back, meeting Derek’s glare with dagger-eyes of his own. With bloodshed no longer imminent, Scott turned his attention back to Laura.

“What I want,” he said, “is to be able to run a mile without my own lungs trying to kill me. I want to be able to protect myself from monsters like Peter. And I want to be able to protect others from them too.”

“Others like Allison?” Laura asked. Beside her, Derek snarled like the mere idea of Allison personally offended him, but Laura’s face was impassive, her tone neutral.

“Like Allison,” Scott said. “Like Stiles. Like my mom, and Stiles’ dad, and Dr. Deaton. Like you guys.”

Surprise broke through Laura’s poker face. “Like us?”

Scott shrugged, shifting on his feet. “Well, yeah. You’ve been shot at an awful lot in the last few weeks.”

“We’ve noticed,” Derek said flatly.

Scott ignored his tone, and Stiles bristling at it. “It just seems like you’ve got a lot of enemies. Like you could use all the help you can get.”

Laura surveyed him again, more carefully this time. “You know that if you took the bite, our enemies would become your enemies. All of those hunters? They’d be gunning for you too. Literally.”

It wasn’t a comfortable thought. Even without being a direct player, Scott had already seen more blood in the last week than he had in months of working at the vet clinic. Watching Laura dig the bullet out of Derek’s black-veined arm and force burning ash into the wound while he screamed ranked very highly on Scott’s list of most traumatic memories.

But even worse was the gnawing fear in his stomach of what would happen if Peter came after him again. Or if he went after Stiles next, or Allison. Sprinting through the woods with his lungs spasming and the thump of clawed feet at his back, racing death on two fronts and helpless against both of them, was so much worse than the threat of a few measly bullets that he would be better equipped to dodge or heal from anyway.

Scott looked Laura in the eye and said, “I know the risks. And I’m willing to take them.”

“Even if they lose you your girlfriend?” Derek asked, mouth twisting around the words like they were distasteful. “She’s an Argent, Scott. She would never be okay with—”

“You don’t know that,” Scott said through gritted teeth. “You don’t know her.”

“I know what happens a dumb kid thinks he knows something about ‘love’ and—”

Laura said Derek’s name. It was quiet, but firm, and enough to pull him up short mid-word. They shared a moment of eye contact, unspoken words being exchanged in a way that Scott was very familiar with; he and Stiles could have whole conversations without making a single noise. In the end, Derek shook his head sharply and walked away, letting the charred remainder of the Hale house’s front door slam behind him on the way out.

Laura let him go. “Don’t let him get to you,” she said. “He means well, I promise.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Stiles grumbled. “Asshole.”

A sharp growl reminded him that it was Laura’s little brother he was insulting. He had the good sense to look chastened, at least, though he didn’t take it back.

“Look,” Scott said, drawing her attention back to him. “I get why he’s worried. But I honestly don’t think Allison’s a threat. She’s not like her family, and not just because she doesn’t even know what it is they’re doing. You’ve been watching her, haven’t you? What do you think?”

Laura let out a long, slow breath. “I think...that she’s a sweet, normal-ish girl who has no idea what she’s caught up in. And I don’t think any of us knows how she’ll react to finding out. Not even her. Are you sure you want to risk putting yourself in her crosshairs if she goes the way of her aunt?”

“Don’t you think she might react more favorably if she finds out from us instead of from Kate?”

Laura cocked her head to the side in a gesture that Scott couldn’t help but recognize as very canine. He was pretty sure that Derek would teleport back into the house just to rip his head off if he said as much out loud, though, so he kept the observation to himself.

“You may have a point,” the alpha allowed. “And you sound like you’ve really thought this decision through.”

A tentative, hopeful smile tugged at Scott’s lips. “I have. I promise.”

Sharp blue eyes cut over to Stiles. “And what about you?”

Stiles looked over his shoulder. When there was no one back there that Laura could’ve been addressing instead, he said, “Who, me? Oh, hell no. This is all Scott. I am very much not interested in the whole chompy-bitey thing.” He mimed sinking his teeth into something. “I’m just here for moral support.”

Scott bumped their shoulders together, immensely grateful that Stiles was there, even if he did make a habit of antagonizing the already antagonistic brother of the alpha. Stiles bumped him back, grinning.

“Good,” Laura said, and she even sounded like she meant it, despite the very judgmental look on her face. “He’ll need it. The first month or two after the bite are...rough, to say the least.”

Stiles’ eyes widened with alarm. “How rough are we talking, exactly?”

Laura just smiled at him. Scott was a little surprised there were no actual fangs involved, but that wasn’t his biggest concern.

“Wait,” he said. “Does that mean you’ll do it? You’ll give me the bite?”

“You’re a good candidate for it,” Laura told him. “You’re young and strong. You’ll benefit more than most from it. You’re cognizant of the risks and have had time to process them and make your decision with a clear head. And you sound like you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

“So that’s a yes?” Stiles pressed.

“It’s a yes.”

Stiles let out a whoop of excitement. His air-punch almost knocked Scott upside the head, but Scott had years of practice with dodging his best friend’s wild gesticulations. He fought back a cheer of his own, a thrill running through him that was equal parts excitement and trepidation.

“So, like...now?” he asked.

“As good a time as any.” Laura tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, looking a little nervous for the first time since Scott had met her. “I should probably warn you that I haven’t actually done this before. Not that it’s hard or anything!” she hastened to say. “It’s kind of hard to fuck up a bite. I just mean that… Well, it’s a big first for me. For any alpha.”

Scott offered her his warmest smile. “I’m sure you’ll do great. And, hey, it’ll be my first time getting bitten. So we can be bite-virgins together!”

The groan Stiles let out was long and loud, but it wasn’t enough to cover up the much more gratifying sound that was Laura’s snort of laughter.

“That was terrible,” she said. “I am already rethinking this decision.”

“No, you’re not.”

Laura’s smile was warm too, and a little mischievous. “No. I’m not.”

[dixie12]

notfic:

it's jonny's first season as captain. he's struggling. it's just SO much pressure on him- he and pat are expected to "save the franchise" and there's a new coach, and all of these obligations. someone always wants something from jonny, and it's exhausting.

seabs is watching jonny unravel in front of him over the course of weeks/months. skin getting pale, bags under his eyes, temper fraying as he's clearly not sleeping.

he wants to help his rookie, but he doesn't really know how.

finally he invited jonny out for dinner, just the two of them. he wants to get jonny's mind off things, so he takes jonnt somewhere nice.

the waiter hands jonny a wine list, and seabs gestures at him, wants to let jonny choose something he likes. but jonny just freezes up, shoulder stiffening as the waier explains more and more details about the wines. and seabs realizes. ohhh. part of why jonny is so exhausted is just being in charge of the team and making so many decisions. poor kid needs a break

seabs grabs the wine list back, picks one at random. he points out something on the menu he thinks jonny will like and tells him he "has to" order it. jonny grumbles, but looks more and more relaxed as dinner goes on and seabs chooses everything for him.

seabs bullies jonny into his own car, takes him home. just keeps issuing simple orders to jonny. "we're watching a movie, go get the popcorn." "go brush your teeth, jonny." "come sit here on the couch."

he keeps waiting for jonny to balk, but he never does. in fact, jonny goes so loose and content that he almost falls asleep on seabs' couch. brent herds him from the couch to the guest room, tells him that jonny is not working out in the morning, and not to try to get up before 9, and brent will have breakfast ready for him then.

jonny wakes up looking refreshed for the first time in weeks, and that's how they fall into a platonic d/s relationship.

[likeadeuce]

The Raven Cycle notfic: RC Cola (Ronan/Adam + Gansey)

This started as a head canon about names, and then Ronan Lynch had his own ideas. Also if you don’t remember RC Cola, the brand website ensures me it’s an American icon.  I had it when I was a kid in Charlottesville, but I don’t remember what it tastes like other than malted battery acid, like all cola drinks.

Otherwise, this is inspired by the guy I knew when I lived in the Shenandoah Valley in the late 90s who used to take road trips so he could buy Mr. Pibb by the case.

But basically, anyway, it was Gansey’s fault.

OK so obviously it's canon that Richard Campbell Gansey III goes by his last name because he doesn't like his peers calling him 'Dick,' which, who would. and sure like, a) Richard is sitting right there but clearly b) when you are a sixteen year old who goes around talking about your real estate deals, and you have that taste in sweaters, you PROBABLY don't want the 'Richie Rich' thing to be such low hanging fruit (Calla’s gonna call you that anyway. . .)

But going by 'Gansey' is not entirely unproblematic, what with a complicated family legacy and his mom in politics. . . So he definitely experiments at some point with going by 'R. C,' good Southern boy style  Which Ronan thinks is hilarious, because it's better to treat Gansey's neuroses as hilarity than let him start taking them too seriously. And Adam just finds the situation confusing  -- he doesn’t have any attachment to his family name as a family name but ADAM PARRISH is who he is and being indecisive about something as basic as your own name is weird to him. But Gansey keeps trying to explain the thing until at one point Adam lets a little to much of his drawl out and says "RC laahk the cola??"

This absolutely destroys Ronan and Noah  who keep saying 'lahk the cola' and Adam is about to get up to leave forever until Gansey has to explain they are definitely - DEFINITELY - not laughing at the way Adam talks, they are laughing at Gansey for being a pretentious tool. 

Which Ronan verifies as the correct interpretation and which -- maybe? -- counts as Ronan siding with Adam for the first time ever and Adam is still confused about how this happened but they talk about offbrand sodas + Adam brings up how he knows there's a warehouse down I-81 where you can buy them cheap. Then he forgets all about it.

Until a couple days later at school Ronan tells Adam they are going on a road trip after school and Adam definitely thinks he's being kidnapped. No no, dumbass, Ronan tells him, we're just gonna go down to Troutville and buy a ton of RC Cola from that offbrand soda warehouse. 

 WHY? says Adam

Because it will be funny. 

 WHY? 

 Because it'll be fun. You have heard about fun, Parrish?

And it goes on like this for a while with Adam generally just not able to grasp the concept that sometimes it's fun to just drive somewhere and do something stupid and it's more fun  with a friend and that Ronan is including Adam in this? because maybe they might be friends?

And so they go. Adam is wears his Coca Cola T shirt for maximum irony. This was a Wal-Mart special when he was 14 and since he’s started lifting weights the shirt is kind of tight. “Have you always had those arms, Parrish?” Ronan demands, ensuring that Adam will definitely be wearing that shirt again.

So Ronan notices Adam is kind of hot; Adam notices Ronan is actually pretty smart. For the drive back,Ronan pulls out a hip flask which he immediately starts using to doctor an RC Cola. 

“None for me,” Adam says, wary about Ronan drinking, and then Ronan throws Adam the keys to the BMW.  This is, somehow, better than the handful of times Gansey has pressed the Camaro key into Adam’s palm. Yes, Adam knows that Gansey has never given Ronan the keys to the Pig. He knows that was a deliberate ritual of trust to hand it over to him. In contrast, Ronan tosses control over casually, like it’s not a thing. Like maybe Adam is just another person and his right to inhabit the same universe has never been in question.

On the other hand -- Adam vaguely remembers Gansey alluding to the notion that the BMW is technically *stolen property*, that it really belongs to Declan or to Ronan’s father’s estate. Adam thinks that if they get pulled in a stolen car with open containers of alcohol in the front seat, the person who in trouble will  be the scholarship kid, somehow, and not Niall Lynch’s heir. You might think this thought process would motivate Adam to drive very carefully. 

It does not.

*

Everything’s fine. They make it home fine. 

An hour later, Gansey comes into Monmouth and finds Ronan and Adam lounging around. Ronan is drunk off bourbon + RC’s. (This drink is now called the Raven’s Crown. It tastes like bourbon and Coke, but if the Coke was worse). Adam is just a little overcaffeinated.

Gansey is confused why Ronan and Adam are hanging out without him.

Ronan says it’s all very straightforward. “WE HAD TO GO TO TROUTVILLE TO BUY A BUNCH OF RC COLA!!! OBVIOUSLY.”

Adam’s got nothing. “Ronan started it?” he suggests.

“Wait,” Gansey says. “Hold on. You guys drove to Troutville -- wherever the fuck that is -- without me? You were just hanging out -- without me?”

If Ronan or even Adam had said this there would be be a current of accusation, of the need for negotiation and balance. Gansey just sounds smug. Maybe his two best friends in the entire world don’t completely hate each other. Maybe they’re all getting somewhere.

Then he goes in the kitchen/laundry/bathroom and swears.  "Jesus Christ," he sighs. "What the fuck are we gonna do with all this shitty soda?"

[lordsireno]

RvB - Skeletons in the closet still have flesh

Pairing: Implied developing Tuckington, mentioned DocNut

Warnings: Blood, Injuries, Illness, slow burn, No ending

Summary: Tucker comes home to find an injured and wanted man hiding in his cupboard, and finds himself unable to turn him in to the authorities. He now has to support the criminal and his half-alien son on his shitty night job, as well as deal with all his acquaintances sticking their noses in. 

((Welcome to my 5000ish word notfic that inspired my almost-human Junior design.  night-inscriber this was a long time coming. Sorry to anyone who doesn’t have a working read more oof ))

He’s running. His entire body is burning, and his mind is screaming at him for running up into an apartment building of all places. Adrenalin is helping him ignore the blood soaking his shirt, or the unusual bend in his leg, or how his left arm dangles at his side. At the next exit the stairs give way to a long hallway, dirty and unsuspecting. He moves down it, stopping when at the end a mirrored set of stairs open up. He takes a moment for a deep breath, and immediately regrets it as the likely several broken ribs halt his lungs. He doubles back, only to see a door numbered ‘609’ wide open, and small child standing in the hallway, pointedly staring at the drops of blood he’d left behind. The kid looks up and grins at him, and he barely has time to do a double take at the amount of sharp, pointed teeth they have before he hears movement in the stairwell.

He ducks into the apartment, finding himself in the living room, one door into a likely bedroom to his left and a kitchen to his right. The child follows him in and closes the door behind them as the thunderous footsteps got louder. There are two doors in the kitchen, so he picks the closest and throws himself inside, landing in a cupboard full of clothes and spare household items. Its spacious enough that he could probably just lay down, and sitting hunkered in the corner his head only just brushes a shelf. The child steps up to the door, so he puts up a finger in a ‘shush’ motion, to which they gleefully return before closing the door.

In the darkness he stifles his breath, trying to disappear. The walls are thin, so he clearly hears a group break off at the stairs and march down the hall. Their armour adds to the weight of their steps, but they’re not loud enough to cover the sound of safeties being switched. The steps de-sync as some stop and some still move. There’s a resounding crack that echoes in the apartment as the front door is kicked open, and the click of a gun being put at the ready.

“Anything Private?”

“Uhh, just some freaky kid eating jam sir!”

There’s further grumbling, before the collection of voices goes quiet. A few more cracks sound out as other doors are kicked, the stomping gets further and further away. What feels like minutes pass as he waits for the sound of their return, but there’s only the creak of the probably broken front door closing, and the soft padding of bare feet back to the cupboard door. When it opens, the blinding light turns the kid into a silhouette, so he squints to focus. The bright aqua eyes become clear first, slit pupils darting about as they look him over. His dark skin and short brown hair contrast against the bright greens he’s dressed in, but he can’t take in more details as the child darts away.

His injuries weight on him, the aches holding him down. He has to keep moving, but giving it a few minutes to let the hunting group move on begins to sound like a nice plan. He didn’t even realise his eyes had closed until the light in the cupboard changed again, and he forces them open. The child holds something out, a handful of gauze.

“…hu, thanks?”

“Blar-h!”

The grin returns, exposing the lines of the child’s lower mandibles and countless pointy teeth. The closest thing he could match it to was the face of a sangheili, but he didn’t care to dwell on why a child looked like that. He pressed the gauze to the holes in his chest, and reasoned for just a few minutes rest before he’d move on.

..........

After a long day at work, the last thing Tucker had wanted to see was a fully armed SWAT team hanging out in front of his apartment building.

Sure, out on the edge of space this shitty colony, built on an equally shitty rock was exactly the palace that attracted the dangerous kind of person. And those dangerous people would get up to the kind of trouble that would require particular force, but why did it have to be by his house.

They don’t try to stop him entering, just giving him a look over as he ignores every other antsy resident and goes directly to his front door. Which, to his gut-wrenching horror, is slightly ajar and barely on its hinges.

“Junior?”

Everything is quiet. He can’t help but reach for the knife on the back of his belt.

“Junior, kiddo?”

The door shifts awkwardly as he pushes in, and the first thing his eyes fall on are the red drops on the carpet-

“Junior?! Answer me buddy.”

“Grah!”

He relaxes as he spots his son, charging him arms outstretched, jam still in hand and all over his face.

“Geesus don’t scare me like that. What happened to the door? And what’s all this mess?”

He grabs Junior around the waist before the boy’s sticky fingers could get to him.

“Really? What have I said about eating from the jar?”

With a sigh he carried Junior into the kitchen, sitting him down by the skin and prying the jar out of his hands. Dampening a cloth, he begins rubbing away the mess from the small, four fingered hands. Then he feels metal against his neck.

“Don’t move.” A hand fumbles for the knife on his belt, freeing it after a few seconds. “Is this the only weapon on you?”

“And people call me out for being too handsy.”

The knife pressed harder.

“I’ve bled through the bandages your kid gave me. Where do you keep more?”

“Bathroom.” Tucker jerked his head back towards the closest door, thankful to pull away from the blade at the same time, “That door behind us.”

The person behind him is close. Close enough he can hear laboured breaths, the warmth blowing past the top of his head. For the longest moment, no one moves.

“Uh, you want me to grab it?”

“No. Just, don’t move.”

The knife and body behind him pull away. Tucker can’t help but glance over his shoulder at the stranger in his house. The man was clearly a head taller than himself, even as he hobbled towards the bathroom. Blond and grey hair was cropped military style, and his skin was littered in scars which made channels for the blood to travel as it dripped from his wounds. Despite the amount of blood which he’d clearly lost, the look in the man’s eyes was still one that showed he was ready to fight. He stepped carefully into the bathroom, still eyeing Tucker cautiously the entire time.  

With a small sigh, Tucker returned to cleaning the jam from Junior, having accepted that so long as the mas wasn’t trying to kill either of them, he could live with some criminal stealing his first-aid. Junior himself seem whole unfazed by the situation, humming softly as he looked around the room.

“You’re a lil trouble magnet, aren’t ya?”

“Grh?” The boy tilted his head.

“Cute eyes won’t save you. Don’t take in strangers, it’s a bad habit to pick up.”

As he moved to wash his own hands, the bloodied man re-emerged from the bathroom, bandaids and bandages covering any open wounds.

...............

-Tucker quickly finishes cleaning Junior. When Wash exits the bathroom, he’s clearly having trouble breathing and asks for a moment, falling to his hands and knees (junior licks a cut on his head, Tucker berates him licking strange blood), eventually he managed to drag himself away. Tucker laments about having to clean the blood.

-Tucker hears the SWAT return from his window, and against his better judgement, he goes and finds the man slumped in the stairwell. He drags him back to the cupboard.

-The SWAT come to his apartment, questioning. He’s cleaned most of the blood, and they thankfully don’t go hunting through all of the rooms. They show him a picture of the suspect, and hand a phone number to report to. He does his best to show no recognition of the picture even if the version he’d seen was covered in blood and bruises.

-Once he regains consciousness, Tucker asks the man what he did, seeing how he was in no shape to fight, but Wash just says he knows things they don’t want him leaking. He wanted to get to a trusted source so the info could get to the correct authorities. Seeing the amount of blood loss, Tucker guesses the man won’t last the night. He moves away, and Junior gets in close, licking the larger chest wound. The man is kinda terrified of the half alien, but suddenly sees the wound clot. Tucker returns and offers aspirin or alcohol for the pain, then berates Junior for licking the stranger again. He leaves the two items with the man and moves off.

-He goes downstairs only to find the building in lock down as they hunt the suspect. He complains about what he’ll feed his kid, and they throw him two rations.

-He returns and watches the man from the corner of his eye, seeing as he’s teetering on the edge of consciousness. He ends up sharing the last of his food with the man after Junior tries poking some at him.

-The lock down lasts for most of the day, so he has to call into work just in case he can’t leave. He checks on the man every few hours, and is honesty surprised he isn’t dead from blood loss. He sits and tries to get a bit more information from him, but all he says is that his ribs are probably broken and he’s struggling to breath. Tucker knows there’s no way to get him to doctor, and he doesn’t have the money for a home visit.

-Tucker leaves for work in the evening once lock down is over. He leaves a glass of water and reluctantly puts Junior in charge of watching the house, to which the child trills.

-At work he meets Donut, who says that the lock down was because of a crazy ex-military guy on the run. When Tucker questions the crazy part, apparently the guy escaped from a mental institution on the far side of town. Dread sets in at the information, only soothed by how immobile the guy was. Then he asks about Donuts boyfriend, who was nicknamed Doc. Donut doesn’t know exactly how much medical training he finished but he knows some things. Tucker says he’s got a case who can’t leave the apartment. Donut says he’ll bring him over, and even bake something for him and Junior, questioning what the kid eats.

-When Tucker gets home, Junior is asleep outside the cupboard, a defence line of toys set up. Tucker puts him to bed. Then he checks on the man.

….

“He was adamant he had to guard me.”

“Is that so? When did you learn the growl language?” The man’s face twisted with some amusement. Tucker lent on the door frame, staring down at the man. “Listen, an acquaintance knows a guy who might have some medical know how, but before he gets here, I need to ask you something.”

“Mmh?”

“They’re saying you escaped from the loonybin.”

“Oh, so they choose to disclose that.”

“So it’s true?”

His face distorted, either from the conversation or how he tried to readjust himself.

“It’s a long story.”

“Well I’m not going anywhere, and you’re certainly not going anywhere.”

His chest shuddered as he tried to take a full breath.

“Well?”

“I’m not going to fly off the rails and attack you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That’s part of it…”

The conversation didn’t continue, and the man’s face warped in further discomfort, his breaths rapid and shallow. With a sigh. Tucker closed the door, wedged a chair in front of it, and went to bed for a few hours rest.

 .............

-Tucker wakes up to an eager Junior and a text from Dount saying they’d be around soon. He makes breakfast and ignore the jammed door. When Dount arrives he scoops up Junior, and Doc from over his shoulder makes a curious remark about the alien hybrid. Tucker ushers them inside and Dount brings out the banana bread.

-When Doc questions about the patient, Tucker makes them swear not to overreact or freak out, all while moving the chair to block the front door. He opens the cupboard and the two look in, Doc being mortified at the sight. Dount guesses that it’s the guy the authorities have been hunting, and Tucker admits to that.

“Why haven’t you turned him in?”

“I’ve been avoiding asking myself that.”

-He forces Doc to check him over, else he’ll lock him in there too. Tucker and Dount chat in the meanwhile.

-Eventually Doc moves away, looking quite shaken, and says he’s got a prognosis. Broken ribs, extreme blood loss, bruising and swelling (and possibly breaks/fractures) to the right forearm, left knee, collar bone and face. Even if he gets his strength back, nothing will heal right without a trip to the hospital. Which Tucker reiterates he can’t afford, nor would bringing in a criminal do any good. Doc asks why he hasn’t turned him over to the authorities. He looks to the phone number, then back to the broken man in the cupboard, who squints out at him from a black eye that’s gotten darker.

“Again, what can we do for him? No hospitals.”

Doc sighed, “Uh, well we can splint the possible breaks, use ice to bring the swelling down, and make sure he eats and drinks. Rest will be best cure and the way to keep his pain down.”

“We’ll do that then. I’ll go find something for splints.”

Tucker moved away. Donut just gave a small shrug and turned to Junior, looking to entertain the child away from the possible criminal. Doc frowned, reluctantly moving back to the closet.

“Now before I give you anything, I need to ask if you’re allergic -”

Suddenly there’s a knife near his neck, and despite being held in the swollen hand it was barely shaking.

“Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to cut me open and get this shrapnel out of me.”

“I’m what?!”

Doc froze, terror surging through him. He didn’t doubt the injured man could kill him on the spot, and the fact he was asking him to perform surgery, in a cupboard, was not and more reassuring.

“I doubt the other three want to see harm to you, or that you want to watch me hurt the others.”

“I really don’t, but what you’re asking-“

The knife pressed harder.

“Alright alright uh…”

Doc moved his large first aid kit closer, twisting to look through it once the knife was removed. This was beyond anything he’d ever tried, but with a threat against himself, Donut, Junior and the idiot who was sheltering the criminal, he felt he only had one choice.

“I’d suggest biting down on this. And please try not to stab me while I’m working.”

He passed him a roll of bandage, which he took and placed in his mouth, before bracing himself. Doc slipped on the latex gloves and fished out the long tweezers and scissors, eyeing the sharpness of the latter. Scalpels were not a staple of kits, but he wasn’t too sure scissors would do the same job. He eye’d the knife still in the man’s hand.

“…You don’t happen to have a clean one of those?”

He got a look back of ‘Seriously?’, but after a moment he did pull out another from beside himself, perfectly clean with a bright aqua handle. Doc nervously took the knife but masked the shaking of his hand by moving swiftly to the wound. The shirt he’d been wearing was damaged, so he cut it away to expose his whole chest. There were a few clear entry wounds, and a few spots that were too covered in blood to clearly tell. Doc took a deep breath and got to work.

...............

-Donut notices the pained noises from the closet and leans in to help, a bit freaked out and confused, but understanding. As he plucks the twisted metal out the man passes out. Donut has to thread the needle as Doc is shaking, more blood leaking out again.

Tucker is mortified at the sight, then pissed that the man threatened Doc, and then worried about all that blood again. They splint what that can and leave him be. Donut says he really needs to think about what he’s doing with the criminal. He and Doc leave, and Tucker spends the rest of the day wondering.

Two nights later the man manages to drag himself out to the bathroom and changes his bandages.

Finding the man properly awake the next day, Tucker asks for recompense. He’s quiet for a moment, before saying that once he can move, he can play guard dog, protecting him and his son, as well as looking after the house. Once he’s able to leave and find his contact he says he can offer monetary repayment. Tucker stares at him, knowing he could get that from the bounty. But something stops him so he nods.

Things don’t improve as the man’s condition suddenly goes downhill. He shows symptoms of phenomena, and Tucker is now digging further into him life savings to try get him some antibiotics. During the haze of this time Tucker learns some more about the man, mostly through delirious muttering and trying to stop him for screaming. He hears the man call himself Washington, but then catches the name David as well. Other people are mentioned, and some are screamed for, but out of it all Tucker is more confused about the whole situation.

Miraculously Wash takes a turn for the better, and even starts breathing better.

Time continues, until Tucker is approached at work.

“Hey, your place is on the north side, right?”

He laments how ex-military types seem to drift towards each other in this colony, but it is a good place to just disappear. He thinks how even ignoring the man’s size, he doesn’t know how Grif lasted even one day in the military. Turns out he’s asking because there’s some work out north, but he wanted a place to crash that was closer.

“And let you anywhere near my fridge? Yeah right.”

“Oh ha ha.”

He actually offers to pay to stay, since the job should pay well. Tucker is torn since money is tight while feeding an extra mouth and buying bandages and painkillers.

“How long?”

“A few days a week, but it’d just be to sleep. I’ll be outa your hair any other time.”

He agrees. The first night he shows up its fine, he tells him to keep quiet not to wake Junior, shows him the bathroom, and tells him not to go in the cupboard else he be buried in trash. Grif says he can relate.

The second night is fine too, and Grif is out like a light and leaves as soon as his alarm goes off. The third night comes around, but Grif is restless. Tucker is on night shift and Junior is growling in his sleep. He gets up and cheekily checks the fridge, feeling rather sorry at the small selection. As he resigns himself to just lie, he spies light from the closed bathroom. He holds as still as he can, listening. It’s all quiet, and he wonders if he just left it on. He holds for a few more seconds, before the bedroom door opens and Junior emerges. He trudges into the kitchen and makes a demanding grunt. After a lot of grumbling Grif correctly fetches a cup for water with a straw, the they both return to bed. The next day Tucker notices the Wash use the bathroom during the day. And he suggests a lock on the fridge. “I fucking knew that fat-ass would go looking.” Tuckers secret guest stays hidden for the time being.

-While on shift, Grif realises his wallet is gone, which contains his ID and legal papers. Unable to skimp on work again, he asks Simmons to go fetch it, because it’s still probably under the couch pillow at Tuckers. Having managed to drag himself to said couch, Wash entertains Junior while Tucker is out. He hears someone approaching, their steps uneven as there’s more weight to one side. Going on alert he puts himself next to the door with Junior. The person stops, knocks and calls out, and then just opens the door whispering ‘wallet’. Wash puts a knife to his neck the moment he steps in and Simmons freezes, arms raised.

“Ohshitohgeezpleasedonthurtme!”

The knife is a steady weight, but shifts slightly.

“It’s quite rude to just burst into someone’s home. What are you doing here?”

“G-Grif sent me. H-he left his wallet.” A finger cautiously points to the couch.

“Grif. Figures.”

“You know- OW.”

Momentarily forgetting the knife, Simmons looked down to find the strange child who kicked him in the shin.

“That’s was uncalled for you little bastard.”

“Thanks for the support Junior. Now are we going to have a problem here?”

Simmons turned his head fully, catching a look at the man.

“Who are you?”

“That’s on a need to know basis. And you really don’t need to know.”

“Wait, you’re not that crazy ex-merc that the military is after, are you? Dount said something about him being around here.”

“Junior, remind me to kill the guy in pink next time I see him.”

“Blarg!”

“Kill?!”

“I’m in every mind just to kill you as well. Though I don’t want to cause Tucker any more problems…”

“I won’t say anything I swear! Nothing at all! I came in, got the wallet, and left!”

Wash stares him down, then narrows his eyes, putting the knife up to the left side of Simmons face, almost in his eye.

“Who stores your optical data?”

“You can tell?”

“Who?”

“Th-The UNSC provided the hardware, but my boss Sarge handles the software and upgrades. All his own development, stored locally and wiped daily.”

(AFTER HERE WE ENTER IDEA LAND. NOT ENDING WE SUFFER LIKE REAL FIC WRITERS.)

Wash notices Tucker is injured, and skipping meals and how Junior hardly gets time with his dad, and the guilt sets in. He didn’t ask to be sheltered and cared for, but he had been imposing for quite some weeks.

The next time Donut visits he says he’s going to turn himself in, but he wants someone to claim the bounty and give it to Tucker. Donut berates him, asking why he thinks Tucker didn’t turn him in in the first place. Wash can��t answer, so Donut says hes caused the trouble so he needs to pay for it. Find a way to pay him back.

.......

(Plot thread A - The Church AI)

Wash is in the Bathroom when he hears two sets of heavy and fast footsteps, and as always he goes on high alert, until the door slams open and someone shouts “Hey looser!” to which Tucker shouts back “Oh for fucks sake, it’s headache 1 and headache 2. Can’t I just have one relaxing day to myself?”.

The strangers must be 'friends’ as someone starts talking about 'stupid tucker’ and saying how he looked like shit. Wash peered out to get a look, only to freeze at the hauntingly familiar face of one of the intruders. He loses his footing, the thump startling the guests. When they ask what that was, Tucker says it’s a guest who’s been renting his couch, and that he better check on them. Inside he finds Wash pale and wide eyed. He asks what’s wrong, and Wash asks back how he knows those people. “What, Church and Caboose? We were in the same squad for a while. Why, you know them?”

He knows Church, Leonard Church. Technically, he knows several Church’s, but he’s uncomfortable at the sight of this one. Against better judgement he exits the bathroom and marches right up to Church, staring him down. Church comments on the type of weirdos Tucker is letting in his house. Wash stares hard and realises the man in front of him is synthetic, fake in the same way Simmons left side was. And when he doesn’t show to recognise him, he asks;

“Which one are you?”

“Which what? Tucker who the hell is this cryptic bastard?”

Tucker tries to pull him away.

“Does the word Alpha mean anything to you?”

“Uh, I was stations at Blood Gulch outpost Alpha when I met these two idiots.”

….....

(Plot thread B - The military’s interest in Junior)

-Tucker gets a letter in the mail, and immediately sours at the sight of the UNSC stamp. Wash asks if it’s another bill, and Tucker jokes he’d rather it be. It is a reminder of Juniors 6 monthly check up, to monitor the growth of the unique hybrid. Junior growls at the mention.

“Yeah, I know you hate it too.”

Wash is wary that the UNSC is keeping tabs on Tucker, but when he tries to press the why it’s clear he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about it. The trip and testing take a whole day, and near the end Junior has fallen asleep in Tuckers arms. The doctor comes along and says the blood results have come in, and the higher office wants to try some hormone injections to try even out Juniors growth. Experimental of course and done over several days. Tucker refuses, saying they’re both tired and if Junior isn’t in immediate danger then he doesn’t want to do more harm. The doctor stares him down, but eventually relents. It’s late when he returns, so he puts Junior to bed and goes hunting for food.

“How’d it go?”

He has a small laugh at Wash being in the closet again.

“What, it’s comforting.” Tucker makes him scoot and they both sit together.

-Then it’s finally Wash’s turn to ask why Tucker never turned him in, Tucker admits it’s not quite clear. However, what he does know is that when he first saw him, he related to him. Scared for his life, up against the military, but still fighting to live on. It was how he felt when the military started treating him and Junior as experiments. He says he was offered a job as an ambassador, the cliche 'sire of a hybrid to bridge peace and understanding’. He ran from it in fear they’d both just be used as puppets in military and political affairs. But now he wonders if it would have been better, to live in comfort and shelter, a proper education for Junior and connection to his alien heritage.

(That was a cute end point, but never enough self indulgence)

-Wash’s paranoid nature is a God send at times. He starts noticing regular and unusual foot steps, often before or after Tucker leaves, until one day they are way too close for comfort. One set stops at what are the stairs down, and the other lighter set comes right up to the door. Wash hides Junior in the cupboard and puts himself behind the couch. The mystery person knocks, waits, and then enters. Peering out the man doesn’t look at big of a threat, save for the gun, knives and arrogance in his stance. He mumbles something about a 'brat’, so it’s clear he’s after Junior. Wash watches him as he surveys the room, then checks the bedroom. He’s in two minds of trying to fight the man, who likely has backup outside, or to run. The main window is in the kitchen and is thankfully on a fire escape, but is locked and would have to be broken. He justifies Juniors protection over the window cost. While the man rifles through the bedroom, grumbling, he moves as stealthy as possible to fetch Junior, quietly opening the door, kneeling and lifting his slinged arm up, Junior getting the idea to climb up onto his chest. The man exits the bedroom just as he adjust Junior, so Wash pivots, throws a chair and dives out the window. He jumps to the external ladder and aims to get out as fast as possible. The intruder swears and shouts for his partner. His leg is still stiff from disuse, and with only one arm he teeters one to many times for Juniors comfort. When he hits the ground, he spares a moment to look up, and sees the intruder following down, before a sniper shot gets much to close for comfort.

(Plot thread C - Wash tries to get his information out)

-Finally able to move, Wash goes hunting for a contact. He knows most probably went underground while he was being hunted but goes to find one locally now the heat is off. Unfortunately he finds Maine, and while Wash thinks it’s great to see an old friend, he doesn’t know the man is back under the projects thumb.

-At a similar time, Tucker overhears two guys at the bar mention Wash. When it seems to be friendly in nature, he pokes his nose in. York and North are over the moons to hear about their old friend.

(You thought the whump was over? Think again me!)

Wash is sorely outmatched by Maine, who knocks him unconscious and takes him back to the project. Tucker can’t wait to tell him that he found his old contacts but Wash never returns home. He calls up York and North in concern, and the two say they’ll look into it.

After more silence, they come back with bad news. This is something serious, so just forget about it (And why are you so worked up? What was he to you?)

(WHAM BAM HIT ME WITH THAT TIME LONGING TIME)

A few years later, when news of a mystery hunter stalking old Freelancer ties, things get busy on the little old planet again.

-Tucker convinces the Reds to rig him a ship so he can go out hunting.

-After those years Junior isn’t with him anymore? Either due to medical reasons or Tucker falling for the ‘better life options’

(Or pussy out and give them a happy ending before the time leap) (BUT NOT WITHOUT MORE DRAMA)

Where Tucker goes and saves Wash himself but gets help from everyone along the way. The mercenaries come back and get a hold of Junior, but Junior gives them the slip when they come up against Maine. Junior latches onto Maine, who doesn’t really know what to do, so he brings him back. The Councillor is suitably confused at the new addition. So guess who the little half-human finds partly brain-washed?