#BYE there's like five long strips of comic

[knightfcll]

nightcap

welt x reader, 1.6k

note: 🤪 im like not even caught up but i love this gilf tew much okay bye. My first reader fic on da blog, blease be nice 2 me <3

content notes: ❗️❗️🔞🔞🔞❗️❗️ explicit smut here, minors do NOT interact!!! Reader is gender neutral, no specific references to pronouns/body type/genitalia for reader, brief oral sex, penetrative sex, reader calls welt “mr yang” a lot 🥴

The Astral Express is quiet. You've finally returned after another long and difficult journey on another strange, new planet. Everyone else has retired to their own rooms for a well deserved rest, but you still wander the halls. Mr. Yang had stayed behind for this assignment and to say that you felt his absence was an understatement.

You had lasted all of five minutes in your own bed before throwing off the covers and deciding to seek him out. Without the exhaustion of adventure weighing him down, he's likely still awake, perhaps poring over a newspaper from your latest excursion. You make sure to bring one back for him if he's not there; he says it's so he can get a better idea of what effect the Stellaron's had on the planet, but you see how quickly he turns to the comic strips. You'll catch him doodling the characters later, sometimes changing their features, doing two and three different sketches that he thinks you won't see.

You're only half right. You find him almost exactly as you'd imagined when you slip into his room, except his brows are furrowed. He's tapping a pencil against the paper.

“Need any help, Mr. Yang?”

He looks at you briefly before returning to his crossword puzzle. "Evening. And yes."

You smile and saunter towards him, crawling onto the bed eagerly. He opens his arms without prompting, allowing you to settle into his lap with your back to his chest. He has most of it filled out already, with only the bottom left grid glaringly empty. Mr. Yang is one of the smartest people, which is why you like to tease him when he has to ask you for help with these things, but he's also the most mature, which accounts for the good natured chuckle you typically get in response.

"What's the clue?"

"Eight letters. 'Hot term for a recent admirer.'"

You make a show of scrunching up your face and delicately take the pencil from him. Your handwriting isn't quite as neat as his, but finds a certain charm in it.

Welt hums appreciatively. "'New flame.' I think you could be right."

You beam. "Bested by the newcomer, Mr. Yang. You'll have to ask me to explain strange things out in the wild next time we leave the Express."

He chuckles. He thinks it's cute when you try to tease him like this; you're all bark and no bite, really. You fold as soon as he gets his hands on you.

Like right now, as his fingers ghost over your thigh. You lean into it as much as you can, but he's so good at holding back. It's the sweet sting of having someone like Welt for a lover: a wealth of experience to keep you satisfied for hours on end, but the patience and precision needed to keep you just on edge until he thinks you're ready.

"Did you need something?" He says it so casually, like he doesn't know your skin is burning underneath him.

You turn your head to look at him. It's there again, that little bit of sharpness in his gaze that seems to go right through you. He's already thinking about all the ways he can unmake you.

"Just you," you say, waiting the precious few moments it takes for the spark to ignite.

Welt kisses you, softly at first. His hands roam over your thighs, just ghosting underneath your sleep shorts. You whine the third time he does it, unable to handle the loss of his touch. He pulls away.

“Patience.”

You pout. He notices everything. “I’m not impatient.”

He humphs in disbelief. “Don’t make a sound until I tell you to.”

Any other night, you might protest his rigidity. Be the brat he likes you to be, until you’re a sobbing mess in hands, begging him to just fuck you and stop teasing. Tonight, however, you’re inclined towards obedience. You hush up and wait the agonizing few moments that he waits, watching for any sign of defiance. Satisfied, he kisses you again, hungrier this time, sliding his tongue over yours. You hold back a moan when he digs his fingers into your thighs.

Welt pushes you down. He trails his lips down your body, over your chest, your sensitive nipples. He halts just below your belly button, kissing the skin lightly while he pulls down your shorts. You shiver once your exposed to the cool air.

Anticipation burns inside you when he pulls your leg up and over his shoulder. He slowly teases your entrance with his tongue, giving it slow, featherlight licks that he soon follows up with a finger.

“Mr. Yang,” you say, unable to resist calling out as he speeds up.

He doesn’t respond, choosing to punish you instead by letting up. He knows it’s agony, feeling his warm breath on you where you need him most.

It’s too much. You give up on obedience and let desperation take hold as you grab at welt’s shoulders and pull him in to kiss you. Your taste lingers on his tongue. “Mr. Yang, please…“

Welt palms at your ass. It’s a nice reminder that he’s far more affected by you than he typically comes off. Although his words are often measured and his tone even, the way he touches you is nothing short of ravenous.

“Tell me what you need, sweetheart.”

You’re on the brink of tears now. Your legs are locked around his hips, his fingers are rubbing and pinching your nipple. He knows, but he likes to make you say it. “Mr. Yang, please, please,”

He doesn’t budge. You reach for the drawstring on his pants yourself, but he grabs your hand and brings it to his mouth instead. “You can speak, can’t you? Use your words.”

You watch as he pulls your finger into his mouth, sucking on it lightly. He’ll keep going, ignoring your pleas while he toys with you long past the rising of the sun. He’s done it before.

You draw a shaky breath.

“Mr. Yang, I need you inside me.”

You wait for his response. He almost looks bored, that half-awake look he gets when he’s quizzing you on the values of each Aeon with hands roaming across your chest.

He kisses your palm. “Keep going.”

“Welt,” his given name falls from your lips, a strained whisper that sets Welt on edge, “please fuck me, I can’t take it anymore, please.“

Welt lets go of your hand. He disentangles himself from you fully, ignoring your desperate whines. You hear his pants fall to the floor and then he’s hovering over you again, sliding a hand under your shoulder.

“Turn around.”

You hear him, but you’re too distracted by the sight of his weeping cock to really pay attention. He sighs and gently lifts you, maneuvering you so you’re on your hands and knees with your back to him.

Tears of relief fall down your face when Welt drapes himself over your back. You feel him lining himself up with your entrance. You shudder when he finally enters you. His grip on your waist tightens. He lets his cock stay sheathed in you for an agonizing moment before he pulls out and starts to set a rhythm. The slow friction stirs something in Welt; he lets go of your waist and covers your hand with his own. He curses above you and moves in closer, his breath warm against the shell of your ear.

“I want to hear you. Please,” Welt gasps. It makes your heart skip.

You call out to him, moaning his name in a quiet voice that gets louder and louder as his thrusts quicken. Your words become more frantic, endless declarations of how much you need him interrupted by broken sobs of pleasure. Welt speaks your name, too, in between ragged breaths and the rapid stuttering of his hips, curses falling from his lips in a constant prayer.

“Mr. Yang,” you say, because you know how his breathing stops when you call him that, just like the first time it did when he had you on your knees in his bedroom, “Mr. Yang, I love you.”

Welt’s final thread of composure snaps. He hooks his arm around your throat and buried his face in your neck. His hips slap against you harder than before, but he still has the presence of mind to reach down and tease you one last time to put you over the edge. Waves of ecstasy roll through as you give one final, strangled shout.

Welt follows soon after, his thrusts becoming increasingly erratic until he buries himself to the hilt and groans deep into your skin. You both slump forward, breathing heavily. He kisses your neck sloppily before finally pulling out with a sigh. He pulls you once to get you to clean up, but you don’t budge, a telltale look of bliss on your face. He gives up and leaves you, returning with clean cloths to wipe you down. You watch him from the corner of your eye as he flips you onto your back and takes care of you.

“Thanks, Welt.”

He smiles softly, but doesn’t look at you, focused on his task. He climbs back into the bed once he’s done, flat on his back. You lean over and rest your head on his chest.

Exhaustion weighs you down suddenly. Even though you left the mission early to see Welt, the trip back to the express hadn’t been easy. It feels like you’ll drift off into sleep as soon as you close your eyes. So you do, but not before reaching up to kiss Welt just under his chin.

[estellarsun]

my lightcannon week D1 submission is so long that i can't finish it on time ;; ... orz

i'll post it separately instead when i finish it at my own pace.. there's more caitvi panels than lightcannon in it tbh HELP

[sonicringnoise]

Have a Jak 3 rant

Okay, I need to talk about Jak 3 and just...how absolutely janky the plot is. 

This rant is extremely long, so I put it under the cut.

First of all, I just want to point out, I love this game. I love it so much, and it’s my favorite out of the trilogy. But it just...it could have been so much better, guh.

And I know that development of this game was rushed (hell, it only came out a year after Jak 2), but I’m still going to rant about it!

It starts out just fine, with the Wasteland and Spargus and the arena, but it gets so weird as it goes on. Just...really disjointed.

We never really find out why Jak keeps going after eco crystals. Seriously, he gets a dark eco crystal from the Dark Maker at the beginning of the game, a light eco crystal from Seem, and just...starts collecting them, for some reason? Like, was he going to make a necklace? Start a rock collection? It’s never explained.

But whatever, it turns out those are needed later in the game to save the world. Fine.

After some Spargus-y missions, we then go...to the Monk Temple. You know, the temple. That’s never been mentioned before, and we didn’t even know existed, but we just went up there to explore and stuff and...

Like, how hard would it have been to have a line where Seem says, “We monks live far to the north, in a temple in the mountains.”

Then we’d at least have a reason to go there. But no, instead we just show up there and start poking around. 

This is one of my biggest issues with the game. In Jak 2, there are cutscenes that set up these missions, or even communications in gameplay that tell us where to go. In Jak 3, there’s just...a lot of that missing.

But, fine. Whatever, Jak has, like, ESPN or something.

At the volcano, Jak gets a dark power of invisibility, I guess. But only when he touches certain statues, and it’s only ever really used to get past a few traps and then never again.

Oddly enough, this was something that...made sense? I mean, invisibility is actually a power that dark eco has. Remember in Jak 2, there were metal heads who could turn invisible. 

But it’s never used! And that complaint holds true for almost every power Jak gets. You basically use the powers when a prompt comes on screen to get through a one-time obstacle, and then never again. 

Then we find out Veger is talking to the monks, but no one ever really expands on why? Or how? Like, for a city hidden in the Wasteland and forgotten, a lot of fucking people know it exists! 

Speaking of which...

We meet Ashelin in the desert and she begs us to come back to Haven City. Jak asks her how she knows Damas and she answers, “It doesn’t matter now.”

Excuse me??

It totally does matter! If Ashelin knows Damas, it begs the question: does she know that Jak is his son? Does she know the Kid is his son? Does she even know about the Kid? 

I mean, Ashelin would almost have to know that Jak is Damas’ son: during this scene, she gives him his seal back and says, “Don’t you remember who you are?”

Whatever. Add that to the list of things that are never mentioned again.

Jak says he’s not coming back to the city, because he’s an angry teenager and he likes hanging around with his Sand Dad. 

This is immediately followed by Jak returning to Haven City.

We head to the Monk Temple, again for no reason. This time, we open up some doors and Pecker leads us back to the city. 

There is no explanation as to why Jak has a change of heart. I actually think that the scene where Damas and Jak had a heart-to-heart and he mentions his lost son should be here: it leads perfectly into Jak deciding that the Greater Good is more important than his feelings.

Instead, we get nothing. Nada. Zilch. Just Jak heading back to Haven City because it’s The Thing To Do.

We reach Haven City after a boss battle and meet with Samos and Keira. Samos sucks, but that’s in character. Keira has no lines in this scene, and only makes goofy faces. Seriously, look: 

That’s it, that’s the character. 

Like, what’s happening in this scene? What’s going on with you, Keira? Are you okay? Are you making bedroom eyes at Jak? Are you confused? Did you smoke some of your father’s funny herbs again?

(Again, I know Keira’s role got cut down a lot because they changed voice actors, but it’s...so...jarring for a normally prominent character to suddenly get shoved into the background.)

We do some missions for Torn and eventually find out that Erol is the bad guy. Never explained how Erol survived slamming his Zoomer into dark eco and exploding in front of a huge crowd, but at this point, it’s whatever. 

We continue on our journey: Tess is a furry, Samos is useless, Torn is...Torn. 

We get a scene with Sig where Jak and Daxter ask him about Damas and his job as a spy and all that stuff. Fine, well and good, except the following exchange happens:

Jak: You’re playing with people’s lives!

Sig: Why not? They played with mine.

I’m sorry??

There’s a story there, and I’d like to know! What the hell happened to Sig? Why is nothing ever explained??!!

We get some Dadmas feelings, then we head over to have a chat with Kleiver. And this happens:

Jak: Kleiver, I need to find some very special Precursor artifacts, but I’m running out of time.

...Are you?? Has that been established?

So, in one of the previous missions, Samos mentions over the communicator (during gameplay, not in a cutscene) that to activate some ruins in Haven Forest, you’ll need some artifacts. But all he says is this:

Samos: Mar wrote that there was some ancient ruins to the west that were activated by five special artifacts and revealed wondrous truths. I'll see what I can find out.

That’s it! There’s never a cutscene where Samos says you need to find the Holo Cube, the Quantum Reflector, the Beam Generator, the Prism, and...by the way, there is no 5th artifact. Samos, you’re full of shit.

(Unless the Eco Sphere you get from Seem towards the end counts, but it’s very unclear.)

And, by the way, I had to Google those artifact names. The artifacts are never actually named until you acquired them in-game. Jak just finds random artifacts and is like, “Welp, this’ll do it! How convenient!”

Sigh.

Once we get all these artifacts no one told us about, we’re told to go take a cab down to the center of the earth. We don’t do that, and instead blow some shit up to visit our friends in person again. 

(Quarantine mood, really.)

And, again, I can’t get over how much of a non-character Keira is. Seriously, she just stands there and claps like a 3-year-old.

And we also come to my own personal pet peeve: the scene where Ashelin strips Veger of his title.

I can’t with this shit.

The biggest issue I have with this game, from a story standpoint, is how quickly the inciting incident is resolved. Like, Jak being banished is the whole reason we have a Jak 3. The city turned against him; his anti-hero choices in Jak 2 led to him being blamed for the war in Jak 3. It made sense.

But Ashelin decides, 75% through the game, to just be like, “Naw, Veger, fuck you. Get out of my face, buh bye.”

It just pisses me off, because if Ashelin had that power, why didn’t she use it before Jak was banished??

And why is Jak okay with this? Why is Moody McAngerface not even a little annoyed that she didn’t care enough to do this when he was dying of heatstroke in the desert?

Uuuuuuggggghhhhh guys I don’t understand.

So we see Vin again, blow some more stuff up, fight Erol, and get some tentacle wings. Seem acts all nice to us and gives us a present we didn’t know we needed. More Dadmas ensues, we see the Dark Maker ship for some reason, blow even more stuff up.

Finally, it’s time to head to the catacombs. We get into some trouble with Dark Makers (even though there’s only, like, three of them), and Damas busts through the goddamn wall in a car.

No idea how he got here, considering the Wasteland appears to be an island, but whatever, it’s a badass scene.

Then, because Jak can’t have anything nice, they get hit and crash the car all over Damas’ legs.

Seriously, dude, I get that you might be dying from blood loss, but why are you coughing, your lungs are fine.

So Damas dies, Jak is his long-lost son, it’s very sad, and Veger you piece of shit.

I will forever be salty that Veger, who was an overall excellent villain, was sidelined for Erol of all people. Admittedly, Jak 2 did the same thing with Praxis, but Kor was a much better Big Bad than Erol.

Regardless, we then get the Worst Plot Twist Ever, when we find out the Precursors are ottsels.

k.

Moving on from that tragedy, we then get to fight Erol. The fight sucks, it’s boring and I hate driving the stupid Wasteland buggies.

And then the end comes, and my blood pressure skyrockets. Somewhere, my PCP senses a disturbance.

The Precursors being ottsels is stupid, but Jak telling them to call him “Mar” is even stupider. First of all, Jak does not seem like the kind of person to get sentimental over his birth name. It’s weird, and I don’t like it.

Second of all, the ottsel leader calls him Mar once, directly after that. And then never again. 

Seriously, 90 seconds after Jak says he wants to be known as Mar, this happens:

I’m sorry, what’s that?

Why would you add that line in about Jak wanting to be called by his birth name, and then ignore it a minute and half later??!!

It just infuriates me. There’s a lot of stuff in Jak 3 that does this: it’s touched on once, then it’s gone forever.

And let’s talk about Daxter’s wish. I actually find this particular decision - where Daxter chooses to wish for pants instead of being human again - totally believable. 

Despite how much Daxter is regarded as the comic relief idiot of the duo, he’s actually shown to be pretty sharp. He’s definitely observant. And at this point, remember that he’s already seen the Precursors at work: he saw them turn Veger into an ottsel.

So Daxter probably realized that these guys were on some monkey paw, be-careful-what-you-wish-for bullshit and decided to wish for the most innocuous thing he could. Who knows what would happen if he actually asked to become human again? Might come out lookin’ like Samos.

And he’s right, by the way! Look at what those assholes did to my baby Tess. They could’ve just got her a size 6 pair of Levi’s and been like, “Here, boom, pants.” 

But nooo, they turned her into an ottsel, too, because why not why the fuck not nothing matters ahhhhHHHHHHHHH

...

...

Anyway, like I said, Jak 3 is my favorite in the series. It had such potential. It’s like a puzzle that’s missing pieces. I like it more for what it could have been, rather than the absolute mess it actually is.

[septicbro1005]

Paint Me How You See Me

A/N: Okay, you have no idea how excited I was to see that I had permission to write this. I literally am so happy I could scream. Will I? Not out loud. This actually made me so excited that I got up and started walking around my room and smiling holy shit. Alright. Enough of that. I was inspired to write this story by a comic made by the fantastic @venadorosas​ and I just am so damn excited to write this! I am not an art student myself, but I will do my best to replicate it with what I know. I hope I do the comic justice! Just a few more things before this thing starts: I'm gonna do myself and make this a Quirkless AU as well as make Yuuei a university instead of a high school. This is unedited, so if there are sentences or misspellings, that is why, and I apologize. Anyway, let's get rolling!

Kirishima's POV

One stroke after the other.

Small, swift.

One stroke makes a world of a difference.

So don't… mess… up.

I only have one canvas left after this one, but I'm saving it for something important. Something special. Just need to figure out what.

I mean, yeah, I have others on back order, and Mr. Miyoshi is usually pretty cool with giving me some, but I still need to think about what to do with the 106 cm by 106 cm canvas.

A canvas that big needs something worth being put on there.

"Psst, Kiri--" "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhut," I hissed out through clenched teeth.

"You nee--" "I said shut,"

"B--" "No. Shut. Lemme finish,"

The person who proceeded to pester me, even after I told him to be quiet, was none other than Hanta Sero.

He was an art student, along with myself and several others I know by name.

One of which was Katsuki Bakugou.

And damn, was he confusing.

He was this aloof dude who talked to maybe two people by his own volition.

Some random girl who I see him talk to ever now and again. I think we've spoken twice? All I remember is she told me to call her Tsu.

And then me.

Sure, he'd talk to the professors and people like that, but if he didn't have to speak, he wouldn't.

Yet, he spoke to me.

Not only did he barely talk to people, but he also is probably one of the best looking people on campus.

I kid you not, the first time I saw this dude, I was totally sure I'd met Adonis in human form.

His ash blond hair was styled into a fluffy undercut that I would pay money for to be able to run my hands through, even once. His gauges and helix piercings gave him a bit of an edge, but that's what made him more alluring. He came into class one day, wearing a wife beater, which put a tattoo on full display, resting on his right shoulder.

It isn't just his looks that are attractive either. The way he holds himself, presents himself, just his whole aura is indescribable, to keep it brief.

And he was the person I was painting this for.

This wasn't his first commission. Not by a long shot. And this one was fairly simple as well. Still, I poured my heart and soul into it, just like every piece.

But with his commissions, I feel the need to work that much harder. To push myself that much farther. To make it perfect, in a word.

Now, I know that perfection is impossible, but I still want to achieve it.

I mean, if Bakugou could, I could too, right?

"Kirishima, I've been talking to you for the past couple of seconds and you haven't shushed me. Don't zone out on me right now, man,"

Sero's voice managed to pull me out of this trance, but only a bit.

The ash blond with the scarlet glare was still in the back of my mind.

"What?"

"You need lunch, man," Sero said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Listen, I thank you for your concern, but I had a protein shake maybe six hours ago. I'm dandy," I mumbled, doing a few more soft strokes before standing up. "Plus, I'm not even hungry," 

"Dunno what kind of protein shake you're drinking, but you still need sustenance. C'mon," Sero attempted to persuade me as I walked to the sink to clean the small brush.

"I'm cool, dude. I have a granola bar or two in my bag. I'll eat when I'm hungry," I chuckled lightly, turning on the water and cleaning the brush.

Sero sighed in defeat, as this marked the second week in a row where I substituted breakfast with a protein drink and lunch with a granola bar.

"Alright, fine. Make sure you eat dinner tonight, or Mr. Miyoshi is gonna kick you out again," Sero said, beginning to walk to the door.

"I know, I know,"

"I'll be off, then,"

"Peace out, dude,"

I heard the door to the studio shut, and it was just me in here.

Just me and the paint.

"Hey, Siri,"

My phone lit up, hearing its name.

"Play Rex Orange County on Spotify,"

As I began to finish up some touches on the snow covered forests surrounding a bright red cardinal, the song Uno filled my ears.

The song had no real relevance, but I love that song so much. I dunno if its just because it sounds so simple and sweet, but I just think the song's pretty great.

I'd say after maybe forty-five minutes of doing seemingly pointless touch-ups, I stood back, admiring my work.

Not much needed to be done, but I needed this to be phenomenal.

"I'll just use a simple varnish once everything is dry, then I can move it into the back," I muttered to myself, as if someone was there and I had to be quiet. "Can I finish it today? I could tell him where it is, and wait for the money to come in, I guess,"

A few seconds pause later, and I continued.

"Wow, great job, Eijirou. You sound like a dickwad who just wants money,"

A short sigh, a granola bar and maybe a half an hour or so later, everything seemed dry.

"Let's varnish this motherfucker, and I'll text him when that's done," I mumbled, going into the cabinets, looking for the varnish.

No other assignments at the moment… okay! Cool! I can probably head back to my dorm, chill there, and text Bakugou when it's done!

When I finally found it, I got to work on the varnish.

***

"And sent," I whispered as I approached the dormitories.

I just sent Bakugou a short text, telling him where to find it, how to send me the money (although he probably knows the process by heart at this point) and all that jazz.

My dorm building was in sight when my phone buzzed once.

It was a different buzzing pattern than all the others.

"Oh, Bakugou responded this quickly?" I thought aloud.

Opening my phone, I checked the message.

Sent the ¥321.7K 

My eyes widened at the number.

"I sure as hell didn't tell him to send me that much, what the hell?"

                                                   What!? The commission was only ¥48.2K?!

His response was immediate.

Left a tip.

Get yourself something nice.

"Whoa," I murmured.

Now, I knew Bakugou was on the higher end of the economic spectrum, but hot damn! 

He did usually give me more money than I told him to, but that fact that he gave me that much more this time just seemed to solidify the thought of him being rich.

So manly.

Heading into my dorm building, I looked to the elevators, only to see an out of order sign on them both.

"Are you kidding me?" I whispered. "Fine, guess I'm just gonna take the damn stairs,"

I got a notification, seeing the ¥321.7K was successfully put into my account, and I knew this commission was over.

But at this point, I knew what to expect from Bakugou. Next time I see him, he's gonna ask me about another one.

Not that I mind, not one damn bit. I'm cool with any excuse to talk to him, and I'm happy to please him with my art.

I just gotta brace myself for the next time I see him.

Trudging up the stairs, I began pondering what he would want next.

He seems to really like requesting animals, mainly birds such as crows and cardinals, but will he do something different? Ooh, maybe a peacock! Or maybe he'd want some other winged creature… like maybe an insect? Or possibly he'll switch it up on me.

As I ended up on the next staircase, I heard someone else's footsteps approaching.

Looking up, my eyes were met with a familiar scarlet pair of eyes.

"Oh, hey, Bakugou!" I said with a wave.

"Hey," he replied with a simple nod.

Fuck, he was just as gorgeous as always.

A grey turtleneck hugged his torso, with a black and white pinstripe button up on over it. The shirt was tucked into a pair of black jeans, a wallet chain dangling on his right side. A pair of black converse and a dog tag finished his look, alongside my composure.

"Thanks again for the great work," he said, his husky voice hypnotizing me further.

"You haven't already picked it up, have you?" I asked, cocking my head to the side. "I don't think I saw you walk past me to get to the parking lot,"

"Nah, but I know it's gonna look good," his compliment was accompanied by a smirk.

Short-lived, yes. But a smirk nonetheless.

"Aw, thanks dude! Always happy to make something for my best customer!" I felt myself beam at him. 

"See you around, Red," he said, continuing down the stairs.

"Bye," I waved with a small smile on my face as he disappeared down the stairs.

I quickly hauled ass up to my floor, speed walked to my door and slammed the keys in.

Gay panic in private, dude.

Opening the door, I pulled my key out and shut the door.

"I'm back, Omi!" I shouted into the apartment to see if my roommate was here.

"Hey," my roommate responded from his bed.

"Is it cool if I hop in the shower real quick?" I asked, jerking a thumb toward the bathroom.

"Sure thing. Keep it brief," Omi said, making me roll my eyes.

"Okay, dad," I sighed, but I gave a smile to show it was all in jest.

After locking myself in the bathroom and stripping myself down to absolutely nothing, I got in the shower and had a gay crisis.

Because that's the only place you can have those, y'know?

But a good ol' Panic! In The Shower was enough to calm my nerves.

As I stepped out of the bathroom to grab clothing, I heard Omi laughing.

"What?"

"That Bakugou guy really messes you up, huh?" his laughter was thrown in between words, but I knew exactly what he was referencing.

"If I'm being too loud, just knock on the door, dude! Tell me to shut it, I don't care," I flushed, looking at the ground, my hand tightening around the towel that hung on my waist.

Omi just kept laughing at me as I grabbed my clothes; a simple crimson riot shirt, boxers, black shorts and my wave socks.

It isn't like I'm going anywhere tonight, right?

…

Is what I originally thought until I was dressed and realized I left my motherfucking cardigan at the studio.

"Ugh, fuck," I groaned, rubbing a towel on my head.

"Left your cardigan again?"

"Perhaps," 

"You might as well just wrap it around your waist," Omi suggested.

"And risk getting paint on it?" I looked at Omi like he was a motherfucking psychopath. "Hell no. The cardigan was my grandmother's, so I ain't doing shit to it,"

"Clearly, if you're leaving it in the studio again," Omi mumbled.

"Shush!" I whined, grabbing my keys and slipping on my red sneakers. "I'll be back,"

"Okay,"

Leaving my dorm, I began going down the stairs when I ran into someone.

It was Bakugou, again.

And just when I thought my gay panic was over for the day.

"Oh, hey," I said as casually as possible.

Which probably sounded forces as fuck, because it felt like my heart was just about ready to implode.

"Red," Bakugou was looking me up and down.

I don't think I've ever felt more self-conscious about my appearance in my life.

"I've got another request, if it isn't too much,"

"O-oh, okay!" 

Why did I stutter?! That was so unmanly!

"So, what is it?"

I looked into his gorgeous eyes, trying to see further into him, but I was only met with his right hand slamming into the wall next to my head.

Oh shit, oh fuck. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna collapse, right here. Right now. I can't handle this.

"Uh, dude? You--" "Paint me how you see me, Kirishima,"

Uh, what?

I was stuck between saying "Got it," and "What?" so my dumbass just responded with this:

"Gweh?"

We sat there, in silence, staring at each other.

My face was flushing bright red, and I wanted to look away, but I didn't. I couldn't. His eyes just drew me in.

He moved his arm to his side, and began to head up the stairs.

Quick, say something coherent!

"O-on it!"

I swear, I saw him smile a bit before he was completely gone.

What was I doing again?

***

It's been around three weeks.

It's been three weeks of planning, sketching, and small, swift strokes.

And plenty of panic, but that's irrelevant. There was a bit of disco, so it balances out anyway.

Mr. Miyoshi did end up setting a curfew on me, to make sure I didn't pass out at the studio, but it wasn't set until it had already happened.

But, since I wanted to work on it after the curfew, I brought it to the dorm, keeping it on newspaper and buying the paint I needed.

I had the picture in my mind, which I did my best to replicate without him genuinely modelling for me.

It was a ¾ shot of his shirtless back, with him looking over his right shoulder, giving a perfect view of his side profile. I also made sure I replicated his tattoo to the best of my abilities, and I think it came out okay.

But that isn't all!

Monarch butterflies lined his back, as a fiery looking echo was placed slightly to the left. 

Those warm colors contrasted like hell, compared to the blues and navy of the background.

Just to fuck around with more color, flecks of brighter colors adorned the background, giving it sort of galaxy look.

I thought it looked gorgeous.

And not just because it's Bakugou.

You know how when you make something, and you worked so damn hard on it, and when it's done, you're just filled with pride?

This is one of those works for me.

"Omi!" I yelled about before cringing.

It's 01:35.

"Yeah?" 

Why the fuck does he sound like he's been awake?

"First of all, have you been awake this whole time? Second of all, could you grab me my phone?" I said a little quieter.

"It's done?" Omi asked, coming over with my phone.

"I'm happy with it," I said with a huge grin.

"Looks fantastic," Omi pat my shoulder before walking off.

Using my nose, I unlocked my phone and took a picture before putting my phone down.

I just looked at the painting, with Bakugou's slight pout catching my eyes.

I have absolutely zero clue what came over me, but I lifted my forefinger to my mouth, and pressed a small peck to it.

My forefinger rested against the painting's lips, and I just felt warm.

And that was probably the best feeling ever.

I gotta give this to him in person. It's about time I told him.

***

What floor are you on again?

                                                                                    Number two. Room 204.

Okay, I'm coming over.

I let out a shuddery breath, looking at the canvas, which I covered with a blanket.

I need to tell him.

It's time.

I kept opening my phone, making sure I had the song ready to play at the click of a button.

He needs to know.

A loud knock landed on my door, and I jumped.

I walked over to the door, playing the song as I opened it.

"Hey, Bakugou! Come in!"

The ash blond entered, wearing a button up and jeans again, just no turtleneck this time.

"So, I wanted to give this one to you in person… because I…" I was stumbling over my words.

Calm down, Eijirou. You got this.

"Because this could very well be the last commission you want from me,"

This made Bakugou's usual deadpan change ever so slightly. His left brow rose up as his head tilted to the side.

"And why might that be?"

"I…"

Fucking say it.

Spit it out.

"I like you," I barely got out before throwing my gaze at the ground. "I like you a lot. You're just so cool and collected, and from what I know about you, I like it. And I want to know more. I'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, but I just had to get that out," 

Before I even looked at him, I walked over to the painting, still looking at the ground, and pulled the blanket off.

Everything was silent, except for the music in the background. But even the song was at a quieter part than the rest of it.

I felt Bakugou's eyes on me and not the painting, which terrified me to no end.

Should I have even said anything?

"You don't have to pay if you don't want to or if you don't like it. And…" I took in a shaky breath, looking at the ground, lazily gesturing to the painting and then myself. "If you don't want to be friends anymore, if you even thought of us as friends, then you can ignore me,"

His footsteps were soft, but I knew they were coming. So when his black converse appeared in my vision, I looked off to the side as my vision blurred with tears that threatened to spill. 

A finger went under my chin, turning my face to him.

His eyes met mine, and he was smiling.

"You really are oblivious, huh?"

"Gweh?"

Fucking, again?

Bakugou laughed before leaning in a bit, his head turning to the left.

"Can I kiss you as a tip?"

My whole brain has short-circuited, but I turned my head to the right and leaned in closer.

My eyes slowly closed, and when his lips met mine, I was immediately thrown into a state of euphoria.

Holy shit, this is happening.

This is actually happening!

I couldn't help the smile that bloomed on my face as I draped my arms over his shoulders, and I couldn't stop laughing either.

It was so fucking amazing.

Small blazes of tears made tracks down my cheeks, but I didn't care. Unless my nose starts running, I'm not gonna let some tears mess up this kiss.

But, all good things must come to an end, as Bakugou pulled back.

His eyes were on mine, and for once, they were soft. A small grin was pasted on his features, his hands on my face.

"Why are you crying?" he asked as his thumb rubbed at my dampened cheek.

I just felt myself giggle in response. 

"Well, I was originally gonna cry because I thought you wouldn't be cool with my confession, but these tears quickly turned sweet," I just couldn't stop laughing. "Shit, I'm so happy,"

We just stood there for a few moments of content silence before Bakugou spoke up.

"So, how the hell am I supposed to bring this painting to my dorm?" 

"I can help you bring it up there!" I offered.

"I get to bring two masterpieces to my dorm? Great!" Bakugou oozed confidence as he said that.

"Dear christ," I began giggling again, since that was unexpected.

We grabbed the painting, and I made sure Bakugou was careful with it, but was also holding it properly.

"Hey, Omi! Could you get the door?"

"Sure,"

"Your roommate was here?" Bakugou asked.

"Well, it's his dorm too." I pointed out as Omi got the door for me. "Plus, it isn't like I wasn't so obviously crushing on you,"

"It really wasn't," Omi said, patting my back carefully. "But congratulations to the both of you,"

"Thanks, Omi,"

Bakugou just gave a small murmur to thank Omi.

"Alright, Bakugou, you go through the door first, then we can keep walking," I said, turning us so Bakugou could walk out the door properly.

"Okay,"

After a quick minute of maneuvering, we managed to get the painting up the stairs without damaging it.

"So you're which dorm?"

"302," Bakugou said as we got to his door.

"Coolio!" I grinned.

"Dork," Bakugou snickered at me. "How d'you want this to be put down?"

"We can just rest it against the wall," I said, propping the painting up on the wall.

"Give me a quick sec," Bakugou mumbled, unlocking the door.

He swung the door open and made sure it stayed open. 

"Alright,"

"At this point, I'm gonna follow you. You know where you wanna put this?" I asked him.

"Uhm… I think Misumi wouldn't mind if I placed this on his side of the room until I know exactly where to hang it," Bakugou said as we walked into the room.

***

My paintings were all on the wall. The snow surrounded cardinal, the murder of crows, all of them.

Except one.

The other paintings sort of made a frame, with a 106 cm x 106 cm square in the middle.

"Hey, honey?" I called out.

"What's up, Rourou?" Katsuki asked from the other room.

"Could you grab me the step ladder?"

"Shorty," I heard Katsuki laugh.

"I heard that, Katsu! You aren't as quiet as you think!"

"Says you, of all people!" Katsuki chuckled, coming on with the step ladder.

"Thank you, baby," I said, pecking his cheek.

"Of course. Putting up the last one?" He asked.

"Yep!" I said, grabbing the painting I made all those years back.

The monarch butterflies dotting his spine, his scarlet glare, gorgeous fluffy hair, all of it brought together, and hung up on our wall.

I got off the step ladder, and looked at the paintings. Every single one of them.

A hand snaked around my waist and pulled me in close.

"I love you so much, baby," Katsuki whispered, kissing my forehead.

"I love you too,"

His hand rubbed against my waist, but I could feel one thing that was inconsistent with the feeling of the rest of his hand.

A golden band sat on his left ring finger, practically identical to the one that sat on my left ring finger.

A/N: And that's all! Honestly, I'm very pleased with this, and think this came out well! I hope that those of you who see this like it too! I want to thank @venadorosas for allowing me to write a story based off of their comic and for making such fantastic art. If you like my writing, I'm also on Wattpad, so check me out there, if you're up for it. Same username and profile picture. I do believe that this is it! I apologize for the ending, as it feels a little odd to me, I just don't have any idea how to end it properly. I sincerely hope that I did the comic justice. Love y'all! Stay safe and healthy! - Septic

[chief-of-restless-hearts]

Chapter 3: Oaths

.  .  .

Only in the sensible blackness did he remember that he couldn’t have run. It would have killed them. Slade might not even have chased him if he escaped the base. He might have let him run, and then let him return to the Tower to find four dead friends.

Dick drifted in and out of consciousness, losing count of the slow, bleary hours.

Time crawled without any way of measuring it, but the next time he stirred awake his stomach was pinched and complaining. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, his mouth was sandpaper dry, and his head felt stuffed full of throbbing wads of cotton.

He needed to get into the bathroom, for the water, to smear the cold wetness over his face until the crusting blood washed away, to gulp it down until it cleared his throat and his head.

But he felt so heavy, and he didn’t need to do that just yet.

He could wait...

and let his eyelids fall closed...just one more time...

 . . .

 The next time his dry eyes drifted open, he forced himself to move. It wasn’t quite as painful as the night before, but as he pushed up onto all fours he had to stop and wait for a cold shadow of dizziness to pass before rising the rest of the way and making his way haltingly over to the door that he knew would be locked. He checked it anyway.

He pressed his forehead against what was definitely a locked door and waited for the room to stop turning before making his way to the little bathroom.

Everything seemed gray through the mask lenses’ artificial light, and the mirror seemed almost black--save for the glowing white eyes that stared back at him. That at least was a relief. He pulled his gloves off with clumsy fingers, twisted the faucet, and plunged his face under the icy stream, gulping it down until his stomach threatened to send it all up again. Only then did he scrub away the flakes of blood caked along his left jaw and cheek, and pry his mask away from his face just far enough to splash water against his still hot, dry eyes. Knowing Deathstroke, he could be watching even now, even in the dark.

He braced his forearms against the porcelain sink, the water only just beginning to cut the weight of exhaustion away.

It was sinking in that for the first time since this ‘apprenticeship’ began, he didn’t have his hours dictated to him. With that door locked, he didn’t have to go out, listen to Slade, obey Slade, and pretend to not care. In theory, he could now do whatever he wanted.

In theory.

His room was bare, without even an assignment to distract from the dim silence. But at least it was better than having to look Slade in the eye after...that.

He took another chest-stabbing breath, willing himself to relax, and it was in that silence that his memory conjured up Slade’s voice as clearly as if it had been spoken into his ear.

“It’s as rigged over as you are.”

With ragged, painful motions he stripped off the top of his uniform and flung it onto the floor before starting on the pants. When he wore only his undershirt and shorts he sank down against the edge of the shower base. The underground labyrinth was as chilly as ever, and he rubbed his fingers briskly over his bare arms. He could tolerate the cold if it meant Slade didn’t get to read his system like a book.

But there was a blanket on the cot. He made his way across the room and settled under the blanket in the position that hurt his ribs the least.

It really was quiet, wasn’t it? He could hear his own breathing and the low steady thud in his chest, but beyond that the room was as soundless as a sealed tomb. Though he knew better than to think that Slade would keep him in there long enough for it to become a literal one, Dick began psychologically steeling himself for what could be a hungry few days. If necessary he could slow his breathing and heartbeat to essentially hibernate through the empty hours, but until then, all he really wanted to do was sleep.

  . . .

  He managed to ruffle Jason’s mop of coarse black curls before the kid ducked away with a growl of protest. Laughing, Dick dropped down beside Jason on the edge of the tower roof. The kid scooted away to put a full three feet between them.

Despite the mere two years between them in age, Jason stood a full head below Dick in stature. The teasing over that had stopped after Bruce explained that it was due to childhood malnutrition.

Jay scowled down at the trees surrounding Titans’ tower, but his lips were twitching treacherously.

With a renewed grin, Dick leaned forward just enough to catch his eye. “You know, we could do this more often if you’d just come over to the Tower. It was fun today, wasn’t it? Being part of the team?”

Jason’s masked gaze shifted away from him. “He doesn’t let me go out alone.”

Dick’s grin slipped. “Oh.”

He watched Jason fiddle idly with the corner of his cape; it was the same butter yellow that his had been before his work with the Titans had driven him to make a few alterations to his Robin costume. It still felt strange seeing his colors on someone else, even if he had grown past the discomfort.

Jason was a good kid. It had hardly been his fault when Bruce suddenly decided that his first Robin wasn’t doing the job well enough anymore.

“...But he might if you were in Gotham,” Jason continued suddenly. “If you came I could show you some cool tunnels I found by the docks. He never lets me explore with him, but together we could...” his gaze slanted toward Dick again, and he shrugged, “y’know, have fun.”

Dick could hear the barely reined eagerness in his voice.

He should have agreed. He should have gone home. But just the thought of facing Bruce again was enough to shut that option away altogether.

He kicked back against the Tower wall. “I dunno. It’s just that the HIVE called a hit on the team recently, so we’ve got this mercenary to deal with. I’m still working on a plan to draw him out, and...I think I must have mentioned some of that earlier.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“Well, I promise to stop by as soon as I can, li’l wing.”

He reached to ruffle Jay’s hair again, but the boy slapped his hand away and pushed to his feet.

“You know, Bruce said that we’d be brothers,” Jason bit out. “That’s a real joke. It’s been two years and I barely even know you.”

Something gripped Dick’s throat. “Jay--”

"I should get going,” Jason interrupted, not even looking at him. “Bruce and I are planning on going to a Knights’ game tonight. Unless he’s busy too.”

Jason leapt off the roof, arms spread like a bird as he fell. Dick jolted to his feet, to call after him, to catch him--but below the tower was nothing but a black void, he couldn't see Jason anymore, and all of a sudden, he knew that he wasn’t on the tower.

He never had been.

Dick’s phone was ringing. But he didn’t have his phone, not anymore. Still, he took it out of his pocket.

The caller ID said Jason Todd.

He tried to answer. He couldn’t.

The ringing finished, transitioning to the answering message.

“So...hey. It’s been a while, so this is me, calling that number you gave me. You must be busy or something, but I wanted to ask if maybe, when you have time later, we could hang out...or something. So, uh...see ya, I guess.”

*Beep*

The phone was ringing again. Agitatedly, he tried again to answer, futilely jamming his finger into the button repeatedly until the next answering message began.

“Hey. Last time didn’t work out, I get it, but Bruce and I are going to go up to the cabin in Vermont next week, and he said that I should ask if you’re interested in coming with. If you’re still busy with the Titans...that’s cool. No biggie. Bye.”

*Beep*

Dick’s throat tightened with guilt and foreboding. He nearly screamed in frustration as the ringing resumed, until the message brought Jason’s voice again, this time quieter, more tense. Dick stopped breathing.

“Dick. I...need to ask you something. Do this for me and I swear I’ll never ask for anything again, but there’s something that I need to do. I can do it alone, but I was wondering if...maybe --Oh hell, nevermind.”

*Beep*

Dick’s heart was hammering in his ears.

Oh God. Not this. Not again. No.

The ringing came and passed again, uninterrupted.

“I called, Dick. Before Joker, before I even left the manor. And I’ll bet that Bruce still doesn’t know.”

This time, the voice came from a shadow he could just make out through the inky black, caped in butter yellow with gleaming white accusing eyes.

The ringing began again and this time--finally--when Dick’s desperate finger slammed on the button, it stopped. He pulled the phone to his ear.

“Jason?” he asked, breathlessly.

Shrill, manic laughter screamed into his ear, almost but not quite drowning out the gut-lurching crunch of metal slamming into flesh and bone.

He yanked the phone away from his ear, hand slapped over his mouth and fighting back the bile that was pushing up his throat.

Jason’s voice from the shadows, again.

“‘Brothers’. What a joke.”

  . . .

  He jolted awake with Jason’s name in his raw throat. He was on his side facing the wall, a blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and gradually his true location sank in. He pressed his hands over his eyes and waited for the lingering sensations of the dream to pass. The adrenaline. The tremors.

His sandpaper tongue and twinging abdomen were the only indicators for how long he had slept. It had been too long. He made himself return to the sink for water. Once satisfied, he turned on the shower.

He jumped back at the sharp hiss of the water, only to flush with embarrassment. He sincerely hoped that Slade hadn’t seen that.

The water, though tepid as always, still helped soothe the bruising patched across his torso, back, and jaw. The water cut off abruptly after five minutes, and sullenly Dick stepped out and scrubbed the damp out of his hair with the towel on the rack.

Unable and unwilling to sleep any longer, he dressed and put himself through a series of bends and stretches to gauge how far he could push through the pain.

Far enough, he decided once sweat was pouring from his temples after what should have been a basic warm-up. He would be easy pickings next time Slade decided to teach him a lesson, and that thought brought a prickling of the old anger back. He was sick of being treated like a student, a toy, and a prisoner in turns. It was like the man couldn’t make up his mind.

He sat stiffly against the cot with the silence still ringing in his ears, and waited. Perhaps he should have been using the time to ruminate over a new plan, but for now his mind was a blank.

He waited, and dozed, and tried not to dream.

 . . .

 A clack jolted him back to consciousness and the door swung open to pour blinding white light into his eyes.

He flung his arm across his eyes, hastily deactivating the night-vision lenses, and peered through the fading pain to see a familiar silhouette standing out stark against the doorway. He stood stiffly before Slade had a chance to tell him to and forced himself to glare into the cutting brightness.

“Get dressed,” said Slade. “I’ll be waiting in the training room.”

“I’m not fighting you like this!” Dick shouted before Slade could leave, hating how his voice cracked at the end. “You’ve already made your point.”

Slade paused, half-turned in the doorway. Dick glimpsed the man’s profile; he was unmasked.

“Who said anything about fighting?” Slade asked dryly. “I’m not going to repeat myself, Renegade. Do as you’re told.”

Slade left the door ajar, and Dick stared after him for a few seething moments before snatching his (still torn) uniform off the bathroom floor. When he stepped into the hallway, the floor seemed to sway under him. He braced against the wall just in time. He hadn’t felt this weak for a long, long time.

He made his way down the seemingly endless hall and entered the gym, half expecting to see Slade waiting on the mat, no matter what he had said. But he wasn’t. He was standing on the right side of the room beside one of the work tables, with something in his hands.

Deathstroke’s sword. Dick recognized it by the elaborate brass hilt as the one Slade always wore strapped across his back. Fending off a twinge of foreboding, Dick approached.

Slade lifted the naked sword so that it rested across his open palms and then extended it toward Dick, who glanced uncertainly between Slade and the weapon.

“Place your right hand over the blade,” Slade instructed, and waited for Dick to comply. “Now,” he continued smoothly, “I’m going to straighten a few things out for you: You are my apprentice now, not Batman’s. You take orders from me alone. You are no longer a Titan, neither are you a sidekick dressed like a parrot, and you will only continue to make life more difficult for the both of us until you learn to accept that and afford me a little trust.”

Dick’s glare hardened. “You don’t honestly expect me to--”

“Trust will come in its own time, but until then, I want you to learn the weight of your word, once given.”

Suddenly knowing exactly what Slade wanted him to do, Dick tried to pull his hand away from the sword. Slade’s hand clamped over his, pinning it in place. Dick pinched his lips together and tried to think.

“What ‘word’?” he snapped.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

 . . .

  “This is the oath you took?”

Bruce paused, froze, for just an instant. “We’ll share this vow,” he said at last, and if that wasn’t exactly an answer Dick was far beyond caring. “If there is anything about it you would like to change--”

“No.” His fingers trembled over the paper with reverence and anticipation. “It’s perfect,” he whispered.

 . . .

 With frustration Dick waited for yet another wave of dizziness to pass.

“So,” Slade prompted. “Do I have your word?”

Dick met his gaze with as much defiance as he could muster. “Those words won’t mean anything. Only one thing is keeping me here, and it isn’t words.”

 . . .

  Batman stood over his bed, holding a single candle.

Dick’s clock read three minutes to midnight. He didn’t even think to change out of his pajamas before bounding after Bruce through the hall, down the stone stairwell, and into the cave that was dimmer than he’d ever seen it. All the way down, the oath worked silently over his lips and then, over a fraying Bible and the light of that single, gleaming candle, he raised his right hand and looked into Batman’s piercing white eyes.

“I’m ready.”

 . . .

 “Maybe you don’t understand the importance of a vow yet, but one day you will,” Slade said. “Now, say it. What is your name?” When Dick stiffened, Slade wryly clarified, “Your title.”

A moment passed, and Dick knew by the shift in Slade’s expression that something in his eyes must have betrayed his answer.

“Robin,” he answered, and the conviction in his voice was the first solid thing he’d felt in days.

Slade’s hand whipped across his face.

“I’d rethink that answer if I were you,” Slade hissed. The clamping grip over Dick’s hand returned, this time squeezing until the bones of his hand ground together, dangerously close to snapping. Dick held his cry behind his clenched teeth, refusing to break eye contact. “...Or do you need some more time alone to think it over?”

“My name,” Dick repeated, voice level but dangerously tight, “is Robin.”

Without another word the sword ripped out from under his hand, slicing across his palm.

This time Dick didn’t resist as Slade grabbed his upper arm, hauled him down the hall, and flung him like a ragdoll onto the floor of his room. His conviction barely wavered, even as the door slammed shut and locked behind him with a finality that stirred up dread in his gut.

He took one deep breath, let it out, and took another. He activated his night vision and set about cleaning and wrapping his hand with the med kit under his cot. He could handle this, and it was worth it. While in this room, he couldn’t be Slade’s tool. He couldn’t hurt his friends. He couldn’t steal, or kill, or break any of the vows he had made to Bruce and to himself.

In here, he was buying precious time, time that the Titans or the League or Bruce could use to sort out this mess before it got any worse.

He could handle this.

 . . .

 He couldn’t sleep.

He waited, even used the slowed breathing techniques he’d been taught to use in extreme emergency to bring him close to a coma, but the closest he came to sleep was dreams that he flickered in and out of so quickly and so frequently that it was difficult to discern between them.

“Enough, Jason,” he whispered under his breath. The physical sound touched his ears, pulling him just an inch closer to reality. “I know that I messed up. I should have been your brother, and I should have protected you. I KNOW.”

He flinched as his own shout rang shrilly through his skull--and through his ribs, and then he was coughing, uncontrollably even though the pain spiked through him like claws through his chest, the suffocating fluid wasn’t in his throat it was deep inside his chest and no matter how hard he coughed he couldn’t get it out, he couldn’t breathe...

He didn’t know how much time passed before he was laying limp on his side, sucking in shuddering, painful, but hungry breaths. Slowly, his heartbeat stopped thundering against his ribs.

He should never have left either of them, not the way he had, and the guilt of it clung to the inside of his chest, just as suffocating. But...Bruce had been...different, after Jason came. Suddenly nothing his first Robin did had been good enough for him, Bruce had changed and he still didn’t know why, whether it was Gotham or...or him...

Moving into Titans Tower had been his choice, his hot blooded retaliation against Bruce’s passive-aggressive maneuvering, but he had wanted Bruce to make him come back home. Or ask. Anything but the disconnect that happened instead. In the end it had been Alfred who came to see him, bringing only a question of why.

Slade wasn’t as wrong as Dick wanted him to be, but Dick hadn’t been the only one abandoned. Because where had Dick been when Bruce needed him, when Jason needed him. And now Jason was six feet under and somehow Dick was buried even deeper, leaving Bruce alone, more alone than he’d been since Dick first met him.

When it ultimately came down to the question of blame, each time he torturously cycled through it the answer was always, always, anyone but Jason.

 . . .

 How many hours had it been, now? Twenty-four hours? Fifty?

Had Halloween passed yet?

Gar had been looking forward to trick-or-treating, wasting hours trying to convince Vic and Raven to come with him. Gar had never had the opportunity to go before, and his enthusiasm had blinded him to the realization that Vic would never agree to treat his cybernetic parts like a costume and that Raven would rather drop dead than put on the Batgirl costume he had bought her in a futile attempt at bribery. It probably hadn’t helped that Gar had been planning to go as himself.

Gar had even bought a Batman costume for Dick...who had been too busy to even consider wearing it.

At the time, he had been utterly preoccupied with his work--that had largely circulated around Red X. His futile plan to draw Slade’s attention by assuming the identity of a skilled thief. Stupidly, Dick had been following the logic that Deathstroke might seek out a replacement for his former partner, Ravager, the boy Deathstroke had cried over as he died at their feet.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Not only had Deathstroke been humoring him the entire time, when the Titans ultimately learned the truth they hadn’t understood at all.

He had made a mistake, he knew that now. But back then, all that wasted time had seemed the most important thing in the world.

Dick remembered Gar’s crestfallen reaction to his apologetic rejection, and winced.

Kory had of course embraced Gar’s plans with her usual wholehearted zeal. When Gar had given her the Wonder Woman costume he had picked out for her she had embraced the much shorter boy in a bone-crushing hug and proceeded to join him in pestering their teammates.

Dick had found it much harder to say no to her cajoling, faced with wide, hopeful green eyes that glimmered with unspoken concern...but he had done it anyway. It was already difficult enough to focus on the mission without her smiles turning him into a distracted, blushing mess.

Though a selfish part of him wanted his team’s first priority to be getting to the bottom of this charade...he did hope that Gar and Kory had still gone trick-or-treating.

Right now he wanted nothing more than to get back home to the Tower and apologize to all of them for being such an ass for at least the past month...but first he would need to get out.

He would get out. Of course he would get out.

Any time now would be good, he thought earnestly, with just a hint of panic as once again the walls pressed down on him from all sides, as though by sheer force of will he might get Raven to hear him.

A voice whispered back, but it wasn’t Raven’s.

“No one ever comes, Dick. No one.”

Dick pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and pressed his forearms against his ears. “Please, shut up,” he whispered. “Please.”

 . . .

 The crack of an opening door and the immediate onslaught of piercing brightness flooded his senses again before Slade’s hulking silhouette cut between him and the light.

Slade grabbed and hauled him upright and then out the door without speaking a word. Dick tripped over his own feet more than once, a blinding bout of dizziness nearly dropping him, but Slade’s iron hold on his arm kept pulling him along. His feet were a little more steady under him by the time they finally reached the gym.

He smelled the food on the worktable before he saw it, and the aroma curdled a confused mixture of nausea and desperation in his smarting stomach. He glimpsed sweet potatoes and stewed oats before forcing himself to look away.

Slade, masked this time, halted exactly where they had stood before. He reached over his shoulder, drew his sword from its sheath, and then slapped Dick’s bandaged hand down on the blade. Slade stared down at him until Dick forced his dry eyes upward.

He was so tired. He saw a chair behind Slade at the table, and wanted nothing more than to slump down into it, already drained by the brief walk from his room.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Slade said coldly. “What is your name?”

Dick said nothing, his teeth clamped tightly shut. He wanted this over with. He wanted Slade to send him back into the dark. He also wanted to eat, and he wanted to spit into Slade’s one good eye. But mostly he was tired. He knew what his answer was, but this time he was too weary to say it.

“Do not make me wonder if I’m wasting my time on you,” Slade said in a frigid near-whisper. “Or did I not make it clear that your friends will only live as long as I have a use for you?”

Dick’s heart stuttered in his chest. For the first time he looked into Slade’s face, saw the man’s brow furrowed under the cloth mask, and fresh, almost-forgotten fear curled around his gut.

“I’ll do it,” he mumbled, gaze drifting down to his hand on the sword.

They were just words. It didn’t matter. Not really.

“Look me in the eye when you’re speaking to me.” Slowly, wearily, Dick obeyed the order. “Your name?” Slade prompted him.

He forced the name out. It felt like ripping something out of his chest, something he could never put back. I’m sorry, Jay. I’m sorry the title had to die with me.

“Renegade.”

“And what do you swear to do,” Slade asked, “on the lives of your friends?”

He could have sworn he could still smell the burning wick, feel the leather binding fraying under his fingers, still hear Bruce’s baritone voice overlaying his own as they spoke the oath together, ‘I swear to fight against crime and corruption, and never to swerve from the path of righteousness--’

“I swear to,” he swallowed, “serve as your apprentice.”

“And?”

“To follow your orders.” Words. Just words, he told himself, even as frustrated tears pricked at his eyes. “But--”

“No,” Slade barked. “No conditions. That isn’t how this deal of ours works.” Slade pulled the sword back and slid it back into its sheath. “We’re done,” he said shortly, and waved a hand toward the tray of food that Dick had given up on looking away from. “When you finish that there’s medication in the kitchen.”

Dick watched Slade walking away, fully confident that he had won, and what was left of Dick’s anger reached its boiling point.

“What about you?” he burst out. Slade stopped, and turned slowly. “If this is a deal, then what’s your oath?”

Slade surveyed him for a long moment before he spoke. “You have what I’ve already promised you, that I’ll teach and train you to the best of my ability...and that your life from now on will only be as difficult as you make it. You have my word on that. And I do keep my word, Renegade.”

He turned, then stopped as though something had occurred to him. “Oh, and I fixed you a new uniform top. You’ll be wearing it tomorrow night.” Slade grabbed something from the table beside him and tossed the black and orange bundle of kevlar beside the food tray before starting for the hall. “I’ll be going out tonight,” he called back. “If I were you, I’d use the time to ensure I was in shape for my first encounter with the HIVE.”

As soon as the doors closed behind Slade, Dick dropped like a stone into the chair by the table. His stomach was doing uncomfortable things at the sight of the food, and it was all he could do to make sure that he ate slowly enough to keep the food from forcing its way up again.

Finally he finished and leaned back in the chair. Slade had left an ice pack beside the tray; Dick carefully pressed it against his ribcage, and was musing over what medication he should take before proceeding with some semblance of a workout when Slade’s final words finally sank in.

The HIVE? They were going to ‘encounter’ the HIVE?

The one mystery that had haunted him beyond that of Deathstroke’s identity had been the HIVE’s location and intentions. The Titans had known that Ravager had been hired by the mysterious organization, but beyond that Dick hadn’t had a clue of where to start an investigation. That had left the team completely vulnerable to whatever attack might come next, and it had been driving him mad.

But then Deathstroke had proven himself a more immediate threat, and the organization had lost its priority.

What was Slade planning now? He had as good as said that first night that he planned to hold the HIVE accountable for what had happened to his son, and that he intended for Dick to help him do it. Well, that was one thing Dick would not object to.

Dick’s gaze drifted toward the new uniform lying on the table, forgotten until now. A little curious, he reached to pick it up

--only to drop it like a burning coal.

A familiar emblem, a golden ‘R’ that he hadn't expected to see again, was attached to the kevlar over his heart.

R, for Renegade.

  + - + - + - +

  A flurry of thin screeching and leathery wings heralded his return. Long, weary steps, hindered by the tattered cape tangling around his ankles, carried Batman from the landing bay toward the main computers and past the enshrined uniform.

His fingers skimmed a feather touch across the glass casing in answer to the youthful greeting whose deafening absence hollowed the cave out into a tomb, as it should. He settled heavily into the computer chair, and exhaled as much of the weight as would pass out of his lungs, while the gravity still dragged him down.

Familiar clipped footsteps approached his seat from behind, and then paused. “Welcome home, Master Bruce. I trust that you return uninjured?”

Bruce didn’t push back his cowl, didn’t turn. In keeping with their nightly routine, he activated the computer before Alfred would inquire further.

“Sir,” Alfred began again, hesitantly, “during your absence Lucius Fox made multiple attempts to contact you. I...must insist that you listen to what he had to say.”

“I’ll look into it,” Batman said, and his voice came out like gravel. He swallowed, and then out of basic duty, and debt, he forced out the rest. “...Thank you.”

Alfred opened his mouth briefly before resigning himself to pensively pinching his lips together.

Batman pretended not to notice.

Alfred’s concern was ironic, to say the least. If patrols had been ending with more injuries than usual, even Alfred must understand how little that mattered now. With that shrine erected in memory of a child’s life cut short while the father’s inexplicably lingered on, it was impossible to believe otherwise--or to be selfish enough to wish that the still-living child might return to the city that would only eat him alive too.

He prepared to review Gotham’s recent activity. It was inevitable that an excursion with the League, no matter how rare or how urgent, had resulted in him being cut off from his city. He had told the League to contact him for nothing less than an emergency of intergalactic proportions--and they had then proceeded to summon him for exactly that.

Grimly, he braced for the inevitable. The unanswered signals, the damage, the deaths...

An alert flashing across his screen interrupted his search, and in an instant he was viewing surveillance footage of a recent theft from Wayne Tower.

At his shoulder, Alfred sighed. “Perhaps the messages shall be unnecessary,” he said, a note of tension coloring his tone.

Batman didn’t have time to wonder why before the screen came to life. A figure in orange and black emerged from a hatch and darted across the rooftop--with the Teen Titans hot on his heels. At one end of the roof the figure halted, hand pressed to his ear, as if listening to an earpiece.

Bruce’s finger slammed down on the keyboard to freeze the screen. He zoomed in. The intruder was clearly a teenager, whose long dark bangs nearly obscured the domino mask that left his identity unmistakable.

Bruce lurched to his feet, shoving back his cowl, eyes glued to the screen as he searched desperately for a contradiction to what he already knew to be true.

But the recording played on, and Bruce watched as Dick took on his own team single-handedly, his attacks clearly restrained, yet marked with the ferocity of a battle he could not afford to lose. By the time the clip ended the Wayne sign’s lettering was scattered in smoking shambles across the roof, and Dick had vanished with the dissipating smoke, leaving Bruce with a hauntingly familiar hollow forming in his chest.

“Is the lad alright, sir?” Alfred asked softly.

Was he? Bruce should know, he should have watched his surviving son more closely because he recognized those colors, that pattern--

and, already, it was happening again.

[driversmutbucket]

Second Chances

Part 2

Adam Sackler x Reader

Warnings: cursing.

Sorry for the delay kids. I’ve been adulting.

Start at part 1:

———

The next week flew by in a flurry of preperations for the beginning of the rehearsal period, meetings, trials, errands, and that was just work.

You didn’t see Adam again until the Wednesday when he poked his head around the doorway of your workroom.

“Hey y/n!”

Looking up you were met with a big grin, you couldn’t help but grin back.

“Hi Adam, long time no see!”

“Fuck, right?! They got us working like dogs, anyway I brought you this, I thought you might like it.”

He handed you a dog earred book, William Shakespeare - Complete Sonnets.

You beamed at him, he was looking at you apprehensively. “Thanks so much! I actually don’t have this,”, you couldn’t help but gush, touched by his thoughtfulness.

“Oh yeah, well, yeah no problem.” You assumed if he had the capacity to blush, he would have.

You tried to ignore a sudden flurry of butterflies in your stomach.

Adam sat himself down in your makeup chair, which looked almost comically small supporting his large frame. He cleared his throat, causing you to raise an eyebrow.

“I actually came to ask you if you had any plans this weekend?” He asked while somewhat nervously raking his hands through his hair.

“Oh! Well I have the kid, so...” you trailed off, offering him an out.

His face lit up, “I’d love to meet Celia!”, he must have seen something resembling shock on your face because he quickly followed with “oh if that’s weird or something that’s cool, never-”

“No, no! Adam, I mean, sure, as long as you don’t mind possibly having to play with LEGO and have your ear talked off for hours” you laughed, “sorry, most people don’t consider having a 5 year old hanging around as a good time.”

“Well it sounds way fucking better than what my friends do on the weekends” he shrugged.

“Well how about you come over Saturday afternoon, I’ll make dinner?”

Standing up he beamed, “see you then, I’ve gotta get back to the...” he pointed in the general direction of the stage.

You shooed him, “yup, yup, bye.”

Once he was gone you broke into a massive grin.

———

On Saturday the rain pounded against the windows of your apartment.

Upon telling Celia that your friend Adam was coming to visit her little face had lit up. “Will he play LEGO with me?!”

“I’m not sure honey, you will have to ask him nicely when he gets here.”

Celia had promptly scampered off and pulled out all her LEGO in anticipation.

Chewing the inside of your cheek nervously, you hoped he really did like kids as much as he said.

———

Mid afternoon there was a knock at the door, Celia sprinted for the door yelling “I’m gonna get it mom!” Before you could even move.

Standing a fair way behind Celia you watched her open the door.

“Hello Adam!” She beamed up at him.

You couldn’t help but snort with laughter at your confident daughter. She looked tiny next to Adam’s large frame.

Adam chuckled, his eyes found you and you gave a little thumbs up to him.

“Hey kid!” He grinned, “what’s your name?”

“I’m Celia, do you want to play LEGO with me? And why are you so wet?”

“Jesus CC, let him get in the door honey.” You walked over and put your hands on her shoulders, steering her away from the doorway. “But wow you are rather damp there.”

You tried not to let your eyes linger too long at how his damp shirt clung to his muscles. Or his ears that peaked through his dripping hair.

Adam shrugged, “I ran here.”

“You are bloody mad” you scoffed, “I’ll get you a towel, get in here the heating is on”.

“I’ll get one mom!” Celia was already running to the cupboard.

“Oh my god you have a fan and you aren’t even in the doorway! If she become too much just do some desperate sign language at me and I will save you” you smiled sympathetically.

He waved his hand dismissively, “she is pretty adorable, and fuck, she is like a mini you.”

Celia reappeared with a towel, “here you go Adam!”

You realized you were still standing by the front door, “Adam- tea, coffee?”

“Black coffee would be great.”

“Celia, honey, take Adam into the lounge ok?”

She promptly grabbed his hand and started dragging him towards your little living room, chatting away.

Your heart swelled a little.

After making the drinking, you head towards the living room door, you paused in the doorway, almost dropping a cup.

Adam is shirtless, you see his wet top slung over the radiator, drying. He is on the floor, laying on his stomach, assembling LEGO. Celia is also on her stomach, right next to him, handing him LEGO bricks and chattering incessantly.

Leaning against the door frame you give yourself a moment to drink in the expanse of his back, the softly sculpted muscles.

Jesus Christ

Walking in, you bent down and placed a coffee next to Adam.

“Oh hey, thanks” he grinned.

You cocked your eyebrow, “Aren’t you cold?”

“Nah I run hot”

Jesus Christ

“Mom you need to build one too!”

“A what?”

“A house! We are making a town!” She beamed.

You sat down on the other side of Celia, so you were opposite Adam, a pile of LEGO between you.

“You have to lay on your stomach, it’s the rules” Adam smirked.

“Yeah mom! It’s the rules” Celia echoed.

“I feel very ganged up on” you huffed as you lay down on your stomach, very aware that Adam had a prime view straight down your v neck tee. You silently thanked the gods you had put on a semi-decent bra.

Looking up at Adam you scowled, noticing the smirk on his face. No doubt he had and will continue to enjoy an eyeful of your breasts, as long as you stayed in this position.

You sipped your coffee and began plucking bricks from the pile, well practiced in LEGO construction.

———

Later that night, after Celia had gone to bed, you sat on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, wine glass in hand.

You watched as Adam (now with a shirt on) studied the mass amount of art covering your walls. He hadn’t really had a chance to actually look around, Celia had almost constantly demanded his attention. She was enamored with him, not that you could blame her. He was silly and playful. Yet somehow soft and gentle?

Adam’s soft murmur broke your thoughts, “these ones are amazing.” You looked up to see his fingers gently stroking the textured surface of a portrait.

“Thanks” you replied.

He turned to you, eyebrow raised.

“You telling me you fucking did these?”

“Yep...” you sipped your wine, amused.

“What the fuck y/n!” He almost barked.

Your eye brows shot up.

“Why do you do fucking face and hair shit when you can paint like this” he gestured at the canvases wildly.

You couldn’t help laugh.

“Sweet Adam, making a living off art is near impossible, even in New York. If it’s any consolation I have pieces in shows here and there.”

He huffed, sitting down next to you heavily.

“Plus” you continued, “not long after college I got myself knocked up. Being a starving artist myself is one thing, but I couldn’t inflict that on a kid.”

You smiled at him softly. He still looked pissed off. It was strangely endearing.

You placed a hand on his arm, squeezing “but thanks for caring so much”, he looked at you intensely, you offered a coy smile.

He moved his arm, putting it around your shoulders. Without thinking you nestled into him, resting your head in his shoulder.

You talked well into the early hours of the morning. About creativity, relationships, life...

———

At about 2am, you groaned.

“I really need to go to bed, Celia will be up at the fucking crack of dawn no doubt.”

“Shit yeah, I didn’t even think about that” Adam said sympathetically as he started to get up.

“You are welcome to stay...” you offered.

His eyebrows shot up.

“I mean, you know, I don’t mind sharing my bed, but if that too awkward the couch isn’t so bad” you shrugged.

“I’m a really good cuddler” he smirked.

You snorted, “god help me, anyway I’m going to have a shower, just help yourself to whatever, you know make yourself at home” you gestured around the apartment, “I really can’t offer you any clothes, even the most oversized things I own will be crop tops on you.”

———

Getting out of the shower, you put on your pjs and made your way to your room, glancing into the lounge the sofa was empty. You gulped, trying to pull yourself together.

Sure enough he was laying on your bed, flicking through a book he had plucked from the shelves in your room.

Hearing you enter, he turned his head to you, “adorable” he grinned, taking in your flannelette pjs.

“I’m a mom, I’m allowed” you huffed, despite the smile on your face.

You got under the covers, sighing happily. You looked at Adam expectantly.

“I’ll just sleep in my clothes on top of the covers.”

You rolled your eyes, “don’t be an idiot!”

He got off the bed and you pulled back the covers on his side.

“I won’t jump your bones, don’t worry big guy” you smirked.

He chuckled, muttering something under his breathe, which sounded vaguely like “it’s not you I’m worried about.”

You turned away while he stripped off his jeans, you felt him climb into bed.

He moved in behind you, “is this ok?” He murmured.

“Mmmhmmm” you signed happily.

His large form engulfed you, it was blissful.

You were asleep within 2 minutes.

———

“Mom, mom!”

Head fuzzy with sleep, you cracked an eye open.

“Yeah?” You mumbled.

“Adam made us breakfast!”

“Wha-” you sat bolt upright, last night came flooding back.

You had slept like the dead, usually your sleep was somewhat broken.

Reaching for your phone you lit up the home screen to read the time.

9.07am, fuck!

That meant Celia had been up for at least an hour.

You could smell coffee and bacon as you walked groggily to the kitchen.

“I got her up!” Celia announced happily, giving Adam a high five.

“I slept like the dead, fuck” you grumbled

“MOM, language!”

“Sorry, sorry. Adam you didn’t need to do this!”

You met his eyes, he was beaming at you.

“Celia’s idea actually, she said she wanted to cook her mom breakfast, right kid?”

You raised an eyebrow at her.

“Yup!” She beamed.

“Honey, thank you this is so sweet, I hope you were good for Adam, did you help?” You asked, picking her up and cuddling her.

“Yeah mom! I made the scrambled eggs” she said proudly.

Your heart swelled. You shot a grateful look at Adam, he smiled warmly and winked.

———

Later that morning you and Celia walked Adam back to his apartment.

Celia somehow conning Adam into riding on his shoulders. Shrieking happily and reaching to touch branches and signs up high. Announcing everytime she touched something.

“Be careful please!” You winced at how high off the ground she was.

“I got her, don’t worry” Adam assured you.

“If she is too heavy just put her down.”

“She is tiny,” he rolled his eyes, grinning.

You smacked his chest lightly, “well yeah, for you.”

-

At one point of the walk Adam suddenly takes off at a near run, Celia shrieking with joy. You just about have a heart attack as visions of him tripping flood your mind.

“Oh my god, Adam! Be careful, fuck sake!” You took off at a run, trailing them.

They had stopped on the corner of Adam’s street, both grinning like idiots.

“I’m...going...to...kill...you...both” you panted, bending over to catch your breath.

-

Once you got to Adam’s door he crouched down and whispered something to Celia, she nodded. Standing up, he covered her eyes with his massive hand, you looked at him questioningly.

With his other hand he reached and cradled your cheek, stooping down he brought his lips to yours, placing the most gentle kiss on your lips.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since the day I met you” he murmured in your ear.

[whispering-raine]

So this is based off of a small fan fiction I wrote the other day-

Janus' POV:

I felt my heart crumble once again. I layed against the wall, crying to myself.

Yes, I get that it has been too long and I should stop sulking around all day waiting for him to come back. But it's just so...difficult.

We grew up together, us Dark Sides. But then one day, he snapped...

He packed almost everything and went to join the Light Sides.

That bitch.

He was the only thing keeping me sane. Now the only person I have is Remus, and though he tries, he's starting to get distant too.

I'm scared to loose more of them.

I picked my phone up off of the ground next to me, clicking on Apple Music and blasting my playlist. Well, this isn't actually my playlist.

It's Virgil's.

Sappy, I know. But he...has good music taste. Or he did...

I just turned fourteen, and I think I know everything.

I wanted to sing along with the song. I wanted to scream the lyrics and get lost in the music, but I could barely get a whisper out.

I reached out towards my closet, the only place I have to hide anything. A small box sat in there, on the outside it read 'DO NOT TOUCH' in bold marker.

Only a few things sat in that box, and those things are my all time prized possessions. Such as special bracelets that I got gifted when I was a kid, or childhood toys that I couldn't seem to get rid of.

I've had that box for as long as I can remember.

But I only could think of one thing to grab in the moment.

I slid one of Virgil's old sweaters out of the box and put it on, the oversized hoodie filling me with warmth.

Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around my chest, sobbing louder than the music itself.

After so many years, it started to loose the vanilla scent that always seemed to follow him around. But it was still his...

"I just can't fucking..." I don't know what I was going to say, but it just slipped out of my mouth.

A shiver shot up my spine, making my whole body twitch uncontrollably. It all feels so big, but I'm just so small.

"I miss you." I whispered. No lies. No exaggeration. Just the truth.

"J? You ok?" Remus asked, sliding down the other side of the door.

I sniffled and wiped my eyes.

"I'm perfectly fine, why would you ask?" My voice was noticeably shaky, but maybe that was muffled by the door separating us.

"Well do ya' wanna make breakfast with me?" I did, actually. But food is the last thing that I want right now.

"Go away Remus." I hissed. It stayed silent for a few moments.

"Ok, bye.." I heard the floorboards creek as he got up, walking away.

Once again, I push away everyone I love. Yay. So fun.

I pulled the box into my lap, deciding to go through it to pass the time.

Music continued to play in the background.

Can't count the years on one hand that we've been together.

First I pulled out a small teddy bear, I got this at a place called Build-a-Bear when I was six. I slept with this bear every day until I turned seventeen. Her name was Chocolate. She used to smell like hot cocoa, but it faded over time.

I need the other one to hold you. Make you feel, make you feel better.

About ten homemade bracelets sat in the back of the box, I remember how those were made. Virgil would always make bracelets when he was nervous or anxious about anything. Hundreds of bracelets were made over the years, and he gave some of them to Remus and I. He grew out of it after a while.

It's not a walk in the park to love each other.

A small golden ring was hidden under those bracelets. I'm not sure where I got it, but I've always liked that ring.

I picked it up, sliding it on my ring finger.

But when our fingers interlock, can't deny, can't deny, you're worth it.

The last thing sat in the box. A large, broken picture frame was held in my hands. A movie theater picture strip was inside of it. It was smaller than the frame by a ton, so you could see the back of the wooden frame behind it. It was pictures of when Virgil, Remus, and I were in our teens, just handing out at the movies.

Cause' after all this time..I'm still into you.

We all had goofy smiles on our faces, Remus stuck his tongue out along with the smile.

I held the picture frame in my hands, anger building up in me.

I threw it across my room, it hit the wall as it broke more.

I should be over all the butterflies. But I'm into you. I'm into you.

Glass flew onto the ground. Instant regret washed over me.

"I'm sorry.." I whispered, my voice cracking.

I instantly got up, realizing that the frame was completely broken, leaving the picture almost floating in the middle of the wooden frame.

I snatched the paper off of the ground, avoiding the glass that scattered on the carpet.

I stared at the paper for a solid five minutes, no thoughts crossed my mind.

I finally caught a grip on reality and snapped out of it. I walked back over to my bed, still holding the pictures.

I layed down, clutching onto my body pillow like it was the only thing keeping me alive.

The playlist had stopped. Either my phone had died, or I never put it on repeat.

I took one more glance at the paper, before holding it close to my chest and drifting off into the sweet release of sleep.

The comic isn't identical, only based off of the writing. Hope you enjoy?

[petekey-party]

So someone sent me a petekey ask that was Pete working at a coffee shop and Mikey being a regular at it and then I accidentally hit submit before I was finished so it didn't make sense so I had to delete it but I still have the story saved so here it is. Sorry about this whole mess! Why do I do this? My writing is like Chinese food that has been left out for a week. I hope you enjoy anyway. I try. Unedited I yawned and put on my apron. Another day of staying up till three am, getting up at six thirty am, being at work at seven thirty am, and leaving work at four pm. A long day of making people coffee. It’s always worth it to make people’s day sunny and bright! Because having time to myself isn’t important! 
I stood at the register waiting for the work crowd to come in. The person I work with, Gabe,tried to make conversation but soon gave up when she came to realize that I don’t give a flying fuck. The first people started to come in as I tried to keep up with taking orders and making people coffee. I’m pretty much the master at it by this point. Sorry if I misspell your name, I’m just busy with a million other shitty people I have to deal with. 
The next person in line was a tall boy brown hair gelled back wearing a suit. He had the most beautiful eyes. 
“G-good morning.” He said quickly. He kept looking around the room and tapping his finger. Half was through his order he got a call and his face went pale. I couldn’t tell what the person on the other end of the phone was saying but I could tell that whoever the person was, they were loud and angry. 
“Y-yes sir I know I’m late on the second day of work-” he paused to more yelling. 
“The coffee line was long sir-” more yelling.
“Yes sir. I’ll s-start being early to get coffee.” The phone call ended. The cute boy started apologizing. 
“I’m so sorry! My new boss is strict.” 
“Don’t worry. You’re fine.” I said smiling at him. “I’m going to need your name.” 
“I-it’s Mikey.” 
Mikey. What a pretty name. What a pretty boy. 
I got his two coffees made as quickly as I could. 
“Mikey!” I yelled. 
He ran up to get his coffees 
“T-thanks!” He said before running out the door. He had a nice ass. 
He was back at one thirty after most of the lunch rush had gone down. He looked like he was dead. His face has lightly lost the glow it had earlier today. 
“Welcome back.” I smiled at him. “How have you been these past hours?” I asked, me being genuinely curious. 
“It’s all been a tiring blur, but at one point I think I met Satan himself.” He said. 
“Sounds more interesting than what my days been like.” I responded. 
“This is my second day of the job and I’m already looking forward to retiring.” He said. I smiled.
“So what can I get for you?” I asked. He put in his order. I decided to talk to him while I made his coffees. 
“So what’s your job?” I asked. He gave me this long drawn out answer that was hard for me to understand and I think he was an assistant, from what I could tell, it was important. 
“Sounds complicated.” I said. 
“You have no idea. I hope it’ll get easier. My boss… he’s a pretty angry 5'6 dude.” He said. I had my back to him, and I know he couldn’t see it, but I smiled anyway. 
“Here you go!” I said handing him his drinks. 
“Thank you!” He said taking them and putting a few dollars in the tip jar. He sped walked out. 
I finished my long day with that boy on my mind. I hope he didn’t get fired any time soon because damn he looked good in a suit. 
The next day Mikey showed up ten minutes earlier. Right when people were starting to come into the cafe. 
“Good morning, Mikey!” I said. Seeing him made me perk up a bit. 
“Good morning, Pete.” He smiled slightly. God, if his sorta smile is this hot, I wonder what his full smile would look like. Mikey gave his order, it being the same as yesterday. He came back again the same time he did yesterday. 
“Hello Mikey! Back yet again? How much coffee do you consume?” Fuck! That probably sounded stupid and rude.
“Probably an unhealthy amount. My boss sends me on coffee runs because he thinks if he uses the coffee machine at work someone will try to poison him. By the time I leave her in the morning and the time I come back in the afternoon I probably have three times the coffee and so far I haven’t been poisoned so I guess that’s a good sign.” He said.
“Well I’m glad you haven’t been poisoned.” I said. 
I took his order and he left a five dollar bill in the tip jar. 
“See ya tomorrow, Pete!” He called as he walked out the door. I blushed. Yeah tomorrow. 
The next two went like that. He came in twice a day and I got to know him more and more. I have learned that he was a cat person (I can see around that), he plays bass (just like me), his brother does comics, he kisses on first dates, he didn’t tell me this part but from what I’ve gathered he is a nicotine addict, he thinks America should do away with the penny, he is always concerned that there is something on his face but nobody is telling him (he thinks this because everybody is looking at him and his pretty face), best of all he’s gay and single, and other little things that made me like him more and more. 
“Good morning, Mikey!” I said as he walked in for the second time that day. 
“Hello, Pete.” He said. He had his usual poker face on but today something seemed off. 
“Do you want the usual?” I asked. He just nodded. That day there wasn’t the usual flirtatious conversation. “I-is every thing okay? You seem a little off.” I asked. He didn’t answer just kinda did a shrug kind of thing. He gave his usual five dollar time and left. 
The next day was Sunday and he didn’t work on Sunday. The cafe was quiet and didn’t have many costumers. I was standing at the register counting the minutes when the door unexpectedly came open. I was surprised to see it was Mikey.
“Mikey what are you doing here? I thought you didn’t work Sundays.” I said surprised. 
“Yeah well my boss needs my help and I need to impress him so if you could make the usual as quick as possible that would nice.” He said in a hurried time. He put his time in the tip jar and took his coffee. “Thank you!” He said quickly before doing the unexpected and leaning over the counter to give me a kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best!” He said while quickly walking away. I put my hand up to lightly touch where his lips had touched my cheek. 
I actually slept well that night. 
The next day in the afternoon when Mikey came in. 
“Good afternoon, Mikes!” I called out to him. 
“Hello, Peter.” He said. 
“The usual?” I asked. Of corse the usual. Do I even need to ask at this point? I don’t think he’s ever gotten anything different ever. 
“Actually ya know what? I think I’ll have the usual and a cake pop!And take your time getting it!"He said excitedly.
"Wow, you’re really getting wild now, Mikey.” I said rolling my eyes and grinning. 
“Oh and the fun has only just began.” He said. 
“Yeah I can tell. I can already feel the fun coursing through my veins like drugs.” I said. Mikey let out a chuckle. “Ya know Mikey, you should really laugh more. Your laugh is like, super hot.” I said.
“That’s not the only part of me that’s super hot.” He did wiggling his eyebrows. He was acting different today and I liked it. 
“Oh yeah?” I asked leaning in some. 
“Yeah.” Mikey said, he also leaned in. “If you think my laugh is hot than you should see my comic book collection.” He said is a low, hot voice. I bursted out laughing. “What? You don’t think a grown man having a huge comic book collection is hot?” He asked. 
“Oh Mikey, I couldn’t think of a hotter thing for a guy to have. So what is putting you in such a good mood?” I asked. 
“Well my boss was so surprised with me not killing my self yet that he gave me the rest of the day off!” Mikey said grinning. "Well I'm glad you haven't killed yourself yet. I'm sure a quarter of my tip comes from you and I need that for dollars at the strip club." I said grinning back at him. "Well I better make that coffee." I made his coffee in a comfortable silence. "Here ya go!" I said handing him his coffee and cake pop. "Oh! I forgot something else!" Mikey said. "What did you forget?" I asked. I hope I didn't screw up an order as easy as Mikey's. At this point I think I know his order as well as I know my name. "I-I forgot your number?" He said it more like a question than a statement. "Well I'll just have to fix that for you!" I said grinning. I wrote my number on a napkin to give to Mikey. Mikey's cheeks were slightly pink. Fuck that was hot. There isn't anything he does that isn't hot. "I'll give you a call." Mikey said smiling and putting five dollars in the tip jar and walking out. "Bye, Mikes!" I said. "Bye, Petey!" He yelled back. I want to die I hate my writing so much but yet I keep wanting asks. This was a cringey mess and I'm sorry.

[godlessriffs]

Comics: A Semi-Love Story

I love comics. Not all comics, mind you; most are aimed at a different demographic from any I represent, and many are straight up trash no matter who their target audience is. What I love is the concept of using pictures to tell stories the way writers use words and filmmakers use the camera. Like movies, comics is a visual medium requiring the artist to make decisions concerning things like shot composition, angle, lighting, and so forth. Like literature, comics can be created with easily obtainable materials by one person working alone (although small teams are much more common) for nowhere near what it costs to make even the cheapest motion pictures, the greatest expense being at the publishing end. It's a best of both worlds situation for anyone willing to exploit it.

What kind of comics am I into? My tastes are kind of unusual, although they didn't start out that way. When I was a child I loved Mad magazine, and I occasionally bought Cracked as well. The first actual comic book, in the sense most people imagine, that I ever sat down and read was the third issue of a four issue miniseries from DC called Tales Of The New Teen Titans. This particular issue told the origin story of the Changeling, the character known today as Beast Boy. It was a really great, epic story (and fortunately I didn't have to have read any other comics to understand what was going on in it), and the art was top notch (as it would be, since the artist, George Perez, was one of the best in the business at that time). That book became the gold standard by which I would judge the quality of all of the comics I would read for some time.

But it was ultimately my younger brother who got me really INTO comics. Some time during the late eighties, he started collecting Spiderman comics, and his hobby began to rub off on the rest of us. My father started collecting Batman and Green Lantern comics, and even my mother got in on it, eventually collecting Teen Titans and an older DC title called Ghosts. At first, I didn't think I'd get sucked into this myself, but when the family paid our first visit to the no-longer-extant Winston-Salem branch of Heroes Aren't Hard To Find at the corner of Burke and Brookstown, I did manage to find something that interested me: Marvel's Star Wars comics.* For a while I was content to collect those, but soon, spurred by fond memories of Saturday morning adventure cartoons like the Superfriends, I started collecting Superman, the Justice League, and a few other DC titles.

My tastes kept evolving, though, and I would eventually abandon the mainstream stuff as I began to cultivate a deep appreciation for the outré. I've mentioned this before in the context of music, and it applies here as well: it's in my nature to keep digging deeper, and I was always happiest when I'd discovered something cool and relatively unknown. In the eighties there was a boom of independent publishers saturating the market with comic books, most of them in black and white. These companies knew they couldn't compete with the big two (Marvel and DC), and for the most part they didn't try. Their subject matter spanned the gamut: there was sci-fi (from space opera all the way to hard science fiction), fantasy (some of it sword and sorcery, some of it truly outlandish), horror, crime noir, funny animal stuff, you name it. Superhero comics weren't unheard of (teams were more prevalent than individual characters), but the ones that did exist tended to be offbeat compared to the majors. I would have bought all of that stuff if I'd had the cash. The comics I did read went really well with the heavy metal I was listening to at the time. Some of them were reprinting old strips from the days of yore; I got my first taste of the original Buck Rogers strips reading Eternity Comics' Cosmic Heroes series.

That eventually led me to seeking out more adult material from the likes of Peter Bagge, Daniel Clowes and Los Bros. Hernandez, the spiritual successors of the underground comix, and ultimately to the undergrounds themselves. My tastes have become EXTREMELY eclectic. I do, however, still love superhero comics, but I'm really only into the ones from the golden age, and some from the silver. The child in me considers the current vogue for gritty, adult oriented superhero comics that aren't supposed to be fun to be wrong-headed and frankly kind of stupid.

Because my approach to comics was so different from that of the rest of my family, I ended up in a much different place than they did. Last I checked, my brother and my father still had all of their comics, but they don't really collect or even read them much any more. Neither one of them ever seemed interested in anything outside the superhero genre. My mother, meanwhile, eventually sold all of hers and only seems to have gotten into comics in the first place because the rest of us were collecting them. I was different. I've known for a long time that there's a fine line between collecting and hoarding, and I'm definitely not into the latter. I've never bought books I couldn't read, nor have I ever been afraid to sell or trade something once I felt like I was done with it. Then I would follow my appetites into ever new directions, and that eventually left me with a strong appreciation for comics as an art form. And because of that, I'm the only member of my family who still enjoys buying and reading comics.

Now, I need to vent about something. Namely, the common stereotype of the comic book collector as a loser shut-in with no social life who takes the hobby way too seriously and freaks out if you get near his precious collection. The ur-example would probably be the comic book guy from the Simpsons. And maybe you remember this exchange from Mallrats:

         Brodie: The usual vault rules apply; touch not, lest ye be touched.

         T.S.: You're such an anal-retentive bastard!

         Brodie: Hey, I tried to teach you to handle comics in the fifth grade, but no, you wanted to play little league instead!

I'm not going to deny that these guys are out there, but as one who has indulged in the hobby himself, albeit not with the same rabid fervor, I can see more or less where they're coming from. For one thing, if you're into Marvel or DC, you've got to read a LOT of books to make heads or tails of what's going on. So if these guys don't have social lives outside of a tiny circle of like-minded geeks, it might be because they can't find the time for them. I'm not sure exactly how much time and mental effort it takes to follow the continuity of the major "universes", but I can't imagine studying advanced calculus would be a much greater challenge.** Meanwhile, if comic collectors seem protective of their stockpiles to an excessive degree, you have to remember that these guys are sinking a lot of money into items that, for the most part, weren't manufactured with preservation in mind.*** Hence the bags and backing boards. And let's be fair - they're right to be a little bit paranoid. Because, and here's where I really climb onto my high horse, there's a flip side to this phenomenon that no one ever wants to talk about.

See, when handling someone else's property, you don't handle it the way you would if it were yours - necessarily. You handle it the way the owner of that property wants it handled. And you certainly don't abuse it or treat it carelessly. Because let's face it, it's generally easier to take care of your personal property than to replace it. Most people, in fact, understand this; it's basic etiquette, after all. But I've noticed, often to my horror and disgust, that when the property in question happens to be a comic book etiquette goes straight down the shitter.

It's insane. Comics are either priceless, irreplaceable treasures, on par with the original Declaration of Independence at the National Archives, or they're disposable junk, no more worthy of value than used toilet paper. There's absolutely no middle ground between the two extremes, and no cross-cultural understanding on either side of the divide.

True story: in my junior year of high school, I played Albert Petersen in my school's production of Bye Bye Birdie. During one pre-rehearsal meeting in the auditorium, Mrs. Santamore, the director and drama teacher, was discussing possible props for the teenage characters to use, and at one point suggested comic books. Now obviously in 1989 you couldn't just go to the drug store and pick up the latest Batman or X-Men issue and expect it to look convincingly retro; you needed something that looked like it was published in the fifties.

Now, at the time, Blackthorne Publishing, one of those black and white independents I mentioned earlier, was running a five-issue miniseries reprinting a strip from the fifties called Beyond Mars (so called because it was set in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter). The covers of these books looked fairly retro, not really 100% of what you would see in the fifties, but close enough for rock 'n' roll as we say. And at that meeting I just happened to have on me a copy of the second issue. So I took it out of my bag and offered it up as an example.

Mrs. Santamore snatched the comic out of my hands and, as she held it up to show the cast, grasped it between her thumb and index finger with a completely unnecessary amount of savage force. I could see new creases forming at the spine where she was squeezing it. I must have made a noise of some kind, because I later heard from two of the crew members, who were backstage at that moment, that they had heard it and immediately thought, "yep, she touched his comic book." To clarify, it wasn't that she touched it, it was that she was manhandling it in a manner guaranteed to damage it. Now, to be fair, that comic was only worth its cover price at that moment and it's probably not worth even that today.**** But come on! Even if I was just going to throw it away later, that's for me to decide, not her.

I've tried to explain this idea point blank to people who look down on comics, and completely failed to make them understand. Such is life, I guess.

Nowadays when I go to the newsstand or the comic shop and check out the latest releases, I'm as disappointed with them as I am with current movies or pop music and for the same reasons. More planning and care is put into the packaging and presentation than into the content itself, and modern technology is being used to make a product that's technically perfect but fails to engage my interest. To be honest, I have a deep prejudice against slick, overproduced... well, anything, but I happen to be living in a culture that's openly hostile to anything that ISN'T slick and overproduced. As with digging deeper, it's also in my nature to support the underdog rather than the already rich and successful corporate giant. Those cheaply produced black and white independents I used to read had a scrappy quality to them you just don't see in the major publishers, and a much more honest type of gritty edginess than you could achieve by, say, making your hero a drug addict or a member of a persecuted minority. I also love a handmade aesthetic, and I can't understand why every publisher in business today wants to use Photoshop to censor the human element from their product. When everybody strives for the same production values, everything ends up looking the same. Where are the risk takers? Unfortunately, I think I know the answer to that one...

Among the items in my current collection is Shadow Warrior #1, published in 1988 by an outfit called Gateway Comics (unrelated to the company of the same name that exists today). It reads like the beginning of something truly epic, like Tolkien but with a dash of Robert E. Howard. It's everything I love about independent comics. It's in black and white, with art that takes advantage of the strengths of the monochrome page; it's lush and exquisitely detailed. It's also slightly amateurish, but to me that just adds street cred. My favorite thing about it, though, is that everything in it was done completely by hand; even features on the cover such as the title, the company logo, the price (U.S. and Canada), and even the copyright notice. No technology more advanced than a pen or brush seems to have come into play until it was time to go to the print shop.

Sadly, no second issue of this book ever came out and the company seems to have gone belly up after the first one. I haven't been able to find any information on why this happened, but sometimes startup business ventures don't work out. (In truth, a lot of independent comics from the eighties that ran for quite a few issues ended before they could be brought to a proper narrative conclusion.) That said, I don't see why the creative team responsible for this book couldn't have continued to work on the story and meanwhile looked for other means of getting new issues published. Insufficiently committed, I guess. After all, I can't imagine that these guys didn't have day jobs; Shadow Warrior looks like a spare time project.

As for why Shadow Warrior failed, I can't imagine the lack of advertising helped matters any, but I have a sad suspicion that the very qualities about this book which attracted me to it in the first place had the opposite effect on just about everybody else. "It's not familiar enough; it makes me uncomfortable." "Its presentation doesn't look professional enough." "It's not in color; black and white is a rip-off." "It's too obscure; it won't appreciate in value." "My friends who love the X-Men will think I'm weird."

At any rate, Shadow Warrior was one among many risks that failed. It wouldn't have if there'd been more readers like me, but there you go.

Now I feel like reading some comics.

 * The Star Wars franchise at that time consisted of five movies, two of which were made for television, two cartoon shows, and one not very fondly remembered holiday special. Marvel's series, which had recently been discontinued, ran only 107 issues, as well as a few annuals and a Return Of The Jedi miniseries. (Which is odd; they began the series with an adaptation of the first movie, and when they adapted The Empire Strikes Back, it was also part of the main series. I have an idea why they adapted ROTJ separately, but that's a discussion for another time.) It was still possible for someone of even my limited means to collect the entire run, although I did get a major assist in the form of a gift from my uncle David, who had collected quite a few of them himself.

** Truth be told, it wasn't just my appetite for more unusual and obscure material that made me lose interest in DC comics. The continuity of the DC Universe was a convoluted mess, even after the company's efforts in the eighties to simplify it and bring it under control. (Beeteedubs, if you know what I'm talking about when I say that the Crisis ruined the DC Universe, congratulations, you're a geek. And an old geek at that.) Superman, in particular, was mired in tedious subplots that not only went nowhere when taken as a whole but barely left Supes any time to do anything heroic. I don't know from Marvel, but I don't get the impression their product was much better. I eventually realized that the big two had basically given readers a choice between reading comics and having a life. Something tells me this was no accident. After all, every minute you spend hanging out with friends is a minute you're not reading comics, and every dollar you spend on dates and cool clothes is a dollar you're not using to BUY comics.

*** Newsprint is notoriously fragile, and becomes more so as it ages. Even once it became apparent that people were beginning to treat comics as cultural artifact, not to mention collectable commodity, it still took a while for comics publishers to catch up. Around the time I started collecting, DC was experimenting with different printing formats. The familiar stapled newsprint book with a semigloss cover was called Standard Format. New Format was like Standard only with Mando paper in place of newsprint; whiter and of slightly better quality. Deluxe Format was high quality archival stock with a semigloss cover. And Prestige Format was semigloss interior, square bound with glossy cardstock; essentially a comic book sized version of the graphic novel format. Other companies were experimenting along the same lines, just not using that particular nomenclature. But most comics were still being printed the old-fashioned way. Of course, today pretty much all comics are slick and built to last, but unfortunately just because they're easy to preserve doesn't mean they're worth collecting.

**** Sadly, my copy of the fourth issue of Beyond Mars was ruined by a printing fuckup wherein half the strips were missing and the other half were printed twice. I never found out if that was an isolated incident or if the problem was endemic to the entire run, and I never got around to buying the final issue.

© 2017 Shawn Christopher Pepper