#“old” could range from i drew this when i was 4 to i drew this last week also lmao

[malikselfindulgence]

how about 10?

10: how do you deal with art-block?

Redrawing old stuff! No thinking required and also seeing my improvement helps motivate me :33 besides that I also rlly like going through pinterest boards for outfits I had saved to draw my ocs in!!

I also have tabs on my fav books of scenes that made me want to draw or scenes that felt really colorful in my mind while reading, so if I'm feeling emotional I'll look through those as well!! THANK YOU FOR THE ASK AGXHXHFv

[redcoralpot]

Can you do Daryl finding out reader is trans? Early season 4, perhaps? :3

Attentu - Daryl Dixon x FTM Reader

Your wish is my command!!

Warnings: Gore, murder, violence, blood, cussing, mentions of transphobia and death, and addictions.

Word Count: 2.6K

You eagerly join in on the medical supply run, despite the group's awful luck. A confession from Bob has you feeling quite guilty about a personal matter...

-

It was dead.

You threw the car battery to the side, sick of the luck your supply group had. Daryl was on the other side of the room, shuffling through drawers in an attempt to obtain the right part. For an auto repair shop, it was horribly disorganized.

“Got anything?” you called over, impatient.

A grin took over your face as he tossed the find at you, catching it in a firm grip, “Nah.”

The car was not in terrible shape, not really. Some rust here and there, with paint scratched off from long road adventures before the outbreak. Your father had a similar car when you were just a child, and he was insistent that he passed on his knowledge, despite your mother’s constant objections. It was not fit for someone like you; that your hands should never be calloused from the tough ground nor covered in grease, she said. He always ended up laughing in her face.

So as he would have it, the two of you got in all sorts of trouble. Hijacking cars, picking locks, prying cabinets open with a pocket knife; all things he said would come in handy one day. Daryl seemed like he had the same type of upbringing, all rough and tumble, and perhaps that’s what drew you to him. That, or he was just really damn good with surviving.

Daryl’s footsteps creaked as he led the way out of the building, shining his flashlight on any possible threats around. Someone had to, as you weren’t keen to look after Bob found an old walker stuck under a desk, ending that misery. It was the only one left. One by one, you circled out of the building, with Bob’s silent trepidation behind you as you arrived back at the car. Daryl opened its hood again, and you both set to work.

His voice was muffled around his cigarette, “You never told us about the group you were with, before.”

You glanced up as Bob replied, “Which one?”

“You know,” he continued, when Daryl gave him a look, “when you found me out on that road, I almost kept walking.”

“Why’s that?’

“I was done being a witness. It happened two times, two different groups.”

…

“I was the last one standing, like God intended for me to see it over and over; a curse,” he shook his head, pursing his lips, “but, when it’s just you out there with the quiet, I used to drink a bottle of just 'bout anything just so I could sleep at night.”

“The run to the big spot, I only did it for me.”

You froze, a jug of clear liquid still in your hands. Daryl took it from you, completely unfazed, and managed to get a swig out of it.

He licked his lips, “You gotta keep busy somehow.”

“No, I did it so I could get me a bottle, a bottle of anything. That’s what got Zack killed.”

“That’s bullshit,” Daryl peered at him, “why don’t you get in there and try the engine? Should be the red and green wires, it ain’t rocket science.”

Even as Bob walked away, you stayed silent. Your fingers burned as you rigged the working car battery back in, but never as much as your thoughts. The other man nudged you, urging you to take your hands off as the engine roared in front of you. He clapped his hands and brought them up to his mouth; a sharp whistle rang through the air. Bob’s alcohol troubles seemed to be forgotten by Daryl, since he gave you a rusty smile while you slammed down the hood.

“Nobody coulda’ known, and you ain’t gonna be standing alone. Not anymore,” he reassured Bob.

You huffed, swinging a few plastic bags of gas in the back seats, ducking to join them. Tyreese and Michonne got the rest and the three of you squeezed together with the luggage, closing the door. With that, you left the burdensome place behind.

The ride to the college was short, but Bob still parked a little ways out, and the group set off to walk the rest of the distance. You passed most of the buildings on campus; dull brick that plants jumped at the opportunity to outgrow after a year of inactivity.

“Looks like the building we want is up ahead,” Tyreese stated.

For the first time since Bob’s confession, you spoke, “Are we splitting up? We’ll cover more ground that way.”

“Is that safe?” Michonne questioned, and Daryl eyed you.

“I know I can cover myself, if I end up alone.”

The brunette scoffed, and you shifted a glare at him, “You know I can, too. You’ve seen me.”

“I think,” Bob uttered, “it’s a good idea.”

“We don’t have a lot of time, I’ll shoot if I run into any trouble. Meet me back at the car.”

Outside of the Learning Resource Center, you split from the group, sneaking close to the ground. You heard the rest shuffle in the opposite direction with a soft “C’mon, c’mon.”, and let out a shaky breath. Two pairs, then three pairs of footsteps faded away.

The lights of the wing flickered and let out fading sparks as you padded along, dust pillowing up from wherever you stepped. God, the outbreak sure did a number on this place. Shadows grew as abundantly as the plants, but never dulled the smears of blood along the walls, floor, and shattered glass. It cracked and snapped under you, somewhere behind you, and you hissed as you looked at the walls alongside you. There were several doorways leading to different rooms, most likely supply closets or classrooms. Carefully, you dipped yourself into the nearest doorway, a heavy feeling on your back. Your heart pumped wildly in your chest and your stomach had a sick pit of anxiety as you thumbed through the biggest drawers. There were plenty of jars, containers, and vials, but none of them had what you needed. You read all the labels once, twice, the text in messy handwriting or tiny fonts.

Testosterone, in its liquid form made for injections, should be a clear liquid. You knew that much from what your provider told you, and from your own studies. Any colored liquids, or any with particles floating inside, you discarded from your search immediately. You were taking too long, you started to think, or were you? You didn’t know if you were gone for ten or if you have been here for thirty.

Once again, you slid back into the trashed hallway, trying to make your way towards the next doorway. The only things you could hear were your quick breaths and a creak, most likely from the forgotten building. A set pattern was in your mind as you dove into the room, and the haze of adrenaline made it hard to think. Walkers, as the prison liked to call them, were not your biggest concern. Even before the outbreak, it was dangerous for you to step outside; to live your life. If you passed by the wrong person, your face would be on the hot topic of the community for the week after. Getting caught was not an option.

You blinked, trying to clear the thumping in your ears. The vial’s label looked like a foreign language, though you knew it wasn’t, so you peered closer at it. A gust of hot air hit your neck, and again. Hot air. This place was cold.

Your fingers scrambled for the knife at your side, it was there, wasn’t it? You slashed before you could think. Hair scratched your fingers; your knife dug into a warm crevice. The hot air turned into a raw, groaning noise. The hot air stopped. 

You pushed the body to the ground and your blade was released. The blood trickled hot down your wrist. Instead of the red you expected, it was a sludgy, filthy brown. It dripped in slow droplets on the floor beside your shoes. This was the first opportunity to look at the thing, and what a sight it was.

The knife had caved in a part of its skull, which itself was like a rotten, stomped on pumpkin. It oozed and dripped the same muck over the tile, muddying the disfigured face underneath. It made Osbourne’s stage trick look like simple child’s play to anyone who witnessed the act. Its eyes were still open; bulging out in that manic, hungry way only a madman got before the outbreak. You looked away from the mess, your breakfast seizing in your throat, and you busied yourself with getting more testosterone vials in your bag. The most important thing was that it was not human, not anymore.

Stuffing your full hand in your bag, you made a beeline for the doorway.

You should have learned your lesson.

A weight tumbled over you and knocked you to the floor, breathless. It screeched, rabid, like some sort of fucked up dog. If a dog hadn’t eaten for a month, that is. It stunk, too. It stunk so bad that you thought you might die from suffocation first.

It clawed at you, gnashing its yellow teeth. Your hands were pinned underneath the mass and you heard your knife land across the floor with a clang. This was going to be it. The end. It’s funny, isn’t it? Dying searching for your lifeline. You almost giggled at the irony.

The teeth were close to your neck, aiming to kill. To eat until you were nothing but an unrecognizable pile of flesh and bones. You had to do something, and soon. The only part of your body you could move were your legs, and you tensed them up. You were going to survive this, you were going to get back to that car. 

Three.

You struggled to prop your shoulder up, knocking the danger away from your neck. Its eyes were bloodshot and cloudy. As empty as a corpse.

Two.

The walker got more desperate to bite you, wiggling around harshly on top of you. You tried your best to keep your face far away from its own, but it successfully nipped the edge of your nose. This was going to hurt.

One.

Its final noise was a gurgling one, close to your ear. The weight flopped to your right side, stilling its frugal attempt to destroy you.

“You got yourself covered, huh,” a voice remarked.

You wheezed, “Christ.”

“What were you doin’?”

“Shit.”

Daryl stepped over you, pulling his arrow out of the corpse, “I’m serious.”

You finally got your legs under you, and the first thing you did was back a good distance away from him. There was no getting out of this, you both knew that Daryl would know if you lied to him. Yet, he was one of the last people in the prison you felt comfortable telling. Daryl was a classic redneck, with a bigot older brother and a taste for mysteriousness. There was so much you didn’t know about him, and the hair on the back of your neck stood up like a wildfire. You would have much rather told Carol or even Michonne, if you had to choose. 

“You know what Bob said.”

“Yeah,” he stated, “but you ain’t an alcoholic. I know that much.”

“I’m not, but that wasn’t the point. I only came on this run for one thing, and it isn’t medicine. It’s testosterone.”

“Why do you need that? You’re strong enough without that steroid shit.”

“I don’t get as much as you do naturally.”

“So a medical condition?”

“Kind of.”

“Even if it was, that don’t explain why you had to sneak away from the group to get it. What’re you hiding?”

“I’m transgender, Daryl. I wasn’t born a boy like you,” you murmured.

There was a parade of footsteps down the hallway, and Tyreese burst through the door, the others close behind. He looked spooked, with sweat dripping down his disheveled face. Michonne and, speaking of the devil, Bob looked no better off.

He exclaimed, “Jesus, there you two are. We gotta go, now.”

“What, why?”

“Walkers. Tons of ‘em. Let’s go!”

You gladly took this chance, shoving past Daryl to dart out into the hallway with the others. Everyone else was rushing, but it was a minute before you also heard footsteps behind you. The infected corpses swarmed the building, even though it wasn’t like that before, and it made you wonder what the hell released them. Your group ran up the stairs with walkers not too far behind, and those trapped banged on whatever surface they could reach. 

“There was a ledge near the fire escape,” Michonne hissed, “we can go through there.”

No one responded unless a quick nod could be considered one, and you were off. Michonne went first, then Tyreese, you, and finally Daryl. Your legs were shaking, and you paid Bob a glance. He tensed up, seemingly trying to gauge the distance, before jumping. He was barely right, and landed a little too close to the edge, teetering off. His arms flailed and an army of bodies from below swarmed up to grab his heavy bag. You rushed to catch him, attempting to pull the man up, but he refused to let his backpack go. 

Finally, you ripped both the man and his bag away from the grasp of the walkers, panting, “What the fuck were you doing? What’s in that bag that could possibly be so important?”

“He’s right.” Daryl took the bag from Bob, zipping it open.

Bob rushed to stop him, but it was too late. Daryl dropped the backpack as quick as he picked it up, and he seized Bob by the collar.

“If I ever catch you puttin’ a bottle before a need, I’ll feed you to the walkers myself. You hear me?”

You froze as Daryl let the shorter man down, pushing him as he did so. Everyone else shot him a disappointed look or a glare, and Michonne waved her hand. You were all to keep moving; the run was over, and on an especially sour note.

The group arrived back to the prison safe and sound, the most daring of injuries being bruises, or small cuts. Tyreese and Michonne left to do their own activities, while Bob left to lick his wounds. This retired Daryl and yourself alone, to an awkward silence. With nothing else to do, you picked at a particularly nasty cut on your forearm. It was starting to look infected.

You cleared your throat, “Do you have anything left in your bag?”

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I use some?”

“Nah.” Daryl tossed you his bag.

Carefully, you peeked inside. There wasn’t much left, some disinfectant spray and vials of a clear liquid. No, that couldn’t be, could it?

Testosterone. At least three good vials of it.

You raised them up to your face, not believing your eyes, “Daryl, where the hell did you get these?”

“Grabbed them from that drawer you found the others in,” he refused to make eye contact, “after you left.”

“Why?”

“You might’ve needed more than you got.”

That… meant a lot to you. You had expected him to at the very least ignore you, or even worse, disgusted by you. What were the chances he would grab extras for you, just in case? Instead of yelling or hitting or kicking you out of his life, Daryl did that. If you were being honest, this was one of the weirdest coming out stories to date, but nothing can really beat zombies being included.

“You aren’t mad?”

“Nah. I’m a little confused, though.”

“On the topic?”

Daryl sighed, “Yeah. Wasn’t educated that much.”

“Well, if you want, I could help with that.”

Just for a second, he looked you in the eyes. In that moment, you didn’t see hate, anger, or anything negative. Only a sharp, beautiful glimpse of curiosity.

“Yeah.”

-

[sinning-23]

My Latest crush is an alien car from space Pt.2

Okay so iwasnt expecting so many Mirage smps to like up my post but HEYYY welcome home yall lmao. Heres part two and let me know is yall want like a tag list for the next couple parts. ANywhoo there's some tension that forms this chapter so start getting ready for more flirty and spicyyyy interactions with old boy.

Heres the link to pt.1

Heres the link to pt.3 shawty

ANywho ENJOY!

Pt.2

Touch me softly 

Mirage had allowed you to explore his anatomy, and he was more willing than you thought. You had managed to make a nice little sketch of his body and made 4 separate copies to try and get a placement in where everything was. Then you had 5 more separate sheets just in case there were some more internal systems you wanted to note. He watched as your eye brown pinched and formed a line on your forehead and your fingers guided the pencil to the paper. 

“Wow, you drew me kinda sexy.” He jokes making you draw a breath trying to hold back a laugh. 

It really wasn’t sexy, it was about the equivalent of the Vitruvian man drawing and basic anatomical positioning for a robot. He watches you stand, hair pulled back, yet a couple of braids still fall in front of your face. He’s quiet, looking at the way you focused so intensely on exploring him.

When you gestured for him to move his leg, he did so without complaint, the feeling of your soft, warm hands under his exteriors heating him up from the inside. Of course, you’d never know that unless you kept poking and prodding. 

“Ok so compared to me, and well, other humans I’m sure your overall body parts are called different things. So let’s start from top to bottom, yeah?” You suggest, eager to learn. 

Mirage kneels in front of you, giving you an opportunity to see better. You’re much smaller than him, but he could tell when you stood next to Noah you were definitely average human height. Small to him but normal to everyone else. 

“Alright I hope you’re ready cause there’s a LOT.” He explains, clearing his throat as you move closer to his face just to see better, he blinks a bit, getting used to the feeling.

You smile slyly, placing your hand under his chin to  guide his face, 

“Let’s start with your face. Stick out your…tongue?” 

He opens his mouth and lets the ‘flesh’ inside lol out before speaking 

“Gloth-ah” he announces and you tilt your head in confusion, only for him to repeat.

“Glossa” 

You nod prodding at what you soon learned was his helm and face plates. You brush over his vocalizer for a moment and he hums, high-pitched enough to be a moan but not loud enough for either of you to acknowledge it. You know what you heard though.

“Whoa- lets not touch that alright ma?” He asks. 

Soon enough your trailing downward and when you do he announces each part for you to make a note of. This is the quietest he’s been since earlier today. He lets you work, touch, poke, pull, and press whatever you'd wanted. It’s not like it hurt really, but he’s never had something smaller than him want to examine at such close range and actually touch places he’d never been able to. In fact, it was kind of nice-

He yelps when you slide your hand down his chest plate and even farther under his chassis. You pull away, startled at the noise with wide eyes. 

“OK, that’s enough exploring don’t you think?” The statement is rushed and you side-eye him when what sounded like cooling fans whirred from inside.

Had you gotten him worked up? Maybe those were sensitive spots that had never really been touched like that before? You nod, not wanting to pry and ruin this newfound friendship by being a perv. You collect the papers and paperclip them together as he begins to wind down. It's about 6am now, and the sun peeks in through the garage windows. Your dad should be awake about now and- 

You gasp pushing Mirage back into the space he was originally parked in last night(even though he didn’t budge). Your dad couldn’t know about this! AT ALL! Knowing him he'd stress out and then his pressure would get too high and he’d have a heart attack and-

“Whoa hey, what the rush, mamas? Got something to hide?” Mirage questions, figuring out why you were trying to get him back into a corner. 

Was he being clueless on purpose?!

“YES, YOU! Now go back to being a car! My dad can't know about you, it might just be the death of him.” You huff out, gripping your scalp and pacing back and forth. He gets the idea, chuckling a bit before right back to that beat-up Porsche.

You sneak out the garage, tiptoeing up the stairs and into your room. And the moment your head hit the pillow, not even a tornado could wake you. 

__________

You'd be lying if you said you didn't sleep the rest of the day away. By the time you woke up it was already 3-4pm and sounded like your father was cleaning up the kitchen. You sigh, running yourself a shower considering you didn't get one the night before. Mirage was still in the garage as far as you knew and you were hellbent on getting the rest of those notes.

You step in, the water feeling soothing against your skin, steam filling up the bathroom as you sigh in relief. Thoughts of your apartment fill your head. 

‘Maybe Mirage could help with the unpacking? Or maybe not. He could be spotted and then that’s more problems for us. Mirage…..Miraaaaageee….’

Your turn to face the water, soaping up your towel as suds slide down the drain. 

‘I wonder if a car wash is the equivalent of a shower for him….does he stay a car or like…fully transformed….does he have a-‘ 

Shutting the water off you opt to pull your hair back today since youd being doing more exploring. The steam from the bathroom escapes when youleave and pad downstairs, catching a glimpse at the note you father let you on the kitchen counter

~Working late, leftovers in the fridge~

You smile to yourself, grabbing a bottle of water to try and beat the obvious heat outside and head to the garage. Sure enough, the Porsche is right where you left it. Mirage is right where you'd left him, and when you tap on the window, the doors unlock almost instantly. You flatten the back of your blue jean skirt and adjust the seat. Awfully quiet today?

“Well good afternoon to you too sunshine? You realize it’s almost 5 right?.” You joke, hearing him rev his engine and the radio humming to life with the sound of his voice. 

“You had me up all night! Looking this good doesn’t happen on its own! But how tired can I be when a pretty girl in a miniskirt‘s got her thighs on my seat?” He shoots back, making you gasp. 

“Drive you flirt, I got more notes to take. Wanna go to that garage you took me to yesterday?” You ask, using the garage clicker to leave. 

It was hot, the sun beating down on you as Mirage insisted you keep the windows down instead of running the ac. The streets were somewhat empty on this fine Sunday morning and Mirage’s only response was to drive in what you assumed was the direction to the garage. You fidget with the radio nobs and glance at the aux cord below the cd player. Maybe he did have CDs in here? You open the armrest to find nothing but-

It was easy to be nosy and explore when Mirage could drive himself, youd put that together on your own last night. There was so little you knew about him but his demeanor overall made you feel comfortable enough to ask. He was…charming. You pull the blank CD case out the armrest, and dust it off. 

“MIrage’s Mix (from-)”

The name was scratched off, well more smudged than anything. You crack the case open and slide the CD into the player, the wait for the music to start making you a bit nervous. Had he realized you'd put it in? Was it personal? You begin to regret your decision but before you could press the eject button, it began. N.W.A. blasted from the speakers, startling you for a moment but you're soon amused.  What did he know about N.W.A?

________

It doesn't take much longer for you to arrive at the garage, most of the lot being empty while the two of you enter to complete more of your research. You set your purse down, taking the papers from yesterday out and trying to organize them as he peers over your shoulder.

“Still think you drew me sexy-”

You scoff playfully and push him a bit, not moving him in the slightest but still, but he still finds it amusing. 

“Stop it, I need you to sit so I can finish. You got all squeamish on my last night.” You tease, sliding your hand down the back of his ‘leg’ and he freezes.

He kneels back down, watching your every move. Your fingers hover over his vocalizer, the warning from yesterday replaying in your mind. Right, don't touch. You skip his chest plate and chassis, watching his expression slightly change to disappointment for what seemed like only a second. Again, he announces each part of himself, the air slightly awkward and VERY quiet. Maybe now was the time to try and strike up some more conversation.

“Soooo, where are you really from?” You ask, writing down each part you trace over when he speaks. 

“Cybertron actually. Not in your solar system lil mama.” He flirts, turning his palms slightly open when you tap them. 

Servos 

"Never been?" He jokes again, admiring how small your hand looked compare to his.

'Careful Mirage your size kink is showing' he thinks to himself, avoiding your gaze.

You shake your head in response, looking at the details of his hands, moving back to his torso, purposefully skipping over the plated area between his thighs. Boundaries were definitely not something you wanted to cross, trying not to make him uncomfortable. I mean, he was willingly letting you poke around, and he clears his throat when you skip that spot.

“You, you can look if you want. And touch…ask questions. It's all good babygirl.” He offers, almost melting when you look up from under your lashes at him.

 He could practically feel his pump about to explode. Why did Earth girls look so damn pretty? Mirage couldn't wrap his head around it honestly, the feeling he got when he passes a pretty girl when Noah would take him for drives. How they would gasp if he revved loud enough to embarrass Noah a bit but also score him a couple numbers.

Talk about a damn good wingman. You were different though.

You were a softer kind of pretty…He'd seen you come into the garage so many times before you really met. The day your dad parked him in that spot, he watched you skip in with your little low-rise jeans, the piercing you sported shining in the sunlight. 

You hugged your dad, eyes lighitn up at the new car with a gasp. 

“A Porsche! Dad oh my gosh really?” You ask, seeing him nod. You squealed more, inspecting his paint job, it was just as beat up then as it was before you officially met. 

You chatted on and on about how ‘cute’ he’d look when you finally got to paint him a nice shade of hot pink and added your glitter seat covers. Not so exciting for him considering pink wasn't particularly his favorite but god did you look adorable when you were excited. 

And there was that same look. Pure, unbridled excitement, yet your eyes shone almost darker this time. That look is almost salacious. It makes him swallow hard, legs opening a bit more and you brush your hand over his thighs, sparing one more glance as if to ask, ‘Are you sure?’ He only nods. 

“Mirage, you gonna keep telling me what everything is, or am I to assume on my own?” You question, tracing the skirt plate.

Ita hard to speak, his fans feelijg as if they were working overtime to keep him from overheating. Primus you looked so pretty between him and now he was wondering how would you look riding his-

You stop touching, whistling to get his attention. Damn, he kinda liked that.

“ ‘Rag, we good?” You questions and he swallows hard at his new nickname.

Where did all that slick talk go now? 

“Yeah, y-yeah we’re good ma.” He responds finally, optics low when your light chuckle reaches his ears. 

You slide your hands up and down his midsection plating, teasing at this point. How was he supposed to focus on helping you learn when you touch under his plates like that? When your fingers slide over his thighs and over the skirt plate over and over, the pace only makes him want to thrust into your touch.

He felt perverted sort of, getting off on you exploring him in the name of science. That was such bullshit. He looks down at you, watching you pinch your lip between your teeth. Oh….you liked this. Your thighs pressed together as your tongue darts out to lick your lips. 

You look up at him again, smile mischievous. And before he could ask any questions you slid you hand right back to his chassis and vocalizer. Oh that was a moan without a doubt. You hum in satisfaction, you’re practically playing with him, his body. It wasn’t helping that he hadn’t been touched like this in so long either p.

“Wanna tell me what happens if I keep touching you like this?” You purr, seeing Mirage avoid eye contact. 

“C’mon ma, don’t mess with me like this.” He breathes out, hollow.

You stop your ministries after hearing tires and revving come to a halt. With footsteps approaching you stand quickly, Mirage doing the same. He crosses his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall as if he’d been caught while you shove the papers into your bag and swallow hard. You’d never moved so fast in your life.

Noah enters, feeling as if he’s just interrupted something but panicking once he realizes the predicament you were about ot be in. Why were you two here? Did Mirage even think this through? Probably not.  He glances back at the other 3 bots behind him, trying to find a quick solution to hide you. But, before he could get any sort of plan out, three other robots similar to Mirage walked in, and one of them, was not at all pleased. 

“Primeee, i had no idea youd be back so soon!”

_______________________________________

Lemme know waht yall think in the comments lmao and let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist as well!

Mini Taglist: @gniteruirui @veggiepizzababy panty-h03

[sassyfrassboss]

With Respect to Harry and Meghan’s Australia Tour, from an Aussie:

1) A fair few of their engagements were at popular tourist spots, so the spots had a  crowd anyway, with or without the duo’s presence.

2) The crowds were average to small. The photos are very carefully engineered to make the people who turned up look like massive crowds. They crammed whoever turned up into very small spots and took close range photos to make it seem like there was a crowd, or they whoever turned up and strung then out along a line one or two people deep to create a crowd for the photos. If you know the areas they visited, the manipulation is obvious. 

3) William and Catherine were far more popular. I lived through both tours, and I know which one has genuine popularity and organic coverage (the Waleses) and which one was all hype (the Harkles).

4) The tour was supposed to be a solo visit by Harry in support of the Invictus Games, and he was supposed to spend most of it at the games (not just one event and the closing ceremony). The fact that he barely attended the Games and insisted on on inserting Meghan into the event left a sour taste in many mouths (Meghan was never meant to present medals or make a speech, he tantrumed, threatened, pulled rank and blackmailed to get those events for her).

5) No one who had anything to do with Meghan in a service capacity liked her. Harry spent all his time apologising for her behaviour (he still has some sense of decency then).

6) The split tea rumours are true, both the event and BP paying $$$.

7) The tour was so bad that Prince Andrew was sent on an ‘apology tour’ a few weeks later to mend diplomatic ties, while ostensibly doing something for Pitch for the Palace (this was pre Epstein scandal).

8) I believe the other countries the duo visited (New Zealand, Tonga, and Fiji) had a similarly bad experience, if not worse.

9) The popularity of the tour exists only in the Harkle’s PR. For everyone connected with it, it was a disaster - so much so that the late Queen summoned Harry and Meghan to account for their behaviour when they returned to the UK (apparently Meghan cried bug tears and played the pregnancy card at the meeting). 

10). If you want to see big crowds, look at the photos of Princess Diana in Australia. She drew massive crowds. The Harkles were lucky if they had an eighth of that amount of people turn up for the, including the tourists already at their destinations.

___

Thank you!

So I do remember it was to be only Harry and it was to be solely focused on the Invictus Games. From what I can remember at the time, Meghan had been pushing really hard for a United States victory tour shortly after the wedding and that was denied so when the AUS tour was being planned, Meghan insisted on going and making it into a free vacation. 

The whole tour was a disaster from what I recall. Meghan belly-cupping a seven week old fetus, her failing to curtsy to the King and Queen of Tonga, leaving the market after 10 minutes so she could go to a spa...etc...

[writingbyshiloh]

Medical Drill

Summary: Just more Team Germany stuff in the Toledo House

CW: smoking, FEM! Reader (referred to as “pretty lady”), general Berlin-ness, secret relationships, implied previous smut

AN: I ADORE Moscow so he’s featured in this. If it is disjointed it's bc I wrote half a month ago and another half while making bread. No beta. @soraya-daydreams <3.

WC: 1.65

You rub your eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness of your room and what must have happened to wake you up so fast. The curtain you drew last night is firmly in place, all your belongings are where they should be. You start to lay your head back down. You bolt upright when you hear another knock on your door followed by the Professor stage whispering. 

“Vienna! We need you! Something happened to Moscow! He can’t breathe!” 

There is a high chance it’s a drill. You tell yourself. If something is wrong, he will be in your room shaking you awake. 

With a sigh, you heave yourself out of your bed and start rummaging through the “medical kits” scattered around your room. The real ones for the heist are still being assembled, so you have old books ranging from Care and Keeping of Farm Animals, to Don Quixote, labelled by which kit they are and the supposed contents. The order of them generally goes from the head down, no.1 being head injuries, no.2 and no.3 being neck and heart respectively. You pluck no.4 - lungs - off the floor and sprint out of your room. The hall is quiet, meaning Moscow must be at the checkpoint with the Professor. 

You wince slightly as the steps creek while you run down them. But if you can’t get any sleep, you don’t feel back about the others waking up. Stumbling out the house door you don't even register the temperature change and just keep running. 

Moscow and the Professor are sitting at the outside table quietly talking, while every few seconds the Professor looks at his stopwatch. The night is warm with a clear sky so they don’t seem to mind being awake. You run faster outside, trying to make up for lost time. Slaming the “medical kit” on the table you look up at the Professor (ignoring his wincing at how you treat the medical kit) to get your reaction time. 

“This says number 5 on it.” Moscow tells you. You almost break your neck with how fast you turn your head to look at the book. You see the clear Medical Kit 4 label and look back at Moscow to see if he actually is having a medical emergency. He lets out a small laugh and pats your arm as if to apologize for pranking you. You feel yourself smile despite the early hours of the morning. 

“I’m just messing with you. You did well.” He says. You don’t have it in you to be mad at him, and lightly push his shoulder to let him know you see the funny side. 

“Well, good yes. It’s faster than last week's drill. However, in a heist, every moment is crucial to treat the hostages.” The professor tells you moving his fist to articulate his point. Pulling out a seat you sit next to Moscow, who offers you a cigarette. You nod and he hands you one and his lighter. You force yourself to nod and pay attention to the impromptu lecture knowing you’ll never have to work again in a few months.  

The professor only has a few more comments, things you make mental notes about to try next time before he bids you a good (but quite early) morning and leaves to prepare for the class day. 

“Thanks for doing this,” you say quietly. 

“I used to wake up at 4 in the morning for the mines. This is nothing for me.” Moscow tells you. 

“Mind if I sit with you for a moment? I’m wide awake now, I don’t think I could sleep.” 

Moscow nods and you lapse into a comfortable silence. Moscow is kind to you and praises you in front of Denver for getting an education to gently tease his son. He has ended up being your partner for many heist-related team exercises. At first, it was because his son kept ditching him to team up with Nairobi or Tokyo, but now you prefer to work with him over anyone else. Berlin is a close second. 

“How are things going with your boyfriend?” He asks lighting up another cigarette. You frown thinking over his words while you watch the cherry of the cigarette burn. You don’t tell anyone about previous partners you’ve had before joining the heist, trying to keep going through with the future and ignoring your past. 

“My who?” 

Moscow turns his head to see if you’re joking with him. When he seems you’re not he continues “C'mon, you know. The other half of Team Germany.” He adds extra empathy to the team bit. 

You drop your gaze down to your cigarette in the ashtray. Moscow places his hand on your shoulder and gives it a small squeeze. You like Moscow, he’s like one of those uncles who aren’t blood-related but always there for you. He dances with you after three beers and tells you corny jokes. 

“I, um, we have been ‘seeing each other’ for a few months.” You say, using air quotes to describe the nature of your relation to the leader of the heist. Moscow shows no anger or judgement, just his kind eyes so you keep going. 

“It’s supposed to be causal. And I’m keeping it that way ‘cause who knows what will happen inside the mint. I can see why he was married five times. Part of me wants to go along with it, even after the heist. But I can't risk ruining the money.” 

“Are you going to tell him?” 

You sigh, watching the wind blow through the bushes. You tell yourself you will but there are so many what-ifs it's hard. 

“I’ll decide when we're all on the boat.”

Moscow looks like he has something to add, but isn't sure if he should say it. When he opens his mouth to speak, all that comes out is a bad cough. You rub your hand over his back as he hunches over, carefully watching and waiting before you offer him water or a cough suppressant. Much to your dismay, he resisted, trying to get back to the conversation between you. 

"What were you saying?" he asks. 

"I can't remember." you lie, and Moscow is kind enough to understand the topic of the conversation entirely. 

“Let me cheer you up. Have you heard the one about the doctor and the teacup?" 

You turn to look at him, excited for whatever it could be. 

“Darling, you look exhausted,” Naririobi says joining you at the table for a lunch break. You nod slowly as if each movement is exhausting you, which isn't far from the truth. 

“There was a medical drill last night. I couldn’t sleep after.” You tell her. She nods sympathetically as you reach for another glass of water. 

“Go and nap. I’ll wake you before class starts,” she says. Thanking her you push your chair into the table and start to make your way to the stairs. 

You’re so close to your bed that you can almost feel the soft pillow under your head when a hand reaches for your wrist. Too tired to question or pull your hand back you just follow the hand to an arm clad in an expensive suit jacket, to a handsome face. 

You blink slowly, not to be seductive but to try and get some moisture back into your tired eyes. It helps but also puts you closer to an eye twitch.

“Hey pretty lady, where are you going?” he asks quietly. Everyone else is downstairs eating or outside to enjoy the summer but you appreciate his commitment to keeping it hidden. 

“To bed.” 

You watch his lips curve into a sharp smile, thinking you’re going to take him with you. 

“In the middle of the day? When is everyone awake? That’s risky for you.” He gently twists your wrist so he can kiss the back of your hand. “I like it.” 

“I’m going to my bed, alone, to nap,” you correct him, making no moves to pull your wrist back.

“How much time did the Professor say was an efficient nap? 20 minutes?” he twists his wrist to check his watch, shaking your arm in the process. “You can nap and we still have another 30 to spend together.” 

He chuckles as you shift your weight, seriously considering his proposal. 

The rapid heavy thumps of footsteps on the stairs make Berlin drop your hand and turn around. You bend at your side to peep over his shoulder to see who is coming. Denver comes into view first, with Moscow starting to loom behind him. 

You see Denver nudge Moscow to start speaking, some questions addressed to Berlin, something about the phone that will be wired to the Professor. 

“As you can see, I’m talking to Vienna right now,” Berlin says, turning back to you. He looks apologetic that your time together will have to be cut short. 

You wave a hand in front of your face. “I have to nap anyway. We'll continue this later?” 

Berlin smiles at your words, hearing the subtext in them and nodding in agreement. Turning back to the other men, you’re sure he’s still smiling. As he and Denver descend the stairs, Moscow catches your eye and gives you a friendly wink. One that just screams I was young once too. 

Face burning, you rush into your room, kick off your shoes and settle into bed. Even though you know you won’t be able to fall asleep now.  

[ghosties--writing]

Slow-Burning Love Ch.3

part 1

part 2

part 3 You're Here!

part 4

part 5

part 6

Backstory – Ghost and Reaper, Taskforce 141, two soldiers from opposite sides of the world become allies in the midst of a dangerous operation. The two begin an unexpected romance despite their difference, and as their attraction grows stronger, their relationship faces unexpected hurdles and challenges that will test the boundaries of their feelings for one another. Despite the odds stacked against them, Ghost and Reaper come together, forming a powerful bond as they work together to complete their mission.

Ghost and Reaper were in the middle of their friendly competition when suddenly, their radios burst to life with an urgent message. All of Taskforce 141 members were to report in for an urgent meeting immediately.

A high-value target, a dangerous mission, and an unknown location. Ghost looked over at Reaper grinning under his mask, and she smiled and winked at him. The mission was on and the sparks between them continued to fly.

The tense atmosphere of the mission briefing was filled with not only tension but anticipation. Ghost couldn’t wait for the chance to prove himself and impress Reaper. As the meeting drew to a close, the plan was made and Taskforce members prepared for the dangerous mission ahead.

Reaper approached Ghost as their team was briefed. She stepped close to him and whispered in his ear, “How about that date now?”

Ghost was taken aback by her boldness, but he couldn’t resist her charisma. “You really know how to keep a soldier on his toes.” Ghost replied with a flirtatious smile.

Reaper smirked, “I bet you love the chase.”

Ghost smirked, “I bet I’m not the only one who loves the chase.”

Reaper and Ghost shared a playful gaze, their chemistry in sync as the rest of the mission briefing continued.

Afterward, their team members filled out their respective vehicles, and Reaper and Ghost stood together at the entrance to the firing range. They shared a final gaze and a playful smile before Ghost walked out to his vehicle and opened the door for Reaper.

Reaper stepped into the vehicle with a blush, her legs grazing Ghost’s in the cramped “I must be the luckiest girl alive right now.”

Ghost nodded, his smirk mirroring hers under their mask. “You certainly have my attention.”

Reaper couldn’t help but give in to the pull she felt for him, her body pressing closer to him as he continued to flirt and banter as the convoy took off.

As the vehicles drove through the dark night, Ghost and Reaper both felt the tension rising. The mission itself seemed like an old hat to a skilled veteran like the both of you, but you both couldn’t deny that having each other on the mission made it feel like something special.

Reaper turned to Ghost with a mischievous glance, whispering, “Perhaps later tonight you can show me what’s really under that mask.”

Ghost was shocked and taken aback at her asking the question but he couldn’t help but find himself wanting to give in and kiss her. He leaned close looking into her eyes “Perhaps.”

Reaper smiled under her mask and turned her head. With a wink and a small teasing smile hidden behind her mask, she leaned in and whispered “Don’t get ahead of yourself, soldier” She teased.

Ghost smiled back, and he could feel himself wanting her more and more with every moment they spent together. He was determined to prove himself, to show that he could win her heart. But he couldn’t show all of his cards to her yet, he had to play them 1 at a time. He wanted to make her want him just as much as he wanted her. But with the mission ahead of them, he was determined to do whatever it took to finish the job and prove to Reaper that she could trust him.

As the convoy continued, Ghost and Reaper spent the ride together in the back of the vehicle, the tension between them growing with every passing second.

Reaper's hand wandered close to ghost's shoulder, slowly tracing her finger across his shoulder before caressing his chin.

Ghost couldn’t resist as he brushed her finger with his hand, their finger grazing in a soft touch of passion – their eyes locked together in a magnetic connection. Reaper felt her breath catch in her throat as their fingertips grazed each other in a touch of sensual passion. Her body felt like a wave of electricity, every nerve and fiber of her body alive and alert to every motion of Ghost's touch.

Ghost felt a rush of emotions overcome him as their fingers danced in a warm embrace. At that moment, he forgot about everything else except her and the passion that they now felt for each other.

The tension between Ghost and Reaper continued to build as their fingers danced in a passionate touch, their breath catching in their throats as they couldn’t help but feel the connection they now shared.

As the convoy rumbled on into the night, the two of them were swept up in the heat of their emotions, the mission temporarily forgotten as a new spark of passion was lit between them, their fingers still intertwined. At that moment, Ghost didn’t see Reaper as a soldier with a troubled past similar to his own, he saw her as a woman with a heart of gold and a passion of fire.

X- other platforms

Feed back is welcomed.

I do not condone my work being published on any platform or to be translated in any way.

Reblogs welcome.

[amrass]

Fanfiction updates and excerpts 04.01.24

Guess who's back after 40 days of fast! I've tried to come up with an April's Fools joke, but nope, seems my brain is reeling from going from very little internet and then a lot of internet at once. I am currently knee deep in Fear & Hunger and Silent Hill walkthroughs, and am in a nice mood despite a tension headache.

Thank you to those who have supported my work in these weeks, it means a lot, especially during dopamine withdrawal 💙

Here is the list with the works I am focusing on in the coming month(s). So much Micah lol ... And blanket warning for NSFW.

Main works:

Salt.

Colm/Micah, sugar daddy precanon AU, dark content. Currently at part 9, in Arc 2, soon to go over in arc 3. Ohh this SOB of a fic ... Not because it's hard to write, quite the contrary, it just grows and grows. I'm having fun with it though. Part 10 should be up this weekend :) It's going to be like 80% smut. Here is an except from it:

"Last round. Your fourth, yeah? Remember to keep it in."

"I can't," Micah said like an amateur ventriloquist, cum tricking out of his mouth.

"You wished me good luck," Colm said, faking disappointment. He dug his nails in where shaved skin ended and unshaven skin began.

Micah visibly steeled himself; he seemed to expect another harsh handjob. He ceased breathing when Colm bent down between his legs, face hovering above his poor, half-erect cock. 

"Tell me no," he said slowly, his grin opening, mouth filling with spit.

Micah could only stare.

xxx

The Damned and the Redeemed

A motorcycle gang AU set around 1990-2010, like in GTA 4: The Lost and the Damned, with the RDR2 main cast as bikers and their horses as smaller pets. While out riding, Arthur gets tasked with recovering Micah, who has been missing from the clubhouse for a few days. /// I am currently sulking because it's kind of hard to recreate Fast & Furious in text form, but about half of this is written.

"Easy, boy. Easy. It's just me," he said as he put his helmet down on, and carefully opened the door. "You remember me, don't you?"

About a third of the orange lamps inside the RV worked, but he saw the shadow of the Pitbull, the muscles breathing under thin black and white fur, like a miniature motorcycle no less vicious in its ability to break bones. The dog stood still, quieter than the police radio, sounding like ghosts due to the RV being far underground. If Arthur hadn't had experience with Baylock, spending time in the clubhouse kennel, he might've mauled him through the MC protection. 

"I'm just here to check up on Micah. Easy, easy," Arthur kept on repeating, keeping his voice friendly, moving into a crouch. He removed his glove and presented his hand.

Baylock did not move to sniff it.

xxx

Cata Doxa

Set in the same AU as TDatR, as a kind of epilogue. My attempt at a realistic, redeemed!Micah/Arthur. The motorcycle gang has disbanded, and Arthur and Micah live together in an old safehouse with a dog named the Duchess and a cat named Patrick (Bateman). Part 1-2 is filthy domestic Morbell smut, but ends on a bittersweet note. Part 3, which is unwritten, is hurt/comfort, and includes the cookies actually getting baked in a nonsexual sense, more Duchess & Patrick, and a talk on how it is like to grow older when one did not expect to survive. OLD MAN YAOI ALL THE WAY --

"You stirring?"

Arthur tried. There was something laughably pathetic about those small jerks of the wooden spoon against the wet dough and bowl. He laughed at himself, his shaking hands. "Shit," he said.

Micah pulled away, and the air was cold on Arthur's ass. Biting his lip to stifle a needy sound, he looked over his shoulder. Micah was still on his knees, looking up with a lewd grimace. "Shit? I sure hope not."

Arthur frowned, then did an intense eye roll. "Are you four years old?"

"Point blank range," Micah said, giggling, "But I guess," he drew out the words, savoring them, "I like to live dangerously …"

When Arthur rolled his eyes again, they stayed up, vanishing beneath his lids. The mouth had returned with a vengeance, thumb fucking into him while Micah licked around it. It slid deeper, and Arthur nearly dropped the bowl.

xxx

Slug

Same universe as TDatR, but is standalone, and far darker. NONCON & VIOLENCE. Four parts, O'Driscoll Gang/Micah, Colm's brother/Micah, Colm/Micah. Includes foursome, duct tape, spider gags, drugs, vibrators, gang rape, forced feminization, circle jerk, bukkake, boot worship, overstimulation, watersports, mindfuck ...

Micah is caught when robbing a O'Driscoll Gang hideout, disguised as a derelict gas station. What follows is six hours of horror, varying in intensity and depravity. He tries to manipulate the power structures within the gang in order to survive - when he's not screaming, that is.

Micah reached for his guns, only to be pulled backwards until he was flat. Leather fingertips dug into the hair roots and the swollen flesh beneath as more men swarmed him. They held his arms and legs down using thick gloves and thicker boots, applying pressure until he stilled. He swore his bones creaked under their combined weight. He looked up like he was stargazing among neat hills, and not in a ditch surrounded by helmets and with the stars hidden by city smog. 

"Let me," said a second voice from above him, and another face came into view, so pretty it was near angelic, covered in a halo of reddish blonde corkscrew curls. Upside down, he looked to be smiling, friendly if not for the baseball bat hovering between them, covered in rusty nails. "Let me kill the little thief."

"Not yet. Bosses are near. Wanted to have a look."

xxx

And that's what I'm focusing on! But other fics might appear sporadically, like my Morbell fic Anhedonia did.

Hope everyone is having an alright Easter, if they celebrate, or otherwise just having a good time :)

Of all the seasons I dislike spring the most, so sending some extra love to those going through a tough time, April and May can be cruel.

[glowinghae]

meet me at midnight || c.four

[Chapter Four- Waves]

𝐉𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐃 + OC

meet me at midnight masterlist 𝟏𝟖+, lots of various torture, trauma, angst, suffering, cheating, violent death, women not supporting women, arguments, fluff but really a lot of angst. smut of all kinds. all characters are over 18,

to be a vigilante requires only three things: a broken heart, the resources, and the will.

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝟏𝟖+ 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘! as always a gargantuan thank you to @hllokttyairhead for being an amazing support, editer and friend. truly you are my muse. pls pls pls go and follow her because that is one QUALITY blog.

 A path was forming on the floor where Esther paced back and forth, staring at the screen of her phone as she chewed on her fingernails.

“He could be fine.” Esther muttered to herself repeatedly, the red flashing vitals saying otherwise. “Fuck.”

Essie stormed across the room and snatched her suit from where she’d laid it out on her bed. It took her a minute to get it on, but it felt weird to wear it in the light of day; this couldn’t wait for nightfall, though. 

Tightening her weapon’s harnesses, Esther swore under her breath. She had her blades, but her gun was missing. Dick must have taken it. This made things ten times harder.

The computer here wasn’t strong enough to make a tracker from the chip that Jason had left her, but Esther knew of one that was. As she slipped her mask over her face, Esther slid her Khopesh into its leather sheath. 

Getting to the computer system she needed wouldn’t be a problem, but getting around its guard dog might be.

…

No sound was made as She-Wolf’s feet landed on the balcony outside the expensive loft in East Gotham. The sliding door was unlocked, as Esther knew it would be.

Barbara Gordon was used to masked vigilantes using her balcony as an entrance.

Luckily it seemed that no one was home as Essie silently closed the door behind her. That was good; the last thing she needed was Babs asking a million questions. The living area looked normal, but Esther knew better. Stepping over to the vintage telephone on the bookshelf, Esther lifted the receiver off its stand and rang in the numbers 5-7-4-5-6. The moment she placed the receiver back down, the room began transforming.

The bookshelf split open, and a massive computer screen console emerged. The window curtains drew themselves shut, and the tv disappeared into the floor, replaced by an enormous display case that came from inside the wall.

The case gave Esther pause. Inside was Barbara’s old Batgirl suit. The purple and gold detailing made her smile, and she placed her hand over the glass.

“Teach me that move!” A ten-year-old Esther screeched after getting landed on her ass by Babs. Barbara moved her cape out of the way and reached out to give the girl a hand standing up. 

“I’ll teach you that move after you’ve learned to block it.” Batgirl laughed, “If you’re gonna be Bat-Girl-”

“With a hyphen!” Esther clarified, eliciting an eye roll from Babs.

“With a hyphen,” She conceded, “It’s more important you learn how to stop an attack before knowing how to start one. I will say, though, you seem to be picking this up rather quickly.”

A sad expression settled on Esther’s tired face. This had all been so easy and fun when they were kids. She could still remember the first time she donned the mask; Barbara had snapped a million pictures, squealing something about her ‘mini-me.’

So much had changed.

Esther refocused herself, rushing over to the Watchtower systems and entering Barbara’s password, ‘justinbeiber4eva!’ only to curse as she was greeted by an ‘incorrect password’ screen.

Dammit, that had been Babs password for years. There were only two attempts remaining. Esther looked down, noticing a picture framed on Barbara’s desk. 

It was of Dick, Jason, and Esther.

It was from middle school. They were all in uniforms, lined up outside the principal's office. Barbara had snapped the picture of them after Esther had thrown a glitter bomb inside the boys' bathroom with Dick and Jason inside. Essie had been mad because they had eaten the last of her cereal that morning.

Esther smirked at the picture frame, the two boys covered head to toe in glitter, angry expressions on their faces, with little Esther cackling between them. No wonder Jason switched to public school the following year. He was probably so sick of her shit.

“I changed the password.” Esther hung her head as Barbara’s voice came from behind her. When Essie turned, Babs was seated in her wheelchair, the door to her bedroom open behind her. Damn, even in a wheelchair, Babs was quiet. “It’s ‘Timstaythehelloutofmystuff12’. Damn, kids broke into it about six times in the past month.”

“Barb, I-”

“You’re not usually the one breaking in here to use my stuff; it’s still annoying, though.” Babs came to the desk and typed in her password, pushing Essie out of the way, “But I’ll admit it’s nice seeing you when you’re not absolutely wasted.”

Esther grimaced at the foggy memory of her stumbling into this very apartment a few months back. Humiliating, honestly. No wonder she hated to drink.

“Let’s just… forget about that.” She blushed. “I don’t mean to be rude, Barbara, but I’m in a bit of a crisis here-”

“I told you not to do it.” Barbara crossed her arms and stared up at her friend, “I know you were angry about Jason, and I know that my incident pushed you over the edge, but I told you not to go after Joker for me.”

“I don’t know how many times I need to say this: it wasn’t me.” The She-Wolf’s tone was impatient. “You know me, Babs, stringing people up for the world to see isn’t my M.O.”

That was true, but Barbara frowned anyway, “Once upon a time, I knew you, Essie.” Barbara said, “Before you started with this She-Wolf persona. Before you started killing people. Before you abandoned all of us.” Esther wished Barbara didn’t say all this with that heartbroken tone. Essie had never meant to cause all this suffering to Barbara and Dick. She knew it was as if they had lost two of their family members that day. “So if you’re here to get help to continue this murder crusade, you can just go.”

Pulling the chip out of her phone silently, Essie handed it to Barbara, who studied it closely before clicking into her computer. Her screens lit up with Jason’s vitals, which looked even worse than the last time Esther had checked. “No killing today. Trying to save someone. This person is important, and I don’t know where they are.”

Barbara searched Essie’s face. She did look concerned, which was weird. Babs turned her attention back to the screen, “Well, they don’t have much time by the looks of it.” She brought up some new screens, “I’m assuming you wanted to make a tracker piggybacking off the signal of the life support system? Hmm, it’s pretty weak. You probably wouldn’t have been able to do this on your own.” Her fingers raced against the keyboard, “But luckily, you’re not on your own.”

Her words hit Esther like a bag of bricks. Esther hadn’t realized how much leaving had hurt Barbara. But she was still so ready to help? “Thanks.” She said awkwardly.

“So, who is it?” Babs didn’t look away from the screen as she asked, “Must be someone you care about, but we share all the same friends. As far as I know, Dick finished up patrol and is over at the manor. Roy and Wally are in their respective cities. So who?”

“Someone…” Esther’s face lit up red, “Important.” She repeated, and Barbara flashed her a smile.

“Someone important to you?” Babs couldn’t believe this. It had been ages since Esther had even shown a little emotion over someone; other than Jason. If only she knew.

“Babs, please. They’re in bad shape.” Esther couldn’t look away from the vitals on the screen. 

Barbara glanced at them, too, “Oxygen levels are dropping. Wherever they are, the air is getting thin-”

A loud thumping and crashing sound interrupted her words, and Esther was lightning fast, drawing her blade and getting defensive, “Stay behind me.” Essie moved to protect Barbara, taking slow steps to the glass door where the sound had come from.

Watching her move, Barbara studied Esther Wayne. She was the closest thing Babs had to a little sister, and there had been a time when they were thick as thieves. Even when they both had feelings for Dick, they’d never let it come between them.

But when Jason died, everything changed. Barbara knew it wasn’t just that, though. For seventy-two days, Esther sat beside Jason and experienced unknown hells. All while never knowing that there wasn’t a single night her ‘big sister’ wasn’t out there looking for them. And then to watch Jason die the way that he did. To have Bruce show up only moments too late. 

She disagreed with Esther going out and killing criminals, but she’d be lying if she didn’t understand why Essie did it. 

Today, however, there was something different in Esther Wayne. That anger that had ruled her for the past year seemed… less hot to the touch. And there was a new confidence in her when she wore this suit. Barbara hated admitting it, but maybe Esther was never meant to be her replacement. Or at least, perhaps the Joker truly had killed the Bat-Girl; it’s just that something else had survived.

She-Wolf stood with a strength that Barbara knew all too well. It was how she’d felt being Batgirl. How she felt now being Oracle. It seemed less like a mask and more like an extension of Esther. Esther was now moving the curtain out of the way of the glass door, only to freeze. Oh shit, it must be something startling to make Esther freeze up like that.

Barbara wheeled herself over to be by Esther’s side and gasped as she saw what Esther was staring at outside the window.

The bodies Esther had left behind the dumpster a few nights earlier had been dropped from the roof of Bab’s apartment onto her balcony. The bodies were in bad shape, and half froze, but that wasn’t what concerned Esther.

It was the katanas that were impaling the bodies through their chests. Not just any katanas, either…

“Care to explain why the League of Shadows is sending you an invitation? Using my terrace?” Babs was right; this was the League’s way of leaving Esther a message. They’d been watching her, and now they wanted to talk.

Esther didn’t have fucking time for this. She needed to find Jason before it was too late. “How long before the tracker is up and running?” Esther asked.

Babs narrowed her eyes, “You know, you and your brother are more similar than you’d like to think.” She referred to Esther ignoring her questions. Bab’s wheeled herself back to her computer, “It’ll be about an hour before the program is ready. This signal is weak.” 

An hour?! Sure, it gave her time to find out what the League wanted, but Jason was running out of time. “Do whatever you can to get that time down.” Esther sighed, tinkering with the control panel on her hip that operated her suit's systems.“I’m sending you my suits comm channel; tell me when you’ve got the location.”

“Exactly like your brother.” Barbara huffed. “You better be back later to get those dead guys off my porch.”

…

There had been no note on the bodies to hint at where Esther was meant to meet the League, but that only left her assuming that the bodies themselves were the hint. She’d left them on Ninth, so that’s where she stood now.

The alleyway looked much the same, still dirty, still… alley-like. It was empty, but then again, the League would never be caught dead somewhere as nasty as this. It took Essie only a moment before she looked up and saw the swish of a cloak disappearing over the edge of the rooftop.

Using her grapple hook, Esther followed suit, and a moment later, she was standing face-to-face with Ra’s al Ghul himself.

She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but the Demon was not it. As if her body moved without permission, Esther lowered her head to avoid looking him in the eye. What the hell? Seriously, she hadn’t planned on doing that. 

“Ra’s.” Essie acknowledged him, lifting her chin up to stare him down. He looked a little older than what Bruce typically described; it seemed he needed to take another dip into the Lazarus pit. But other than that, the dark features, the pointy cape… It all checked out.

“You’ve grown tall and beautiful, Sadiyah; you’ve become a fine warrior.” His words had a smooth, silky accent to them. 

“I got your ‘message’ where’s Jason?” Esther snarled, unsure why he’d called her that name, but it sounded weird… familiar even. 

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Ra’s took long, slow strides, circling around where Esther stood.

Her shoulders deflated, “You don’t know?” But the look in his eyes didn’t quite add up. It took Esther a second, but after a moment, she sighed heavily, “But that’s not what you said, is it?” Ra’s knew exactly where Jason was; he just wanted Essie to figure it out on her own. “This is a test.”

Ra’s gave her a charming smile, “Think of it as more of an opportunity. A challenge. I want to see what you’re made of. The time is fast approaching when you will need to be prepared.”

This was the same weird bullshit that Ra’s spewed every time he saw Esther. Wait, no. That wasn’t right. Esther had only ever seen him in pictures. Her brain felt foggy, but she shook her head to clear it and snarled, “Listen, old man, I have no interest in the stupid games you like to play with Bruce; You already cost me Jason once. I won’t let you do it again.” She drew her khopesh from its sheath and lowered her center of gravity.

Ra’s stopped in front of her and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, “You would do well to remember some respect, child.” His facial expression darkened, “Too often, you seem to forget that you only exist because of me.”

Too often? What was he talking about? Esther wasn’t sure, but her head felt like it was going to split open, “Big deal,” She squeezed her eyes open and shut, trying to see through the headache, “You defrosted me in a microwave and then left me to be poked at by doctors for the better part of a decade. It doesn’t mean I owe you anything.” Essie grunted, lifting her blade a bit higher.

“Is that how you remember it? Pity.” Ra’s had a smug smile on his face, but his expression faltered as he got a better look at her sword. “Shifrat Mumazaqa.” The Shattered Blade. “Where did you find such a weapon?”

Esther squinted in confusion, pausing to inspect her khopesh. Its blade was an onyx black, some kind of old writing etched into it. “I paid a visit to my family’s exhibit at the museum. Found this on the way out, figured it was a shame to leave a beautiful weapon to rot while ten-year-olds gawked at it.” Sometimes, late at night, Esther would notice scratches in the blade with an almost violet hue.

Ra’s studied her blade, moving in closer for a better look. “How interesting that this weapon should call to you. It’s quite ancient. I have not seen it with my own eyes in many centuries.” He reached out a hand to examine it, only for Esther to lightly smack it with the blade. A warning. “You’re not foolish enough to fight me, girl. We both know you’re not quite there yet. Perhaps soon, but not on this day.”

He was absolutely right. And she knew it. To fight Ra’s al Ghul was a death wish, but Esther felt desperate. “Just tell me where Jason is.”

“I look forward to your success.” Ra’s smirked and dropped a smoke pellet onto the ground. 

Esther reached up to turn on her mask, but he was gone by the time its lenses powered on. She switched it off as the smoke cleared, angrily sheathing her weapon and kicking at a loose shingle.

So Ra’s was testing her, and he wanted to be sure that she knew it. Why? Not to mention, Jason was working for him, shouldn’t Ra’s care a little bit whether or not he lives? He couldn’t be that confident in her abilities, could he? Ra’s hadn’t even seen Esther fight before.

Ra’s al Ghul had never bothered with Esther Wayne since placing her parents' samples into a surrogate, not since Bruce had taken her away from the clinic where she’d spent her life as nothing but a lab rat. So why was he here now? 

She didn’t really have time to think about it, though. There was too much to do. Esther flicked on the mic in her mask.

“Babs, please tell me you have good news for me.” Esther sighed into the comm link, staring at the place Ra’s had been standing a moment before.

“I got good news, bad news, and news you just won’t like.” Bab’s voice rang from inside her mask. 

“Go.” Esther huffed.

“Good news is that I got the tracker working.” Esther let out a breath of relief, thank God. “Bad news is I no longer have access to your suit's systems, so you need the physical chip.”

No. Esther didn’t have the kind of time to go back to Barbara’s apartment; Jason’s vitals looked bad the last time she’d seen them. Who knew how bad they were now.

“Babs, is there any way you could just tell me the coordinates?” But Esther knew what her answer would be.

“I could, but that’s too broad an area. It would take you too long to narrow down the exact spot. Now,” Essie could hear Oracle’s finger clicking on her keyboard, “The last bit of news is good, but don’t get mad at me.” 

An eyebrow raised from underneath Essie’s mask, “Okay.” She drew out the ‘y’ in suspicion.

“The chip is on its way to you right now. It should be arriving any minute-“

“Looking for us?” The smooth voice was all too familiar to Essie, and her shoulders slumped. A silent groan went off in her head as she turned to see Nightwing in all his glory standing behind her.

“Who’s us?” Esther growled, knowing the answer even before Robin flipped from the building above them onto the rooftop they were all now standing on. “Okay, Babs, I understand sending Dick, but why the fuck is the kid here?”

“Training.” Nightwing looked her up and down; damn, she looked hot in her She-Wolf suit.

“Train somewhere else.” Esther spat and held her hand out, “The chip now, please.” 

Tim Drake pulled the chip from his pocket and held it out to her, “Come take it from me.” He grinned. It was a challenge and not one that Esther was in the mood for right now. She had enough challenges on her plate at the moment.

Looking between the two of them, Esther’s eye twitched. Does this kid think this is a fucking joke?

“Tim,” Nightwing warned, “This might not be the time for” Too late. She-Wolf had already flipped Robin over her back and had her foot on his neck, pinning him to the ground. “You’ve got to stop letting her get in close. That’s where she does her best work.” Dick sighed. Esther kept the pressure on Tim’s neck as she snatched the chip from his fingers, adding a light smack to his face for good measure, “Okay, I think that’s enough, Essie.”

She released him and clipped the chip into the side of her mask, her visuals lighting up with a map and Jason’s vitals, all bordering her sight range. Jason’s heart rate was slowing down rapidly. When Essie saw his location, she groaned. Please, not the old Gotham South Elementary... 

“Fuck.”

“I’m assuming that means you’ve seen our other problem?” Oracle said, and Esther palmed at her forehead. “Whoever your friend is, they need to pick better friends. Black Mask has been using that abandoned school as one of his safe houses for a while now. It’s his best guarded one.”

“And it’s far away.” Esther chewed on her cheek. “They’ll be dead by the time I get there.” Tears welled up in her eyes behind her mask, but she choked them back. This wasn’t the time to get emotional; it only clouded her judgment. “And I don’t have my guns.” She glared at Dick.

Tim sat up from the ground, grunting in pain, “I can take you on Bat-Wing.”

“No.” Esther shot back, not knowing what the fuck ‘Bat-Wing’ was.

Nightwing shifted on his feet, “Essie, Babs has two dead guys at her apartment courtesy of Ra’s al Ghul, if you need help-”

“I can’t.” She was pacing again, trying to come up with some way to get to the school in time. Dick got ready to argue, and Essie relented to telling him a little bit of truth just to save some time, “He’s issued me a challenge.”

The blood rushed from Dick’s masked face. “Shit.” He muttered, running his hand through his hair.

“That is… not good.” Barbara’s voice chimed in, and Tim got to his feet, his expression somewhat confused.

“Uhh, I’m lost.” The young Robin stared between the two older vigilantes.

Nightwing clenched his jaw, “When Ra’s wants to test the measure of a man, he’ll often set up impossible situations and set them loose to see if they can find a solution. He calls them ‘challenges.’ Bruce has done more than I can count, but Essie..?” He glanced at her, “Ra’s has never extended one to Esther before. And she’s right; we can’t help her. Much.”

“Uh, why?” Tim asked, and this time Esther answered.

“He’ll kill you.” Her words sent a shiver down his spine, “The challenge has been extended to me. If I receive too much help, I fail, and we all get picked off one by one by the League of Shadows as punishment for disrespecting their traditions. ‘Tuqus Alshaytan.’ The Rite of the Demon.”

Tim’s eyebrow raised, “You seem to know a lot about that.” Esther paused. He was right. She knew little from what Bruce had told her in the past, but… She didn’t remember him telling her the challenge's name, let alone its name in Arabic. Of the languages that Esther knew, Arabic wasn’t even one. “But there’s literally no other way to get across the city in time, not in broad daylight at least.”

“He’s right.” Babs said, “Ra’s has always allotted Bruce a little help. A good assassin uses his resources. Let us help as much as we can. As long as it’s just you that goes into that school, I don’t think Ra’s will punish you. It is convenient, though, that Bruce is busy working on a missing person case. I wonder if Ra’s didn’t want him helping you.”

Dick put his hand on Esther’s arm, and for once, she didn’t flinch away, “We’re right here, Essie. Let us help.”

Esther bit her lip and then huffed, “Okay. What the fuck is this ‘Bat-Wing’ thing?”

Nightwing did a double-take, “I’m sorry what?” Was she actually agreeing to their help? They hadn’t worked together in so long. “Wow, whoever’s in that school must be important.” He said under his breath.

Tim looked shocked as well, “Uh, right, then… It’s probably better if you just… see for yourself.”

…

“Don’t you ever, ever mention this again.” Esther hissed but could barely be heard over the wind roaring past them.

Turns out the ‘Bat-Wing’ was a new toy that Bruce made. Basically, a glorified hang-glider that went very fast. Unfortunately, it was only built for one rider, so Esther was holstered like a baby against Tim’s chest.

She looked like a fucking idiot.

“Dick got enough pictures to last us a lifetime.” Tim laughed, “And you get no pity from me. Because of you, I had to take my school pictures with a broken nose.”

“Uhh, right. How’s that coming?” Esther yelled over the wind.

“Still broken, thanks.” Tim griped, making a sharp turn to the right. Esther felt her stomach in her throat, “You okay? Lookin’ a little green there. Dick gets sick on this thing too.” He was enjoying this.

“I’m fine! I’ve been flying since before you knew the quadratic formula.” Granted, that was using her old Bat-Girl cape, but it was pretty much the same. It had… just been a while.

“Oh, I know!” Tim sighed, “Dick never shuts up about it. Apparently, you and Todd ditched out on a lot of responsibilities to take midnight flights around Gotham. He’s still salty that you guys left him to deal with the Christmas Charity alone.” It disturbed Esther to hear Tim talk about Jason, the Robin he’d replaced. But she tried to remember that she was mad at Bruce about that, not Tim. “Truthfully, I’m jealous of you guys. You all have so much history… You’re a family. I know you’re mad at them, but they still miss you so much. I’ve… never really had that.”

Esther’s heart melted. Maybe this kid wasn’t as bad as she thought. “Listen, kid,” She sighed, “I’m sorry about your nose. It’s hard for me to go easy on you. I- I don’t do it to be mean... Most of the time at least. Losing the last Robin… Truthfully I don’t think anyone should be Robin anymore. But since you are… I don’t pull my punches because I know someone else won’t either.”

“I know!” Tim’s voice hinted at the possibility that he was smiling, “That’s what Barbara said. She told me not to hold it against you. They talk about you and Jason all the time. And Alfred… Well, you need to come see him. No one talks higher of you than him.”

Alfred. Esther missed him so much. What she wouldn’t give for one of his famous cookies right now. “And… Bruce?”

“Oh.” Tim took another hard right. They were getting close now. “Well, you know Bruce. Always hard to read. If anyone brings you up, he gets really quiet. I think he feels like he failed you. You and Jason. Sometimes I see him sitting at the piano, but he never plays it. But you did, didn’t you? So… I guess he thinks about you a lot.”

The piano was one of the few things that Esther had brought from the clinic with her. To this day, she never felt as peaceful as she did while playing the piano. After everything with Joker, it was the only thing that relaxed her.

But the fact that Bruce would sit there to think about her..? It was hard because Essie was so mad at Bruce. So angry at him for so much. For being too late to save Jason, leaving the Joker breathing and replacing Jason. It hurt so much. But he was her brother.

Jason wanted him dead. Esther could tell from how he’d talked about him the night before. Sometimes… Sometimes so did she. On the bad nights. The nights when she’d wake up and swear that Joker was about to start cutting her up again. On those nights, filled with terror and rage, she wished Bruce would suffer for not saving them.

But on the good nights? The nights where she’d find hidden packages on rooftops filled with medical supplies and a note asking her to come home. The nights when they’d run into each other, and she knew for a fact that he was letting her go. On those nights, Esther missed him too.

Grief and trauma were just- just so hard to process. Even with Jason back now, it didn’t erase all that had happened.

Esther could see the school quickly approaching, and she felt Tim start to bring the glider down gradually, “Hey, Tim?” She called to him, and Tim nodded in acknowledgment, “If you go into my room at the Manor, there’s an old Monopoly board under my bed. Thursdays around noon, Bruce and Dick eat lunch in the kitchen. It’s physically impossible for them to reject playing a game.”

Tim’s eyes softened, not that she could see them. He’d mentioned not feeling like he was a part of a family, and now she was giving him tips to experience it. 

Maybe Esther wasn’t as bad as he’d thought she was.

“But if you go through any of my other shit, I will literally skin you alive.”

Maybe.

…

The windows to the school were boarded over entirely, and from the outside, any passerby would assume it was abandoned.

“Should I go through the front doors?” Esther scanned the area, not seeing much to be worried about from the outside.

“Is that a joke?” Barbara laughed over the comm link. “That place is probably swarming with Black Mask’s boys.” Esther squinted, spotting a side entrance around the corner of the building. It was blocked off, but the window next to it was shattered. With a bit of maneuvering, she could probably get through.

“I’ve got an alternative, but I’ll need help getting through the building.” Esther made her way to the window, pushing slowly on the board that covered the open frame.

“I’ve got the blueprints here!” Dick’s voice sounded through the comms, and Esther sighed.

She almost laughed at the fact that she heard Barbara sigh at the same time as her. Some things never change. “Sorry, Dick decided he wanted to ‘help’ from my end.”

“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for; I’m a delight.” Dick grumbled, “Anyways, that window goes to the old guidance counselor's office.” Dick paused, “Also, uh, Esther. I know it’s kinda weird timing and everything but um… Bruce is making me do this charity volleyball competition next month… it’s kind of lame… but you know-”

Esther heaved herself over the ledge and into the building. “If this can wait, Dick, please let it.” She grunted, and Dick went silent. The office was empty, as she expected. She left the window unblocked for a quick exit later. 

“The tracker is coming from the west end of the building. It looks like it’s in the old cafeteria.” The building was starting to fall apart. This elementary school had been shut down in the 90s, and boy, did it look it. There was a poster on the wall of cartoon children holding hands around the world, and some other ethnicities were a little too… on the nose.

“Jesus,” Esther mumbled, silently exiting the room to walk the dark hallways. Here and there, little beams of sunlight peeked through cracks in the walls.

Footsteps stomping down the hall forced She-Wolf to jam herself into one of the dark cubbies in the wall. It wasn’t the best hiding spot, but it should be dark enough for her to go unnoticed for a little bit.

“Asshole’s gonna die soon either way. He'll run out of oxygen even if we can’t get the safe open.” Two of Black Masks men pass her, pausing a few feet past her to look around, “Or bleed out. Kenny got him pretty good earlier.”

Esther’s fists balled up. She wanted to kill them and be done with it, but that didn't feel right with Barbara and Dick listening in. Today just kept getting harder and harder.

Sneaking up behind them, Esther grabbed both of their heads and smashed them together as hard as she could. A sickening crack echoed throughout the room, and Esther blinked, blood pouring from one of their heads. 

She may have overdone it.

In her defense, Essie hadn’t been pulling her punches for a while now.

“The effort was appreciated,” Barbara noted, and Esther was grateful for the acknowledgment. “Turn left up ahead.”

“Did she just murder those guys?” Tim’s voice came through the comms, and Esther inwardly groaned. Were they watching her like a sick soap opera?

Following Barbara and Dick’s instructions was easy, despite the winding hallways, the real challenge came when she peeked into the window of the cafeteria. Fuck. She ducked down quickly.

“Oracle, there’s like twenty guys in there. It looks like Black Mask put a giant safe into the old kitchen walk-in freezer. I think my guy is inside.”

“If they got into a shootout with that many guys, your friend probably locked themselves inside to try and wait them out.” Barbara sighed, “I don’t suppose you have any explosives on you?”

“I do, actually.” Esther hoisted herself on top of one of the cubbies and pushed a ceiling tile aside, jumping up and catching the ledge with her fingers before pulling herself up into the crawl space. “Problem is, if I blow the door, the pressure will melt my friend's brain.”

Crawling until she was over the cafeteria, Esther smirked, “I might have a better idea for them, though. Cover your ears.” And with that, she cracked open the ceiling tile just above where the men were using a blow torch to try and break through the vault. Esther lit her bundle of little bombs and waited precisely three and a half seconds before dropping them from the crack.

The timing was perfect. The bombs had barely touched the ground before exploding with a violent BOOM. Stronger than Esther had been expecting because it caused the ceiling tiles to give out, dropping her about 13 feet off the ground and landing her on her ass. 

“Oh, did she just eat it?” Dick asked.

“Yeah.” Barbara laughed, “But when doesn’t she?”

Esther sat up, the smoke clearing and a couple of the men stirring as well, “Shut up.” Esther groaned. She got to her feet and smacked a couple heads into the floor, knocking them out and possibly causing permanent brain damage. Whoops. One guy was definitely dead, but Esther kept that detail to herself.

“You don’t have long before someone investigates that noise,” Barbara informed her, and Esther sighed. One problem at a time, and right now, her next problem was the six-inch thick steel safe she needed to open.

“Great. Now I just need to magically know the code.” It was a digital keypad; theoretically, she could hack it to open it, but that would take time she just didn’t have. “Let’s see… Seven letters long. Password hint: your favorite movie.”

Esther blinked. Black Mask’s favorite movie? Seven letters… No. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? She started typing into the keypad.

T-H-E-M-A-S-K

The safe gears whirred and clicked from inside until the door cracked open an inch. No way.

Esther swung the door open, and ran inside, pausing as she took in the sight in front of her.

Gold. Jewels. Weapons. Gold weapons that were bejeweled. Piled as high as her knees. At the far end of the safe, on top of one of the piles, sat Red Hood, his head lulling to one side, a pool of blood soaking into the stacks of gold coins he sat on top of.

Esther made a sound almost like a whimper in the back of her throat, rushing forward and kneeling at Jason’s side. He’d been shot between the armor plates on his abdomen and his thigh. Yeah, Kenny really did get some lucky shots in.

Jason wasn’t moving.

Taking his head in Essie’s hands, she shook him softly, “Hey, hey. Come on, don’t do this to me.” She put her forehead against his, “Wake up.”

No response. 

“I still need you,” Esther whispered, tears stinging in her eyes. She couldn’t be too late. Not again.

Suddenly Jason let out a raspy cough, his body shifting slowly, and Esther nearly let out a sob of relief.

“Hey, you.” Jay was smiling under his mask. “I got you the Hana- the Hanuk- The candle stick thing.” Jason lifted the solid gold Hanukkiyah in his right hand off the ground by an inch before weakly dropping it again. Esther let out a strained laugh, letting her head fall to his chest.

“It’s a man? You’re saving a man? Who is he? Ask her how tall he is.” Esther’s ear twitched at how loud Dick was talking from Barbara’s side.

“Dick, be quiet.” Oracle sighed, “She-Wolf, Black Mask has another safe house about a mile away. If he knows you’re there, it won’t be long before reinforcements show up.”

Understood. But Jason wasn’t going anywhere in this state. Esther pulled a small black device from her belt, which, even with his mask on, Esther could tell Jason was staring at. “That’s gonna hurt, isn’t it?”

With a nod, Esther uncapped what appeared to be a lighter. Inside, however, was carbon subnitride which burned a hell of a lot hotter than the average lighter. With the push of a button, a blue-white flame lit itself, and Esther placed Jay’s hand on her thigh with her free hand, “Hold tight.”

The room filled with Jason’s strained grunting, his teeth gnashing together as Essie cauterized his wounds to slow his bleeding. His gloved fingers dug into the flesh of her leg, her heart aching; Esther had hoped never to hear him again in this kind of pain.

Once his wounds weren’t bleeding as bad, Esther hooked his arm around her shoulders, “We need to go.” Jason nodded in response, bracing himself as she lifted him up. They limped out of the safe, Esther taking Jason’s gun from his holster and holding it in her free hand.

“There’s not much ammo left.” Jay grunted, “You didn’t need to come. I was figuring it out on my own.”

“That’s what it looked like.” Esther’s snark made him roll his eyes. She moved them out of the cafeteria, “You swore up and down to me that you had this handled. I’m never listening to you again.” 

Jason could tell that even though she was relieved that he was alive, Essie was pissed at him. So he mustered all the charm he could in his condition and hit her with it, “Have I mentioned how fucking tiny your waist looks in that suit? It’s hot.”

Her face heated up, knowing he was just laying on thick, but… it was working, “That’s nice; put your tongue back in your mouth.” They were headed down the main hallway, sticking close to the walls in case Esther had to drop Jason to fight.

“Oh, these two definitely smashed.” Barbara’s voice gave away the fact that she was absolutely beaming.

“No way, this guy’s just being a creep!” Dick was panicked.

“Does Dick always make an idiot of himself in front of Esther?” Tim asked, crunching on what sounded like… popcorn? That little shit.

“No!” “Yes.”

“Es, watch out!” Jason pushed his body weight against her, and they stumbled into a side hallway just in time to miss getting shot by some men hiding behind an open door. Esther got back on her feet, helping Jay back up, when she realized that her comms had gone dead silent.

That was until Dick Grayson broke that silence.

“I’m sorry. What did he just say?”

Fuck. “Did he just call you Es? As in Esther? As in, Esther Wayne?” Dick’s voice had gone up an octave, and he was clearly freaking the fuck out.

“I’m gonna need you to bring it down about three levels, please. I can explain later.” Esther spoke through her teeth as she shifted Jason to her other shoulder.

“Is that Night-turd?” Red Hood smirked under his mask.

There was a moment of silence over her headset, and Esther knew why. Only one person had ever called Dick ‘Night-turd’. But as far as Dick Grayson knew, that person was supposed to be six feet under. But suddenly, many things were making sense; she could hear the gears moving in his head.

Surprisingly, Barbara broke the silence, “Esther, what’s… going on?” Esther’s head was spinning; in one hand, she was supporting Jason’s weight; in the other, she was shooting anything that moved, and now her comms were blowing up in her ear… She was starting to miss working alone.

“You have got to learn to keep your mouth shut,” Esther grumbled, the two lurching down the hallway until they came to a three-way intersection. Shit, which way had she come in again?

“So it is Bird-Brain.” Jason laughed. “Long-time no see, Dicky-bird.”

Barbara gasped, and Dick was in complete shock based on the moment of silence.

Tim’s voice chimed in, “Is that…?”

“It’s not possible.” Barbara sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Honestly, so was Esther, but for entirely different reasons. 

“Can he hear me?” Jason asked, not bothering to wait for an answer, “Hey, Dick? Fuck you.”

“It’s him.” Dick’s voice was deadpan.

“Everyone shut up right now, or I’m going to fucking rip someone’s throat out.” Esther exploded and everything went silent. She was extremely overwhelmed, and her head was spinning. Taking a deep breath, she re-centered herself mentally. “Barbara, which way? Now.”

“Right.” Was her only response, and it was eerily silent on their end now. Maybe it was the threat, but more than likely, it was the shock.

Esther hadn’t meant for them to find out this way, but what other options had she had?

“You’ve got Black Mask’s boys coming to the north.” Dick’s voice was cold like steel. 

“Take the main exit.” Jason coughed, blood splattering across the front of his suit from it. “To the left, up ahead.” Esther followed his instructions, freezing in her tracks as, about 10 feet ahead of them, a man the size of a minivan stepped out from one of the side rooms.

“Ooooh… fuck.” Esther and the goon made eye contact. Now, Esther was a tall girl. But damn, this man was HUGE. Her incident with Bane had already proved that she wasn’t much of a match for guys this big.

Jason glanced at her, “Shoot him.” His tone was incredulous that she hadn’t done so already.

“I can’t.” Esther muttered, setting Jason down against the side of the wall as the behemoth stepped closer to them, “There’s a child present.” Jason shot her a confused look, and she tapped the side of her mask.

“Thanks for thinking of me!” Tim squeaked over the comms. “But I think you should be more concerned about Barbara. She hasn’t blinked in like… two minutes.”

She-Wolf gave the gigantic thug a wide berth, inching circles around him in a defensive stance. The guy was missing an arm, dragging an enormous sledgehammer in the other.

“Tim! One arm, massive, giant hammer, what intel have you got for me?” Esther could see his dark eyes locked onto her, like a wolf hunting a mouse.

“I-I don’t know- Barbara and Dick are in front of the computers, and they aren’t moving.”

“Abramavici!” Jason called from behind her, “He used to work for Joker. And who the fuck is Tim?”

That’s why he looked sort of familiar. He was there the night Joker’s men took her and Jason.

“On second thought, Tim. I’m gonna put you on hold.” Esther reached up and turned off her mic. This guy wasn’t walking out of here alive. And a gun was just too easy. “Alright, Big Boy, I guess this is round two.” 

“He doesn’t speak English.” Jason grimaced through his pain. Good thing Esther hadn’t paid him any mind because it was at that exact moment that Abramavici charged at her.

He wasn’t swift, but god, was he just big. And he swung that hammer around like it didn’t weigh anything. As soon as he got total momentum, Esther ran straight towards him, sliding across the floor at the last minute to dodge his hammer. She slid right between his legs, ramming her elbow straight up as she passed underneath, making Abramavici stumble as he clutched at his private parts.

Jason clenched his teeth, not exactly feeling sorry for the guy but at least glad he wasn’t facing off with her.

Coming up on the other side of the giant, Esther scrambled to her feet. His back was now to her, and she dug her heels into the ground, bolting towards him. She veered to the side, kicking off the side of the wall and catapulting herself onto his shoulders, locking her thighs in a vice-like grip around his thick neck.

Abramavici stumbled around, shocked that she’d easily gotten on top of him. He swung his hammer fruitlessly as Esther locked her wrists together and brought her elbows down as hard as she could against his head, again and again, and again.

The man must have had an iron skull because he just took it like she was simply an annoying fly he was trying to swat away.

One enormous hand came up and grabbed her thigh, clamping down and throwing her like a towel across the room with a twist of his body. Esther rolled across the floor, absorbing the shock in her knees and elbows. 

She used the momentum of the rolls to twist herself into a kneeling position, one hand resting on the floor and the other reaching up for her blade. Anger flared up in her chest; Esther was so over this.

In one fluid movement, Esther pushed herself off the ground and unsheathed her khopesh. Abramavici was waiting for her, swinging his hammer once more. Esther felt the air shift just millimeters from her face, but her body was moving independently, entirely confident in itself and its timing.

The hammer missed by a hair.

And as soon as it was past, Esther forced her feet off the ground, kicked off of the thug’s knee, and, using the power of her speed and her legs, shot herself into the air. Her body twisted in mid-air, adding to the thrust of her dark blade before she brought it down hard and unrelenting against his neck.

There was a moment of silence as her feet hit the floor, landing in perfect position.

A moment later, a loud thwack sounded as Abramavici’s head landed beside her, rolling a few feet away.

Jason watched with a dropped jaw, “Es,” His eyebrows furrowed, “Where did you learn that move?” His tone was hesitant, and Esther herself faltered.

“I-” She didn’t know. Batman had never taught it to her, and it wasn’t one she’d learned on her own. And yet Essie’s body had just… known exactly what to do.

Esther stood up, her head rushing as the adrenaline passed. She rushed over to help Jason back up. If they didn’t have time before, they were significantly out of it now. She could hear more men running down one of the hallways.

Jason kept glancing at her as they rushed towards the exit, “That… was a League technique.”

There wasn’t time for Esther to think too hard about what he was saying as she kicked the door open, mid-day sun flooding their eyes. Gunshots sounded behind them, and Esther cursed under her breath, “It doesn’t matter. We need to get out of here!” Esther let the doors slam behind her.

The daylight disoriented Jason, and his body started to shut down from his injuries. “Over there.” He pointed weakly, and Esther saw what he was referring to… his bike. Esther dragged him across the street, throwing her leg over the side of the motorcycle. “Do you even know how to drive one of these?” Jay’s voice was concerned, but Essie had a feeling it was for the bike and not for her.

“Shut up.” She growled, Jason getting on behind her, his muscular arms holding her tight around her waist. Esther couldn’t lie- it was kind of hot. Her thighs clenched together tightly at his hands gripping her hips. “Just hold on.” She mumbled, her cheeks turning pink as he rested his head against her shoulder.

Revving up the engine, Esther tore off, bullets whizzing past them. Esther zoomed down different streets, riding in silence before noticing Jay's quietness. “Hey!” She called over her shoulder. No answer. “Jason!” She yelled. Essie could feel his arms slipping from her waist.

He was unconscious. 

And just in time, two black cars pulled up on either side of her, windows cracking down and bullets blasting through the air. Esther Wayne just could not catch a break today.

Releasing one hand from the handlebars, Esther elbowed Jason in his gunshot wound, internally apologizing as he groaned loudly, arms tightening around her again. Thank god.

“Ouch.” He grumbled.

“Now would be a good time to use the gun!” Esther yelled over the wind, using the size of the motorcycle to her advantage as she wove in and out of traffic.

The Red Hood reached down her thigh and pulled his gun out, firing at the tires of the car to their right. The tires imploded, and the vehicle veered off the side of the road; into the side of a building.

Just one left. 

Esther glanced ahead, ducking her head to avoid getting shot as Jason and the other car exchanged gunfire. The light about a hundred feet up flicked red and opposite traffic began to move through it. Shit.

She thought the word too soon, groaning as an eighteen-wheeler slowed to a stop in the middle of the approaching intersection.

Jason wasn’t going to like the idea brewing in her head.

“Jay!” Essie called back to him, and his shots paused.

“A little busy here, sweetheart!” He shouted back.

She-Wolf swallowed hard and hit the throttle, the bike jolting forward suddenly, “Stop firing and just hold on!” 

Jason’s eyes went wide as he realized her plan, “No, no, no!” Too late to stop her now, Jay gripped her hips with a deathlock as Esther pushed all their weight onto one side of the bike, tipping it over and skidding them parallel with the ground as they slid underneath the belly of the semi-truck.

As soon as they were clear on the other side, Esther used all her strength to tip the motorcycle back onto its center. “Holy shit!” Jason moaned in her ear, and Esther bit down on her lip. She’d always known that adrenaline made her horny, but damn, she needed to calm down.

“You just earned a fucking lifetime ban from my bike!” Jason yelled over the wind, Esther slowing down as no other cars were in pursuit. 

Esther grinned under her mask, “That was fun!” 

She turned to the right, and Jay looked around. “Where are you going?” He asked, but he had a feeling that he knew.

“I’m sorry!” Esther sighed, “I don’t know how to fix you up, and you keep going in and out of consciousness. I gotta take you to Alfred.”

“No.” Jay tightened his grip on her; a warning. “Take me to my place,” He coughed up some more blood, “I have what I need there-”

“Jay-” Esther’s eyes flickered.

“Just do it!” Jason groaned against her, “Seventh and Twelfth.”

…

Esther pulled the bike into the alleyway, practically falling down the steps of his stoop as she held Jay against her. They stumbled into his apartment, and Esther blinked.

It was… charming. An apartment beneath a townhouse on the upper west side of Gotham, a nice neighborhood. It was small but had tall, Victorian walls and surprisingly large windows for being level with the street outside. A living area and kitchen greeted them, and Jay had clearly been renovating the space as it was half painted and plastic covered everything.

“Wow, and here I am squatting in a church.” Esther blinked before helping him to his room.

Jason was losing consciousness again, but he managed a “Door at the end of the hallway.” Before drooping weakly. 

He was going to die. Again. If she didn’t do something soon. But she was honestly out of her depth on this one. Who knew what kind of internal bleeding he had?

Esther opened the door and threw him onto the bed inside. Now, this room seemed more like Jason. Neat and tidy. Weapons decorated the walls, and a bookshelf was over his bed frame. Essie laid him up in his bed, removed his mask, and shook his shoulders, “Red. Come on, Red. I need you to tell me what to do. Where’s your stuff?”

His eyes remained shut, but Jason lifted his hand to point at a dresser across the room. Esther scrambled to it and searched the drawers, finding nothing but clothes. Until she noticed the false bottom on the lowest drawer. She pulled it up and saw a box. This had to be what Jason was talking about.

Ripping it open, two silver pendants were nestled into a velvet cushion. What the hell? Esther picked one up with shaking fingers, eyeing it closely. There was a thin ridge a third of the way down the pendant, and Esther realized it wasn’t a pendant at all. It was a vial.

Rushing to Jason’s side, Esther twisted the vial open and forced his mouth open, pouring the glowing green liquid down his throat in one fell swoop.

Esther sat back on her heels beside him, her hand on his cheek. Her breathing was labored as she studied him, waiting for any response.

Jason stirred, coughing harshly. Esther could see the pink rush back to his cheeks, and she let out a sigh of relief, “Jesus Christ.” She laughed in reprieve.

“You don’t even believe in that guy,” Jay smirked, his eyelashes fluttering as he peered up at her. He looked so lazy like he was melting into the bed. “You mind helping me out of my suit? The blood is sticky.” He grimaced, and Esther made quick work of pulling his suit from his skin.

A sickening squelch sounded as she removed the armor around his gunshot wound, but once it was gone, she stared in shock. There was no wound. Just a scar. Essie traced the mark with her fingertip. “That liquid… Was that..?”

“From the Lazarus pit? Yeah.” Jason sighed, already looking about a hundred times better. “A little souvenir I brought back from North Africa when the League returned to Gotham. I made it this long without using one, and now I’ve only got the one left.” He rubbed at his face. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know I promised I’d be back before you woke up.” He lifted his hand and brushed her hair away from her cheek, his eyes scanning her body as Essie worked on removing his tactical pants, “What about you, are you okay?”

Esther stifled a laugh, and she pulled his boots off, “You’re asking me if I’m okay? You were literally dying not even two minutes ago.” Her fingers were trembling as she stood up and returned with a wet rag to clean his wounds. But Jay’s eyes were lasered in on her tremors.

“When did those start?” It felt good as the warm rag gently wiped the blood from his skin.

“The shakes?” Esther asked, and he nodded. “After the Joker.” She sighed, “They come and go. How does this feel?” She was pressing lightly on his thigh, where his other bullet wound was. She was kneading her knuckles into the area, which loosened the muscles in a way the Lazarus water just couldn’t. 

Jay moaned softly, “Really nice, actually.” He stretched his leg out, sighing in contentment as she brought both hands to work into his tired muscles. Esther squirmed on the bed, swallowing hard at the noises falling from Jason’s lips as she rubbed out the tension from his thigh. “Essie,” Jason peeked an eye open, “You’re bleeding.”

Sure enough, she was. Her hip had a rose blossoming from it. One of the bullets must have grazed Essie while on the bike. “Oh, shit.” She muttered, peeling her own suit off until she was standing in her spandex shorts and sports bra. The shorts barely covered her ass cheeks, and the sports bra didn’t do her smaller-than-average breasts any favors.

Yet Jason was drinking in every inch of her with greedy eyes. 

The cut on her hip was a few inches across but, luckily, not that deep. Esther held the rag tightly against it to stop the bleeding.

Jason pushed her fingers aside and held the rag there, pushing her, so she sat on his lap. The pressure he applied to her wound was firm but tender. “You shouldn’t have had to come save me. I-” He rolled his eyes, “I was distracted, and Roman’s boys got the drop on me.”

The truth was that all night his mind had kept wandering back to his time with his girl. His girl. Even now, that sounded so delectable in his head. The way it felt to fill Esther to the brim the night before, to finally, finally, claim her as his. Yet it hadn’t been enough, and he knew from the beginning it wouldn’t be. Jason knew that the moment he tasted Essie, there’d be no quitting her.

Esther could see him getting lost in his thoughts, and she wiggled on his lap until she was comfortable, enjoying how her movements pulled him from his head. “That’s okay,” Esther bit her lip, “We all get distracted sometimes.”

Was she- Flirting with him? Jason studied her expression, how she batted her lashes at him and how her chest had turned bright red. She was. She was flirting with him.

“Oh,” Jason raised an eyebrow, “You mean like how distracted you were on my bike?” He smirked, remembering how she’d pushed up against him when he wrapped his arms around her waist and how her facial expression lagged when he groaned in her ear. Esther looked away in embarrassment, and Jay snatched her chin in his hand, “You thought I didn’t notice?”

He forced Esther to look at him, enjoying the way her chest was suddenly rising and falling rapidly. Jason moved to sit up, but Esther put her hands on her chest and pushed him back down, “No.” She said firmly, her bottom lip jutted out in an enticing pout. “I wanna help you relax.” Essie’s fingers traced the edge of Jay’s black boxers, and Jason felt himself twitch from underneath the soft fabric.

Esther palmed at Jay's growing erection through the thin cotton, causing Jason to exhale softly. Sometimes this still didn’t feel real. Esther Wayne wanted Jason Todd. It was inexplicable, and yet, as she freed his cock from its fabric prison, she was looking at him like she wanted to devour him.

She snaked her body downward, resting between his thighs. Jay’s massive thighs made her look small, and as she took his dick in her hands and licked a stripe from base to tip, those thighs tightened and flexed. Jay was so fucking hard right now. His hand tangled in her hair, trying and failing to hold it back for her.

Gentle kisses were placed along his shaft, followed by her sweetly licking at his swollen and throbbing head. She lapped at the slit there, tasting that salty bead of pre-cum that had escaped. “O-oh God.” Jason groaned, his hips pushing himself against her lips, desperate to feel them close around him.

“He’s not here right now.” Esther smirked, swirling her tongue around his pulsing red tip, “Just me.” And without wasting another second, Esther pushed his fat cock past her lips and down her throat, letting her mouth pool with spit before pulling back off of him, a line of saliva connecting her mouth and his cock together.

Holy shit. Jason couldn’t look away from her; she didn’t even look ashamed of the spit line; instead, she just let more drip off her tongue and down his shaft. “Fuck, you’re a messy girl.” He breathed, so fucking transfixed by her. 

Esther nodded, never breaking eye contact as she relaxed her jaw and went back to sloppily sucking his dick. Her pace was achingly slow, her fingers wrapped around his base and matching time with her ministrations. Essie’s spit dripped down over her fingers, only making her movements more messy and wet.

The sounds coming from her mouth and fingers were unholy. God, Esther was so messy, and Jason fucking loved it. His grip in her hair tightened, and he forced her to take the entirety of his cock; causing her to choke around it. “You like sucking my cock?” Jay asked, holding her still with his dick halfway down her esophagus.

Esther’s eyes started to water, her face becoming pudgy and pink, but she nodded anyway, “Mhrgm.” Essie garbled, laying her tongue flat against him, and she bobbed her head up and down a little faster.

“Oh, holy fuck, you do.” Jason breathed heavily, using his grip on her nape to guide her movements, trying not to cum at the sight of her hot tears falling against his lower stomach. 

He just knew she was giving him all she had, and it was more than enough. Jason could see her nipples through her sports bra, and he fought the urge to rip through her clothes again. Jason held her head steady suddenly, caressing her cheek for only a moment before rutting his hips up fast and hard.

If she was going to give it all to him, Jay would take it all from her. Jason fucked himself roughly into her mouth, relishing the warm, wet sensation around his shaft. She looked so perfect, getting fucked into like this. “You take me so well, baby. You do such a good job taking this cock.” He growled, his hips moving at an almost rabid rate at this point.

And Essie fucking loved every second of this, her thighs clenching together tightly at the sight of Jason turning animalist above her. She was soaking wet at the sight of him. And those praises tumbling from his mouth? Esther would do anything just to hear those words said so sweetly yet carnally again. 

Esther looked up at Jay through her lazy, fucked out eyes, moving her fingers to caress his balls. Jason couldn’t look away from her; she looked like a goddamn wet dream of his. “O-Oh shit-” He squeezed his eyes shut briefly as Esther hummed around his shaft, the vibrations sending him to another fucking planet, “Oh baby, you keep doing that, and I’m gonna cum in that pretty mouth.”

There was literally no fucking thing she wanted more.

Pushing her hair back from her face, Esther swallowed down more of Jay, more than she thought was possible. As he bottomed out inside her throat, Essie gave him big innocent eyes, and that was it for Jason, “Fuck, sweetheart, I’m gonna cum. I-I’m g- I’m gonna-” He panted multiple times, fucking into her mouth at a crazed, uneven pace before pulling out just enough to coat her lips and gaping mouth with his hot load of salty cum. His stomach twitched and seized as he squeezed his eyes shut, his mouth hanging open as he moaned loudly.

Esther swallowed it down, licking at her lips and savoring the taste of Jason on her tongue. He opened his eyes in time to watch her clean his cock off with her lips, and Jason seriously considered fucking her into the next week.

Once he was all clean, Esther wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, grinning up at Jason, who was still breathing heavily, eyes half-lidded in ecstasy. Jay pulled her by her hair until she was eye-level with him before bringing her in for a lazy, slopping kiss. He could taste himself on her tongue, and he growled from the back of his throat.

Pulling herself from the kiss, Esther placed a tender peck on Jay’s forehead, “I’m gonna go get a drink.” She bolted off of him, Jay sighing in contentment as he slipped his softening cock back into his boxers.

Oh god, that was so much better than he’d ever imagined it. Even now, as he could hear her rustling in his kitchen, his body was like jello, as if he had no bones in his entire body.

When Esther returned, she had two glasses of water in her hands. Jason eagerly took one and gulped it down, not remembering the last time he had drank some water. “Thanks.” He placed the glass on the side table before hooking his arms around Essie’s waist and pulling her onto the bed, cradling her in his arms. Jason littered kisses all over her face, which screwed up in mock sourness. “Oh, don’t act like you hate me now,” Jay teased, “Not after you left me face fuck you like a little slut.”

Esther’s face heated up, and she laughed aloud, smacking Jason in the arm, “Asshole.” Jay yawned heavily, his eyes struggling to stay open. Esther brushed his cheek with her thumb, “But an asshole that needs to sleep.”

Jason huffed, “No, I need to follow up on some leads. Can you bring me my laptop from the office?” He yawned again, and Esther gave him a guilty look.

“See,” She scratched his scalp soothingly, “I thought you might say that….”

Red squinted at her suspiciously, “What..?”

“You need to rest.” Essie pouted, “No if, and’s, or but’s… So I maybe crushed up like six of your melatonins and put it in your drink.” She said it so fast that Jason almost didn’t catch any of it, but he still managed to decipher her words and groaned.

“Es, those are prescription strength.” His eyelids felt so, so heavy. And wow, had his pillows always been so comfy?

“I know.” Esther bit the inside of her cheek, “Sorry.”

She slowly got off Jason, his eyes closing a moment later. Esther threw a blanket over the top of Jay and placed a kiss on his cheek.

“Stubborn little bitch.” Jason mumbled before dozing off into a deep, drug-induced, but well-needed sleep.

…

The shower pressure in this apartment was heavenly.

Esther hadn’t had a proper shower in ages. At least not one where she wasn’t nervous that a nun would hear her and call the cops.

So its high pressure and warm, soothing water felt amazing against her skin. As if all the tension in her body was melting from her skin and swirling down the drain. She missed this, having a space of her own to deflate. At the beginning of striking out on her own, Esther had tried renting multiple times, but each time Bruce would show up to try and ‘talk some sense into her.' Even when she tried using fake names. So going entirely off the grid was the only option he’d left her with.

And this place really took Essie by surprise. It was… genuinely stunning. A model of old Gotham architecture that looked like Jay was renovating to have a touch of modernism. But why? Seemed like a weird hobby to have in between working for the League of Shadows.

Coming out of the shower, her bare feet shivered at the cool touch of tile beneath her. Her eyes caught on the drain in the middle of the black and cream patterned tile… Okay, now that made sense. She could picture Jay washing down the blood from his exploits.

She wrapped a towel around her battered, bruised, and scarred body before walking back into Jason’s room. Jason was sprawled out across his dark comforter, snoring quietly. The sight made her smile. Safe and sound. Before walking to his closet, Esther paused at his bookshelf. Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Wuthering Heights… Twelfth Night. That one caught her eye. Jason loved the regency era but hated Shakespeare. Twelfth Night was Esther’s favorite. 

Thumbing at its spine, Esther pulled the hardcover from the shelf and flipped through the pages to find countless notes in sloppy black ink. One particular part was underlined and caught her eye…

“Make me a willow cabin at your gate,

And call upon my soul within the house;

Write loyal cantons of contemned love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night;.”

Esther’s heart thumped in her chest. Of all the lines, he liked that one. Shaking her head and trying to hide the meek smile on her lips, Essie put the book back on its shelf before walking to the closet and picking out an old gray t-shirt and a pair of black sweatpants.

As she dropped her towel, Esther caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her body looked… broken. But the part Esther hated most, that made it hard to look at her reflection was the three gashes across her stomach. 

Esther typically covered them with makeup, high-waisted pants… or just any way she could. Those three gashes were from day fifty-six with the Joker… The day he invited Victor Zsasz to come and play…

Shivers ran down her spine, and Esther quickly slipped the oversized shirt over her head. If it was out of sight, it was out of mind. The sweatpants hung loosely around her hips, but that’s how she liked it anyway.

A sound made her freeze. Clinking was coming from outside of the room. Like… Someone was in the kitchen. Esther snatched a gun from Jason’s nightstand. She slowly eased the bedroom door open, slipping around the corner, and unclicked the safety as she pressed herself against the wall that separated the hallway from the kitchen.

More shuffling could be heard, and Esther recognized a distinct chopping sound. Someone was definitely in there, and they were… cooking?

“I know you’re there, alsaghir.” Little one. Esther’s eye twitched, wondering again why she could understand that word. And why that silky, smooth voice sounded just so… recognizable. 

Esther peeked around the corner to find a strange sight.

Talia al Ghul cutting up vegetables in Jason's kitchen.

“I brought ingredients for tabbouleh.” Talia was achingly stunning, her clothing accenting her otherworldly beauty. Her voice was dripping honey, “You loved it when I would make this for you.”

Esther approached slowly, lowering her gun, “I- We’ve never met before.” She squinted, and Esther was greeted with the same splitting headache from earlier in the day.

“Are you sure of that, alsaghir?” Talia’s soft brown hair fell perfectly around her oval face, her skin like moonlight. No wonder Bruce had a soft spot for her. “My father sends his congratulations on completing your rite. The first of many to come. Although he would ask that in the future you accept no help from your… comrades.”

Leaning against the wall, Esther studied Talia. “That’s… nice of you to deliver the message.” And also highly inconvenient for Talia to come all this way. “I hope it wasn’t a long drive.” She raised an eyebrow, and Talia laughed at her attempt at small talk.

“Jason is doing well then?” Talia asked, turning her back to check on the flatbread she was warming on the stovetop. Esther couldn’t lie. It smelled heavenly. But something in Talia’s tone caused her eyes to narrow.

“He’s resting.” She answered simply. “Why are you here, Talia? You didn’t come all this way to check on Jason and me. One of your handmaidens could have done that for you.”

Removing the flatbread from the heat, Talia turned back to Esther and placed the fluffy carb onto a plate at the small table. “Sit.” She instructed, and Esther felt the urge to obey for some reason. Slowly, she sat at the place that Talia had prepared for her, taking a sip of the water that had been placed there.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed a significant lack in your memories by now.” Talia raised an eyebrow at Esther, and Essie blinked. How did she-? “Probably starting from the moment my father met with you this morning. Things you can’t remember, things you shouldn’t know but do… Perhaps even a change in your fighting skills.”

What the hell was going on here? How could Talia possibly know what was going on in her head today?

“Jason begged my father to leave you out of his plans, but as I’m sure you know, the Demon is not easily swayed by the demands of others.” Talia chopped some parsley into fine pieces, “So tell me, Sadiyah, what do you remember of your childhood?”

There was that name again, so foreign, yet… it didn’t feel wrong to answer to it. “Stop calling me that.” Essie’s eye twitched again, but her voice was much more timid than usual. 

“Why wouldn’t I use the name given to you at birth?” Talia tossed all the chopped ingredients together, “But I suppose I should be more understanding. It’s not like you remember.”

Her words made Essie’s head pound, “What… are you talking about?” Esther rubbed at her temple.

“You have had something stolen from you, Sadiyah, and you don’t even know it.” Talia placed the bowl of food in front of Esther before squeezing a lemon over the top, “Do you truly believe that my father would have created something like you- something with so much potential and then just left you in the care of strange doctors? Eat.”

The food did look fantastic, and Esther was starving. She eyed Talia; Esther used the soft, warm bread to scoop up some of the salad(?) that Talia had made. The moment it hit her tongue, her head panged like it was going to split open. She had tasted this before; Esther knew it. But she also had no memory of it. “You’re saying… Ra’s has my memories?” She choked out, eyes squeezed shut in pain.

A flash of an image crossed her mind, Talia al Ghul sitting criss-cross in front of her, swords laid out between them, as they both ate from bowls containing food that looked a lot like what sat in front of Esther right now.

“Ahh,” Talia hummed, “I knew you’d remember this. You would have eaten my tabbouleh every day had I permitted.” She leaned against the kitchen counter, “And not necessarily. He stole them, yes, but he never truly took them from you.” Esther continued to eat (What could she say, it was really good), “They live inside you yet. Just… locked away. And all you need is the key.”

A sigh escaped Esther’s lips, “A key, I’m guessing, that you have?”

“An astute observation, Sadiyah.” Each time Talia used that name, Esther winced. “Yes, I have what you need to remember….”

The older woman trailed off, and Esther rolled her eyes, “And you want something in return?”

Talia placed the dirty dishes in the sink before she turned once more to give Esther a sly smile, “You need not concern yourself. It’s an easy task. I simply need you to deliver something for me to your brother.”

“Deliver what?” Esther’s eyes narrowed once more, wondering if it was a weapon, a message, or some weird sex thing. All three of those sounded annoying at best to deal with.

“Aidkhul!” Talia called over her shoulder, and Jason’s front door opened. A small frame entered the room, covered in a heavy cloak with snowflakes decorating the dark fabric.

The figure removed its hood, and Esther’s jaw tightened. Perhaps a child would not have been so shocking, but it was the child’s face that astonished her- the boy child couldn’t have been older than eight years old, and yet he looked exactly like…

“Sadiyah, this is my son. The rightful heir to the Demon.” Talia put her arm around the boy, whose eyes were examining Esther like she was his prey. Esther met him with the same calculative stare.

“Damian.”

.

.

.

tags: @niphredil-14 @honeybee54321 @princesscumdump444

[moonstone01]

Close Pt. 3

Stranger Things 

Eddie Munson x Female Reader

Word Count: 8.5K

Warnings: Weed, Underage Drinking, SMUT, “Distracted Driving” 😉, Oral (F receiving), Fingering, Protected Vaginal Sex, Praise, Fluff, and also Jealous Reader. 

A/N: I really didn’t need to write this much, but I did anyway because in a way I’m also living vicariously through this as well 😊. I also think this is the most I’ve written so far, I’m very passionate about my Eddie 😁. May or may not write a part 4 depending on how this does because I’m not sure if the people want a part 4. Enjoy this one though 🥰. 

You wake up on Saturday morning and are hit with two realizations. The first being Halloween. The excitement bubbling in your stomach like a little kid. The second being Eddie. A little while after you got home last night, around 9:30, the phone rang. You rushed to answer the line, knowing exactly who it was. Also not wanting your parents to answer the call. 

You picked up the phone off the hook, smiling to yourself at his haste to call you not even three hours after your encounter. You obviously don’t mind, you quite love it actually. You leaned against the wall, putting the device to your ear.

“Hello, my sweetheart” so now it’s my sweetheart? 

“Hello, my pain-in-the-ass” you laughed, teasing him. “How’d you know it would be me picking up the phone? Could've been talking to my dad.” You giggled at the thought of him calling your dad his sweetheart. 

“Well…considering the fact that it’s 9:33, and old people usually are in bed by now, also the fact the phone was picked up pretty quickly” you could hear his smile through the phone when you laughed at his old people comment. “To which I’m guessing someone misses me?” That smug smirk could be detected in his voice of course. 

“Don’t flatter yourself hon’.” you rolled your eyes playfully. Truthfully, you do miss him, but who are you to admit that to him when he isn’t even yours?

“Did-” he gasped, “Did you just roll your eyes at me?!” 

“Nooo” you drew out, beginning to giggle at the playfulness in his voice.

“Yeah, you totally just rolled your eyes. I could hear them hit the back of your head through the phone!” he mused, the both of you laughing. You’re beginning to think he’s getting to know you too well. It’s like he always keeps you laughing. “Sooo, you know, you left your mixtape in my van”

“Yeah I know, I didn’t realize until I got home” you explained, knowing he would notice the mis-hap with his apparent distaste for your music. 

“Did you maybe leave it here on purpose to have an excuse to see me again? You have my number now, I’m just one call away y/n” he is getting a bit cocky isn’t he?

“Sooo full of yourself I see, it was not on purpose, Munson” you retorted, amused. “But, I’m going to a party tomorrow night, wanna come with? I can get my horrible mixtape from you then.” 

“I’m not a fan of parties, but since this gorgeous girl has asked me to attend, I shall accept your invitation.” 

“Great, uh…do you think you could pick me up for this said party?” you really were asking a lot from him tonight. First the party and now he may or may not be having to drive you both to said party. 

“Of course, as long as you don’t play that GOD awful music in my van on the way there” of course he had a condition. 

“Ugh, fiiine, I will listen to whatever you want” you promise. You don’t mind his music that much, but he certainly minds yours. You gave him your address (after he had to leave the phone to rummage through his bedroom to find a piece of paper and something to write it down with for quite some time) and after going over it a million times to make sure it was right, you said your goodnights. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow sweetheart, goodnight baby” he said sweetly into the phone. You may as well have just dropped dead right then and there. 

“Goodnight Eddie” you grinned to yourself, feeling butterflies in your stomach, and hanging up the phone. He really does make you feel something, more than anyone else ever has in just this short week. You aren’t one to fall for someone in such a short time, but Eddie is just so perfectly himself, he makes it hard not to. You have certainly not had the best with past relationships, none of them even going past six months. He also makes it hard to not think about him, and wonder to yourself how he really feels about you. 

You both haven’t really talked about that? You just assumed he felt the same for you, which in turn leads you to doubt his feelings about you. Is he actually interested? Or is all of this a façade to get into your pants? You’d just have to ask yourself when the time comes. If that's even possible. 

                                              ◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆

Handing out candy to all the little ones in your neighborhood was something you always enjoyed. As always, the eager ones would start to flood out the streets around 6:30, right before the sun set. You were wearing a costume of your own in preparation for the party you were attending later that night. By now, it was 7:30, and the sun had fully gone down by now. Kids were everywhere wearing colorful costumes under the streetlights of your neighborhood. 

One kid in particular caught your eye as he started to walk up your driveway. He was dressed in a large pumpkin outfit, sort of struggling to walk in it. To make matters worse, a group of kids looking to be a bit older behind him shoved him to the ground, face first, and made a show of laughing at him. You hastily place your large bowl of candy on the entrance table next to the front door. As the group of boys walk their way up the sidewalk, you go out your front door to stop them. 

“Um, no, turn around, you’re not getting candy here” you tell them sternly. They look up to you, clearly offended. 

“Why not?” A boy wearing a werewolf mask asks, as if what they just did to that boy was not evident. You look over to the pumpkin boy, who is gathering the remnant splatter of candy that had split. 

“Get lost. I don’t give candy to kids that like to shove other kids on Halloween.” You point for them to leave, rolling your eyes and making your way over towards the kid who was still trying to get all his candy. He was clearly struggling, the pumpkin costume not making it easy. 

“Hey, need some help?” you approach sincerely. He only nods as he huffs and puffs from the struggle. 

“I love your costume,” you smile up at him as you help him up after collecting all of the candy. You lean in and whisper to him, “I’ll give you extra candy since you were best dressed tonight.” At this, the boy flashes a toothless grin at the news that he was best dressed and he won a prize. You walk with him to your front door to grab the bowl of candy, and grab handfuls on handfuls for the kid. 

“Give those boys the middle finger for me if you see them again, okay?” you lean down and smile at him. He thanks you and continues on to collect more candy for the night. Then, you hear a short honk come from the street. 

Eddie’s van is parked on your street, and he has his window rolled down. 

“Hey there!” he yells across the lawn. “You ready?” He asks with a smile. 

“Yup! Just let me update my parents that candy duty is on them!” you smile back and rush into the house. 

“Mom! Dad! I’m going out, spending the night at Nancy’s!” After hearing the “okay” from the parents, you quickly rush back out of the house with a coat, not wanting your parents to see you’re really being picked up by an Eddie Munson. You climb into the passenger side of his van, to which he starts the van back up. 

“You’re like a princess,” is the first thing he says as you go to buckle your seatbelt and he gets the van moving. 

“What?” You laugh at his comment. 

“That kid, I saw those assholes shove him when I was pulling up,” he looks over to you, “and then I saw princess y/n tell them off and help pumpkin boy recover from that assholery,” he laughs looking back at the road. 

“Well, this princess doesn’t like assholery” you tilt your chin up high. 

“The prettiest princess I ever did see.” He lowers his voice, smiling to himself, then smiling over at you as he turns out of your neighborhood. You can’t help but blush at the way he said that. His compliments are what make your stomach do backflips.  

“Now, where exactly am I going?” He asks, changing the mood back to a more playful one. Shit. Of course you forgot to tell him where the party was at. 

“Oh, you know where lover’s lake is?”

“Yeah, I know a guy who lives there.”

“Well, make your way there and you’ll know which house. It’s supposed to be quite crowded.” 

“Great, and I know they aren’t going to play very good music, so speaking of,” he leans forward to mess with the radio. Loud music starts to erupt from the speakers. “Ahhh yes, music,” Eddie sighs out and begins to tap his hands on the steering wheel to the music. At some point, he reaches over to grab hold of your lower left leg, tapping his fingers to the music still. He really can’t sit still while listening to music can he? You let out a slight laugh through your nose at his fidgeting and subtly tilt your leg more into his touch. 

“What?” He whips his head to look at you with an amused grin, and just as quickly looking back at the road. 

“Nothin, just entertained by the way you can’t sit still listening to this music.” 

“Of course, that’s what metal does, you can’t just not move your body. Honestly, I can’t believe you are sitting so still.” He states matter-a-factly. 

“Well…metal just might not be my favorite genre.” You say hesitantly. He immediately furrows his eyebrows and looks to you as if you were crazy. Here we go. 

                                             ◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆

You arrive at the house on lover’s lake, it is as you said, quite crowded. You know you won’t be staying long, but you did want to say hi to a few people, and maybe drink a little bit, maybe even dance a little. You also knew that showing up here with Eddie Munson might be controversial, but you showed up knowing you wouldn’t give a damn. 

“You ready?” he makes sure with you as he finally finds a place to park his van. You take off your coat and leave it in the van, showing off your vampire costume. Eddie wasn’t wearing a costume of course, and when you asked why, he told you his costume was “a freak metal head.”

“Yup” you quickly put, and start to exit the van. You both start to walk up to the house, groups of people convened around the front lawn, all wearing costumes and most with red solo cups in hand. The music could be heard from all the way down the street, where you had parked. You enter the house with Eddie trailing close behind, taking in the scene of the crowded space. 

How the hell were you supposed to find Nancy in this place?

“Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie mumbles behind you, “where's the alcohol?” He questions mostly to himself. 

“I know, let’s go look.” You grab his hand and lead him through the crowd of moving bodies. Eddie scoots closer to your body, placing a reassuring hand on your hip as you lead him through. You spot Nancy and Steve chatting by the bowl of punch in the kitchen. There were also bottles of liquor and beer spread across the counter, and half drank cups. 

“Hey mama Steve,” you smile, patting him on the back from behind, “How are your children?” You question as he whips his head around to see who has asked about his group of children. 

“Y/n- oh -I have no idea, I’m surprised they haven’t bothered me for the whole day.” He laughs, taking a step back beside Nancy to add both you and Eddie to the conversation. 

“That’s a blessing.” You laugh. “This is Eddie by the way, he’s a friend of mine.” As you say this, Eddie tenses beside you and drops his hand from yours and goes to put them in his pockets as he flashes a friendly smile at Steve and Nancy. 

“I’m Steve, as you know, and this is Nancy.” Steve says, flashing a friendly smile back. 

“Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you from y/n, Eddie.” Nancy flashes a smile, switching her gaze between you and Eddie. 

“So you’ve heard about me?” Eddie raises an eyebrow looking over to you. Of course Nancy had to let that be known, that you've been discussing him. 

“Oh of course, she told me-” 

“Ha- yeah - Nancy, how are you and Jonathan?” You question, trying to change the discussion onto something else. She noticed the way you called him a friend of yours, the both of you knowing it’s a little more than that. 

“Oh, we’re good,” she falters on her words a little bit. You can tell just from the way she said it that they were not the best. You raise your eyebrows at her, knowing she was not telling the truth, at least the whole truth. 

“Oh what the hell.” Steve suddenly says, looking past you and Eddie towards the entrance to the kitchen. You all turn in the direction of the disturbance. There stood his children, lined up looking for their mama. Max, Lucas, Mike, and Dustin trailing behind, almost getting lost between two people walking past.

“What are you guys doing here? You should not be here.” He says sternly, in mom mode. 

“We need your help with something.” Max tells him seriously. Eddie slides over to the pile of alcohol and grabs two empty solo cups, pouring some of the liquor from one of the bottles into the two cups. He then inspects the punch, making sure it doesn’t look sketchy. After he had decided it was okay to drink, he pours some in both cups along with the liquor. 

“Okay, okay, but you guys need to leave, like, right now.” Steve shoos them, walking out with them to make sure they don’t do anything they aren’t supposed to and to help them with whatever they need. Eddie laughs. 

“Dustin always talks about him,” he chuckles at Steve being heard yelling at one of them.

“NO, STOP that,” probably at Dustin.

“A man can only be jealous of the hold he has on that kid.” He smiles fondly, handing you the cup. You turn to Nancy, to which she promptly gives you a wink and turns to walk to the crowd of dancing bodies. 

“Lets go outside,” you offer, after chugging most of your drink, certainly tasting a lot more of the liquor then you did the punch. 

“No, let's dance.” Eddie counteroffers, having drank most of his cup by now as well. You raise your eyebrows at his suggestion. The end of Call Me by Blondie playing loudly in your ears as Eddie pulls you close to him with his left arm, taking a large sip from his cup. This song really isn’t his scene, so you laugh at his dancing to the song. His hand begins to glide down your back, pulling you in between his thigh, you wrap your arms around his shoulders, cup dangling in your hand. 

The song changes to Tainted Love by Soft Cell. The crowd yells and claps at the song that has begun to play. You stare up into Eddie's eyes, the music drowning out the singing of the crowd. As you both sway to the music, his hand slides down to grip the skin that was being barely covered under your skirt. You look between his lips and his eyes, realizing you both are so close to each other. He growls and moves his hand up squeezing your ass hard at the seducing look you’re giving him. 

He spins you around to face you forward, pulling you flush against him, and leaning down to rest his head on your shoulder. He wraps his arms around your lower stomach, keeping you in place to his lower body. You both have your cups in hand, so you chug the last bit of your drink. You grind against him, feeling the liquor go straight to your head. 

Don’t touch me please! I cannot stand the way you teeease!

The crowd sings drunkenly loudly along to the song. You, however, are getting hot and bothered. 

“You love the way I tease, hm?” Eddie says in your left ear, as if it were a fact. He moves one hand lower, down to your thigh, giving it a squeeze, forcing you to feel the slightest brush of his hard on. Your heavy breathing probably painfully obvious as you move your right hand up to run it through his long hair. He hums in your ear when you bite your lip and give it a tug. 

“We’re just friends though, right?” He says softly, letting go, and pulling away from you, forcing you to let go of your hold on him as well as his hold on you. You’re left stunned as your head spins from the loss of contact, making your way to follow him after he passed you to make his way back to the kitchen. He’s quicker than you thought, and makes his way outside where the pool is, throwing his cup among the many other cups in the large trash can. The way he left so quickly made your mind race dizzily, so instead of going with him, you make your way to the kitchen. 

You go to get more to drink, kind of upset how he just left you there without a warning. Why did he just up and leave like that? And the friend comment? Once you have time to sit and drink another whole drink -more liquor then punch- you make your way outside after pouring another to find Eddie to discuss what just happened. However, you stop dead in your tracks and your heart drops as you see him on a lounge chair, talking to another girl on the lounge chair beside him, laughing in conversation. 

She’s pretty, long ginger hair, a little bit preppy for his style, but either way, you can’t help the rage that comes over you. You don’t know if it was the amount of liquor you had drank, or if this was just true, raw jealousy. Even both. But you found your way marching up to him, dodging people and circling around the perimeter of the pool. 

“Oh, hey bud” Bud? At this, you can’t help what comes next. You fly your drink at his face, not really having all rationale there, but a few people look on at the scene. The girl beside him looks at you in disbelief, as does he. The drink not even making it onto his face but more onto his shirt and some of his chin.

“What the hell y/n, what was that for?” He asks, stunned at your behavior, worry lining his face as he sits up and wipes his chin with his hand. 

“Take me home. Now.” You say sternly and turn to make your way back through the house. You can feel tears pricking in your eyes because seeing him talk to another girl then proceed to call you bud in front of her just seems like a douchey thing to do. What happened to sweetheart? It’s like he really was just trying to get in your pants. You wipe them away aggressively as you push past the bodies of people feeling stupid. You hear his heavy footsteps come through the sliding glass door as you begin to slide through the crowd of people. 

“Y/n wait!” You hear Eddie call through the crowd. No doubt causing a scene. You speed walk, as best as you can, down the stoop and towards the street. 

“Y/n” You hear him growl behind you, having to practically chase you through the party. 

“What happened? What’s wrong?” He asks, falling into step beside you, watching your face in confusion for a sign as to what went wrong. As if he shouldn’t already know. 

“You!” You shout, stopping and spinning towards him with an off balanced wobble. “You left me like that on the dancefloor, then you proceeded to flirt with another girl after saying we were just friends.” You stare up at him, eyes unmoving, slurring your words slightly as they come out. 

“And then,” you scoff, “you call me bud and not sweetheart, in front of her as if you weren’t basically just fucking me in that crowd.” He looks at you with a listening stare as he lets you rant about why you were upset. His shirt stained red from the punch you threw at him. 

“So take me home, I don’t want to spend another second with another,” you pause thinking of something to say “lame douchebag who only wants to use me to get in my pants.” 

He sighs before speaking. 

“Okay, one,” he says gesturing his hands around his body to show off the bright red stain on his shirt, “can we agree that you've had a bit to drink?” He says laughing at the situation, and stops when he notices the frown on your face. He raises his eyebrows and steps closer to you. 

“...We can agree on that.” You tell him in a low voice, realizing that was probably a shitty thing to do. 

“Okay, good, secondly.” He takes a deep breath in and out. “I was not flirting with her, she’s just another one of my clients.” Your heart drops at the knowledge because you started off as one of his clients, tears beginning to prick again in your eyes. You look down at your feet, trying not to cry at the situation in front of you. You felt stupid for causing a scene, but you also felt stupid for catching feelings for him. 

“No no no,” he says leaning down and lifting your chin, hearing you sniffle. “Look at me.” He tells  you. Your eyes look up at him, tears threatening to spill, you would be so embarrassed if you were not drunk right now. 

“You are the only one I want, y/n, and I’m sorry I acted that way, I was just upset you referred to me as a friend when you introduced me to Nancy and Steve. I shouldn’t have done that because we never really talked about it.” He takes a deep breath again, struggling to say what needs to be said. “And…I kinda just assumed you felt the same way about me, but I still doubted it, so when you introduced me that way it kinda… confirmed it.” He shrugged seeing you have calmed down now that he has apologized. 

“I forgive you.” You smile, starting to laugh at his confession. Not because it was humorous, but because your doubts are now solved. He literally felt the exact same way you did about the relationship. He laughs with you, happy that you were happy again. 

“I shouldn’t have left like that, okay? I don’t wanna see you cry, sweetheart.” He grabs your face with both hands on your cheeks and wipes a tear that had accidentally slipped out. You nod in understanding. More understanding than he knew. 

“But, I do not forgive you for staining my white T-shirt,” he looks down at the mess while chuckling. “This will take years for it to clean.” He sighs.

“I’m sorry, it was a bit of an overreaction I guess, I promise I can get that stain out for you.” You laugh at his dilemma you caused. You did feel bad though. 

“Promise me you’ll say yes to take you to skull rock and we’ve got ourselves a truce.” He moves both hands on your hips, waiting for an answer with a raised eyebrow. 

“Okay,” you smile, still a bit drunk. 

                                             ◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆

He drove up the road a little to a clearing in the woods, where it wouldn’t be that hard to find the rock. The both of you grab flashlights, and you grab your light coat and head through the forest. You’ve actually been to skull rock quite a few times, and have gotten played every time you’ve gone by guys that have offered to take you. So, you know your way to the site. 

“Looks like you know your way around” Eddie comments on you leading the way. “Your little boyfriends bring you up here often?” 

“Unfortunately, yes, and I’ve gotten fucked over every time.” You roll your eyes at some of the memories skull rock holds. Your second boyfriend brought you up here to make out, which turned into something more. Long story short, you gave your very first blowjob at skull rock. Two weeks later, he dumped you. His reasoning being “I need to focus on myself”, turns out, he spread a rumor that you let him put it in the back door at skull rock. Great. 

The second time you went up there, you were seeing a guy who offered to take you. For some reason, even after your last encounter with your ex, you still went. You guys only made out, but nothing more than that. He got angry when you wouldn’t do anything more, so he then spread a rumor that you also let him do the same thing, which was farther from the truth then your first encounter was. 

The third time you made your way to the spot was to smoke and drink with a friend you had made that same year. Nothing special about that visit, it was a fun time, but the friendship you had was not a very long lasting one. 

This all happened your sophomore year, you’re surprised you even remember what way to go. Sophomore year sucked. 

“Well I’m not gonna fuck you over.” He grabs your hand to help you over a large log. “I promise you that.” He looks at you with sincerity. When you made it to skull rock, you shrieked in drunken excitement. 

“There it is!” You exclaim, running as best as possible. You hear him start to run to catch up with you, which wasn’t a difficulty, so when you stopped suddenly and turned around once you reached the rock, Eddie ran right into you. In a quick maneuver, he flipped you both around so he was falling towards the ground. Eddie’s back hitting the ground with you on top of him in a comedic thud and ‘humph’ from him. After a moment of silence, hysterical laughter erupts from you as you place your forehead on his chest. 

“Your face!” You exclaim with laughing tears pricking up at your eyes, barely able to get the words out. He begins to laugh at your hysterics as you look up at him, your hair definitely disheveled. 

“Oh my god…I’m sorry” You try to stop the laughter, but it continues as you look down at the way he is grinning while admiring the way you look on top of him. Both of your laughter are chiming in unasine now. 

“Okay, okay, let's get up, I didn’t take you here just to lay on the ground and laugh.” He says chuckling while sitting up, helping you get up as well. You wipe your tears and grab your flashlight with a ‘whew’, and take a few more steps underneath the rock. He follows behind, standing next to you as you take in the view of the lake behind it. You’ve always loved the view from skull rock, but never got to fully enjoy it. The moon reflected off the water, and you were able to see the lights from the far off houses across the lake. You look over to Eddie, who was also admiring the view. 

“So how did you know how to get here?” You ask him, teasing him, and also wanting to find out about past girlfriends. 

“An old friend.” You raise your eyebrows at him as if to go on. He looks at you, and laughs. 

“Really! We would come up here to smoke.” He pleads, you nod and roll your eyes playfully at his lies. He growls and grabs you by the hips to pull you close rather possessively. His lips immediately attach to your lips in a long, drawn out kiss. 

“I promise, it was just a friend, he lives here actually, taught me all I know.” He pulls back, holding one of your hands and swinging it back and forth. The explanation wasn’t exactly needed, but it was nice to have some reassurance. 

“It’s okay, I didn’t really care either way.” You smile smally. 

“Oh of course you do, you most certainly do after what you pulled tonight!” He points to his shirt again, the both of you letting out small laughs. 

“I’m sorry, Eddie, I should-”

“It’s okay, sweety, I shouldn’t have left you there, I shouldn’t have made you feel that way.” He steps closer to you and grabs your cheek with his right hand and glides a thumb along it. 

“Now, let’s smoke.” He smiles and goes for his pocket where he kept the joint and lighter. You had sobered up by now as much as possible, so you were ready for some more substance. You both sit on the rock facing the water, as you cup your hands over the joint and lighter to prevent the wind from blowing it out for him. Once he gets it going, he takes a few hits and passes it to you. 

“You wanna stay the night at my place?” He asks suddenly. You were planning on staying at Nancy’s, but you were actually hoping you could stay a while longer and extend the night even more with him. 

“Of course I do,” you say after a moment of holding the smoke in your lungs, feeling the familiar burn, “I was hoping you would ask, actually.” 

“Good, because I have it all to myself,” he smirks at you as you pass, “but I also wanna show you my guitar.” Your cunt flutters around nothing at the thought of what you might do when you’re completely alone at his place. Also getting to watch him play the guitar? Hell yes. 

“Mhm, you’ve got to show me my competition.” You say referring to the guitar, smiling as you watch him ghost the smoke. He laughs at your comment, then turns to you, making a motion with his hand to scoot a little bit closer. He blows the smoke he had in his mouth and speaks.

“Shotgun?” He asks, but you’ve never tried it before. You know what it is, and you’ve seen others try it once or twice, but you have never done it yourself. 

“I’ve never shotgunned before.” You say looking at him, wanting him to show you. 

“Okay, just get ready to inhale the smoke I blow out,” He takes a long drag of the joint, grabbing your chin and bringing it ever so closely to his face, almost kissing you. He holds it and looks from your eyes down to your lips, which are slightly parted to intake the smoke. You're leaned forward, unsure when he’s going to blow out the smoke, until he tilts his head and begins to blow the smoke out. You hesitate for a second, then inhale as much of the smoke as you can. You blow it out while looking up at him as he smiles at the scene. The action made him grow slightly hard through his jeans. 

“That was hot,” he laughs. You begin to pull away from his grip on your chin smiling at your success, but his hand slides down to your jaw and encourages you not to do so. He places the joint down beside him and grabs your leg to pull you into his lap. You obliged, and let his hand guide you to straddle him. However, he doesn’t kiss you, but just rubs your back while looking up at you. 

“Y/n” 

“Eddie?” You say almost in question as to what he is doing. 

“I want you to be mine,” he says while slowing his movements up and down your back, seeing the slight shock in your face. “And I want to be together, to take you on dates, and do the cheesy shit with you. I want to show you off to everyone at school because you are Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson's girl.” You smile at his words. “Hell, I even wanna meet your parents.” He says in almost disbelief at his own words that he actually wants to meet your parents knowing full well they wouldn’t approve. 

“I know I’m not the best influence, but spending time and getting close to you has made me realize,” he laughs to himself, “that no one has ever made me feel the way you do. So- what I’m trying to say-”

“-Yes- I will be your girlfriend Eddie, I’m yours. And Eddie I feel the exact same way. My parents will love you once they get to know you, and I would love to be Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson’s girl.” You cut him off and smile widely at his rambling about his feelings for you. Eddie grins widely at your words and picks you up suddenly, causing you to wrap your arms around his neck. You squeal at the sudden movement as he wraps your legs around his waist and kisses you deeply with a tight grip on your ass to keep you up. He gives you short kisses all over your cheeks and neck while walking you to the huge wall that holds up the said skull of skull rock. You both giggle at the feeling of being with each other. 

His lips move down to your jaw, and pecks turn into sloppy kisses trailing down your neck. You moan when he reaches a certain spot on your neck, he smirks knowing he found your good spot and begins to suck on it. You unwrap one of your hands from around his neck, sliding it down between you. You sneak your hand over his jeans, feeling how hard he’s gotten. He groans against your neck when you begin to palm him through his jeans. 

“Alright, we need to go home,” he says, letting go of your neck with his lips. Your hand returns around his neck as he begins to walk with you to the car, still attached to his waist. 

“Eddie!” You laugh loudly at the fact that he’s carrying you to the car, forgetting multiple things. “You’re forgetting the flashlights, and the joint, and my coat.” He groans at the fact that you’re right, letting you down so you both can collect your things. Once everything is collected, he grabs your hand and you both make your way back towards the car, laughing the whole way. 

You find the car, and both hop into your designated spots. He turns the car on and reverses out of the spot, and puts it back into drive, making his way back to his trailer. He bites his lip as he slides his right hand over your left leg. You lift your left leg up and turn slightly in your seat, knowing you have your skirt on. He practically moans when his hand glides to your inner thigh, feeling the heat coming from your cunt. 

He glides his hand up and down your inner thigh, only occasionally taking a glance at you because of the road. You’re looking right at him, and his hand that refuses to go where you want it. You slide your underwear over, and let out a slight moan at the cool air hitting your exposed skin. He looks over quickly to see the cause for the noise, and his mouth hangs slightly open when he sees your exposed entrance. 

He then slides his finger through your folds, attention being back on the road. You roll your hips on his fingers, letting him collect your wetness as he teases you more. He leans his arm down slightly to reach your entrance, sliding a middle finger in. You tilt your head back against the door and let out a whimper at his finger slowly curling up into you. His attention being brought back to you for only a few seconds before looking back at the road. In those few seconds, he watched his finger curl up into you as your hole made a slight gushing sound. 

You move your hips up and down to entice him to speed up his finger, legs spread wide open for him. You moan and flinch when he takes his finger out and smacks your clit with his hand, playing with your folds before sliding his finger back in. His speed is now faster than before. You lift your skirt up higher to allow him more access and for something to hold onto for your own sake. He then stops, and slides in another finger, continuing back to that same pace. 

Your breathing is getting heavier as you can barely compose yourself when his fingers are working like this. You’re getting close, and you can feel that familiar feeling in the pit of your stomach starting to form. He elicits a longer, and a lot deeper moan when he leans down slightly in his seat to finger you at a different angle, letting him know you are close. 

“Eddie…” You let out breathlessly. 

“I know baby,” he reassures, feeling your cunt throbbing around his fingers. He then takes his fingers out, sitting back up and flattening his hand, widely going side to side on your clit. Your legs start to shake as you moan out loudly, the sudden pleasure on your clit knocking the wind out of you. This pushes you over the edge. 

“Oh my god!” grabbing onto the seat belt as you scream out, you orgasm as he continues to move back and forth over your clit quickly. He looks over to watch you cum to his fingers. 

“Oh my fuck…” He groans watching you come undone from his work. 

Your legs begin to close, but Eddie slaps your right thigh from closing, causing it to snap back open. You let out another loud moan when his two fingers begin to curl up into you again. With hooded eyes, you look over to him. His brows are furrowed, and he’s biting his bottom lip quite harshly focusing on the road, but also on the speed of his fingers. He’s also speeding to get home, as you were approaching the turn into his trailer park. 

He removes his fingers, and uses his soaking hand to turn into the trailer park, screeching the tires because of how fast he’s going. You sit up, ready to practically run into the trailer. He speeds down the small road, and pulls up rather quickly, having to slam on the brakes in front of his trailer. He looks over to you with a lustful stare and parks the car, effectively turning it off. You both get out at the same time. 

He grabs his keys from his back pocket, running up to the door. Struggling to come up from behind him after you just came, you wrap one arm under his shirt, and the other slides over his cock through his jeans. He groans as he fucks with the key, finally getting it open. The door flies open, as he manhandles you, basically dragging you into the trailer. He slams the door shut, and grabs the underneath of your thighs, indicating for you to jump. You jump and wrap your legs around his waist, his lips sloppily kissing you. His tongue slides into your mouth as he walks you to his bedroom. 

“I don’t even get a house tour?” You break the kiss, laughing at his eagerness. 

“Nope, we can do that afterwards sweetheart.” Flashing a smile, he throws you on the bed. You squeal as you fly backwards, trying to sit up and look around his room, but being cut off by his hot lips attaching back onto yours. He strips your skirt off in a large tug along with your underwear, your vampire vest also being torn off your body. After he throws your vest somewhere, his shirt also comes off, along with his jeans and boxers. You both are exposed now. He begins to lurch towards you, but stops himself to look at you. 

“Fuck you look so sexy right now baby,” he takes a step back and admires the way you are sat up on your elbows, with one leg propped up, cunt and breasts exposed for him. You grin at his reaction, looking down at his fully hard cock. You can see the amount of precum leaking from the tip. He was leaking from watching, mostly listening, to you squirm in his passenger seat. He takes his cock in his hand and strokes it while looking down at you, moving forward to kiss down your neck. The trail of sloppy kisses makes their way to your nipples, his head tilting up looking at you to watch as he sucks on your nipples. Your hand glides through his hair, massaging his scalp as he begins to kiss down your stomach. You know where his lips are going, and you’re not sure if you could take anymore, you just want him to fuck you right now. 

“Eddie, please just fuck me, I need you-” Before you could finish, he flies your thighs up, rolling you up like a pretzel, and starts to lap at your entrance. You whimper out at the contact. He raises his eyebrows as if to say ‘What was that?’ when he flicks his tongue over your clit. The only thing available to hold onto is the sheets, so that's exactly what you hold onto. It’s like he gets off just to pleasuring you, because when he sucks on your clit like a pacifier and you moan loudly, he groans deeply into you. Suddenly, he cups his hands underneath your ass, and stands up, lips still attached to your cunt. You moan again as your neck and upper back are the only thing touching the bed. Both of your legs are over his shoulders, and he stares up and down as he works figure eights over your clit. 

His attention is brought back to your cunt, and he spits on it, sucking on it again. Your back starts to arch into his mouth, and both of your hands fly to his, that are holding you up to his mouth. The moan that you let out is almost pornographic as your legs shake around his head from overstimulation. After he has decided that you’ve had enough, he lets your body drop down to the bed again. 

“I needed to watch your face while I was sucking you.” He said with a breathless laugh, and then bent down to his nightstand to grab a condom. You watched as he ripped it open, rolling it onto his cock. You rolled over onto your left side, and tucked your legs up towards your chest as you propped yourself on one elbow. Almost in a fetal position. 

“Good, lay just like that sweetheart.” He smirked as he started to run his cock through your folds. Your head tilted up a little bit to watch him slide it into you. Sure enough, he begins to push into you. Eddie grabs your ass with his left hand, and squeezes it tightly, the both of you groaning at the stretch around his cock. His cock starts at a slow pace, and you can already tell this new position hits your spot perfectly. The pace increases only a little bit, and you can hear your wetness engulfing his cock. 

“Eddie, faster,” you whine, “pleeaa-” You were about to draw out, but his hips snapped into you sharply, eliciting a gasp. His cock sits still inside you as your mouth hangs open, waiting for him to continue with that same roughness. He looks at you, biting down on his bottom lip hard. And as soon as you nod his hips are snapping into you roughly, moving the bed with a creak each thrust. 

His pace is not as fast as it can go, but the sudden roughness makes you moan his name loudly, causing him to moan as well, grabbing your ass harder with both hands now and angling it better to start drilling into you. 

“Fuck, you take my cock so well, so perfect,” he groans, speeding up a little bit. His body comes forward, and his cock slips almost all the way out and shoots back in quick thrusts. Your hand comes to the back of his head, gripping his long hair as his cock drills into you. He’s fucking you into the mattress, and the desperate look on his face makes your cunt flutter around his cock. He moans and rests his forehead on yours, looking only at you. This is probably the most close and intimate you both have ever been to each other.

“You fuck me so good, it’s yours…I’m yours.” You tell him, and you can feel his cock twitch at your words, your eyes hooded from the intense pleasure coursing through your body. At your words, he grabs your legs and puts them over his shoulders, and leans back down to put his forehead on yours again. He’s dropping into you, causing a loud, repetitive clapping sound and the sound of the bed creaking rapidly to fill the room. 

“All mine,” He groans out, your moan at his words being cut off by each pound into you. You can feel him hitting your spot every thrust, and you throw your head back in pleasure as you can feel yourself reaching your limit. His hand comes up, grabbing your jaw, forcing you to look at him. You can tell he’s close by the way his eyebrows are furrowed, and it seemed to make it worse when he looked down at where your bodies were connected. He let out a loud moan. 

“Oh my fucking God y/n” Your stomach starts to knot, your orgasm coming on suddenly at his words and your shared gaze at the way his cock is sliding in and out of you. You clench and moan, clawing him as he continues to fuck into you. 

“Yes Eddie, fuck!” Your legs shake around his head violently as your orgasm rakes through you, harder than it ever has. You can feel his cock twitch inside you, and he lets out a moan louder than some of yours as he cums inside the condom. The both of you sweaty from the activity. He pulls out, and you whimper at the loss. You watch as he takes the condom off and ties it off, throwing it in his trash can. His body then collapses next to yours, the bed making a dramatic creaking as he lays down next to you. 

“I think…,” he starts to say, but is still catching his breath, “I think that was…the best sex I’ve ever had.” You laugh at his comment. 

“Eddie you said that last time, babe.” You laugh at the fact that now every time you have sex, it’s going to be the newest best sex ever. He turns to you, sitting up on his forearm to look down at you. 

“Did you just call me babe?” 

“Yeaaahh?” You draw out in confusion as to what is exactly wrong with that. He smiles down at you. 

“I love that.” he leans down to kiss you. The kiss turns into a make out, but a slow one. A kiss that is in no rush to finish. He pulls away, and then realizes something. He gets up, and puts his boxers back on, and then turns to his guitar. Of course. 

“Almost forgot.” He smirks at you while grabbing his guitar off the wall, then puts it around him and sits down next to you on the bed. 

“Oh yeah, my competition.” You smile and watch as he begins to play a riff. He is clearly skilled, as he said, he’s been playing since he was three years old. Then he starts to play a song. 

“What’s this song called?” You ask, curious as to what he’s playing.

“Heaven and Hell, by Black Sabbath.” He turns to you and smiles when he stops playing the riff. You like the way it sounds, and you love that your boyfriend is passionate about something. Boyfriend. Eddie is your boyfriend now. After a few minutes of him playing, you can’t help but ponder the thought out loud. 

“I can’t believe you’re my boyfriend now.” You tell him, as you look at him wrapped up in another song that he had started to play. He stops playing again and looks at you. You are still completely naked on his bed. 

“What do you mean by that?” He laughs.

“Because.” You start. “I never imagined you as a boyfriend type. I thought you’d be one of those dark brooding guys like ‘I don’t need anyone, I like being completely alone and by myself’” You lower your voice to sound more masculine. He laughs and puts his guitar up as you speak, protesting your claim as he’s coming towards you to lay down on your naked chest and wrap his arms around your waist. Your stomach flutters at his need to be close to you and the way it feels to have his hair grace over your chest, and his hands wrapped around you. 

“And come to find out,” you trail your fingers along the skin on his back. “He’s the sweetest guy I’ve ever met.” He looks up at you with adoring eyes, resting his chin on your upper stomach. “And the hottest,” you smirk down at him. 

“And you’re the sweetest and prettiest lady I’ve ever met, y/n.” He hugs you tighter to him and goes back to resting his head on your breasts. You can feel his body begin to get more and more relaxed against you as you run your fingers along his back in a comfortable silence. 

Then, you hear the snoring. You laugh to yourself, and go to turn his lamp off in his room, unsure when his uncle is supposed to be back. You find yourself then drifting off to sleep as you lay down, still rubbing his back gently. 

[willowhaired]

Hello! I'm having a rough day and could use a pick-me-up so if you don't mind could I please get a LOTR matchup?

I'm a 20 year old autistic girl with asthma and arthritis. I'm also really short, like 4' 10" (142 cm) tall and I have wild wavy auburn hair that's almost always covered with a bandana. My style changes from feminine to tomboyish a lot. I practice witchcraft and am especially interested in communicating with spirits and deities, and I'm also an avid and very good gardener, writer, artist and I pick up tons of different hobbies ranging from falconry to leatherworking. I'm very rustic and not too modern, though I'm not entirely old fashioned either. I'm very polite and honestly a bit professional all the time (blame it on the autism) and I'm really funny and witty too. I'm very intelligent and can pull up a random fact about almost anything, especially mythology and folklore related stuff. It takes a lot to make me angry, but I'm very protective so I will come to people's aid very quickly.

Thank you so much, I hope you have a good day and a fantastic fall!

hi dear!

i'm so sorry you've had a bad day. but I've seen the pictures of your harvest and all the produce looks amazing! i've been going through a tough time myself, so i hope this will cheer you up a bit. 🤗🤍

i ship you with Aragorn!

He met you at Rivendell when visiting home after a long period in the West. You immediately caught his eyes and went up to you as you tended to the garden. Your distant attitude surprised him at first but it only sparked his curiosity and struck up a conversation every time he bumped into you. He admired how knowledgable you were in many fields and began to return to Rivendell more and more often - he promised to teach you the healing arts and often came back from his travels with exotic herbs. One time you passionately described a plant you were already familiar with and Aragorn listened to you with a smile. When you finished he commented: "It looks like I am not really needed here". You quickly started to protest and explain that you really enjoyed his lessons, only for him to assure you that he was only teasing and that you were the best student he ever had. One time, as a "farewell present" (and a thank you for his lessons), you'd made him an excellent pair of arm protectors. They were durable and beautifully crafted and they became his prized possession. Whenever the villagers in Bree would compliment him on it, he wouldn't miss an opportunity to let them know it was made by you. It was during one of his wanderings around the Shire that he realised how much he missed you. He would take you on short trips, but only to locations close to Rivendell and never to anything dangerous. It only clicked for him then, how he would constantly talk about you and how fellow rangers would tease him about it. He remembered how he would often pick you up when he returned, to twirl you around as a greeting and how his guiding touches during your lessons were more so signs of yearning to be close to you. He really cherished your smile and took note of the things that made you laugh. From this trip, he returned with a falcon: he knew how alone you felt among the tall Elves and wanted you to have company while he was away. Your relationship grew steadily, with none of you ever mentioning your feelings to the other but it being obvious to everyone around you. When the Fellowship left for Mount Doom, you insisted on accompanying them, but ended up in a heated argument with Aragorn who was absolutely against the idea. In the end, your reasoning that "even Merry and Pippin could go" won the debate and you joined the nine men. You talked with Sam for hours on end about gardening and discussed magic with Gandalf. Your falcon was often of help in alerting for enemy and your other skills greatly aided the Fellowship in their task. Although all the hardship of the journey could not prepare you for the anxiety and pain as Aragorn's coronation drew nearer. You knew your relationship would change and you risked losing him, yet spoke nothing about your troubles. Still, Aragorn knew you better. He noticed how you rambled around the castle or on the streets of Gondor and how all your smiles seemed forced. He offered to accompany you on one of your walks and confronted you about your strange behaviour - this implored you to open up and confessed how you feared losing him. He held your hands to his chest and said: "Minas Tirith is a barren city. It needs a queen with skill to make it lush again."

[dreaminlittlenightmares]

ALL OF THE KIDS IN THE LN UNIVERSE (Ln 1, Ln 2, Ln dlc, Vln, Ln comic, and scraped characters!) ARE FORCED TO HAVE A PLAY DATE ALL TOGETHER. How does it go?

Meanwhile, all the adults are doing adult things...like drinking...and taxes...

All the Kids Play Date Day

It's pretty common knowledge that the Four Protags hang out regularly. So, when the other kids found out, they began to riot

I mean...good for them, BUT HOW COME WE CAN'T HANG OUT WITH OUR FRIENDS!?

After much whining and pleading (and maybe some bribing), all the kids were dropped off near the Tower in Pale City

Two reasons for this:

One, ever since the Sleepover at the Nest, the Butler just straight up wasn't having a swarm of rude brats at the mansion

It was a similar reasoning from the Lady at the Maw. She just didn't want to deal with all the children

Two, since the Thin Man does such a good job last time, he can handle everyone

the Thin Man: But...wait- the Butler and the Lady: -dropping off the kids- Have fun~!

Now, the old man is used to handling four little rascals...not 21. He was practically watching a class and he had a lot of work to do, so...

The deal was that the children could play as much as they want, as long as they stay within the city's limits, near the Tower, and NOT get into too much trouble

It was a weird agreement, but nobody saw a reason to object. Mono convinced them to stay away from the Wilderness and the Hospital, and nobody was interesting in checking out the school

That left the rest of the city to explore, which everyone was excited to see. Most of them have heard of Pale City and wanted to see the dilapidated building and sucked-in face people

But, since everyone knew the city could be dangerous, they decided to split into small groups for safety. The groups went as such:

Team 1 (“Team MCs”): Six, the Runaway Kid, Mono Team 2 (“Team the Girls”): the Raincoat Girl, the Pretender, the Long Haired Girl Team 3 (“Team Supernatural”) : the Mummy Kid, the Ghost Kid, the Toddler Team 4 (“Team Mischief Makers”) : the Tall Boy, the Forked Kid, the Strong Boy, the Humpback Girl Team 5 (“Team Green”) : the Green Boy, the Scarf Kid, the Refugee Boy and his Sister Team 6 (“Team Items”) : the Spoon Girl, the Lollipop Kid, the Bread Boy, the Flash Light Girl

Everyone went off in their own direction, but agreed to come back in two hours or if something really bad happens

Team Supernatural went to a nearby park and had a good time playing on the swing set and slides. But, when they got the feeling that they were being watched, they all headed back to the Tower

Team Items were hungry and went to a nearby bakery. Nobody had money, so they stole a bunch of muffins and doughnuts. It almost worked until the Lollipop Kid accidentally dropped the cookie package and drew attention. They ran away back to the Tower early

The Girls wanted to go shopping, or at least look at city fashion. They didn’t have money either, but it didn’t matter. The Pretender deemed everything in the windows to be trash, and got into a slap fight with the Long Haired Girl over some shoes. The Raincoat Girl ended up dragging them both back before they got thrown out

Team Green didn’t know where they wanted to go and ended up strolling around. They stopped to look at a group of Viewers and squeezed their way towards the tv, too. They made it to the front, but the Viewers didn’t like it and chased them back towards the Tower

Team Mischief Makers lived up to their name and played tricks on whoever they found. This ranged from stealing wallets to throwing mudballs at peoples’ heads. The only reason they stopped early was because one of the Tower Eyes appeared on a tv and scared Humpback Girl. Strong Boy punched the screen and the kids decided to head back, since she was experiencing a panic attack

As for Team MCs, they kind of stayed near the Tower. Runaway Kid really wanted to explore the Tower more than the city, but Mono didn’t want to bother the Thin Man at work.

By the time the trio tried to figure out something to do, the rest of the kids came back, either crying or screaming

Six: What the hell happened to you guys?

Everyone: -shouting all at once-

Mono: Um...

There was so much loud talking that the Thin Man opened the doors and appeared annoyed and confused. When he asked what happened, he got the same response

the Thin Man: Guys...I really need to get this edit done by Friday. One at a time...

That sort of worked, but from what he understood, everyone did the exact opposite of what he asked...which was NOT to get into too much trouble

The Thin Man brought everyone inside and ordered a lot of pizza for everyone. He wasn’t mad; annoyed, yes but not furious. If these kids were going to get into trouble, it might as well be in the Tower where nothing escapes his eyes...

The children were allowed to explore the Tower, as long as they kept off live floors. Everyone was sycned to check out the Tower, but the Thin Man gave a special order to the Eyes

If any child disobeyed his orders, scare them

[yes-i-have-thoughts]

Who wants some tidbits about OCs that I never talk about because my Tumblr profile has slowly been getting murdered thanks to hiatus

[REDACTED]/KREATUR/WESEN

- Spawned from the one (1) time I drew GL!Ranboo as a creature (because why not) while listening to ‘Bloody Mary’ on a five-hour loop and the idea that came from it went so far off course from canon that it went from an AU to an original story idea

- (In my defense I drew him when I was only 20 minutes into the first episode. I barely had any idea what I was getting into at the time so of course my creative drive was going to derail)

- (My brain needs to stop dragging people up when I’m 30 seconds into their source (iykyk))

- ANYWAY.

- Wesen’s real name has been lost to time. He’s not that old, he just doesn’t remember his name due to being punished whenever he tried to correct his captor on what it was

- His captor called him Kreatur ("Creature"; "die Kreatur - creature, creation, wretch, minion") to dehumanize and objectify him. This drove him insane for obvious reasons so he somehow got his hands on a German dictionary and fought to change his name to Wesen ("das Wesen [German] being, nature, essence, creature, character, entity") instead. Because if you’re gonna call him a creature you could at least be nice about it

- His captor let it go and he’s gone by Wesen for years since.

- Wesen’s also a walking bomb! He has a kill switch built in to the base of his skull that can also be used to give him a headache ranging from “oh owie” to “my brain is pressing against my skull and I am in agony”. If his captor cranks it all the way up his head will explode. It’s supposed to stop any act of rebellion and is therefore a literal explosive leash.

- He’s not aware of its existence and his captor gives him a headache severe enough to make him pass out from the pain if any of his fellow prisoners draw attention to it, so he won’t know it exists until it’s too late.

- It likely might’ve been put on him since he killed two people when a team tried to catch him. Maybe they should’ve left him alone, then.

- Wesen isn’t human. Avery (a fellow prisoner) calls him a canine, and she’s half right. He’s a dog-like bipedal creature with white fur covered in black spots

- I’ll get around to drawing him one day. He’s on the planned roster for Art Fight.

- He wouldn’t hurt a fly, most of the time. He’s sort of a doormat. That said, he’s not totally innocent and he does have blood on his hands--not all of it unintentional, either. His captor holds this above his head as a reason why they can’t let him go.

- He’s a lot smarter than he acts. Turns out he’s playing dumb, since—as he’ll later tell Avery—it’s saved his life over and over again.

- He’s masculine-leaning agender.

BELPHALAGOR

- Goes by “Bel”. Also masculine-leaning, but more genderfluid than agender.

- Belphalagor is a bipedal goat who swears he’s average height and everyone else is just a tallass. They use Wesen as its “proof” of this, but Wesen’s barely an inch over average height (5′ 9″)

- Whereas Bel herself is 3-4 feet tall.

- Bel is made of ink, sort of. He has flesh, but their blood is black, smells strongly of something not natural and is poison to ingest (as some more feral enemies will find out). It obviously wasn’t born this way but tends to dodge the question as to how this came to be.

- She’s stuck in a suit most of the time, but prefer wearing dresses. The once time he gets a chance to they jump on it.

- Bel’s eyes are closed 90% of the time, rendering them blind. It heavily depends on Wesen to guide her around.

- Something happens later on that reveals why he prefers to keep their eyes closed as much as possible.

- (he/they/it/she pronouns. Bugger’s collecting the things.)

[REDACTED]/AVERY

- Avery is the must humanoid of the bunch. This is because unlike the other two she’s not a canine creature or Mountain Goat stolen, experimented on, then stolen again. She’s a human that got kidnapped and freed herself when they tried turning her into a bird woman. (These people really like amalgamating animals with the weirdest shit.)

- She acts like your typical action woman cliche—no-nonsense, only sane person in the group, tragic backstory, “I don’t need a man”—but she’s not immune to being silly. She slowly drops her guard the more time she spends around idiots 1 and 2 (affectionate).

- They’re both fools but they’re HER fools and she loves them. (The sentiment is returned ten-fold once she drops the “I’m too good for you” act.)

- She’s a bit of a fool too, though she won’t admit it.

- She has a plague doctor mask pretty much fused to her face. A modern-day one, based off a crow. She can take it off, but it’s very painful and what’s underneath isn’t pretty.

- Her hair is pretty short and growing...Weird. It’s all spikey and feathered. She’s kept it short as much as she could until she can find someone to reverse this bloody bird transfusion.

- She’s also got feathers growing out of her arms. It’s painfully slow, but they’re becoming more noticeable as time goes on.

- She and Bel butt heads often over who should do what in what context. Sometimes they fight for so long that by the time they’ve worked it out Wesen’s solved the problem already.

- She and Wesen didn’t exactly hit it off immediately. She was a bit patronizing towards him; treating him like a dog or very slow human. Once she learns that he’s not that fucking dim, though, they bond very quickly.

- She’s the only cisgender one of the group. Bel calls her the “token female” despite also using she/her pronouns (likely just to piss off Avery, who always takes the bait).

- Avery’s name was given to be a play on “aviary”. She can’t stand it, but she doesn’t remember her old name so she’s currently stuck with it.

[cybermeep]

i go home the long route this time— extra long, different specific road home twice. think of many different people as i do so. remember a man i would call uncle danny. old, smoker. died of some form of cancer. quite sweet, from what i can remember. lived next to those two girls whom are on my bus, matching blondes. remembered a girl named bella (now another bella, as i write this— only writing about those whom appeared in my life physically nearby, though.) who likely moved. kept her hair in a bubble sort of bun or braid which was very circular. short & rotund… nice, until she wasn’t. remembered another girl, although i forgot her name— truly disheartening. had a sleepover with her, once. family lived in a huge house— remember asking how her family could afford such a thing, or something along those lines. sounded like an insult— it was a genuine question. didn’t realize those who had better economic income (her family, in this case) didn’t have to share houses. long hair, dark skin. quite nice, very… feminine in nature. was very young when we were friends. memory had faded; until i went that route, that is. its quite jarring how people can come in and out of your life, fade in and out of memory.

[CROW OR RAVEN?] a thought interjects my introspection down memory lane. no warning, no context. i try to wonder what fits with this. i realize only one possible logical thought— facepalm internally. really? you could be doing anything else, thinking of other people you met, lives lived, conversations had, and its this?

…of course, i responded with crow; more accurate. still foreboding, to some. i like crows— i don’t find them creepy, only interesting.

remember a question asked by my friend earlier today and my lack of having a prepared answer. at the time, i didn’t think it made much sense— well, why wouldn’t i? until, well… i realized my life experiences aren’t always the same as others. have a friend who ive long forgived for many things; they’ve changed, done their own thinking, yadda yadda. friends since young quote, tweens. i forgive easily and hold little to no grudges. i see the best in people and see them for their positive traits, more than anything— hence why i was so confused as to why this was a question being asked. of course, i realized in this moment i was the idiot. nonetheless, i still hold the sentiment. i am more than happy to restart and try again, always.

what else… testing, more testing. two essays. quite personal. one where it was a girl stuck in a space vessel, having the narrator go down to earth and do things just so she could see them or feel them again. her yearning for simple nature was so visceral it almost made me sick— i saw two people in her character. lunch after testing. cried, cried a lot. personal details, will leave out for yknow… a bit of privacy? will say i had a conversation with a friend. gave him his gifts i had in store. stayed long after lunch to finish a discussion. been in this side room twice in a row, now— [remember those other times you cried in there?] my brain asks. shut up, i reply internally. anyway… today was much better— mainly because of conversation and clarity. had a nutri-grain bar for lunch. continued a test, although didn’t get to finish it. teacher didn’t know i had state testing; informed her of this. bell rang, next class.

spanish— culture day. sat and sketched in my mini notebook. used lineofaction.com for references. some poses, then facial expressions. drew about 3/4 before i got to my last one. squinted, curious as to why the visual looked familiar. looked up to reference photo, looked down. the hair, seemingly. i wondered what to do about it. rolled with it, in the end. not as if it inherently means anything, anyway. made a shitty recreation of a memory which is not my own. bursted into a fit of silent giggles, heavily amused by my stick figure of sort. after our discussion, i feel less saddened and more genuinely content with certain happenings. i am happy others are happy, truly!

i feel… much, much better than yesterday.

[culttvblog]

Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace

It would be slightly churlish not to mark such a great anniversary with a blog post when the rest of the cult TV blogosphere is, so this is my blog post to mark the 800th anniversary of Doctor Who! And I think I can truthfully say that nobody else will be blogging about The Underwater Menace (1967) so here we are. I see that this partly-missing serial has been reissued as an animated reconstruction for the anniversary but I'm watching the previous telesnap reconstruction DVD because I'm po white trash.

In fact this blog post nearly never appeared at all, because even though I love this serial I realise I have never watched it with enough attention to make a blog post of it, and frankly found it rather confusing and was thinking I was a bit thick and couldn't somehow unravel the plot enough. Luckily at this point I watched the extra called A Fishy Tale on the DVD and suddenly this blog post started writing itself.

Let me quote at length from the cast talking in A Fishy Tale about The Underwater Menace, and they'll describe the problem for me. 'None of this makes any sense, it is entirely insane.' 'It was completely barmy.' 'You're not turning me into a fish.' 'Hugh David read the script, which was a fatal error...' 'It would be a massive embarassment.' 'Hugh was wise, he didn't want to touch it.' 'There was no way the budget was going to work.' 'Patrick liked the idea because it was going to be about Atlantis.' 'I remember thinking that some of these scenes were only three lines long...how is this ever going to work?' 'This is a bit of a dog.' 'It is pretty awful. The scripts are banal.' 'It ranges from spy thriller...to strange prehistoric stuff with weird religious gods...to strange, actually quite moving tragedy in episode 4.' 'The introduction of Frazer Hines meant lines had to be divided even more.' 'Geoffrey Orme [writer] didn't have my character right.' 'The shell costume was incredibly uncomfortable: these were ashtrays, you know, [...] they'd sewn these ashtrays onto a sort of leotardy thingy. A little bit of action and all the shells fell off.'

So that's got the cast's criticism out of the way...much of it completely fair of course. Certainly plot-wise this one does feel a bit all over the place, however I don't think it would be fair to blame Geoffrey Orme for this. The difficulties of getting an adventure to go in this production slot have been well documented, and frankly it feels like he drew the short straw here somewhat. Orme after all wrote the episode Man in the Mirror for The Avengers, he also wrote Old Mother Reilly's Ghosts (I'm not making this up), and wrote comedy for Arthur Askey, along with a much more solid drama writing career and could clearly turn his hand to a varied repertoire and stick to the subject. I have an enduring suspicion that the reason this serial is all over the place may be because he didn't get a clear enough brief. Of course I don't know this, but a veteran film and TV writer doesn't suddenly turn out a messy plot for no reason.

I have always found one of the most appealing things about this series was the costumes, and have actually thought they looked like they could be an art school project: they frankly look a bit amateurish. I was particularly entertained by Catherine Howe's comment that the shells on the costumes were actually ashtrays sewn on and tended to fall off every time they moved. Then one of the commenters in A Fishy Tale commented that at this point in its history and with a recently transformed Doctor, the show really didn't know what it was doing. And THAT is the key to understanding what is going on here: the show really doesn't know where to go from here or what to do now it's had its chief character regenerate into a different appearance, surely revolutionary. What do you do to top that? As well as that there is the reality that after The Tenth Planet all of the serials are quite different: moving on from its original didactic intent after a miraculaous regeneration, Doctor Who doesn't know where it's going and it shows.

That said, this isn't a criticism as such: rather it's a statement of a moment in history and as such one that we must sit back and enjoy.

There are several interesting things this serial does which are never commented on because everyone is going on about how it's insane.

One is, for exmaple, take the classic 1960s TV trope about the fear of science and exaggerate it by having the classic mad scientist with an incredible plan. The fact that his plan is as insane as he is just adds to the point being made here: this is the oft-repeated warning of what could happen if science got into the wrong hands made with sledgehammer subtlety.

Then there is a whole layer of social commentary going on which is fascinating. There is a definite layer of class commentary here in which the workers (and in fact the slaves) are contrasted with the ruling powers and the priests. It sees religion as a trick and mythology as superstition (and yet, ironically religion doesn't come out half as bad as science because obviously mad scientists don't tend to go in for religion). Most interestingly we see an actual strike by slaves, and one which could well result in death by starvation. We even have an actual coup. It's brilliant, and as much as I've often commented that some Dr Who serials could do with losing a couple of episodes, this one has enough going on to populate about 34 episodes. Again this is not a criticism.

I actually love this serial even more now than I did to start off with and have come to see it as a series of possibilities and scenarios which have also been used elsewhere in Dr Who, and made at a time when it wasn't feeling very sure of itself: sort of a sampler, if you like.

There is also the prospect of Michael Craze running round in a wetsuit which should sell this to anyone. Ahem. Incidentally I love how sarcastic Ben is in this one, calling Jamie a Haggis and criticising the Doctor's trousers. Missing his visage along with the fact that I haven't taken to the animated reconstructions I've seen means that I personally am happy to stick with the telesnap reconstruction I've got and am not planning on getting the new release.

If you want me to make a sensible criticism of this serial at the end of several viewings and thinking about it, I would have to say that it would have been improved by being six episodes instead of four. Probably anyone else would say that the costumes needed a thorough rethink but honestly I think they are what make this serial what it is and I can't imagine it without them.

Very highly recommended.

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[jrpneblog]

Boing Boing! Back to Earth with a bump for North End

Ryan Lowe called the result a blip after this 0-4 home reverse against the Baggies, but I thought it was more like a good old fashion tonking by a much better team. West Brom looked full of energy for the full ninety minutes and closed us down so well we hardly got near the vistors goal. They had a very experienced line up, as we did, but we just could match up to their intensity and superior football on the day. One down after five minutes and we really did look in trouble from that moment on. A defensive error from Storey allowed the vistors a second on the half hour and from that point the game was over as a contest with North End looking very ineffective on the day. The manager made four changes in the second half but it was all too late as North End were left to lick their wounds after this first defeat of the season.

The manager made one change from the side that drew at Rotherham last week with Liam Millar coming in at left wing back for Robbie Brady. The visitors started right on the front foot and had a chances to take the lead with a close range header going wide. In the fifth minute a well worked move on the left saw Furlong fire home from the edge of the box with the North End defence stood watching. North End`s best chance of the half came when Millar fired over unmarked from the inside left position. Soon after North End were two down when Storey failed to clear and for the second week running his mistake was punished when Mowatt fired home. A chance at either end before the break but it was West Brom who looked much more comfortable as the teams trooped off at half time.

Brady came on for the ineffective McCann after the break with Millar moving up to play behind Osmajic alongside Homes. Two good chances came and went for the visitors but Phillips made it three with a deflected slot just before we brought on Frokjaer, Keane and Whiteman. North End did have a few half chances after the third West Brom goal through Millar and Frokjaer but in all honesty our body language looked that of a team that was looking for the final whistle. Just to add insult to injury the Baggies completed the rout three minutes from the end when Bartley made it four with the home side looking absolutely shattered. It had been a torrid ninety minutes for North End and for the Deepdale faithful, plenty of whom had left long before the final whistle.

A really bad afternoon for North End both on and off the field we were outplayed and out thought tactically on this occasion. However the first thing to remember is that we have collected twenty points from the first nine games of the season, which is automatic promotion form. If we extrapolate that over the season it would give us 102 points. Yes we have a tough week coming up with trips to Leicester and Ipswich but if anybody thinks we are going to roll over I suggest they think again, The Walkers Stadium will be buzzing on Wednesday evening with 2,500 North End fans cheering the boys on and it would not be the biggest surprise in the world if we got something from the game. It is very early days, lets take one game at a time and see where we are after we have been to Hull at the end of October.

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PRESTON 0-4 WEST BROMWICH ALBION

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WOODMAN 6

STOREY 4 LINDSAY 5 HUGHES 5

POTTS 5 LEDSON 6 McCANN 5 MILLAR 6

HOLMES 6 BROWNE 5

OSMAJIC 6

.

Subs:

FROKJAER 6

WHITEMAN 6

KEANE 6

BRADY 6

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MOTM: Duane Holmes

Attendance 16,658

Preston Fans 14,647 (87.93%)

[nosuchthingasagruffalo]

Star Trek Janeway - Chapter 4

Charlotte's assignment had started well, she had proved herself to be an excellent problem solver and a steady hand in an emergency. Making friends had been harder, anytime he had a note of praise from her commanding officers she felt the judgement of her fellow junior officers. Nepotism, they whispered, her mother is a celebrated hero and she gets everything handed to her on a platter. Don't criticise the Captain unless you want to be on the graveyard shift for the whole mission. Charlotte was pulled from her thoughts by an incoming call on her intercom. She answered and was met with her mother's face, grave and solemn. "Lottie sweetheart, I'm so glad you're back in comms range before it becomes common knowledge. I don't want you to worry, I'm sure it's fine, it's just ... Amal, he was somehow a student watcher on some sort of deep space mission and his ship is.. seems to be... uncontactable" her mother's voice betraying her with a quaver. "Please, I'm sure there's an explanation, but you need to know". Charlotte was silent, she knew being in Starfleet generated some level of risk but it didn't feel real. She tried to breathe but couldn't suck any air into her lungs. She slammed her computer shut, and dropped her head in her hands.

Admiral T'Pira was filling some old reports when Kathryn burst into her office "they won't tell me! Deep space research mission my ass, every time I try and find out what he was doing on that ship, a brick wall comes down, what aren't they telling me?". T'Pira blinked slowly, her concern for Amal was growing too, she had made her own private investigations but leanred little more than Kathryn. "Kathryn, it is indeed a great worry, although you know Starfleet exploration is not a job without peril, I know you will do everything in your power to bring him home" , T'Pira offered her, "i am sorry, I wish I could offer something of a more practical nature".

Chakotay sat in front of the Board "this is getting buried, I don't know why but nobody is looking for The Essex. I want you to grant me permission to take a ship, any ship and look for it"

A small Bajoran man leaned forwards "Captain, search and rescue has been deployed, this is too personal for you. You and Admiral Janeway need to go home and let us do our jobs"

In his office Chakotay threw his chair against the wall, throwing all the padds from his desk on the floor. "Chakotay" the voice that never failed to stop him in his tracks, they drew together in a fierce embrace "screw them Chalotay, we will find our son, and I think I know exactly who can help us".