#Danny would fight anyone who touched his little sister

[tanglepelt]

Dc x dp idea 8

What if Danny was actually Bruce’s son

Bruce is full aware he had a kid. Dick and Bruce actively knew Danny when he was a baby.

The kicker is that a natural portal opened up under him and stole him. Like they were at a park or something and with a green glow poof he is gone.

I’d blame clockwork for it. He want pariah sealed away and without Danny no one fixed vlads screw up

So danny as a baby is now in a different dimension. Fentons adopt (kidnap) the baby they find in the woods. Jazz wanted a baby brother and this baby came from a portal from the ghost zone.

They discover Danny is phantom. He didn’t know he was stolen from the woods. Jazz is panicking cause that’s her baby brother and there parents are insane. Cue parents wanting to poke and prod not nicely

Danny goes and gets Ellie cause he cares about his clone and they flee. They get in the ghost zone and clockwork does his messing around with time lines. Now Dani and Ellie are in the dc universe.

On the dc side. The same glowing green portal that stole Bruce’s son just opened and spit out Danny and Dani.

[youcalledsworld]

Prev

Becoming a Mother

Diana helped King Phantom (please call me Danny) look for a suitable candidate to help save his daughter, but none were suitable. Some women said yes, but they were either being forced to, or they had hoped to seize control of the Infinite Realms for themselves. She had hoped to find a willing candidate but she had promised that if she couldn't find anyone she would be the one to do it.

At first it had seemed like a burden but as her child (yes her child) began to grow she could only see motherhood as a blessing. And with Danny by her side she felt safe. It might have also been because Danny had taken her to his original dimension where superheroes and villains weren't so common. Her mother also talked her into having two of her sisters guard her during her pregnancy. He also had her stay in his living realm home which has a security system that could rival the Watchtowers.

She kept in contact with her team and Danny helped them come to his dimension to throw a baby shower. She was extremely grateful to his family for accepting her.

Thankfully there were no complications with her pregnancy but the same couldn't be said with her relationship with Danny. At first he was extremely overprotective of her and Danielle but after a stern talking to and the threat of a beating he has never experienced he backed off. Then there were the weird but not unwelcomed intimate moments between them. He always asked if he could touch her stomach, which more often than not led to them smiling at each other, then came foot and back massages, then the slow nights snuggling together.

Those moments kept happening until the end of her pregnancy. Now she didn't know what to think.

Then came her daughter Danielle Jasmine Fenton-Prince. She had kept Danny's eyes and nose, but everything else she got from her mother. She is the most adorable little girl and everyone in the League loves her.

Then came the discussion on whether she should live in her father's or mother's dimension. After a lot of fighting it was decided she would stay in her father's dimension because it was safer and according to Danny didn't have any speedsters the messes with time every other week. Diana will be knocking some speedsters head later.

Diana also got Danny to agree to let Danielle regularly visit Themyscira to learn about her people's culture and to train.

Diana really didn't want to leave her daughter in a different dimensions, even if she could visit anytime. But it is safer and her enemies would find it nigh impossible to get to her because Danielle's father is the Ghost King and he would deploy his entire forces on anyone who would hurt their daughter.

Diana really can't wait for the day that she and Danny could charge into battle with Danielle beside them.

[dyns33]

Flufftober 8 - Daredevil

Matt Murdock x Reader 

He was with a woman.

Again.

Well, it was perfectly normal for Matthew Murdock to be with a woman. The man was perfect. Charming, funny, smart and sexy.

If he had been rich, many would have already tried to hold him back, but he always found a way not to spend more than a week with the same woman.

Oh, he didn't hide that it wasn't serious. He never lied, never cheated, and never meant to hurt anyone.

However, he was doing a lot of harm to Y/N, laughing, drinking and touching the thigh of the woman he had joined at the bar.

The scene made Foggy sigh, while Karen gently patted Y/N's hand.

She could understand.

The only difference being that she had had a history with Matt Murdock, while nothing had ever happened between Y/N and him.

Nothing at all.

Maybe Matt had flirted with her a bit the first time they met, but flirting was perfectly natural with him. He was flirting with everyone, without even realizing it, seducing every poor soul he was talking to.

Very quickly, Y/N had become one of his closest friends. Someone with whom he felt comfortable, serene.

Without her asking anything, he had confessed to her that he was Daredevil after a few months.

           "I don't want you to worry, or get in trouble because of me. But you better be prepared, just in case. I'm still watching you from afar, or at least, listening. Don't worry. You, Karen and Foggy are my priority. My family. I don't want to lose you, and it almost ended badly when I kept this secret from them, so I'm telling you because I trust you."

           "... How do you fight so well while being blind ?"

           "It's complicated to explain."

But he explained to her, and he seemed terribly panicked when she felt a little betrayed because he could hear her heart, and read her body's reactions to know intimate things about her.

In front of his sad puppy face, as if his master was going to abandon him, she reassured him, saying that it was a lot to swallow, but that she would end up getting used to it, and that everything was fine between them.

This reassured him, his beautiful smile returning on his face.

Y/N was mostly ashamed thinking that Matt knew all along that she loved him, and that he never said anything.

But after a while, it seemed obvious that he didn't know anything. He really thought they were just friends. Maybe he even considered her a little sister.

This thought made Y/N want to jump off a cliff.

Because everyone around them knew she had feelings for him. Only Matt was... blind.

Foggy and Karen had tried to help her several times, by making hints, or by imagining ridiculous shots they had stolen from romantic movies.

Jessica had offered to come with her at a pub and drown her sorrows in alcohol, to forget this idiot.

Danny thought everything would end well one day.

Luke never gave his opinion, but he often gave her flowers or chocolates when they saw each other. When Y/N joked that Claire was going to end up being jealous, he admitted to her that she had given him the idea, to cheer up their friend.

Frank kept telling her that she could do better. And that he could go kick Red's ass if she asked him to.

They all kinda wanted to kick Matt's ass, especially when he was with a new girl, right in front of Y/N.

The video of his walk of shame as he returned from Miss Hulk's house had been hard to watch. There was always the memory of Elektra. And there were all the others.

But Y/N said nothing, remaining proud and strong, and above all happy, because she really adored Matt, and if they were just friends, it didn't matter. It was enough that he was part of her life.

If he didn't like her that way, fine. If he didn't want anything serious with anyone, that was his choice. She accepted it.

It was still hard.

Especially when it was Matt himself who guessed through his senses that something was wrong.

He then came towards her with a worried look, touching her shoulder or taking her in his arms, which didn't help Y/N at all.

           "Sweetheart, are you okay ?"

Too busy moping around, she hadn't noticed that he had abandoned the new girl to sit next to her. Foggy and Karen, the traitors, had left them alone.

           "Everything is fine." she whispered with a sad little smile, which he couldn't see. Anyway, he could hear very well and he knew she was lying.

           "Tell me."

           "It's nothing, really. You should go back your date."

           "Her ? No. You're more important, angel. Actually, if I was being perfectly honest..."

Matt stopped talking, grimacing. His red cheeks indicated that he had probably drunk a little too much, and even if he could still control himself using his ninja training, he might say or do stupid things because of the alcohol.

           "Yes ?" Y/N asked, curious, even if she was a little afraid of what he was about to reveal.

           "We're friends. Really good friends. And I don't want to lose you. I know honesty is important, and I've never lied to you, ever. But... I love you very much. Very, very much . For a long time. Except I'm an idiot, I have a complicated past, a complicated life, and every time I get too close to a woman, I ruin everything. So to keep you, I've never tried anything. I don't know if you would have wanted to anyway, I sometimes have trouble reading your reactions. Sorry, I just want you to know that you are important, I'm here to you, always."

Time stopped for a few moments. Matt doing his little puppy face again, waiting to know if Y/N was going to leave, or pretend he hadn't said anything and continue to be his friend even if he didn't deserve it.

Slowly, with some fear, she crossed the distance between them to kiss him. A quick, shy, uncertain kiss. A kiss she had been dreaming of for a long time.

           "... I really don't want to lose you." he repeated.

           "I'm not going anywhere."

           "I'm really not good at relationships. Even when I really try, it's a disaster. Foggy says I'm an emotionally constipated imbecile."

           "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think it's not just Foggy saying that."

Matt laughed then, relaxing a bit, stroking her hand.

At the bar, either the woman had seen them, or she had had enough of waiting, but she left, without him noticing. He also didn't seem to hear Karen and Foggy cheering from the pool table, saying it was about time for those two adorable fools to get a move.

It was a real surprise, but for once the immortal Iron Fist was right, everything was going to end well.

[redrobin-detective]

The 101 Deaths of Danny Phantom

AO3 link

One of the first things people learned about dealing with ghosts, other than not to try and date them, is to never asks about their death or obsessions. That doesn’t mean the citizens of Amity Park aren’t curious though, especially about their resident ghostly hero and the confusing and concerning comments he sometimes makes.

“Are you okay?” Phantom asked Maisie as she shook and tried to hold back tears after that car had almost slammed into her. She sometimes joked about getting hit crossing the street of her college campus to pay her obnoxious loans but it was another thing entirely to almost experience it herself. Maisie was nearly twenty, she shouldn’t be comforted by someone younger than her little step sister but here she was, shaking like a lead and leaning into Phantom’s comforting, chilly touch. 

“Sorry,” she stuttered, “thank you, I’m sorry I’m just-”

“Hey, it’s okay to be upset that was very scary. The thought of dying is very scary.” Through her adrenaline and her tears, she took in the ghost’s unnatural glow, his faded, barely visible appearance and the fact that he was floating a foot off the ground. Maisie knows this ghost, this boy, knows more than she ever could about death. 

“And getting run over by a car sure is a bad way to go,” the ghost kid chuckled awkwardly, taking his cold hand off her shoulder to scratch at the back of his neck. “You should see how my dad drives or my mom or my sister if she’s running late enough,” Phantom paused in thought. “No one in my family should have a license now that I think about it. Anyway,” he dismissed with a wave. 

“My sister and I were getting ready to head out to school and my dad was backing out of driveway too fast and didn’t see us and uh, luckily I got my sister out of the way in time haha,” Phantom trailed off awkwardly. Was it because of the uncomfortable conversation or because he noticed her dawning horror.

Her best friend ran the community college’s Phan club so Maisie was a member by default. Phantom’s death was sometimes talked about late at night, everything from wrongful murder to a freak accident. She never in her worst nightmares imagined being him being runover in front of his own house by parental ignorance. It was so normal, a quick mistake and a life lost.

“Oh my god,” he said with an adorable little green blush. “Why am I babbling about that? You almost got hit by a car, I’m probably retraumatizing you or something. I should probably go get the jerk who almost hit you,” he said before disappearing into thin air. 

“Tia is not going to believe this,” she whispered to no one. All she knew is that for the rest of her damned life she was going to look both ways when crossing the street. She’d seen first hand what a single moment of reckless driving could cause.

XxX

Matthew, not Matt or Matty or Hughie, Matthew shivered from the cold. He was only in his boxers with little Pacman on them. It had been fine when he’d gone to bed considering it was mid-August but Phantom and this stupid flaming mecha ghost had tussled outside the summer camp he was working at. He could see some of the kids snickering at his state of undress though he was just extremely glad they were alive enough to disrespect him like this.

“Oh man, I’m sorry,” the ghost kid said with big, sad eyes that looked so human despite the fact that they were literally glowing. He looked around at all the snow and ice left over from his fight. “Jeez you guys must be freezing, I wish I could warm you all up but all I can do is make things colder.”

“S’okay,” Matthew said through his chattering teeth. “Teaching the kids how to start a fire was supposed to be next week but we can get a jump on it.” That got a smile out of the ghost and within a half hour, the other counselors were distributing blankets and hot beverages to the kids clustered around multiple fires. They didn’t seem particularly upset by the potentially fatal attack, Matthew will breakdown about that at a later time when he was alone. For now, he just smiled as the children chattered happily with the ghost while he cleaned up as much of the damage as possible.

“So you spend all day fighting ghosts?” Zoe asked with stars in her eyes.

“A lot of the nights too,” Phantom nodded, “I do other stuff but yeah it seems ghost fighting takes up most of my time.”

“Where’d you learn those cool powers?” Zuri asked, miming a punch.

“Comes with being a ghost,” Phantom shrugged, “my ice powers came in later though so I still struggle a bit with them but I’m getting better every day.”

“Why ice though?” Morris said with his cocked curiously to the side. “I see some ghosts use fire or shadows, why do you have ice?”

“Ah that’s a little personal,” Phantom chuckled but his posture was easy despite the invasive question. “Specialty powers like my ice require special circumstances and a certain uh connection to the ghost. Someone like me couldn’t use fire or electricity or plants, ice is in my soul, it’s who I am.”

Matthew paused in drinking his lukewarm coffee as a horrible thought came to mind. He’s been an outdoorsman all his life, practically from the time he could walk. He’d been a deep woods camping guide for a decade before switching to working at summer camps. But the years working in the relative comfort of a stable camp didn’t erase his knowledge of how unforgiving and deadly the woods in the winter could be. A grown man, much less a young teen, would freeze to death in 20 minutes if it was cold enough. 

It made sense for ghosts to develop powers related to their deaths. Had Phantom been one of the dozens of unfortunate kids he read about every year who ran away in the middle of winter only to found later as a frozen corpse. He eyed the boy’s snow white hair and frigid aura he exuded with mournful trepidation. God, what a horrible way to die. 

“I’d get chilly with ice powers,” Tabby said with a shudder, she held out her cup of cocoa. “You want some of my cocoa to warm you up?”

“No thanks,” Phantom said with a soft smile that was warm despite everything. “The cold hasn’t bothered me for a while.”

XxX

Ghost attacks may be the norm but, if there was one good thing that came out of whole mess it was the fact that violent human crimes went down drastically. So when the rare murder did happen, the shock and fear rippled through the whole town. 

Stanford Newton had only been sheriff of Amity Park for eight months after the last guy had gone gray overnight and moved to Florida the next day. It was a daunting position but one he bore proudly. This wouldn’t be his first murder investigation having initially cut his teeth as a beat cop in Chicago but it would be the first in Amity. And it certainly was the first in which the dead served in an active capacity.

“Amanda Chastain, 27. Officially she was a waitress down at Spengler’s Diner but she’s been picked up for prostitution twice in the last year,” Stan said calmly, ignoring the cold, angry presence over his shoulder. “History of polysubstance abuse as well, not that either of those things mean she deserved this.” Used, beaten to death and then dumped in the trash like yesterday’s paper. 

He wondered if she’d come back a ghost or if she’d finally get some peace this world hadn’t offered her. “We don’t have many leads right now, I’m afraid. Acting illegally as they are, there’s not a lot of resources these poor girls have to turn to.”

“I’ll find them,” The Phantom said with blazing conviction, his voice thick and sharp as ice. “I’ll find and bring them to justice and make sure no one else is hurt again.”

“I believe you,” Stan nodded, shutting his notebook as he finally turned to face the teenage superhero haunting his town. He can’t say he liked what he saw. The Phantom looked even less human than usual, his aura flaring and flickering like the foggy mist before a heavy snowstorm. His unnatural green eyes glowered, painting his too young face in a terrifying light. 

The kid looked furious, clearly taking this death to heart. He’d read the Fenton’s memos about obsessions and such but this seemed beyond that. “But don’t hurt anyone to do it, or yourself while you’re at it.”

“I won’t, I’ll make sure they’ll face human justice and don’t worry,” Phantom gave a snarling smile. “No mortal can hurt me, not like this,” he growled causing the hairs on Stan’s arms and neck to stand on end. He flew off after that, presumably to track down Amanda’s killer.

“Not like this,” Stan mumbled to him, pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his brow where a cold sweat had broken out. “Jesus Christ that poor kid.” Stan had seen plenty of murdered and mutilated bodies in his lifetime, some of them even kids. He just never got to talk to them after they’d had their life forcibly snatched away. It would explain the ghost’s near fanatical determination to save others, why he took a stranger’s murder so personally. 

“I hope your own murderer is behind bars,” Stan said as he tucked his handkerchief back into his coat pocket. “Or even six feet under, for killing a good kid like you.” Stan made his way back to his squad car so he could head back to the station and move forward with the official investigation. But he’d eat his hat if there wasn’t a stammering lowlife there by tomorrow ready to turn themselves in.

 Maybe after all this was settled down, he’d delve into some of the cold cases stacked in the cellar. Maybe in there he’ll find a picture of a smiling, carefree teen who’d disappeared and returned with the power now to ensure no one else suffered as he had.

XxX

“Yes, I know about the Phantom,” Luis Oliveira will say to anyone who so much as brings up the ghost kid. Locals know better by now but the tourists eat it up every time. He twists his finely combed mustache and gestures to the floor where his audience is standing. “He died right there oh ten or eleven years ago.”

Luis has worked his way all across the the United States since he emigrated from Brazil in the 70s. He finally settled in Amity Park about twelve years ago. He’d never intended to stay in the small Midwest town but the fatal shooting of a young customer kept his little corner market open.

“He was a nice kid, always said hi to me and paid in exact change. Was big fan of the snacks I made, would stop by after school and take half my inventory. He had big brown eyes and a crooked nose,” Luis would smile at the memory before closing his eyes and frowning sadly. “One day, he came late. His teacher made him stay after to go over a failed test, I remember he complained. He was pulling out his money when robber burst in, demanding my money. I fumbled for the register key, dropped it. I bent down to grab it and I hear shots going off. Two over my head, another right into the boy’s throat.”

Luis will hear the sound of that sweet boy’s guttural choking sounds as he drowned in his own blood until the day he himself died. The robber left after the shot, Luis called the police and held the young man’s hand as he died. The would be thief were never found and Luis never did learn anything about the boy who’d died on his floor for getting hungry after school.

“As soon as I saw Phantom on the TV,” Luis would say, perking up after his moment of somber grief, “I knew it was that boy come back. Those kind eyes, I’d recognize them anywhere. He’s never come here but one day he will and I will be able to pass on my regret on not being able to save his life that day.”

XxX

“I think he killed himself,” Mikey whispered to Lester during lunch period, angling his voice low. “The jocks may love Phantom for his powers but I just know he was one of us, an unwanted nerd. I’ve seen him chatting up a ghost I’m pretty sure is Poindexter, Casper’s suicide kid. They’re probably bonding over their similar deaths and the circumstances that led to it.”

“That’s pretty dark,” Lester whispered back. “I also get unpopular vibes from him but I don’t think he’s the time do uh do that to himself; he’s too stubborn and protective. But I bet he was the victim of a prank gone wrong. Dash locked Fenton in the Janitor’s closet last Wednesday, he got out okay somehow but maybe something like that happened to Phantom. He always looks kind of annoyed at the A-listers, maybe they remind him of old bullies.”

“Nuh-uh,” Clara said, pushing up her glasses with her middle finger. “The ghost kid totally got electrocuted or something. He was fighting that weather ghost and he sent lightning bolts his way and Phantom flinched. He fought the Ghost King and yet a little electricity scares him? It might not’ve even been a lightning strike but something manmade like a machine backfiring or something.”

“Get real,” Mikey scoffed, sipping his milk with an eyeroll. “I’m sure we’d have heard about some poor kid getting zapped to death; this town isn’t that big.”

“We’d have heard about a suicide too,” Lester noted with a wry grin.

“Shut up Mr. I base my theories around Fenton who’s a known weirdo”.

XxX

“I’m telling you, the ghost kid died of some debilitating illness,” Abbie McMillian, retired school teacher and three year reigning champ at the Tristate area’s Daylily Competition. She sipped her tea and spoke with as much confidence as she had back in the day wrangling Amity’s impressionable youths. “The superhero thing is clear wish childhood fulfillment, a chance to live and be free like he never got to in life. You see how happy and carefree that young man looks while flying? Clearly he spent his formative years sick and weak.”

“No way,” Greta von Martin frowned as she aggressively stirred her own tea to show her displeasure. “I worked in a hospital for close to 30 years and I know what chronically sick kids look like and Phantom doesn’t fit the bill. I will agree he’s carefree when he’s not battling spooks but he acts like a stupid teen. I’m telling you, the boy got into his parent’s liquor cabinet or took a few too many of whatever pill was going around his school. Tragic but something that happens every day.”

“Greta, dearie,” Abbie said with a pinched frown. “We’ve been friends since grade school and I love you like a sister but you are wrong and until you admit it, I won’t share anymore of my recipes.”

“You’re just being stubborn because you can’t see what’s right in front of you even after working with kids half of your life, Abbie, love,” Greta sniffed. “And you can kiss my grandson’s help weeding you garden goodbye until you relent.”

XxX

Perhaps one of the most human traits is curiosity, especially about what comes after death. Now the good people of Amity Park know a great deal about the dead so the lives before is what attracts their attention and none so more than the ghost boy. Maybe it’s because he’s their hero or maybe it’s because he’s so young. Or perhaps it’s because Phantom is such a mess of contradictions that it’s very hard to guess how the unfortunate boy met his end. But everyone has their own theories, from the mundane to the fantastic, some with evidence backing them up and others pure poppycock. 

But for all their curiosity, as much as it burns them to know, they’ll never ask. They don’t want to risk the powerful ghost’s wrath but, moreover, it seemed in poor taste. The boy risked his afterlife to keep them safe, they couldn’t ask what traumatic and miserable circumstances had led to this point.

And besides, it was so much more fun to look up at ghostly figure as he sped through the skies and wonder.

[ectoentity]

Late Night Answers

Ectoberhaunt Day 5: Witching hour vs Twilight

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Rating: G

Characters: Danny Fenton, Kitty, Johnny 13

Tags: Witching hour, ghost culture?

Danny keeps waking up in the middle of the night. The same exact time every night. He decides to take a flight around town and runs into a couple ghosts who're willing to give him some answers.

Read on AO3 here.

Danny’s eyes opened. It was night. Above him, the stars on his ceiling gave off a dim glow. He was still wrapped in his blanket. There was no cold ache in his throat that would indicate his ghost sense had woken him up.

He glanced at his alarm clock. The red numbers read 3:00. Danny grumbled and turned on his side, away from the clock, and tried to go back to sleep. This was the third night this had happened. For the last two nights he’d woken up at exactly three in the morning for no reason. He’d tossed and turned in bed until around four.

This night apparently wasn’t much different. He laid in bed for about ten minutes, but his brain just kept going back to worries about the next day. It wasn’t restful at all. Danny sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes. If he was going to be awake for a while, he should at least do something useful.

In a flash of light Danny transformed. He flew through the wall into the chilly night air. He could feel the cold against his face, but it didn’t bother him like it would a normal human. There was no moon tonight - it had set before nightfall - but he could see perfectly well. Danny decided to head towards the city park. The night was fairly quiet. There were some cars on the roads, but not very many. Just a few night shift workers and late night travelers.

His ghost sense went off when he was halfway to the park. It felt familiar: kind of spiky but not painful or aggressive. Danny was slowly getting better at identifying ghosts based on how his ghost sense felt, but it was more of an art than a science. He had no idea who this could be. Who would be out at the park in the middle of the night and not causing havoc?

The sound reached him before he saw who it was. A motorcycle revved its engines, and someone shrieked in joy. It had to be Johnny, Shadow, and Kitty. Danny landed near the park fountain. They didn’t seem to be causing much trouble aside from being loud. He sat on the edge of the fountain and waited for them to come around again. It wasn’t long before Johnny’s ghostly bike flew in from the opposite area from where they’d left. As expected, Kitty was hugging Johnny as he did some spins that would have been dangerous if they’d still been alive. They rose up on the front wheel of the bike and spun three times before landing again. Then Johnny pulled into an empty parking spot in front of the fountain.

“Hey, kid,” Johnny called. “Surprised it took you so long to come out.”

Danny shrugged. “Didn’t seem like you were really causing trouble tonight.”

Behind Johnny, Kitty giggled. “You mean the last three nights?” she asked.

That got his attention. Danny floated up into a standing position, though his feet didn’t touch the ground. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What’ve you been doing?”

“Chill out, kid,” Johnny said. He got off his bike and offered his hand to Kitty. She grabbed it and jumped down from the bike. “We’ve just been riding around. Witching hour season, you know how it is."

Danny didn’t know exactly what Johnny meant, but he had a feeling it had to do with why he kept waking up. “I keep waking up at three,” he admitted, settling down to stand on the ground. “What’s that about?”

“How long’ve you been a ghost?” Kitty asked. “Or, whatever you are.”

Danny’s eyes flashed. “A little over a year.”

Kitty put a finger up to her chin. “And you didn’t notice last year? That’s a little weird, with how strong you are.”

“You guys kept me up almost every night for three months straight last year,” Danny grumbled. He was still a little bitter about that. It had ruined his grades. Now that he’d cemented his ownership of Amity Park, ghosts didn’t try to challenge him as much, but it had been a really awful for a while.

“Oh, right.” Kitty at least had the manners to look embarrassed. “Well, this time of night is when we’re more… present, I guess?” She looked at Johnny for confirmation, but he just shrugged. Kitty frowned and looked back at Danny. “The closer we get to Halloween, the more it affects us. I can be out of the Zone a little bit longer, Johnny and Shadow can ride faster, that sort of thing.”

On the one hand, Danny was glad to get some kind of answer for why he kept waking up. On the other… “So I’m gonna wake up in the middle of the night for no reason for a month?”

“Two months,” Johnny corrected. “Sorry, Phantom. It doesn’t just stop on November first.”

Danny sagged. He wiped a hand across his face in frustration. “Great. Thanks for telling me. I guess I could… get homework done,” he said weakly. It sounded like the worst possible thing to do in the middle of the night.

Johnny and Kitty stared at him and then burst out laughing. Danny glared until they quieted down enough to talk.

“Oh, Ancients, you’re such a goody-two-shoes,” Johnny snorted. “That’s awful. No, kid, this is ghost time. You can’t do lame shit like homework.”

“What do you want to do?” Kitty asked. “Really? Do you wanna do homework, or… I dunno, fight people? What do you even do when you’re having fun as a ghost?”

Danny frowned. “I don’t have fun as a ghost.” He gestured to his glowing, jumpsuit-clad form. “I’m only like this when I have to fight ghosts.”

The ghosts shared a glance before looking back at Danny. “That’s really sad, kid,” Kitty said. She brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear. “Do you even know what you’re like as a ghost?”

He blinked at her. “I mean… I’m me? I’m more, uh. Protective of stuff.” He blushed green and looked away. He didn’t really like thinking about all the weird ghost instincts that had popped up over the last year. It made him worry about being less human.

Johnny snorted. “No shit. You spent the last year beating the crap out of anyone who laid a foot in your territory.” Kitty elbowed him in the gut.

“Come on, Johnny, he was just a mote. We weren’t too chill for a few years, either.”

“Ow! Babe, we weren’t… you know!” Johnny waved at Danny, indicating his whole self. Danny raised an eyebrow.

“You did kind of try to take over my sister’s body and then possessed one of my classmates,” he reminded her.

Kitty rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but that was before I knew you were just a kid. Like, really a kid. Most ghosts don’t get near as strong as you in their first year, you know. We both thought you were super old but just acted like you were a kid.”

“Even though my human form looks just like me?” Danny asked, crossing his arms.

“Yeah?” Kitty said with a shrug. “Look, the only other one like you we’d heard about was the old guy. He’s been the same age for like, fifteen years or whatever. Why would we think you were any different?”

A lot of questions crossed Danny’s mind. Did that mean Vlad stopped aging? He knew the fruitloop looked weirdly young, even though he had grey hair, but he figured that was botox or something. Did that mean Danny was going to stop aging in a couple years? He was pretty sure he had grown some in the last year, but what if-

No, he had immediate things to deal with. These two probably didn’t know any of the answers to those questions.

“Okay, so, let me get this straight,” Danny said, “Witching hour is for doing ghost stuff. And I’m supposed to figure out what I like to do as a ghost, so I can do it for a couple months.”

“I guess?” Johnny said with a frown. “Not like we had to figure that out.”

Danny picked up his feet so he was hovering a couple feet above the ground in a seated position, one leg dangling and the other hiked up so his knee was in front of his torso. “I guess I like flying? It’s pretty nice. I can go over a hundred miles an hour.”

“Yeah, we can tell,” Kitty said, a hint of a laugh in her voice. She picked up her legs too so she hovered in a cross-legged position in front of him. “That’s not really a you thing, though, is it? Most ghosts like flying.”

“I still prefer the bike,” Johnny said.

“Objection noted, sweet heart,” Kitty teased. “You like protecting the town, right? Maybe you should fly around to make sure it’s okay?”

It wasn’t a bad idea, but something about it felt sour. “I do that all evening anyway,” Danny grumbled. “It’s not like I hate it, I just… It’s not fun.”

Kitty hummed. Danny was very glad she didn’t poke at that. Fighting ghosts could be fun sometimes, but mostly it was something he felt driven to do. He didn’t enjoy it like he would playing a game, or watching a meteor shower, or…

His eyes lit up. “There’s two meteor showers this month,” he said, remembering it suddenly. “The Draconids are in just a couple of days, and then the Orionids near the end of the month.”

“That’s like shooting stars, right?” Kitty asked.

“Exactly. It's rocks from space burning up in the atmosphere,” Danny said, a smile spreading across his face. Why hadn’t he thought about this before? He could get up above the clouds, away from the light pollution. “I bet I could get the best view in town now.”

“Of course he’s a nerd,” Johnny grumbled. Kitty shushed him.

“That sounds like a great thing to enjoy,” Kitty said to Danny. “Wanna ride with us one day and get out of town? Away from the lights?”

Danny hesitated. “You’d be okay with that?” He glanced from her to Johnny. Kitty seemed friendly enough when they weren’t fighting, but Johnny was the one who drove the bike.

Johnny frowned for a moment. He looked back at his bike. Danny could practically see the gears turning in his head. Finally Johnny turned back to Danny and said, “If it gets us out of this dump, yeah, we’ll take you stargazing.”

Before he knew what he was doing, Danny was hugging Johnny. “Holy shit thank you I haven’t gone in years I won’t let you regret it.”

After a few moments had passed, Johnny gently put his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “H-hey, it’s no big deal, kid.”

Far in the distance, a church bell rang.

“Well, that’s our cue,” Kitty said. “Same time tomorrow?”

Danny straightened up, a little embarrassed that he’d just hugged Johnny of all people. “Yeah. See you then.”

When he made it back to his bed, he fell asleep instantly.

[sansxfuckyou]

No one touches my sisters

(I dont remember who said they wanted a PowerPuff Girls Danny Phantom crossover, but ask and ye shall receive)

I heard a scream ring out, I tensed a bit as the sound pierced my soul, Bubble. I leapt to my feet, turning to ghost and dashing out the house, saying bye to dad on my way past the door before I launched into the sky. I looked across the cityscape from up in the sky, kind of peaceful, aside from the cloud of smoke, should probably check there first.

I rushed over as fast as I could before coming to a halt at a second scream, Blossom, someone is definitely getting a foot up their ass now. I came to a halt at the buildings, one or two of them collapsed and dust still clearing.

Bubbles, in a crater on the ground, struggling to her feet.

Blossom, slammed into a building that looked seconds away from breaking.

Buttercup, down and bleeding next to a mailbox that would do little to protect.

Who the fuck has the balls to mess with them?

I scanned the area for the person who did this, finding Skulker lowering to the ground and walking over to Bubbles with a knife in hand, I threw down a blast of ectoplasm grabbing his attention.

"Ah, ghost child," Skulker said as I lowered to the crater beside Bubbles who had an indent in her head, blood trickling down from her temple. "I see you really do care about your pitiful siblings, I thought you died off after your family abandoned you to rot in Townsville."

"Shut up! They didn't abandon me for no reason," I shouted out in my defense. "I lost control and they left me here so I wouldn't hurt anyone I care about."

"That you don't care about? So your three sisters mean nothing to you now?" Skulker questioned with a smirk on his suits face, I, I mean, I do care about the three of them, they took me to their home, they let me stay, they are my family now.

"Yes, I mean no! I don't know!" I shouted, everything starting to bubble up and flood my systems, pain, regret, anger, sadness, grief, vengence, everything.

Why can't my emotions just shut up for once?!

They don't control me anymore!

"Looks like someone is a little bit confused." Skulker said in almost a singsong tone.

"Shut up! I don't want to hurt you!" I shouted at him, he only chuckled, like I didn't mean what I said, but I don't want to hurt him, I don't want to hurt anyone anymore.

"Sure you don't." Skulker said as he stepped closer, I inched back, going to a defensive stance, I can't let my sisters get hurt.

"Just shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

I heard hissing, anger boiling over, vengence spilling past the pot second, grief coming in third.

I lurched forward, no, no, no, not now!

I can't just let this happen again, I worked so hard for this, and I lose myself!

I'm weak!

A failure!

A disgrace!

"Bro!" Buttercup shouted, I snapped up, citrus taste in my mouth and green stains on my outfit, Bubbles had gauze on her head, Buttercup with a gauze wrap on her right leg and Blossom had a sling for her arm.

"What did I do?" I asked desperately, dad walking in with a small tray of food and drinks, he placed the drinks on the side table.

"Tore that bastard limb from limb and ate the little blob inside." Buttercup said, Blossom smacking the back of her head.

"Don't use that language." Blossom scolded, I guess I really did stoop to that again, I told myself I wouldn't, and I failed.

"Sorry if I hurt any of you, I kind of lost my cool." I said almost sheepishly as I reached for a cup of water, bloody gauze wrapped around my forearm, guess I got a little bit dented during the fight.

"You didn't hurt us at all Danny, in fact, you actually managed to pull Blossom from the building before the tower collapsed on her." Bubbles said, how does she stay so precious, her brother just went berserk and committed cannibalism.

"Guess I knew what to do despite everything." I said with a light sigh before taking a sip of water.

"Thanks for saving us bro, we could just barely land a punch on that guy." Buttercup claimed with a huff.

"Least I can do for you, considering how accepting you've been of me."

[pucksnsticksnhockeyboys]

reputations

summary: you’re criminally good, and Matt can’t help but fall in love with you.

warnings: mentions of alcohol

word count: 3.7k

note from the writer: I really wrote this in one night, immediately after posting my last Matt fic. I might have a problem. lmk what you think!

part two

Matthew knew he was no angel. If it wasn’t the opposing players he pested on a daily basis, it was the media that told him so. Most of the time, he didn’t mind. Fights, penalties, and suspensions—he couldn’t help but agree that he was a pest on the ice. He knew he deserved some of the shit he got, but he was getting better and growing as a player.

But sometimes he wished he had a better reputation.

“Matt, your girlfriend is outside.” His brother’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Matt hated that he knew who Brady was talking about. Despite the fact that it had been seemingly forever since he was in an actual relationship, Brady’s tease made perfect sense to the entire Tkachuk family.

“Shut up.” Matt shot back, because he couldn’t argue, and he was too busy getting up off the couch and heading outside to listen to the jabs his brother was throwing at him. He was too far gone and had long since admitted that to himself.

The summer sun beat down on him the moment he stepped into the backyard, and he took a moment to squint his eyes to adjust before heading over to the fence separating his backyard from the one next door. Brady had been telling the truth, the one girl he couldn’t get off his mind since middle school was outside and the wide smile that grew on his face was one he couldn’t help.

You were as good as they came. Weekends spent volunteering at animal shelters, tutoring, helping the older couples in the neighborhood with yard work and other chores. He was pretty sure the moment he decided he wanted to marry you was when you had shown up to Taryn’s first varsity field hockey game with a giant sign saying something about how she would kill it just because you knew it would make her laugh.

Matt nearly tripped when he spotted you on the other side of the fence. You were suntanning in nothing more than a bikini, laying on a towel in the grass in your own backyard. For what seemed like the millionth time in his lifetime, Matt thanked whatever higher power that was up there that his family moved into the house next to yours all those years ago.

For a second, he stayed quiet, just admiring how good you looked. Sunglasses were perched on your nose as you laid on your back, arms tucked behind your head. Your music was playing softly from the speaker laying in the grass a few feet away and you were humming along quietly. He couldn’t stop the smile that grew on his face as he studied you, resting his forearms along the top of the fence with his chin tucked on top of his hands. He knew he needed to make his presence known, figuring he wouldn’t be able to explain why he kept quiet and watched you tan without sounding like a creep.

“I’ve been home for two days and you haven’t come see me yet?” He teased, his grin growing two sizes when he spotted how you lit up at the sound of his voice. Your smile was infectious, and it was the only thing keeping his gaze north of your chest as you sat up on the towel.

“Matty!” You cheered, pushing your sunglasses to the top of your head. You were the only person that Matt allowed to call him that, and he was certain that if his teammates ever found that out they would never let him hear the end of it. You stood up, making your way towards Matt and he could feel his heart pounding faster in his chest as you got closer. It was a miracle you hadn’t managed to kill him yet.

“How’ve you been?” Matt found himself asking, though the question felt a little pointless. He knew how you had been, you texted daily and even the stuff you didn’t tell him—which was a rare occurrence—he found out from his siblings.

“Oh, you know. Same old, same old.” You said boredly, waving a hand dismissively. Matt knew that wasn’t true, he could see the smile you were suppressing. Plus, all of his conversations with you as of late had been about one thing.

“Congrats on graduating, by the way.” Matt wasn’t sure it was possible, but your smile widened as he spoke. You looked happy, but that didn’t stop the feeling of guilt that was bubbling inside him. “Sorry I couldn’t make it.”

“Don’t worry about it.” You squeezed his forearm from where it was resting on the fence, and it took all of Matt’s willpower to not melt under your touch. “You were busy chasing the cup, and I know for a fact that you’ll win it for me next time.”

And then you jokingly winked at him, and suddenly Matt forgot how to breathe. He knew you were teasing, but the fact of the matter was that he knew if he was going to win the cup for anyone besides his parents, it was you.

“And besides, you’re coming to my grad party, right? I need someone there to save me from my relatives asking about where I’m working in the fall.” You continued, and for the second time in ten minutes Matt had been interrupted from his thoughts.

“You don’t already have seven jobs lined up?” Matt teased you. For as long as he could remember, you were always ten steps ahead of everyone. He distinctly remembers you stressing out at eleven years old because you got a seventy-five on a test and thought it would go on your permanent record and you wouldn’t get accepted into college.

“Shut up.” You rolled your eyes, nudging his arm playfully as the both of you chuckled. Matt felt a bit repetitive, thinking about how beautiful you were. He was sure he looked like a lovestruck idiot, but he couldn’t help himself. His self-control was low to begin with, but throw you into the mix and he was absolutely done for. “I’ve applied to a few places, interviewed at some. I’ve got my eye on one place, though.”

“Any places I know?” Matt was a little caught off guard since he hadn’t heard about you applying. He knew you were looking into some places, some in St. Louis and some out of state, but he didn’t realize you started taking the next step. A nervous look flashed in your eyes, and Matt wondered what could have prompted it, but as soon as it was there, it was gone, and you were back to smiling brightly at him.

“And ruin the surprise when I finally land one of the jobs? Not a chance, Hotshot.” You teased with a shake of your head. Matt knew you like the back of his hand. He knew how you liked your coffee and that you hated when he got into fights. He knew that you were a romantic and that you were a little self conscious about your laugh because when you were fifteen and Danny Baker from three streets up told you he thought it was weird. That was the closest he ever got to punching someone off of the ice—and sometimes he still thought about giving the guy a piece of his mind.

And he knew that the nickname ‘Hotshot’ was your way of trying to deflect, and he knew enough to drop the subject. Not that he had a choice, really, because your phone started buzzing from where you left it on your towel. When you bent down to pick it up, he busied himself by admiring the flowers he knew you helped your mom plant instead of blatantly checking out your ass.

“Hey. Matty, I’ve got to go. Mrs. Henderson asked if I could help her with the bake sale for her son’s soccer team.” You spoke up after checking your phone. Matt couldn’t help the way his heart flipped at the fact that you were still volunteering for families around the neighborhood. The only time he could remember actually volunteering, not including Flames events, was when he needed to fill his high school requirement to graduate.

God, you were too good for him.

“Yeah, I’ll see you at the party tomorrow.” He waved as you retreated into your house. He watched as you left, only pushing off the fence and heading back into his own once you shut your back door. He made his way into the kitchen, finding his whole family already in there and looking at him with smug grins. Matt just knew they had been watching his entire interaction with you out of the kitchen window.

Brady was the first to speak up, making obnoxious kissing noises while Taryn started saying your name in increasingly higher pitched voices trying to mock how gone he was for you. He rolled his eyes at his sister, but that didn’t stop him from putting Brady into a headlock.

“If you boys break something…” His mom trailed off, giving her boys a pointed look over the glass of water she was sipping on. The empty threat was enough to get Matt to let go of his brother, but not before messing up his hair for that extra bit of pettiness.

“Leave Matt alone, he’s in love.” His dad teased, looking much too proud of himself at his comment for Matt’s liking. He groaned, dropping his back to further prove his annoyance before he grabbed a drink out of the fridge and left the room.

He still couldn’t argue his family’s comments.

Matt didn’t see you again until it was time to head over for your graduation party, and it took everything in him to not stop dead in his tracks when he spotted you across the yard. You were talking to a few of your extended family members, he was sure he had met them once or twice over the years, and you looked effortlessly stunning. You were wearing a new sundress, he was certain of that because if you had worn it before he would have remembered, what with the way it made your legs look, especially paired with what he knew were your favorite pair of wedges.

Brady knocked into his shoulder, sending him a smirk before slipping off to find a drink. Matt rolled his eyes at his brother, letting his attention fall back to you. His breath hitched as you turned to face him, and he wondered if you felt the weight of his stare. He didn’t have much time to ponder, though, because he recognized the look in your eyes. It was the one that told him those were the family members you told him you’d need rescuing from.

He crossed the lawn quickly, smiling warmly at your mom when she called his name and waved. He’d greet her properly later, you were his current priority. You were his priority all the time, if he was being honest with himself.

“Hey, Matty.” You smiled and as soon as he got close enough your arm slid around his back. He copied your action, his hand settling a respectable distance up on your waist. Before he could stop himself, he pressed a kiss to the side of your head, even though he probably shouldn’t be so blatant in his affection in front of distant family.

“Is this a boyfriend?” Your—great aunt?—questioned. Matt felt his face flush at the idea, he spent the better part of his adolescence imagining what it would be like to call you his. But he never could get himself to make a move. Too nervous to lose you and too worried about what moving away would do to your relationship—if it even got that far.

And then there was the problem of his reputation.

He had grown up watching you do all these amazing things for your education and to help other people. You always had a smile on your face and cried for an hour at the ending of Marley and Me. You even volunteered to help move Brady to Boston when he left to go play hockey there.

He pushed around six ounces of vulcanized rubber on ice. In his mind, he didn’t measure up to you in the slightest. As much as he wanted you, he felt as if he didn’t deserve you.

“No, this is just Matt, he lives next door.” You explained sweetly and Matt forced a smile on his face as he shook hands with your relatives. He hated how terrible your words sounded to his ears, how he was ‘Just Matt’ to you.

“Hey, Taryn said she needs to talk to you, it’s urgent.” Matt lied after a few moments of watching you squirm under the interrogation your relatives were putting you through. From the mischievous look in your eyes he could tell you knew what he was doing. You politely told your relatives that you would see them later, and Matt’s heart jumped in his chest as you slipped your hand into his to pull him away.

“Thank you.” You said to him under your breath, giving his hand a squeeze before dropping it as you reached the drink coolers. Matt grinned at you, watching as you pulled out two beers for the both of you. “They hit me with questions about my love life, job prospects, and whether or not I’ll be moving out of my parent’s house before you arrived.”

“Sorry I didn’t get there sooner.” Matt teased, taking a sip out of his bottle while watching you shudder playfully. He tried to ignore the green monster that settled in his stomach at the thought of you having a love life, no matter how selfish it sounded. Instead, he focused on the way you smiled at him, and how warmly you interacted with his mom when she came over to give you a celebratory hug.

Seeing you laughing with his mom was doing nothing for the feelings he had harboured for you.

By the time darkness started to settle on the party, the majority of the guests had left. Besides your parents, him and his siblings, and a few of your cousins that were spending the night, your backyard was empty. Your dad had started a campfire so everyone could make s’mores, and you seemed to think it was the best part of the day. You were probably feeling the effects of the beers you had been sipping on, though you only had one or two, and tried to feed Matt a s’more, giggling uncontrollably when you got marshmallow in the scruff of his beard.  

He just about died when you flicked your finger across his chin to collect the marshmallow, absentmindedly licking it off as you laughed at something Taryn said. His gaze zeroed in on your finger, and the fact that you had no idea the effect that you had on him was dizzying.

“Get a room.” Brady groaned, though he had been sitting next to Matt and spoke low enough that the parents sitting on the opposite side of the fire didn’t hear. Matt was also lucky that you didn’t hear, distracted by your phone ringing. He glanced at the screen out of habit and a little bit of nosiness, seeing that it was a number you didn’t have saved to your contacts before you jumped to your feet and retreated inside to take the call.

If he had been looking a little closer, he would have recognized that the number had an area code for Calgary.

You had been gone for a few minutes and Matt was starting to get restless. Your mom came out of the house and handed him two popsicles, one for him and one for you, so he figured you were coming back soon.

You did, and you were wearing a wide grin that made him curious. You didn’t say anything, instead you took one of the popsicles and slipped your hand into his now free one, tugging lightly to signal for him to stand up. Once more, you led him across the lawn, only this time you went around the house to the front yard, away from the prying eyes of both your families.

“What’s up?” Matt questioned as soon as you came to a stop in front of him. You were grinning up at him, and he could tell from the look in your eyes that you had news to share.

“I got a job. My top choice one, actually.” You stated as if it was something boring, like the weather. Matt beamed at you, the feeling of pride he had in you coming to the surface the same way it did whenever you accomplished something you wanted.

He wrapped you in his arms almost instantly, careful not to knock your popsicle out of your hand or get his in your hair. He held you tight to his chest, never wanting to let you go.

“Where is it?” He asked after letting you go. Your smile grew wider as he looked at you, and he raised a brow as you hesitated. The longer you stayed quiet, the more he started to panic. He knew it was selfish, but he didn’t want you to leave St. Louis. The best part of coming home during breaks or playing the Blues on their ice was the fact that he would get to see you.

“Calgary. Surprise?” You chuckled nervously, but Matt felt like he had just been told the best news. After years apart for college and hockey, you finally would be close to him again. He was ecstatic, and couldn’t help himself before pulling you into another hug,

“Surprise is right.” He teased as soon as he moved back, though he couldn’t get himself to go far. He was practically buzzing with excitement and the closer he was to you the better he felt. You were grinning, shifting from foot to foot and that simple action told Matt that you were anxious about something.

“But I have one more thing to share.” You said, and that worried Matt once more because he could hear the nervousness in your tone. Matt nodded, unable to get himself to form words in response and instead let his mind run wild with all the ideas about what it could be. “Matt, I, uh, well, I’ve had feelings for you for a while, and I think you feel the same, well at least I hope you do, and I was kind of hoping that we could start something now that we’ll be living in the same place.”

Matt felt like passing out. Out of all the dozens of things you could have said, that was not one of them. He watched, wordlessly, as you licked the popsicle out of nerves and the need to busy yourself somehow while he stayed quiet after your confession. That seemed to spur him on, though, because he used his free hand to cup your jaw as his lips landed on yours.

You tasted like grape popsicle and chocolate, and though it was an odd combination he decided it was the best thing he’d ever had. He briefly registered that the popsicles slipped from both your hands as you gripped each other, and he knew that he’d have to pick them up after because you had drilled into him the importance of keeping the Earth clean when you were in eighth grade and went through a sustainability kick.

It was that thought that had him stilling. He couldn’t do this to you, not when you were so good and not when he was in the press every other week for being the very opposite. You deserved better than him, a philanthropist that donated all their time and money to children’s hospitals—the charity he knew you volunteered at, at least three times a year.

You were too good for him.

“Is something wrong?” You questioned him, dropping from your tip-toes back to your flat feet, putting some distance between you and him. It wasn’t enough to defog Matt’s head but he was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen for weeks, not with the way his entire body felt on fire from just your one kiss.

“I can’t do this… I can’t do this to you.” Matt settled, though he hated the way he sounded so unsure of himself and he hated the very fact that he even had to say it. He hated that you felt the same way he did but he couldn’t do a thing about it because he had always put you before himself. But most of all, he hated how your face fell and your eyes started to get glassy.

“Do you not like me?” You questioned and if Matt wasn’t so defeated by the whole situation he would have laughed. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t like you, you plagued his thoughts on a daily basis and he had a framed photo of you and him from his first game in Calgary in his apartment that earned him so many chirps from his teammates. But you looked so proud of him, and you were wearing his jersey, so no matter what the boys said he kept it up—the photo was his most prized possession.

“No, that’s not it. That’s not it at all.” He told you, and somehow your face fell even more. Even when you were so clearly upset, the way your brows tugged together in confusion and the slight pout to your lips was devastatingly attractive to Matt.

“Then what is it?” Your question sounded so tired, so weak, that Matt wished he had never followed you out front and never put your friendship in the position it was. But it was too late now, he couldn’t back out now and he had to stick to his guns. He took in a shuddering breath, one hand tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear before he said what he felt he had to.

“I want you to be happy, and you can’t be happy with me. I’m not good for you.”

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Whumptober 30 + 31: Internal Injury and Left for Dead

CW: Blood, just like a whole lot of violence, organ removal, more than mild arson, whumper turned whumpee, character death, dissoci@tion, mild vampirism, some brief threatening pet whump and dehumanization + a noncon reference

TIMELINE: Begins immediately following Possession, end of the Bad Arc. One year after Danny is abducted for a second time.

Nate tastes blood on his tongue, thick in his mouth, but he’s tasted blood before. Bram’s skin is cold but it is always cold, and his panting breaths are heavy against Nate’s ear but he knows Bram’s breathing better than almost anything else, better than he knows anyone’s breathing but Danny’s.

Abraham Denner has been breathing in Nate’s ear, down his spine, inside his mind for seven very long years, and Nate is about to ensure he can never do it again.

Bram groans in pain, like so many other sounds he’s made against Nate’s ear before, whispering, I love you, you’re mine as Nate cried and fought and screamed and didn’t cry and moaned and gave in to him, to his eyes and his love, again and again and again-

Nate pulls back, his teeth and tongue black and red, blood smeared thick like oil around his lips and down his chin, and Bram’s eyes meet his, wide with rage. 

Nate isn’t scared of Bram any longer.

His wrists burn from tearing free of the ropes, the scent of new and old blood is thick in the air around them. His hands close around Bram’s neck, a collar of skin, and he closes his grip slippery-red, thumbs pressing down on the windpipe of a man who will not die from this, because he already died centuries ago.

Ryan is in his mind and in his hands, guiding their strength, Ryan is darkness and white teeth sharpened to points. Ryan is glowing yellow eyes that stare out from Nate’s own. He is not alone inside himself, and they are the same, and if Danny is dead then Nate will make sure Bram follows him-

He’s not dead, Ryan’s voice whispers inside of him, and Nate bears his thumbs down harder just to hear Bram’s gurgling, rasping chokes, to feel his hands press against Nate’s bare chest and then claw there, digging in but Ryan is between Nate and the pain, pressing up against his skin, a barrier between Nate and true sensation. He’s not dead. We can still save him.

Nathaniel Vandrum’s life has been narrowed, day by day, month by month, year by year. He spent years under Bram’s spell, eight months a hunted animal. He spent four years keeping Danny alive, he spent a year and a half helping him learn to be human again, spent a year watching Danny suffer from a place too far for him to follow.

He has spent a year watching Danny bleed, and scream, and cry, and slip away inside himself with only Ryan there to bring him back out.

He is tired of watching Danny suffer.

He is tired of this.

He is so fucking tired.

He feels no pain from his broken right hand - Ryan stands between him and the pain there, too. He can feel Ryan twisting inside him, pushing him to close his hands tighter around Bram’s neck, staring down into his eyes. The things that move there thrash with desperate desire to survive but Nate has no mercy left in him.

He should be horrified by someone else being inside his body with him but he can’t be, he can’t let it sink in that he is moving as two people working together inside one skin, or he’ll slip. It takes one mistake and Bram will have him again, and if Bram gets him again he’ll be done, he’ll die before he’ll hurt anyone, but Bram would make him hurt so many people.

“N-Nate-” Bram’s voice is husky, but the anger boils inside it, and he grabs Nate by the shoulders finally and throws him off. Nate slams to the ground on his side, groaning and moving to scramble to his feet just as Bram, blood still pouring in thick black waves from the wound Nate tore open, stands and kicks him hard.

Something snaps in Nate and Ryan isn’t fast enough to take the pain. There’s a burst of it, an ache that overrides him, and he’s still for too long. Only a second... but too long. 

Bram drags him to his knees by one arm and slaps him, his palm slamming into Nate’s cheek sending him back to the ground. Back up to slap him again, the other side. Kicked again and Nate coughs out air before he can find more to inhale.

Ryan is gone from inside him, collapsing onto the ground where he’d been standing before he stepped inside Nate’s skin, dark skin glowing faintly with the same yellow as his eyes.

Somewhere, Bram’s sister runs from her own mistakes, but Nate stares up as Bram walks towards him and thinks that Bram has never needed his sister to keep his puppies in line before, and he doesn’t need her now.

“You would… refuse the gift?” Bram’s voice is laced with his disbelief. He raises a hand to touch the uneven skin torn apart at one shoulder, looking at the blood there with something like wonder. “You’d try to kill me? After everything I did for you? After everything I gave you?”

“After-...” Nate coughs again, trying to get back on his feet, but as soon as he’s on all fours Bram kicks him again and sends him back down. His eyes move to Danny - limp on the ground, blood welling up around the blade buried in his back. Danny’s eyes are open, wide and so so blue.

So blue, and so empty.

Danny’s gone.

“No.” The voice is from Nate but it’s not his voice. It’s a whimper. A whine. Barely a protest.

Too late.

“I gave you the puppy,” Bram says, stepping between Nate and Danny, blocking him from the sight of the man he loves most in the world. The only thing left that he loves in the world. “Now I’ve taken the puppy away.”

Nate’s heart does not twist with fear. He doesn’t let himself grieve yet. Instead… he lets his head drop to the ground, into his arms, and he starts to weep. If the tears are anger, not sadness, Bram doesn’t notice. He chuckles, satisfied, and pulls Nate back onto his feet again. One hand gripped tightly around his arm, the other hand cups Nate’s cheek, gently pressing his jaw to tilt his head up, get him to look Bram in the eyes.

“I w-wanted to save him,” Nate whispers.

Too late, Vandrum. Always too late.

“I know,” Bram says with unnerving tenderness, and when he leans in to kiss Nate, the man doesn’t fight him. Bram’s lips are cold. 

He spent half a year, once, being the perfect lover. He can do it again, for just a few minutes. 

For long enough.

Bram licks his own blood off his lips when he pulls back, smiling now. There’s blackish red on his teeth, staining his pale pale skin. “You can’t save anyone, Nate,” Bram says, reaching up, running his fingers back through Nate’s hair. “You’re mine. Mine, forever. For the rest of fucking time, Nate, you’re mine. Mourn him if you want, but you were never meant for the puppy. You were meant for me.”

“Yes,” Nate says, and pitches his voice to be slightly faint and empty, the voice he used when Bram would wipe him away from himself. He looks into those colorless eyes and, like every day since Bram once forced a muzzle on Danny for months and nearly took him from Nate for good, he feels absolutely nothing.

“Bring Faerie Boy inside,” Bram commands with effortless certainty. “I know how to take care of his kind, too. Then we’ll decide what happens next.” Bram looks carelessly over at where Danny lays crumpled in the dirt. “Faerie Boy can bury the body.”

The body.

Nate has to steel himself with every ounce of willpower not to make a sound in response. He only nods and, making his expression blank, he limps over to Ryan, dragging Danny’s brother to his feet. Ryan’s skin feels like an open flame under his hand, far hotter than human skin ever should be, but the glow in his eyes is dulling. He’s too tired, too new at this. His strength is already waning, Nate thinks, he pushed himself too far.

“Danny’s n-not dead,” Ryan says in a croaking, cracking voice. “He’s, he’s not-”

“I know,” Nate responds, forcing him to move. He knows Danny is dead, though, and that this is just Ryan trying to convince him not to give up, give in, and let Bram rebuild his family - with his true love and his dog - with Ryan in Danny’s place. Bram is behind them, ensuring they go where into the house, and Nate half-drags Ryan up the steps. “T-trust me. I h-h-h… I’ve got a plan.”

Ryan laughs, dry and hopeless, but he allows himself to be moved. His neck is a ring of bright red agony, his wrists look the same. He’s skinny, after a year earning bites of food with obedience to torture, bony under Nate’s hands. His hair is dull and brittle, dried and tangled frizz instead of curls. “Sure… hope so.”

“When I m-m-move,” Nate whispers, barely loud enough for Ryan to possibly hear, just hoping he understands, “grab his l-l-legs to s-slow him down, and then c-c-come back… I’ll l-let you in.”

Nate deposits him on the floor next to the kitchen table without waiting for a response, letting him drop more roughly than necessary, pretending he is still in thrall as he pulls out a chair and sits. 

He’s going to have one chance at this.

Bram pulls out a chair and sits across from him, giving Nate a smile. Brilliant, and shining, and loving, even as the love of Nate’s life is bleeding to death in the front yard. Nate might not be able to save Danny, now - but he can save Ryan, he thinks.

He hopes it’s enough for wherever Danny will be after he’s gone.

He hopes it will somehow settle Danny’s soul, to know Nate gave everything to save his little brother, after watching Danny break himself again and again to hold Ryan together.

If we’re damned for loving each other like they told me, Nate thinks with an all-consuming grief and conviction, I’ll see you in hell soon enough.

“We’ll have to go somewhere new,” Bram says, gripping Ryan by the hair, jerking him backwards. Ryan bares his sharp, inhuman teeth, and Bram snorts, ramming his head directly into the edge of the table, making Ryan cry out and slump.

Nate doesn’t flinch.

“I’ll dedicate you. Make you one of us. I’ll finish the dedication and then you’ll understand.” Bram’s hand is still gripped in Ryan’s hair, tightening on the curls until he hisses in pain, but it’s a faint and faded sound. “We’ll take the puppy with us and go find my sister. You know I never like to leave a puppy, Nate.”

Those eyes are back on his, and Nate gives Bram a slight smile - as if pulled out of him unwillingly, as if he’s falling into the depths of his eyes all over again. As if, without Danny to fight for, he has no fight left.

Danny might be dead - Nate’s mind skips from that truth, runs from it as fast as it can, circles around it endlessly - but Ryan isn’t. Danny would want his brother saved, and Nate… 

He can do this.

He has to do this.

“Y-yes, Bram,” Nate says, soft and as empty as Danny’s open eyes. “I c-can help t-t-take care of Faerie B-Boy.”

At his feet, Ryan lets out a choked-off sob. Whether he’s only playing the part, or drifting into pure hopelessness, Nate isn’t sure. He can’t risk a look, can’t risk giving anything away for a second. Instead, he moves to lay his hand over Bram’s on top of Ryan’s head. Bram’s hand is cold under his.

Danny’s hands get cold, too, his long fingers feel like ice sometimes in the morning when he wakes Nate with a hug. He pulls his hands into the sleeves of his sweaters, tugs them constantly down to cover the scars on the backs of his hands. His eyes are warmer than his hands can be, as Nate holds one of his hands in both of his, rubbing at them to warm up those cold fingers while Danny smiles-

Danny’s dead. You can save his brother. Focus.

“I l-love you,” Nate says, softly. He knows how to twist his tone just right, to make his voice foggy like the power of Bram’s eyes has once again papered over Nate’s will, his very self, to remake him in Bram’s image.

If there is a heaven, it will be Danny that I beg for forgiveness, not God.

“I love you, too.” Bram smiles, letting go of Ryan to hold Nate’s hand. Cold dead fingers. Nate forces his smile to widen, softens his expression. “My black-haired prince. Red got in our way. But it’s just us all over again, isn’t it? Just you and I.” He smirks, pale lips smeared with drying blood. “And the puppy.”

Nate nods, and pulls Bram’s hand up, to press a kiss to the back of it. Smooth, scarless.

Not the hand he wants to kiss at all.

“That’s why you had to watch it all, you know.” Bram sighs, content in this moment. There’s still blood running from the wound in his shoulder but he doesn’t seem to notice it, and the wound is closing before Nate’s eyes, skin knitting itself together. He won’t die, even if Nate kills him he won’t die. There’s only one way to be sure. Only one way to keep him from coming back.

“Wh-what? Why?” Nate tilts his head, closes his eyes so Bram won’t see he’s disgusted by his touch, plays it off as shivering desire, maybe. Somehow, somewhere back there, he gained the ability to hide some of his unhappiness from Abraham Denner.

They lost with their first attempt.

There’s only one more chance.

“So you would get used to it again.” Bram pulls his hand back and away, lays it palm-down against the back of Ryan’s neck, and Nate tries not to watch Ryan shiver where he kneels on the floor. Bram scratches his fingernails through the red, irritated skin, reopening old wounds from the iron collar. Ryan whimpers, whines with the pain, and Nate fights the memory of Danny’s scream behind his muzzle, jaw straining as the wire mesh cut in deeper and deeper. 

Bram took the muzzle off - the new one remade, but it might as well have been exactly the fucking same - before Ryan and Ora came out. It’s still out there, isn’t it? Lying in the dirt, bloodied. 

Nate almost loses his iron grip on his own emotions at the thought of Danny’s body in the dirt so close to the tool of torture that hurt him the worst. Not from grief, no - he still has that locked up inside his head, he will mourn Danny when he has saved Ryan, when it’s over, when it’s done. But the fury that comes with the realization that Danny’s eyes, still open and unblinking, will be staring right at the muzzle.

He catches himself. Holds the anger down. Gives Bram a soft, sweet, loving smile. “Used t-to it?”

“Right. Used to it, and… maybe a little bit appreciative.” Bram laughs, his high-pitched hyena’s laughter, smacking the wound he reopened on Ryan’s neck just to hear him cry. His eyes glow such a brilliant, bright yellow they turn nearly white, like staring into the sun - and then falter again, fade and go dull. 

He needs to be strong enough to do one more thing, and Nate isn’t sure if he will be. But he’s going to try, anyway.

“I’ll l-learn,” Nate promises, and runs his own hand through Ryan’s dirty, greasy curls, catching in the tangles. He looks down, cold green eyes locking on Ryan’s dulled yellow, back to the color of old, cloudy honey, and uses his good left hand to tilt his chin up, rubbing his thumb over his lower lip. “You’ll b-b-be good for m-me, puppy, won’t you?”

Ryan’s eyes widen, just a little, flicker in the dim kitchen lit only by the light coming through the window over the sink, and through the open inside door. Outside the closed screen door, down the steps, fifteen feet away, Danny lies in the dirt. 

“Oh, that’s good,” Bram says, rubbing at Ryan’s back. “What do you say, Faerie Boy? Can you be as good between us as you’ve been for me so far?”

Ryan’s lip trembles under Nate’s thumb. Nate smiles at him, the same soft loving look he’s been giving Bram. He is the personification of what Bram can do. He is the perfect vision of Bram taking control and making him someone he’s not, as he did for years with power, manipulation, and threats. “Bram asked you a qu-... a question, p-puppy,” Nate whispers. “Wh-what’s the r-r-rule?”

Ryan’s eyes well with such human tears. “Al-... always answer Abraham’s questions, never hes… hesitate and neh-... never lie.”

“So wh-what’s your answer?”

Ryan looks up at him, pleading, but Nate keeps his eyes, his face perfectly steady. I’m sorry. Just a few more minutes...

“I...” Ryan’s voice catches. He’s exhausted, struggling to pull threads of himself together. Whatever it is Ryan is, whatever it is he can do, it takes too much out of him. “I c-can be good for you,” He whispers.

“B-B-Both of us?”

Ryan’s eyes close tightly. “Both of you.” He has to spit out the words.

“Good b-b-boy.” Another rub over his lower lip, his skin is rough and chapped against Nate’s thumb. “Do you w-w-want a d, a drink, Bram?” He raises his eyes, lets his hand drop, but not before he taps twice on the front of Ryan’s neck next to his Adam's apple, deliberately spaced apart to make it clear it’s a message. “I th-think I remember how you l-like it.”

Bram smiles, twists a curl around his finger, yanks on it until Ryan winces. “Sure. Whiskey sour. Red made sour mix, it’s in the fridge.” He sighs, mournfully. “I suppose Red won’t get to make me my drinks anymore. Pity, he was always better at it than Faerie Boy.”

Nate swallows. He won’t cry for Danny yet. 

Not yet.

He pushes himself to his feet, walking away and moving to the fridge. Slow footsteps, careful and solid. He feels strange, as though he’s far away from himself, watching his body go through these motions from a distance. Open the cupboards until he finds a glass, pull it down and add some ice cubes. Find the whiskey in a different cabinet, expensive small-batch distillery in Portland, he notes absently, pouring a shot, and then two, into the glass.

He pulls the sour mix, stored in a pitcher, out of the fridge and tries with every ounce of strength he has left not to think about how Danny’s fingers were the last to close around the handle, and now they never will again.

Not yet not yet not yet.

Cry when Ryan is safe. Until then, be for Ryan what Danny cannot be any longer. He owes Danny that much and more, he owes everything he could ever give. He pours in the sour mix, adds a cherry from a jar in the fridge. Picks a lemon up from a basket, staring down at it, and then his eyes move to the knife block, but he’s careful not to turn his head to make it obvious. 

One chance.

He picks up not the chef’s knife but the smaller, sharper paring knife, and he feels Bram’s eyes on his back as he cuts three identical lemon slices, struggling to do it gracefully with his broken hand throbbing again, fighting him with every step. He drops the lemon slices into the drink, gives the whole thing a quick stir. Closes his eyes and breathes.

I’m sorry, Danny.

He turns around and throws the drink in Bram’s face.

Ryan is moving before Nate has even finished his own motion and he grabs Bram around the legs as he starts to stand up, slamming the man into the ground as he’s knocked off balance, pale eyes widening in surprise as Nate falls on him with his teeth bared and the knife in his hand, bringing it down over Bram’s heart.

There’s resistance, and pain, and Nate doesn’t care about either anymore.

Ryan’s eyes flare, glowing brilliant with one last spark of energy, and the shadows press like velvet against Nate’s back, overtaking all the light but Ryan’s. The kitchen is pure and perfectly black as Nate feels Bram’s blood bubble up cold around the handle of the knife as he forces it down.

Cold hands grab onto his like a vice, and he opens his mouth to scream-

Let me in.

Ryan is in his skin in his heart in his head, pressing the knife down harder, dragging it back towards himself, cutting into Bram’s skin as he fights them but Ryan is stronger than Nate and the two men working in one body open the emptiness inside of Abraham Denner and Nate shoves his hand inside.

It’s cold, like everything about Bram is cold, and it has a little give under his fingers. He grips as tightly as his hand will allow and Ryan is gripping alongside him as they pull backwards. Bram screams, the first true scream Nate has ever heard from him, high-pitched. Windows crack around them as the scream carries on and on and on, Nate’s head is pounding but he can’t feel it. Ryan takes it for him, presses himself along the length of Nate’s body, underneath his skin, against his eardrums, layers himself over Nate’s mind.

He is protected.

He uses the blade of the paring knife to cut the veins and arteries. Cold black blood coats his hand as he pulls out Abraham’s Denner ancient heart.

The shadows recede - or Nate can see through them now, he doesn’t know, the whole world seems strange and disconnected from him - as he pushes himself to his feet.

Nate-

“It’s not d-d-done,” Nate says to the voice inside his head of his dead love’s little brother, and he turns, dragging one leg as he moves out into the sun outside.

Danny hasn’t moved, but Nate didn’t expect him to. 

Dead people usually don’t, unless they’re Bram or Ashley.

He is nothing but blood now, and the heart in his hands is still beating. Soft contractions of muscle with nothing to push through, no blood to rush through old veins. But still the heart beats. It’s not over.

There’s a burn pile over by a shed, covered with sticks and trash, and Nate walks to it with Ryan still inside him. The two of them look out of one set of eyes. 

Burn it?

“B-burn it,” Nate confirms in a fierce whisper.

There are no tears.

Not yet.

He lays the beating heart down in the burn pile and walks away from it, moving to a shed to open the door. He stares, blankly, at a skeleton that faces him against the back wall, rotted away by now. It’s been a year. Death is still in the air but neither of them can smell anything any longer but Bram’s blood. Nate ignores the skeleton and finds a can of gasoline - Bram is predictable, always predictable - and carries it back out to toss about a third of the can into the sticks, taking special care to ensure some of it splashes over the disembodied, beating heart.

Left here, Bram’s body would eventually reform and wake back up.

Like Ashley.

Nate will not lose anything else to them ever again.

“I’m not your b-b-black-haired p-prince,” He says to the heart, and lights a match.

The gasoline catches immediately, flames rising with the sharp pungent smell. Nate doesn’t wait - he picks the can up again, sloshes it around to see how much is left, and looks to the house. “Go s-s-say goodbye to your b-b-brother,” He says. “I’ll come, t-too, when this is o-over.”

Danny-

“Go s-say goodbye.”

Ryan is out of him in a flash, and Nate is oddly lonely inside his mind as he makes his methodical way back to the porch. Ryan kneels next to his brother, hands out but not quite touching, as Nate moves inside. He passes Abraham’s body without looking at it. He lets the gasoline trail - a little here and a little there, splashes on the curtains, splashes on the rug.

With his leg throbbing, he moves upstairs with gasoline trailing on the steps. He pours a little on the bed, staring at the bloodied ropes tied to the headboard a little too long. Outside, he starts to hear the crackle of the fire catching outside. Good. The heart will burn.

Just like his.

More gasoline for the curtains - he’s getting low, he needs to conserve. He has to be sur the whole house will burn.

Then he stops in front of a room with no door, a room he’s seen in Bram’s texted photos and videos, in a few of the livestreams he watched. He watched them all, desperate for clues. Danny and Ryan had managed to tear the paper that covered the window once and before Bram had cut the video, Nate had been able to pause - and see beyond the rolling fields to a water tower in the distance.

One of his first clues.

In this room there are manacles attached to the wall, a broken chain of iron on the floor, pools of drying blood. Nate pours a little gasoline into the pool, watching the change in texture as it thins and goes oddly shimmery.

In the closet, he finds half-drunk bottles of cheap high-proof alcohol. He lets the trail of gasoline lead to those too, and opens them all.

Done with his work, he drops the now-empty can and walks through the house, reeking of gasoline and blood, and goes downstairs and past Bram’s body one more time without looking down or looking back.

His heart beats steady and calm inside of him as he lights a match and lets it fall onto the porch, to find the first thin trail of liquid.

He stands long enough to watch the flames lick into the kitchen, over Bram’s body. He stares long enough to watch Bram’s long wavy pale hair begin to darken and curl. He watches the flames find their way from kitchen to living room. He watches the curtains burn.

Then he turns and walks down the steps.

His hands have started to shake.

Ryan, kneeling on the ground next to his brother with his wrist torn open and pouring blood, pressing it against Danny’s mouth, speaks to him but Nate doesn’t hear it, turning from Danny’s body - too late too late too late too late - and going back to the other fire, to see Bram’s heart burning, turning black. It will be ash soon, and nothing else.

Nate doesn’t cry, no.

Still, he doesn’t cry.

Not yet.

The wind blows warm over his face and Nate takes in a breath. The world is blood and smoke and his failure to save the most important person in his life. The world is the empty feeling underneath his skin. The world is the grief trying to claw it way back up his throat to make him scream-

“Nate!” Ryan’s voice is right next to his ear and he jumps as Ryan grabs at his arm, spinning him around. The yellow eyes are dull, shadowed, bereft of power - but they still dance. You can’t torture the beauty out of Ryan Michaelson.

You can’t kill the light inside him, or the things that live there.

He smells like green hills and a rainy season over waving grasslands. He carries the scent of a predator that hunts at dusk and at dark. Blood soaks the hills, pours down the river, threads into the homes of sleeping people at night.

He’s smiling.

“Nate, he’s not-... Nate, listen to me!”

Nate jerks back into himself, blinking rapidly as his strange disconnect ends. There is fire all around the two of them, and Nate realizes for the first time that the shed will burn, too. It’s already dangerously close to catching. The air is starting to heat around them. “What? Wh-what, Ryan, I-”

“Danny’s not dead! I-I can’t-... but he’s not dead! He’s still breathing! We still have time!”

In the distance, the first faint sound of sirens. Nate raises his head, staring. “Who c-c-called the c-cops?”

Ryan lets out a peal of wild, half-hysterical laughter, and the sound is beautiful. “Whoever saw that bigass cloud of fucking smoke, Nate! Someone’s-...” He swallows, suddenly, sways as his knees buckle, and Nate catches him, arms around him, keeping him upright. “Someone’s... coming for us. Someone’s coming to h-help, someone’s... someone’s coming...”

“Someone’s c-c-coming,” Nate agrees, softly.

Ryan turns to look at him, then slides his arms around Nate, hugging him, burying his head in the side of Nate’s neck.

“Someone fucking came,” He whispers. “And Danny’s not dead.”

Nate’s eyes move over to the tall, thin body sprawled out on the ground, and watches as empty blue eyes blink once, slowly move to meet his.

He’d seen emptiness and thought it was death, but it was someone else buying Danny - buying Nate - some time.

He gently pulls away from Ryan and moves to the muzzle, picking it up in one hand. Someone else is still watching him, blue eyes following his movements, and he holds it out. “Never ag-again,” He says, softly.

Someone else doesn’t move. Just keeps watching as Nate drags himself to the fire and throws the muzzle in.

But when he turn back again, tears are running down Danny’s face, his lips twisting with the agony, and he whimpers, “Nate, h-hurts-”

Nate and Ryan both run to him at once.

When the fire trucks arrive, they find the three of them together on the ground, Nate and Ryan each holding one of Danny’s hands.

---

@slytherynjolras, @whump-it, @bleeding-demon-teeth, @finder-of-rings, @burtlederp, @whumpywhumper, @18-toe-beans, @pumpkinthefangirl, @special-spicy-chicken, @swordkallya, @astrobly, @slaintetowhump, @moose-teeth, @untilthepainstarts, @whumpiary,  @lave-whump @raigash @cupcakes-and-pain

[whenwordsmakesense]

Day 4: Queer

@pridewrite2021 (I haven’t done day 3 because, man, angst is hard to write. But it will be up soon! I hope).

Anyways, here you can find my other two works that I have done for this lovely event!

Awakening

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Ship: Derek Hale × Stiles Stilinski

Words: 1.3k

Summary: Kid!Stiles realizing boys are equally as pretty as girls.

Read on AO3 or right here:

Warning: None.

>> Starts from here onwards.

Mrs. Rose was Stiles Stilinski's favorite person. She was a sweet old lady, with the voice of an angel (she'd smiled the biggest when he'd told her that), and she loved reading to him and the other kids in the library. Stiles' favorite place was the library, and he was very happy that he got to go to the library and talk to Mrs. Rose everyday!

“I'll see you in the evening, okay, Mischief?” His mom's voice made him look back at her, and he smiled and nodded.

“Okay, mommy! Bring back a cookie for me? Please?” His mommy worked in the best bakery in town, and he loved the chocolate cookies the best. If he'd been good in school, his mom would even bring him back some desert! And he'd been really good today.

Mom smiled and pulled him in a hug, then kissed his forehead and told him to be good, leaving him in the lounge area of the library to wait for Mrs. Rose to come. His mom always dropped him off some time before the reading session started, but he didn't mind it. He loved exploring the library all on his own.

Today was a little different, though. Normally, only kids around his age came in with parents, and they either sat in the lounge area or followed him around—he was the only one allowed to touch the books (which he could reach), because most kids didn't understand the value of books—asking him to take that or this book down, just to see the cover. It annoyed him, but his parents had told him that he was what adults called a ‘precocious’ child. Which just meant he was eight going on eighty, if his dad was to be believed. Stiles was not eighty! He was eight! And he just liked learning new things, correctly, that's all.

So it was understandable that he was shocked when an older kid—a teenager—came into the library, looking sad and angry all at once, and also looking irritated when a small girl ran away from.

The girl kind of looked like the big boy. She had the same colored skin, and their face kind of matched. But she had dark brown hair, darken than Stiles' own, and the big boy had perfect black hair and it looked like Superman's did, like even the biggest wind wouldn't ruffle it. Stiles couldn't see the big boy's eyes clearly, but it was a light color, he could tell. The girl though had brown eyes, same color as her hair. She looked really nice.

Stiles realised he didn't know her. And he knew everybody who came to the library.

He made his way to the brother and sister, the big boy looking at him for one second before making a face and moving away.

“Hi! I'm Stiles, who are you? I haven't seen you here before and I come here everyday!”

“Everyday?” She asked him as if it was the worst thing ever.

“Yes!” He frowned. “If you don't want to be here why are you here?”

She made a face and told him, “Because Derek is a jerk!” She shouted the last bit to the big boy and Derek told her to shut up. Stiles looked at her with wonder.

“You just said a bad word,”

“So?” She asked him with her nose in the air. Arrogantly. That was the word. Mrs. Rose had taught them this last week.

Stiles' dad was a deputy, and he put bad guys away in jail. He always told Stiles that using bad words is not good, and he is a deputy, so that must be true! But this girl said it, and she didn't seem bad. Just annoyed.

Stiles didn't answer. Just took her hand and led her to the reading room, where Mrs. Rose had arrived and was setting up. She smiled at the two of them.

“Made a new friend, did you, Stiles?” She asked. “Who might this sweet little princess be?”

“Not a princess!” She said arrogantly. “I'm a warrior,” she looked ready to fight anyone who might tell her that no, she wasn't a warrior. That was stupid. Girls didn't always have to be princesses, and boys warriors. They could be anything they wanted. Lydia Martin, the smartest girl in his class, had told their bad teacher Ms. Argent that when she'd forced Danny to be a warrior instead of a prince like he wanted.

“Oh! Do you know how to fight with a sword?” As far as Stiles was concerned, that was the only thing you needed to know to be a warrior.

“I do.”

“Then you can be my knight! We can play Royals and Knights after!”

“What's that?” She asked, and Stiles found her to be really pretty, when she didn't look angry. But he'd found her brother to be pretty when he was angry... Could boys be even called that? Pretty?

“It's like Princess and Knights, sweetheart,” Mrs. Rose answered.

Stiles listened as Mrs. Rose introduced herself to Cora, and Cora finally told her name, and then soon it was reading time, but his attention was mostly on how Derek was pretty. The boy had come in after some time, calling out for Cora, and then at Mrs. Rose's insistence stayed in the room. Stiles couldn't look away from him. Whenever he did, he would always look back to Derek to make sure he was still there. Stiles even felt some mice dancing around in his stomach when Derek looked him in the eye, but he wasn't hungry. He didn't think he was, but mice in his stomach meant he was.

It was all so weird, how could he find both boys and girls to be pretty? This wasn't the first time he'd thought boys were pretty too, but he hadn't thought much of it. But today he'd told Danny he looked pretty in his new shirt, and the other boys had looked at him weird. Even the girls had. Only Lydia nodded and agreed with him, and led Danny back to their table.

Were boys not supposed to find other boys pretty? He would have to ask Mrs. Rose that, she would know the answer. She was old—even if she didn't like being reminded of it—and she knew stuff. She was very wise.

So, after pretty much everyone had cleared out, and minutes before his mom would be here—she came sharp at six, but right now it was fifteen minutes to six—he walked towards his favourite person.

“You weren't paying attention today, were you little Mischief?” She asked him with a smile. This was why she was his favourite. His mind tended to work very fast, he had something called ADHD apparently, and so he normally couldn't focus in classes for too long. Reading hour was kind of like classes too, but here Mrs. Rose didn't scold him for not paying attention, just asked him what was it this time that had caught his attention. This was also why she was the only one other than his parents who could call him Mischief.

“No,” he said, and quickly asked, “I think Cora is pretty but I also think Derek, her brother, is pretty. Danny is pretty too and Lydia is too, but the other boys didn't think so when I said that Danny is pretty. Are boys not supposed to find other boys to be pretty?”

Years later, Stiles would remember the conversation that followed, and he'd smile. Derek, his asshole (quite literally, too) of an husband, would just know by looking at his smile what he's thinking of, and would tease him about being Stiles' bi awakening years before they were even friends. Stiles would smack him playfully, and then somehow, like always, they'd end up tangled together in each other's arms.

[spookyfbi]

Fic - The First Boy Who Taught Me

So originally I thought that Dave was living with his Uncle because his parents were dead. Then I was talking to someone and they suggested that Dave was sent away to live in Dallas with his uncle because he got caught kissing a boy. Then I got obsessed with this idea and a story began to write itself in my head... I’m gonna sign up to AO3 eventually but inthe meantime, here it is.

Also, this is mostly Dave/OMC but I’m tagging it klave because, well, all paths lead to Klave, right?

------

Billy Goldstein was a year older than Dave so they weren’t in any of the same classes, but their parents were good friends and whenever they would visit and talk about whatever boring things grown ups talked about, Dave and Billy would take their bikes and ride down to the park and climb the tallest tree. When they were younger they’d make believe they were pirates or cowboys or astronauts, but now Dave was 15 and Billy 16, so instead they talked about school and their families and God and the future and outer space and really, anything that was on their minds to talk about.

“Do you ever think about… being bad?” Billy asked one day.

Dave furrowed his brow. “You mean like Danny?” Danny was the school bully in Dave’s grade, but he was big and tough enough to pick on some of the kids in Billy’s grade as well. Dave hadn’t had too many run-ins with him, but he didn’t like the way Danny treated the weaker kids - it wasn’t right, they didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Dave often wished he could put Danny in his place, but he was afraid he’d make himself a target. He certainly didn’t want to be anything like Danny, and he wouldn’t have thought that Billy would either.

Billy shook his head. “Nah, that’s not what I mean, Danny’s an asshole. Wouldn’t mind sockin’ him though, you think that’d be bad?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. I think some of the kids would think you were a hero. Just like our Dads in the war, fighting the Nazis.”

“Mmm” Billy said. He still seemed a little unsure so Dave gave his foot a couple of gentle kicks. Billy looked at him and smiled. Then he looked down at their feet. He moved himself closer to Dave without making eye contact. They sat so close now on the tree branch that their legs were almost touching, but not quite. It wasn’t uncomfortable, they’d sat this close or even closer plenty of other times, but Billy looked nervous this time. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. Dave just waited, enjoying the silence and the closeness and the warm sun and the cool breeze and the sound of children’s laughter below them. He didn’t imagine anything that Billy could say would bother him much. Finally, Billy spoke. “Sometimes I think about kissing a boy.”

Dave looked at Billy. It didn’t feel as shocking or scandalous as perhaps it should have. They were up in their tree where they talked about everything, where they’d told things to each other they hadn’t told anyone else. This just felt like another one of those things.

But Billy was still nervous, and he didn’t register Dave’s openness. “I know you do too,” he added quickly, “don’t deny it.” It was said like an accusation, like a scared animal backed into a corner and lashing out. “I’ve seen it when we look at each other sometimes. You want to just as much as I do. You’re the same as me. If God hates me then he hates you too.”

Dave broke eye contact then with a scoff and looked out at the view. He couldn’t deny it, what Billy was saying. He didn’t want to either. But he didn’t like what Billy was saying about it. He didn’t want to be bad and he certainly didn’t want God to hate him, or Billy.

Dave could still feel Billy’s eyes on him. “Dave, please…” Billy said with a tremble in his voice. “Please tell me I’m not alone. You and me are in this together, right?”

Dave looked back at Billy, and as soon as he did, Billy’s lips were on his. Dave didn’t know what to do. He’d never kissed anyone before. He didn’t know if he should open his mouth, or what he should do with his hands. It felt strange, but nice, so Dave didn’t do anything.

Billy smiled when he pulled away. “I knew it! I knew you were like me. Whatever happens, we’re in this together.”

Dave smiled and looked back down at his feet. He could feel his face flushing. Billy gave his shoulder a reassuring nudge. They were in this together, just like always.

———

That night after dinner Dave snuck out went to Billy’s house. They’d sneaked out after dinner before, to go for evening bike rides, see the stars, sit on the swings late at night when the kids who would normally use them were asleep in their beds, so it didn’t feel much different to Dave when he did it tonight. Dave wasn’t sure what to expect after that kiss in the park. They hadn’t talked about it much. Billy had changed the subject and everything had gone back to the way it always was. Dave began to wonder if he’d imagined the whole thing. He climbed the tree outside Billy’s window and sat on one of the branches, then he tapped his fingers on the glass. Billy gave a half smile when he opened his window and he kissed Dave again. Dave was surprised, but pleasantly so. He leaned into Billy this time and puckered his lips. He felt Billy put his arms around him and pull him even further forward. Dave followed until he couldn’t lean any further forward without falling. Billy broke the kiss. “Well, aren’t you gonna come in?”

Dave hadn’t been planning on it. Usually when he visited Billy late like this Billy wanted to get out of the house. But Dave didn’t mind staying in Billy’s room, especially if he was going to keep kissing him. So Dave climbed through the window, and before he could get his balance Billy’s lips were on his again, so Dave used Billy to steady himself. Billy pulled him closer and it was so, so nice. Then Billy took a step back, still holding Dave close, so Dave followed. They took a few more steps together like this until suddenly they stumbled into Billy’s bed. Dave broke the kiss to look at Billy. His smile told Dave that he’d done this on purpose. Dave was lying on top of Billy, with Billy’s legs wrapped around his hips. Dave wasted no time kissing him again. This time he tried opening his mouth a bit. He brushed his tongue along Billy’s lower lip and then went back to kissing like before. Billy opened his mouth then and it wasn’t long before their tongues were exploring each other’s mouths. It felt so good, really good, and soon Dave felt a stirring between his legs. He was pressed up against Billy and he could feel that Billy was having the same reaction. Dave felt like his body was starting to take over and started to grind himself against Billy without really meaning to. He pulled back slightly to look at Billy, and Billy’s smile was all the encouragement he needed to keep going. It was so good, oh god. Dave had done this before by himself, rubbing against his bed, but this was different - better! Billy’s kisses moved to Dave’s cheek and along his jaw and towards his ear as Dave continued to grind himself against Billy.

“My Dad would be so pissed if he knew what we were doing,” Billy whispered, and that made Dave stop. He climbed off Billy and sat opposite him on his bed, looking at him with a frown. Billy seemed surprised that Dave had stopped so abruptly. Dave had the same feeling he’d had in the park that day when Billy had talked about God hating them. Dave felt good when he was kissing Billy, and he didn’t like that Billy thought they were doing something wrong. He didn’t feel like kissing Billy any more right now. Dave got up and went back to the window to leave. “Dave, wait!” Billy got up and met Dave at the window. There was a slight panic in his voice. “I’m sorry.” he said, and Dave wasn’t sure if he was apologising for what he’d said or what they were doing.

Dave softened his expression. He could see that Billy was scared. Dave didn’t know if what they were doing was bad or if God hated them or what their parents would think. But it wasn’t as though they were hurting anybody, and they both enjoyed what they were doing. And Dave decided he could live with that, the rest was for the rabbis to debate about. He put his hand on Billy’s cheek in a gesture he hoped was reassuring, and gave Billy another kiss, less intense than before. 

Dave felt Billy relax into him, and when the kiss broke, he didn’t pull away, letting his face linger close to Billy’s. “So then we’re still in this together?” Billy whispered.

Dave pulled back just enough to look into Billy’s eyes. “Always,” he said with a warm smile.

———

Billy’s parents were hosting a barbecue for his younger sister’s birthday and all the neighbours were there, including Dave and his family. Mr Goldstein asked Billy to get some more meat from the fridge in the garage, and Dave went with him. When they saw that the garage was empty, Billy shot Dave a sly smile. Dave returned the smile and took Billy’s hand, running his thumb along the back, threading his fingers through Billy’s. He brought Billy’s hand up to his lips and pressed a kiss into the back. Billy’s eyes lit up with desire and he closed the distance between them and kissed Dave passionately, pushing his tongue through Dave’s lips. Dave parted them eagerly and let Billy push him back until they were leaning against the fridge, the meat quickly forgotten.

The boys didn’t realise how long they’d been when Mr Goldstein burst angrily through the garage door. He’d been ready to yell at Billy for taking so long with the meat, but what he saw inspired a very different sort of rage.

Dave felt Billy being pulled away from him. Mr Goldstein shoved Billy to the floor. He was yelling something, first at Billy, then at Dave, then at Billy again. Dave couldn’t make out the words over the blood rushing in his ears. He was frozen in place with fear and so was Billy. Mr Goldstein was standing over Billy, his arms flailing as he yelled, and Billy’s expression wavered between anger and fear. Dave wanted to say something, do something, but the words wouldn’t form in his mouth and his body refused to move. It was just like with Danny, Dave wanted to stand up to the bully but he was too afraid.

Mr Goldstein left with a final look of disgust directed at Dave, and Dave thought he heard something about telling his parents. He was too shocked to think about what that might mean. He shook himself out of it and held out a hand to help Billy up.

“Shit!” Billy said. “Oh shit, he’s gonna kill me. What are we gonna do?”

Dave just shook his head.

“He’s gonna tell your parents, y’know. You’re dead too. We’re both dead.” Billy sank back down to the ground and ran his fingers through his hair. “Shit, this was so stupid!” Dave sat down next to Billy and Billy grabbed his arms. “Dave, what are we gonna do?”

Dave shook his head again. He had no answers for Billy.

———

Dave couldn’t help the way his hands shook when his parents called him into the kitchen. They looked a lot calmer than Mr Goldstein had earlier that day. Mom looked like she’d been crying, she was still holding a handkerchief in her hands. Dad looked stern and disappointed.

“Son…” Dad began, and then he faltered and looked to Mom.

“Dave…” She said. Then she began crying, and brought the handkerchief to her eyes.

Dave swallowed and waited. He held his hands in front of him to try to stop them from trembling.

“Son, you’re going to go live with your Uncle Brian in Dallas for a while. This business with Billy…”

“You just put it out of your mind, okay, Dave?” Mom said. “You’re a good boy. You’re not gonna do anything like this ever again, are you Honey?”

Dave opened his mouth to speak but Dad interrupted him. “That’s right, Sport. You’ll just get a fresh start in Dallas, you focus on your studies and when the time is right you’ll find yourself a lovely young lady to marry, and then you can come back home.”

Dave wanted to ask if he could still come home even if he didn’t find a young lady, but he was afraid of the answer. His parents weren’t yelling and they weren’t shoving him to the ground like Mr Goldstein, but Dave thought he’d prefer it if they were. Sending him away? For how long? Would he ever see his parents again? Would he ever see Billy again?

“You go to your room now and get some sleep.” Mom said. “We’ll talk to the school tomorrow and you can stay home and start packing.”

Dave felt a lump forming in his throat. He didn’t dare speak for fear of crying. He did as he was told and went up to his room. Then he opened his window and climbed out, as he had dozens of times before. He had to see Billy.

———

Dave sat on the branch and tapped on Billy’s window again. When Billy opened it, Dave saw the cut on his lip and the shiner beginning to form on his cheek. Billy didn’t kiss him this time.

“You can’t be here, Dave” Billy said quietly.

“My parents are sending me away to Dallas.” Dave told him.

“You should go.” Billy said, and Dave wasn’t sure if he meant go back home or go to Dallas.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah, I heard you. You’re going to Dallas. Maybe that’s for the best.”

“Billy…” Billy wasn’t looking at Dave, so Dave reached his hands out to touch Billy’s face, and he flinched away.

“You’re too much of a temptation for me. If you weren’t around, then I wouldn’t…” Billy swallowed. “I wouldn’t be like this anymore.”

Dave felt the lump forming in his throat again. Everything was changing for the worst and there was nothing he could do. He barely knew his uncle and he didn’t know anyone else in Dallas. His parents wanted to send him away, and now so did Billy. Wasn’t there anyone who wanted him, just one person in the whole wide world who cared about him? It wouldn’t be so bad if he had just one person, just one. “What about us being in this together?” He whispered hoarsely.

“If we’re in this together then where the hell’s your split lip, huh? Where’s your black eye?”

“Then let’s get out of here, together. You and me. Away from your Dad, away from my parents. We’ll take care of each other. We’ll be in it together, just like you said.”

“And do what? What are we gonna do for money? Neither of us have jobs.”

“I don’t know… we’ll figure something out.”

“Grow up, Dave. And go home.” Billy put his hands on the window and began to close it. “Go to Dallas. Or run away by yourself if you want. I can’t see you anymore.” And with that Billy slammed the window in Dave’s face and closed the curtains.

Dave didn’t try to stop the tears when they came. He lingered for a while, resting his head against the window. There was nothing for him at home. There was nothing for him here either. And there was nothing for him in Dallas.

Somehow, eventually, Dave made his way back home. He couldn’t bring himself to think about where he was going, he just let his body carry him. He managed to sleepwalk through many more years like this, not allowing himself to think about the rejection he’d faced from Billy, from his own family. Not allowing himself to think about how desperately he missed a person who didn’t yet exist. A person who might care about him unconditionally, for exactly who he was. A person he could love just as fiercely.

Until one day, there was a flash of blue light…

[twoidiotwriters1]

Written In The Stars XCV (Harry Potter xF!Oc)

A/N: TODAY IS THE DAY I SEND MY LAST ESSAY PLS PRAY SO I CAN BE FREE -Danny

Words: 3,601

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Chapter Thirty: Through a Darker Standpoint.

"Is something on your mind, dear girl?" Dumbledore asked attentively.

Mel was writing down their last lesson before going back to her common room. Dumbledore told her this was the final class they'd be having that trimester, and she was deep in thought, her eyes fixed on Fawkes.

"No..." She said. "Well, yes..."

"You want to ask me–?"

"Did you mean it when you say you'd help me to become an animagus?" She looked away from the bird and directly into his eyes. "Or were you just humouring me?"

"Was I humouring you when I agreed to give you lessons?"

"No," She pointed to her notes. "Clearly..."

"I'll help with your education as animagus as much as I'm helping you with this," Dumbledore looked at her over his glasses. "Patience is a virtue, and learning will often require for you to wait."

"I know that it's just..." She shook her head. "I don't know, maybe I'm exhausted. I could use a break."

"I hope you find it refreshing. Anything else?"

Mel gave up, she closed her notebook and put down her quill.

"Is the third task harder than the others?"

"I see," He smiled. "Harry's done a remarkable job, Mel. I wouldn't worry about how things will turn out, the task, once over, it's over for good."

"But are you sure?"

There was a glint in Dumbledore's eyes that gave away his amusement. "You care a lot, don't you?"

"Some may say more than what's necessary..." She grumbled.

"There's no such thing as caring too much about a loved one's safety. I would've done anything to keep my sister safe. Wanting our family to be happy is the main reason why we do the impossible, isn't it? You more than anyone should know, dear girl."

There was always that uneasy feeling questioning how much was she truly prepared to face danger. One day, there was going to be no Albus Dumbledore to tell her what to do, just her and her skills. Mel could only hope that'd be enough.

"You two are to go down to the Quidditch field tonight at nine o'clock," McGonagall told them after the last lesson of the week. "Mr Bagman will be there to tell the champions about the third task."

When Harry and Mel made their way to the entrance, Cedric and Erick appeared from their respective passages. The latter threw a knowing smile their way that she ignored.

"What d'you reckon it's going to be?" Cedric asked Harry as they all went together to the Quidditch Field. "Fleur keeps going on about underground tunnels; she reckons we've got to find treasure."

"That wouldn't be too bad," Harry shrugged.

"Guess?" Erick nudged her arm playfully.

"Your brother moved out?" She ventured.

"I wish! No, my grandad wrote to me yesterday. He's coming to see the third task!"

"Oh... I didn't know others could come to see it!"

"I don't know if it's exactly allowed," Erick looked ahead, frowning a little. "He used his 'this is my last chance' speech, Dumbledore welcomed him with open arms."

"What've they done to it?" They heard Cedric's voice ahead, Mel finally looked toward the field and let out a tiny gasp.

The Quidditch field was no longer smooth and flat. It looked as though somebody had been building long, low walls all over it that twisted and crisscrossed in every direction.

"They're hedges!" said Harry, bending to examine the nearest one.

"Hello, there!" called a cheery voice.

"If you ask me," The corner of Erick's lips were up, holding back a smirk. "This is an improvement."

Mel hushed him before Harry could hear him, the boy was a huge Quidditch fan and still didn't like Flint, so Erick had to be careful.

Ludo Bagman waved at them to get closer, Krum and Fleur were there. As they grew nearer Mel noticed the radiant smile Fleur was giving Harry. She knew this was mostly thanks to Harry's act during the second task, Fleur was showing a new attitude of camaraderie that Mel thought it suited her. If she could keep it up and not complain about Hogwarts and their food, Mel figured she could even be a great friend.

"Well, what d'you think?" Bagman inquired as they finally reached them. "Growing nicely, aren't they? Give them a month and Hagrid'll have them twenty feet high. Don't worry, you'll have your Quidditch field back to normal once the task is over!" Erick gave a quiet 'hurray' that sounded nothing but sarcastic, Harry heard it. "Now, I imagine you can guess what we're making here?"

"Maze," Krum replied lowly.

"That's right! A maze. The third task's really very straightforward. The Triwizard Cup will be placed in the center of the maze. The first champion to touch it will receive full marks."

"We seemply 'ave to get through the maze?" said Fleur.

"There will be obstacles. Hagrid is providing a number of creatures... then there will be spells that must be broken... all that sort of thing, you know. Now, the champions who are leading on points will get a head start into the maze. Then Mr Krum will enter... then Miss Delacour. But you'll all be in with a fighting chance, depending on how well you get past the obstacles. Should be fun, eh?"

Harry, Mel and Erick shared a knowing look, Hagrid's creatures didn't sound fun at all when you were acquainted with them.

"Very well... if you haven't got any questions, we'll go back up to the castle, shall we, it's a bit chilly..."

"I have one," Mel said. "How are we going to keep a record on the champions, I mean, what if one of them gets hurt?"

"Members of the school's staff, as well as Mr Flint and you, will be helping around the maze, there's no use on explaining everything now but rest assured, Miss Dumbledore. There won't be any major risks."

Bagman attempted once again to have a private word with Harry, but Krum got there first. Mel came into a halt a few feet away, as well as Bagman and Erick.

"Could I haff a vord?" She heard Krum ask.

"Yeah, all right," said Harry, his brow raising a little and glancing at her for just a second.

"Vill you valk vith me?"

"Okay..."

"I'll wait for you, Harry, shall I?" Bagman frowned, a little nervous.

"No, it's okay, Mr Bagman, I think I can find the castle on my own, thanks," said Harry, trying to keep as a straight face, then turned to Mel. "Really. You and Flint can keep going too, I'll see you back in the tower."

Mel nodded, Erick grabbed her by the arm gently and pulled her along.

"C'mon," He said quietly. "Probably just looking for relationship advice..."

"From Harry?" Mel snorted, her arm slipping from the boy's grip. "Why would he do that? No one knows about us, not even Hermione so I don't see how Krum would–"

"'Oh, I have a question Mr Bagman, how will I know my boyfriend's safe?'" Erick mocked her. "'How can I physically walk away without having a crisis?'"

"That's not how I sound! And that was a fair question!"

"All I'm saying is that everyone knows, or at least suspects, that there's something between you two. You look insufferable happy all the time, I guess Krum wants to know how you do it."

"Because we're friends," Mel rolled her eyes at the expression on the boy's face. "I mean, we were best friends before we... I don't know, before we became this."

"Before you started dating," Erick nodded.

"I don't know if we're dating," Mel replied stiffly. "We don't go out alone, and when we do we have to be discrete so Skeeter can't have a reliable source. According to Harry, this is so I don't get myself in danger as it happened to Hermione. According to me... well, I can't help but think it's a bit like in my novels, you know?  Keeping things between us kind of makes it more romantical."

"I think I puked a little in my mouth," He scrunched up his nose.

"Hey, you asked!" Mel argued. "What were you expecting me to say? 'Oh yeah, kissing Harry is the most boring thing I've ever done in my life'..."

"I can't take that image out of my mind now, thank you."

"Stop being so whiny," She protested. "Is not my fault that you–"

She stopped short, knowing it was a sensitive subject and it could cause a big fight if not treated carefully.

"That I what?" He halted. "Say it."

Instead of finishing her sentence, Mel sat down upon the front steps of the castle's entrance and sighed. "I'm tired of arguing with you, Flint. If I'm honest, I'm sick of having to walk on my tiptoes and hold back my comments every time we speak."

"This is you holding back?"

"I mean whenever we talk about you," She raised a brow. "I don't have a problem telling you to sod off, but when it's about you it's like you don't want me to know anything. I almost had to force out your Grandad's name out of your mouth!"

"I don't understand. What is your problem?"

"Every wrong thing I say you immediately take it as an opportunity to run off and cut the conversation short. You know everything about me, why are you still acting like I'm not a safe person to talk to?"

For a moment he did look like he was about to ignore her question. His shoulders tensed and he looked away, reluctant to speak. Then, after ten awful seconds, he sat down beside her and let out a quiet groan.

"Think I liked you better when you were tinier and afraid of me..."

"I wasn't afraid," She stated. "I did think you were a bit intimidating, though..."

"S'not that I don't trust you. I've never... I'm not used to talking about what upsets me and when you insist that I should tell you– I... I get frustrated. It's exasperating, not knowing how to express my feelings."

"You, at a loss of words?" Mel smiled shyly.

"Yeah, shocking," He chuckled. "I made bad some decisions and now I'm surrounded by a bunch of gits. I know you want to see it as this endless world of possibilities, that if we try hard enough and live our lives how we want to, no one can hurt us– but is not like that... not for the most of us. You want to live in a fairytale, but all we have is this," He gestured around vaguely. "You and I, and a few people that don't think we're crazy."

"We should be allowed to live as we want, do what we want, and be with who we love! I don't get it– why is it so hard for the rest to understand?" Mel replied heatedly.

Erick stared at her with a funny look in his eyes. "You know, I did tell Joseph you're the smartest witch in school. I know you are, but sometimes your emotions stop you from being even better."

"You sound like my uncle," She scoffed. "I know I'm fickle and impulsive–"

"I didn't mean it like that," He interrupted. "You try to see everything through a gentle perspective, which makes it impossible for you to have a clear view... growing up sucks Mel, I know it as much as you do," He stood up and offered his hand, "we have to do it anyway though, and if you do it, you'll see how hard it's to choose based on how you feel instead of what's suitable."

The Slytherin gazed at her with a hint of something she'd never seen before, almost... pitiful. Mel took his hand and stood up, she felt disheartened by their talk, but there was no easy way to convince Erick to change his mind and there was certainly no way she would change hers. She figured that eventually, one of them would be proven wrong.

It was hard to see this nostalgic version of Erick as the same cold, sarcastic boy she was used to, it was hard to look into his eyes and see how much he looked like he was thousands of years older.

"You and Anne..." She mentioned as they reached the marble staircase. "You've made up your mind, then?"

"There's nothing to decide," He shrugged. "She'll do her life and I'll do mine, if I find a way to be together I'll take it but if not... I'm not going to regret a thing."

Mel wanted to say that he couldn't be sure about that but decided to keep it for herself, there'd been enough discouraging words that night for the both of them, and she didn't want to give him a reason to keep going.

Just as she was reaching the second floor Harry came rushing towards her, he didn't slow down when he saw her, just yelled 'Mr. Crouch appeared!' and kept going.

Mel ran after him without hesitation, she and Harry reached Dumbledore's office and yelled the password, however, it looked like it had changed since the last time she and Dumbledore held her last lesson because the gargoyle didn't move at all.

"C'mon!" Harry yelled in exasperation, running a hand through his hair.

"Harry, what's wrong?" She asked in alarm.

"The staffroom," He said in quiet realization, turning around and starting to run once more.

They were midway to the stairs when Snape found them.

"POTTER! DUMBLEDORE!" He ordered them to get closer and so they did. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to see Professor Dumbledore!" Harry, gasping for air. "It's Mr Crouch... he's just turned up... he's in the forest... he's asking —"

"What is this rubbish?" said Snape. "What are you talking about?"

He looked at Mel for an explanation but Mel didn't know what was happening either, Harry insisted in an angry tone.

"Mr Crouch! From the Ministry! He's ill or something — he's in the forest, he wants to see Dumbledore! Just give me the password up to —"

"The headmaster is busy," said Snape, smiling as if denying Harry of a simple favour was making him happier than it should.

"I've got to tell Dumbledore!"

"Didn't you hear me, Potter?"

"Look," Harry continued, almost growling, "Crouch isn't right — he's — he's out of his mind — he says he wants to warn —"

"Is there a problem?" Dumbledore appeared from behind Snape, looking at them curiously.

"Professor! Mr Crouch is here — he's down in the forest, he wants to speak to you!"

"Lead the way," Dumbledore said.

Mel was thankful Dumbledore was Headmaster and not Snape, even if she didn't know what was going on, she figured Snape would rather see them in distress than tend their emergencies.

"What did Mr Crouch say, Harry?" Dumbledore asked as they approached the staircase again.

"Said he wants to warn you... said he's done something terrible... he mentioned his son... and Bertha Jorkins... and — and Voldemort... something about Voldemort getting stronger..."

"Indeed," Dumbledore walked faster alongside them.

"He's not acting normally, he doesn't seem to know where he is. He keeps talking like he thinks Percy Weasley's there, and then he changes and says he needs to see you... I left him with Viktor Krum."

"You did?" He sounded almost alarmed now. "Do you know if anybody else saw Mr Crouch?"

"No, Krum and I were talking, Mr Bagman had just finished telling us about the third task so Mel and Erick were long gone as well, Krum and I stayed behind, and then we saw Mr Crouch coming out of the forest —"

"Where are they?" Dumbledore looked blindly in the darkness.

"Over here," Harry guided them to the edge of the forest. He called out for Viktor, but no one answered. "They were here... They were definitely somewhere around here..."

He sounded worried and scared, Mel got closer as Dumbledore conjured light from his wand and looked around. There was a body there. Mel stopped breathing for a moment while Harry and Dumbledore reached forward to check on Krum.

"Stunned," Dumbledore said simply.

"Should I go and get someone? Madam Pomfrey?"

"No," Dumbledore turned to look at her and said. "Stay here. Wake him up."

He pointed it in the direction of Hagrid's cabin with his wand. The faint shape of a phoenix made its way through the air as Mel kneeled next to Krum and whispered 'Rennervate'. Krum tried to sit up, but Dumbledore put a hand on his shoulder to keep him on the grass.

"He attacked me! The old madman attacked me! I vos looking around to see vare Potter had gone and he attacked from behind!"

"Lie still for a moment," Dumbledore ordered gently.

Hagrid appeared, carrying his crossbow.

"Professor Dumbledore! Mel! Harry — what the — ?"

"Hagrid, I need you to fetch Professor Karkaroff. His student has been attacked. When you've done that, kindly alert Professor Moody —"

"No need, Dumbledore," said a voice from behind them. "I'm here. Damn leg! Would've been here quicker... what's happened? Snape said something about Crouch —"

"Crouch?"

"Karkaroff, please, Hagrid!" Dumbledore repeated.

"Oh yeah... right y'are, Professor..."

"I don't know where Barty Crouch is," Dumbledore told Moody, "but it is essential that we find him."

"I'm onto it," Moody headed off into the forest.

Mel stayed next to Krum and checked the back of his head for injuries, fortunately, he was completely fine, just a little dizzy from the fall.

"What is this?" Karkaroff walked up to them, his eyes blazing with anger. "What's going on?"

"I vos attacked!" said Krum. "Mr Crouch or votever his name —"

"Crouch attacked you? Crouch attacked you? The Triwizard judge?"

"Igor..."

"Treachery! It is a plot! You and your Ministry of Magic have lured me here under false pretenses, Dumbledore! This is not an equal competition! First you sneak Potter into the tournament, though he is underage! Now one of your Ministry friends attempts to put my champion out of action! I smell double-dealing and corruption in this whole affair, and you, Dumbledore, you, with your talk of closer international wizarding links, of rebuilding old ties, of forgetting old differences — here's what I think of you!"

Karkaroff spat onto the ground at Dumbledore's feet. In one swift movement, Hagrid seized the front of Karkaroff's furs, lifted him into the air, and slammed him against a nearby tree.

"Apologize!" Hagrid snarled as Karkaroff gasped for breath, Hagrid's massive fist at his throat, his feet dangling in midair.

"Hagrid, no!" Dumbledore shouted, his eyes flashing.

Hagrid removed the hand pinning Karkaroff to the tree, and Karkaroff slid all the way down the trunk and slumped in a huddle at its roots; a few twigs and leaves showered down upon his head.

"Kindly escort Harry and Mel back up to the castle, Hagrid," Dumbledore told him sternly.

"Maybe I'd better stay here, Headmaster..." Hagrid said, glaring at Karkaroff.

"You will take them back to school, Hagrid. Take them right up to Gryffindor Tower. And I want you two to stay there. Anything you might want to do — any owls you might want to send — they can wait until morning, do you understand me?"

"Er — yes," said Harry, staring at him.

Mel felt a bit of a chill run up her spine at the idea that her uncle could read their thoughts. Because she was certain that Harry had been planning to write Sirius about this.

"Very well," Dumbledore looked directly at her then. "You did a good job watching after Mr Krum, Mel. Now watch after yourself." She nodded, too shocked to speak against him, her nerves completely messed up after that experience.

"I'll leave Fang with yeh, Headmaster," Hagrid said. "Stay, Fang. C'mon, kids."

After a while walking in silence, Hagrid spoke up again.

"How dare he accuse Dumbledore. Like Dumbledore'd do anythin' like that. Like Dumbledore wanted you in the tournament in the firs' place. Worried! I dunno when I seen Dumbledore more worried than he's bin lately. An' you!" He turned to them angrily, they stepped back in surprise, Mel holding tightly onto Harry. "What were yeh doin', wanderin' off with ruddy Krum? He's from Durmstrang, Harry! Coulda jinxed yeh right there, couldn' he? Hasn' Moody taught yeh nothin'? 'Magine lettin' him lure yeh off on yer own —"

"Krum's all right!" He exclaimed. "He wasn't trying to jinx me, he just wanted to talk about Hermione —"

"I'll be havin' a few words with her, an' all," said Hagrid not listening. "The less you lot 'ave ter do with these foreigners, the happier yeh'll be. Yeh can' trust any of 'em."

"You were getting on all right with Madame Maxime," Harry said in a bad mood.

"Don' you talk ter me abou' her!" Hagrid yelled. When he saw the look on their faces, he lowered his voice. "I've got her number now! Tryin' ter get back in me good books, tryin' ter get me ter tell her what's comin' in the third task. Ha! You can' trust any of 'em!"

Harry and Mel shared a grim look without saying anything. He reached for the hand that was still firmly closed around his arm and held it, squeezing a bit to calm her down. It worked until they reached the tower, where Hagrid finally left them safe and sound. As soon as they were in Harry dragged her to where Ron and Hermione were sitting.

Next Chapter —>

Taglist.

@dee123ksha​ @vampiregirl1797 @siriuslysirius1107 @stardusthigh @mikariell95 @vernon-dursley @thesuitelifeofafangirl @tomshollandz @kylosleftbuttcheek @reverse-hxlland @bloodorangemoonlight @omiwashere​ @t-rexs-world

[cywscross]

From @lightveils on Twitter (free to use wherever!). I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. I definitely have enough fics to fill it lol~

-0-

A Fic You Love Without Knowing The Source Material:

I was born for this by esama (Assassin’s Creed | Altair x Desmond | M)

Juno did her best to lead him to her preferred fate, but the end is coming and Desmond has doubts.

A Fic With A Premise That Shouldn’t Work But Does:

Proposing To Strangers by moonstalker24 (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | G)

At the end of a strained relationship, crime novelist Stiles chooses to hide from the world inside a bar with far too many motorcycles outside it for comfort. Here he'll meet the man of his dreams, eat food and propose marriage, all within the first five minutes.

Peter doesn't know who this kid is, but he's cute and looks like he could use a break. So he feeds him. He's not expecting a marriage proposal, but with what comes after, he doesn't really mind.

A Fic You’ve Reread Several Times:

Hooverville by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | E)

Town to town, train to train, tent to tent.

By 1932, the dust had begun to blow and the jobs were gone.

Anonymity was a byproduct of looking for work, which made it both necessary and convenient.

Stiles had enough secrets of his own to know to look the other way when he saw something that shouldn’t be possible.

The ghost of a tail giving enough balance to disembark a moving train.

Near silent Latin whispered on the edge of a tent encampment.

A flash of burning eyes.

He had more than enough to worry about without adding the oddities of others, and besides- having unusually sharp teeth certainly didn’t make a man worse than the ones running from the wife and kids they couldn’t feed.

So Stiles kept his observations to himself. He kept his everything to himself.

Until he met a man. One with eyes so blue they seemed to glow- and then they did.

Stiles tried to look away, but for the first time he was stopped.

“Don’t be like that sweetheart. Aren’t you curious?”

A Fic You Still Remember Many Years Later:

All True-Hearted Souls by mardia (Temeraire | Laurence x Granby | G)

“For God's sake, if someone doesn't talk Laurence out of these constant heroics, I wouldn't bet a farthing on his chances; no, and not ours either.” Four times that John Granby helped save William Laurence's life. Laurence/Granby. Spoilers up to Empire of Ivory.

A Comfort Fic:

Nothing Improper by Bunnywest (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | G)

“How long since someone touched you, sweet boy?” Peter asks, his voice barely a breath in Stiles’ ear. “Days? Weeks? Months?” Stiles nods imperceptibly at that last one.

“After…after everything, after Allison,” is all Stiles manages to get out.

A Cathartic Fic:

Swing by ShippersList (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles wants to fly.

A Fic You’d Print And Put On Your Bookshelf:

Nose to the Wind by Batsutousai (HP | Tom x Harry | M)

While Harry had been content with his second chance, that didn't keep him from thinking what he could have done different, how many people could have survived if he hadn't been set on the very specific path he'd walked. Third time is the charm, though, right?

A Fic You Associate With A Song (x2):

Strange Duet by BelleAmante, thiliart (thilia) (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | M)

The past three years have been a series of shocking, or not so shocking, successes for 2018 Tony award winner and two time Grammy nominee, Stiles Stilinski. You don’t typically find classically trained opera singers singing alternative folk rock to crowds at Coachella. Nor do you find indie singer/songwriters winning best actor awards at the Tony’s for their Broadway debuts. Stilinski has made it his lifetime habit to defy and exceed all expectations.

-or-

A Steter fic loosely based on Phantom of the Opera

~

Full Circle by Nike Femme (FMA | Roy x Ed | T)

Edward Elric returns with amnesia. He has lived the past four years as Auric, a Gatekeeper. But there are some battles that only he can fight. Will his friends be able to awaken Ed, and what happens to Auric if they do?

A Fic That Inspires You:

Off the Line by esama (FFVII | Cloud x Vincent | T)

In which Cloud gets a Virtual Reality Dream Console – ShinRa's latest in virtual reality technology. Aaand everything pretty much goes downhill from there.

A Fic That Brought You On Board A New Ship:

Me and Mine by linndechir (Fast and the Furious | Deckard x Owen | E)

The last time they'd spoken, Deckard had told Owen that he was tired of cleaning up his messes. But the first thing he did after breaking out of prison was to take Owen to the other end of the world so they could lick their wounds and start planning their revenge.

A Fic You Wish Could Be A Movie:

Moving In (To Every Single Aspect of Danny’s Life, Including the Boring Bits like Dry-Cleaning) by westgirl (Hawaii Five-0 | Steve x Danny | T)

It felt wrong for Steve to sound unsure of his place in Danny’s life. His place in Danny’s life was at Danny’s side, driving him slowly insane. Steve should feel secure about that.

A Fic That Led To You Making Friends With The Author:

Begin and End by Rikkamaru (Log Horizon x HP | G)

This is how it begins: a boy rejected by his family, a boy reunited with his brother by his sister-in-law's intervention. A boy who found a family in an online game. But how will it end?

FREE SPACE:

Reverti Ad Praeteritum by Batsutousai (Fullmetal Alchemist | Roy x Edward | M)

Unwillingly forced to serve as a human trial for a crazy alchemist experimenting with time travel, Edward Elric finds himself standing across from Truth in the moment it takes his leg from him. Armed with the knowledge of what's to come and burdened with guilt for the choices he'd made as an adult, Ed sets out to fix every mistake he ever made and save every life they ever lost, no matter what it takes.

A Fic You’ve Gushed About IRL:

Designation: Miracle by umisabaku (Kuroko no Basket | M)

It's been three years since seven human experiments, called "Miracles," escaped Teiko Industries, alerting the world to the presence of super-powered children. Now they're finally integrating into society-- going to normal high schools, playing basketball, falling in love-- and trying to find out if it's possible to truly escape their past.

A Fic You Associate With A Place (have to self-rec for this one):

Safe Harbour by cywscross (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles x Chris | T)

Peter didn't think he'd find a home here. He certainly didn't think he'd find a home with two other men.

Chris and Stiles prove him wrong.

A Fic That Made You Gasp Out Loud (kind of? it was suspenseful):

Sanctuary by DiscontentedWinter (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | E)

The Hale Wolf Sanctuary isn’t just for wolves.

It turns out it’s for Stilinskis as well.

A Fic You Found At The Right Time:

slow increments by Areiton (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles)

Peter is enigmatic, egotistical, sometimes barely sane. He's sharp and cutting and takes more time to care for the pack than anyone.And sometimes, John catches him watching Stiles.

A Fic That You Would Read Fic Of:

if you try to break me, you will bleed by Dialux (Game of Thrones | Jon x Sansa | T)

It had been a slash across her chest from a White Walker’s sword that finally ended her life. Sansa’d landed in a puddle of her own blood, and she’d died quickly, quietly.

And then she’d awoken with a gasp, trembling, in a bed that had burned under Theon’s betrayal.

A Fic That Made You Laugh Out Loud:

The Path towards Unwilling Godhood by Sky_King (Bleach | Kisuke x Ichigo | G)

Ichigo has never had the most normal life, and this latest chapter of it is no different.

"I'm not a god!"

A Fic With A Line (Or Two) That You’ve Memorized By Heart:

Atlas by distractedKat (Star Trek | Spock x Jim | T)

Between what was and what will be stands James Tiberius Kirk, in all his fractured patchwork glory. Because saving the Federation was only the beginning.

A Fic That Gave You Butterflies:

The Rest of Our Lives by mia6363 (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

“I don’t know, as a kid I watched a lot of movies, you know? And at first I figured like… I’d be on some great adventure that would take me away from it all, you know? Like Indiana Jones comes around and is all, ‘Hey Stiles, buddy, come with me we’ve got to go save the world.’ Then… you and… everything happened… then I just… I figured I’d die before I was eighteen.”

A Fic That Embodies Something You Value In Life:

The Boy Sleuth by Shey (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles is eight when he discovers a box of his mom’s old Nancy Drew Mysteries in the back of the guest bedroom closet.

A Favourite AU:

Love What is Behind You by KouriArashi (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | M)

Basically what it says on the label. Hunger Games type fusion. Stiles doing way better than anyone anticipates. Peter finds him intriguing. Ruthless, devious assholes working together to ruin bad guys, as the Steter ship is meant to be.

A Fic You Stayed Up Too Late To Finish Reading:

Of Dwobbits, Dragons and Dwarves by ISeeFire (The Hobbit | Fem!Bilbo x Fili | T)

Bilba has been a slave her entire life. All she knows of the outside world is what she sees from time to time outside the gates of Moria and the stories her mother used to tell her. Stories of a place called the Shire where her mother once lived and a placed called Erebor where, as far as she knows, her father still lives. Stories of dragons a thousand times larger, and more intelligent, than the beasts the orcs rode and of a strange concept called freedom where one was allowed to live as they wished with no one to tell them what they could, or could not do.

The stories meant little to Bilba. The only future she had was to live, and die, as a slave as countless number had before her.

And then the orcs dragged an injured female firedrake through the gates, her rider screaming obscenities behind her as he fought to reach her side...and everything changed.

A Fic That Made You Feel Seen (another self-rec lol):

i am addicted to death (so remind me what it’s like to live) by cywscross (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles is sixteen years old. He has already died seventy-eight times.

[gimme-a-hand-scaevola]

A review of the book The Rook by Daniel O’Malley that nobody ever asked for...

Ok so @chemcat92 recommended me this book and I listened to it on audiobook and I just... have a lot of thoughts. I haven’t read the sequel and I’m torn if I will. Having watched some AMVs of the show, it’s a hard pass. My review is going to be in three parts:

1. The plot

2. Wasted Potential - In General

3. Wasted Potential - Gestalt the Most Wasted Character Potential I’ve Read since Drizzt Do’Urden 

Obviously spoilers under the cut. 

Part 1: The Plot - i.e. I think Daniel discovered books four days before he started writing 

Ok so... The plot of this book. It starts off STRONG I will give it that. Myfanwy Thomas wakes up in a rainy part surrounded by bodies wearing latex gloves and no memories. She soon discovers her previous self lost her memories but because she was organized and knew it was coming, she has eased new Myfanwy’s transition. She gets to choose to stay in her life through letters and then we get an easy way to give flashbacks. Anyway this part RULES. 

Honestly, the book starts strong as hell. Myfanwy discovers she has supernatural powers over people’s nervous systems and is a trained bureaucrat for a supernatural wing of the government. This all runs sort of like a combination of Heroes and Harry Potter in the best way possible. And here is where we find the strongest part of the book: the superpowers. 

We don’t have to look that far to find Heroes type shows or books where everyone has a special ability, so if you’re going to go that route, you’ve gotta bring it. And honestly, Daniel brings it. They powers are cool as hell, they’re inventive, they’re well bounded. I felt like I understood what people’s powers and limitations were. We were in a land with magic, but it never felt cheap. This is going to dovetail into my absolute RANT about Gestalt but give me a sec to get there. 

Ok. So honestly I don’t even have any complaints until the third act. Act one gives us the set up, act two introduced the big bad the Grafters and so far so good. We’ve got good but elitist supernatural guys vs. bad but more egalitarian supernatural guys. We also know that it was someone in the supernatural org (it has a name but the name is so stupid I can’t spell it) that betrayed our protag and stole her memories and they’re still around and teamed up with the evil Grafters. Intrigue?? Don’t know who to trust???? Love it. 

For some reason everyone is either old, or hot, or so inhuman it’s viscerally horrifying. Love this touch. Eleanor from the Good Place taught us that it’s totally free to imagine everyone in a story as super hot. And it is. So they’re all super hot. Love it. Good commitment, Daniel. 

But then we get to Act three. So, this was a big swing on ol Danny’s part because a lot of the effect of this had to do with carrying out mystery. We’d built a lot of tension on the suspense  Who Betrayed Myfanwy. So obviously it’s really important for me to be surprised or at least satisfied with who this is. (As an aside, I would have been ok with guessing correctly, I definitely don’t subscribe to surprise trumping cohesive plot). Ok. With that on paper... like... holy shit. What a stupid “reveal.” 

So in part 1, like the first scene we get of old Myfanwy’s letters giving us context, she says that her apartment at work was inherited from a dude Conrad something that got promoted. And then she says it’s super badly decorated, and later we see it and this shit is straight out of Austin Powers, mirror over a round bed, The Whole Shebang. But she also says that this guy who otherwise is supposed to be very smooth and charismatic like... asks her about the decor.... every time they interact. Every Time They Interact. The second this was mentioned (WHICH IS AFTER WE KNOW SHE WAS BETRAYED) I'm like “oh ok so this guy bugged her room he’s the villain” and I only wasn’t sure because it was WAY too obvious. 

But no. He’s the villain. He has a big reveal where he’s like “AND I BUGGED YOUR ROOM” and I'm like... well... yeah. Of course you did. But here’s the thing tho... Myfanwy’s like... WHOLE ASS JOB is planning covert ops. So... is she good at her job??? IS SHE???? 

But we also don’t actually show how characters are based on their actions, we are just told how they are. But we will circle back to that in the Gestalt part. That’s honestly the sum of my rant about the plot. It was nothing. It put all its eggs in the basket of the worst most boring reveal of all time. Daniel, I think you might just be boring. 

Part 2: Wasted Potential - Everything but Gestalt who gets a special part to themselves.

The big sin of this book might just be too many good ideas. There’s a lot of characters, they all do cool stuff, but we have like 200 pages, so there wasn’t enough time to do anything with all these guys. I got lost about who was who like 80 times because they’re basically all sneaky hot magic guys. One of them smokes and is a soldier and he seems chill. 

There’s a vampire and he gets a scene and a long intro that reads more like a wiki page. Like it was interesting but you would have lost NOTHING cutting him as a character except that he was cool. You never ever believe that he was the bad guy because it’s super well established in the Certified Back Story that he could give two shits about the politics of the humans. He’s there bc he’s an adorably young vampire who is very curious so his dad set him up as a powerful government agent as though it was enrolling him in a prep school. Love it, but again, we don’t.... need him around. 

There’s a lady who can walk through dreams and I thought she was going to be important based on the fanfare of her introduction but then we forget about her basically entirely. 

There’s a whole American wing that we also only see anything interesting about in side story. Basically the world building is really good. Like pretty superb to be honest. But it’s bracketing a story that is nothing so it makes even good characters seems really random. And that bring us to:

Part 3: My Darling, Gestalt. My Type. My Weakness. What a Sad Little Thing You Are (Also misogyny)

Alright... if the rest of this review wasn’t salty enough for you... let the salt begin. Gestalt. So named because of the word meaning larger than the sum of its parts. And so they were destined to be. And so they were most definitely not. So Gestalt’s whole thing is that they are one consciousness with four bodies. They can either control one body at a time and sort of shut the others down or they can control them all at once but that becomes harder if one of them requires more attention than another, like if one is in a fight. 

Two twins (men), one fraternal brother, and a sister. If anyone is thinking “uhoh, only one girl, hmm can Daniel handle that? Seems like maybe some Smurfette style misogyny-lite is coming,” you would be wrong. Super wrong. Because it is not misogyny-lite. It’s aggressive Fight-Me-In-A-Perkins-Parking-Lot misogyny. So go fuck yourself, Dan. 

Alright, so to number Gestalt’s sins. 

1. Scrape off some of that intro mustard.

They’re introduced in the LONGEST fucking passage I’ve ever read telling me that this dude is hard to talk to and weird. Like, I’m in an urban fantasy book already, I'm all set. Also... bitch SHOW ME they’re weird. Like can I see some interactions that give me second hand embarrassment??? No. It is actually never uncomfortable to talk to Gestalt. I only know that because people are super fucking rude about them. But it is never earned. So I don’t feel sympathy when people are like “Oh noooo you have to spend a car ride with Gestalt? Ewwwww sorry.” I’m just like, “What’s your fucking problem? They seem fine.” 

2. They’re supposed to be Bad At Planning but when?? 

Alright so there ARE times they’re bad at planning and we will GET TO THAT. But it’s only post-reveal like... what we are told during a monologue that they were dumb as shit. And that wasn’t even like not being good w/ details like it’s implied they are, it’s literally like doing dumb ass stuff. And it felt more like my bud Dan didn’t have a good handle on why stuff was dumb as rain than Gestalt being silly. 

Also.... this is a stupid use of this sort of character. They’re dumb and bad at planning??? THEY’RE A JOINT CONSCIOUSNESS why would you waste that making them “Good at kicking ass.” ugh. Fine. 

3. They get sidelined IMMEDIATELY 

So a guy named Pumice Stone or Kettle or Lil boy Bad At This or something outs that Gestalt is working with the Grafters because he like.... wasn’t paying attention. It was boring. But anyway so they capture two of the bodies and then stop addressing Gestalt until the end. They have one weird scene where the protagonist like.... freaks them out but ok. Fine. Why is Gestalt so Yelly. Why are so many villains in this book yelly. Ew. 

4. The REVEAL MONOLOGUE. 

I know this is a long ass review already. But my Feelings Must be Heard. So in the end when Conrad surprises no one but “smart” Myfanwy that he was the bad guy, we also get a reveal from the surviving Gestalt bodies that:

a. There’s an incest baby

b. They’re afraid of death

c. They’re so phenomenally stupid I have lost all interest in them

So... this is where the misogyny comes in. I’ll note here that the only time we interact w/ Eliza, the special girl body, is when she takes a carried to Hogwarts the super secret magic school with Myfanwy and she doesn’t do anything except we get the internal note that she’s like... gained weight. This is the misogyny-lite we expect. (And no, Dan, you don't get any points bc a female character is the only pleased she got pudgy bc YOU wrote the female character so we’re all set there.)

And then we discover that the weird blonde (lol oh yeah they’re all hot blondes) baby that Conrad “Evil Austin Powers” British-Last-Name has with his weird wife is actually a Gestalt body that Eliza had after she boned down with her other body who is genetically a brother and consciously herself. 

K. Ok. I have. Ok. Alright. Daniel. Ok. 

SUBPART A: My Feelings about Gestalt: Oh Eliza, my darling, my dear, would that I could bring you Justice

So after Eliza is shot dead one of the interchangeable boy bodies of Gestalt yells at Myfanwy about how terrible that is bc it was the only body who could bear children so now THE HORROR they’ll die. 

For god’s fucking sake Daniel O’Malley. What the fuck is your goddamn problem. You LITERALLY wrote a Smurfette Syndrome character who is only important because she can have babies. She is literally just there to be a baby-box. What the fuck. Get fucking wrecked. Thank GOD Starz cut your program and fuck the Aurealis Awards for giving you an award for this fucking book. But they’re a sci-fi award so this is probably super progressive for them. I was pleasantly annoyed by the basic nature of this book until this part. Now I am just done with your content. This was more overtly sexist that Supernatural. So... real swing and a miss. 

ANYWAY FORTUNATELY this opens a whole new can of worms that I get to ruthlessly mock certified Basic Bitch Daniel O’Malley for. 

SubPart 2: Gestalt Raises Interesting Philosophical Questions Daniel Isn’t Smart Enough to Address

So, remember, I would have cut this dude more slack if he didn’t do that to Eliza. Gestalt, to be honest, this whole review is dedicated to what you Could Have Been. 

Interesting Questions or Comments We Could Have Asked:

Does having a baby being one of five of your bodies affect your consciousness? That thing doesn’t have object permanence? Is there like an intellectual cost to having another baby body? No, we don’t care. I think we just had there be a baby bc “Weird sister-sex” was as interesting as Daniel could get. Side Note: The obvious question of “lol haha lol is it incest or mAsTurBation is not going to be addressed here bc it is literally too boring to consider)

Does having a body who textually is said to have post-partum depression affect your joint consciousness? If not, why bring it up?? Bc she has “weird lady disease” is that why???

Are they....afraid of death????? Why didn’t you ever bring this up? Why have they showed only excitement at the prospect of very dangerous fights up to this point? Why are all four bodies in the field. 

WHY ARE ALL FOUR BODIES IN THE FIELD. Ok so here is one of those points that is definitely stupid but stupid in a dumb as dirt way. If you were afraid to lose your baby-box body, why would you send her into battle? 

Why didn’t they freeze a bunch of her eggs? In fact, why did she bear it at all? Why put your one female body that you only want for babies through that sort of danger? Canonically they all get paid an absurd amount and Gestalt is paid for each body, they can afford a surrogate.  

Why let a weird dude who is at best contemptuous of you raise your baby body? Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Doesn’t that give him a huge amount of leverage over you? 

Is the quality fo Gestalt’s form destined to decline if genetically they can only make more bodies by full genetic sibling offspring? Does that scare them? Again... does their physical brain affect their consciousness? 

If so... maybe that would be a good reason for them to want to join up with the Grafters who are way ahead in genetic research and engineering. 

ANYWAY Gestalt is sexist as shit and boring as hell and had SO MUCH WEIRD POTENTIAL. 

In summary: It was definitely fun but Fuck you, Daniel O’Malley 

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

I wanna hearing about Paige's family with #5.

Super detailed questions about your OCs

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

HOO BOI my friend, you have volunteered for an infodump. I’m putting in a read-more cut to prevent dash clogging.

Paige was the second-to-last child out of five, with three brothers and one sister. 

Isabelle [Bella, Belle] -- the eldest, Paige’s sister and seven years older than her. Basically ended up as built-in babysitter/second mom. Paige calls her Izzy and is the only one who is allowed to call her that [anyone else will get whacked, including Bella’s husband]. Their relationship when Paige was a kiddo was pretty strained; Paige grew up running wild with her brothers whilst Isabelle, the eldest daughter of a very conservative and publicly religious family, was constantly being watched and judged on how responsible she was and how well she was growing into a ‘lady’ as she was expected to do. Meanwhile Paige, as the younger daughter and surrounded by boys, was excused for more wild behavior and often given a flavor of the ‘boys will be boys’ pass when she got into trouble until she hit puberty and suddenly got whacked in the face with more feminine expectations. 

Somewhere in Paige’s early teens, she and Izzy had it out in an honest to goodness, full-on fight, wherein Izzy accused Paige of being a spoiled brat who was incapable of understanding just how hard it was to hold up under everyone’s expectations, and Paige threw it right back by calling those expectations petty bullshit and questioning why Izzy didn’t just toss it all out if she hated being a lady. The two grew apart after that, maintaining some sisterly affection but mostly not getting in each other’s way. Izzy taught Paige how to look after her hair when she started growing it out, taught her how to do make-up, gave her advice on clothes and shoes for interviews, that sort of thing. 

They both ultimately stayed at arm’s length until Shaun was born, at which point Izzy had reached out to try and reconnect. She and her husband had been living in Pennsylvania when the bombs fell. Izzy’s family was well off enough that they might have gotten a spot in a vault, but Paige hadn’t been keeping up with them enough to know whether or not they’d registered...

Ethan -- eldest brother, five years older than Paige, she always looked up to him as her cool older brother. He and his friends had a garage band when he was a teen, but he gave it up when their parents put pressure on him to start figuring out something ‘real’ to do with his life. Music became a beloved hobby, noodling about on his guitar when he could get away with it, but never when their father was home, as he’d threatened to smash it on more than one occasion. 

Like Isabelle, Ethan was often leaned upon to be more adult than he actually was, looking after his younger siblings but with a touch more wiggle room. Where Isabelle was very much considered the one with full parental authority, and thus expected to enforce the rules to their fullest extent, Ethan allowed Paige, Daniel, and Zach to get away with the occasional mischief with a wink and a smile that assured them he didn’t see anything. 

Besides music, Ethan also had a gift of gab that made him excellent at talking himself and his siblings out of any trouble-- something he and Paige shared, and the two would get into deep arguments over tiny things as a kind of sport. At school a teacher encouraged him towards debate club and theater, and he participated in multiple school productions before, again, their parents reminded him that artistic careers were more fantasy than anything to build your life around. Instead, they pushed him towards law, which he fucking hated but attempted to make them happy.

He dropped out after his first year of college, arriving at home with black dyed hair, two tattoos and three piercings he hadn’t had when he left for school, giving their parents the finger, and all but disappearing when Paige was fourteen. Nineteen years old, he was technically an adult, his their parents couldn’t drag him back. Dad doesn’t talk about Ethan, and mom would cry when he was mentioned. Paige worried he died chasing a dream for the longest time, until she left for law school and started getting postcards-- turned out Ethan was still in contact with Izzy, and had embraced his musical career [and all the hardship that came with it] with everything he had. 

Last Paige heard, Ethan had been somewhere on the western seaboard when the bombs fell. She finds it unlikely that he, or any descendants of him, survived... though, if he went ghoul, she wouldn’t be surprised if he was still living the traveling musician life two centuries later. 

Daniel [Danny] -- middle brother, two years older than Paige, and oldest of the trouble trio. Daniel, Paige, and Zach were always the three making messes together as young kids, running wild, exploring the backwoods on the family farm, finding fun and odd ways to get chores done, and generally being kids. Danny was the tough one out of the three of them; easily the biggest out of all of Paige’s siblings and the one who got in people’s faces if anyone was messing with anyone else in the family. 

Danny and Paige frequently butted heads; they were both stubborn as hell and outspoken, and before Paige was expected to be more lady-like it very regularly came to blows. It’s thanks to Danny that Paige knew how to squirm out of most holds by the time she was an adult, even if the other person was larger than her, and exactly which soft spots to shove her elbows or heels into. This tendency towards brawling changed as they got older, however, as Danny realized that Paige was going to be a petite woman her entire life and went out of his way to teach her some honest-to-goodness self-defense tactics after hearing a few of his friends say a few... off color things about his sister. 

Danny stayed in Minnesota to attend a trade school, finding work in the automation industry; installing and maintaining machines used for mass manufacture. He married almost immediately out of highschool, and the timing of his first kid suggests that his wife was pregnant before the wedding. Paige kept in contact with him, and Danny actually made the trip out to visit her when Shaun was born. While Paige suspects that he’s dead, unless of course he ended up ghoul, she has occasionally speculated that if Danny and his family survived the initial bombing? He had practical skills that might have seen him through long enough to have descendants that survived to the present day.  Zachariah [Zach] -- the youngest, a year younger than Paige and her childhood partner in crime. Zach, like Paige, was kinda on the small side. Unlike Paige, Zach was also intensely shy in a family full of outspoken, opinionated, stubborn mules. It wasn’t that he didn’t have opinions, mind-- rather that he had a lot of trouble putting the words together to express them. Zach would often stick with Paige like her second shadow, because Paige was very good at picking up on what he meant to say to others and saying it for him, or re-iterating when he spoke too quietly and he got ignored. 

That said, Zach was often the mastermind behind what he, Paige, and Danny got up to as little kids-- quiet, but quick witted, and a grade-A prankster. 

As adolescents, Zach and Paige were occasionally confused for being twins despite there being a year difference between them. Their faces were strikingly similar, with Zach having deeply brown eyes rather than Paige’s hazel being the main difference. Sometimes their mischief would play into this, and Paige was allowed to get away with many things as a young teen simply by virtue of being mistaken for her brother. 

When Ethan ran out on the family, Zach was probably the one most deeply effected by it, and Paige did everything she could to support him at the time. They both looked up to Ethan, but Zach even more so because he was also musically inclined and had been learning the drums from one of Ethan’s friends. Sometimes the band even let him do some kind of back-up percussion when they were practicing before their father shut it down, and it was during those practice sessions that Zach tended to really light up. When Ethan left? Zach fell deeply into depression for a long time, and Paige felt like it was her responsibility to hold him up lest she lose another brother. 

Despite being the often-overlooked child in the family, Zach had damn near perfect grades... and yet, their parents appeared to lack specific expectation for him. Rather, the had a vague assurance that he’d simply do well at whatever he decided to do, and Zach confided in Paige that he had no idea what to do with his scholastic success-- that it didn’t feel real to him. That he wasn’t a person, but rather a mass of goo that could just be poured into whatever shape worked best for the people around him. 

Paige still regrets not having any good advice for him. Last she heard, he’d gone to school to pursue an engineering degree, like their father; imitating a ready example. She suspects that he might have gone after something musical, if not for what happened with Ethan, and that his choice paralysis was a form of avoiding even thinking about that kind of rebellion. Like Danny, Zach’s schooling didn’t take him far from the family home, and he still lived in Minnesota at the time of the bombing. He was, at the time, unmarried. Given time to think further on it, Paige actually suspects that Zach might have been some form of closeted due to still being close to the family and their parents intense involvement with the church. Thinking about that always makes her wish she’d been there for him more, that she’d been smarter and figured out what he’d been dealing with and helped him handle it better. 

Like everyone else, Paige is pretty sure Zach is dead... and he’s probably the one she’s mourns the most, because it feels like he never really got to live in the first place. 

[cowandcalf]

Writer’s Month 2020 - To Find A Way

Prompt No. 11 - Light

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5 - Light

Danny takes one more look at Steve with a teasing grin on his lips. "Show me. Which way?" His eyebrows climb up the forehead. He cocks the head to the side, just for kicks to flirt with the most handsome guy in the western hemisphere.

Steve has just agreed to show him his garden. And a split second ago there has been a wide smile on his beautiful face. What has happened between the last second and this second?

They don't know each other and at the same time, Danny's blood rushes at a different speed through his veins. He heaves a sigh because something inside him has finally arrived, is finally able to stop running, to stop looking. And Danny has no freaking idea what that even means, and why he's having such crazy thoughts. It's not the first time, he's stuck in a challenging situation with a stranger just to experience and undergo emotions that run so deep he gets the feeling to run out of air.

But Steve – God, this fearless man, broke down and mended himself back together almost in no time. And falling in love, at first sight, is kind of traumatic, too. It bereaves Danny of all his believes he's had about love. The love, the one no one ever gets to meet and especially not him. And still, Danny gets to breathe in fresh air after what seems like the longest of time. It shocks him to the core.

Steve has made him stay, has made him see how he has risen from hell. Danny senses the sweltering heat in his chest as an after sensation of Steve's struggle. What emotional resilience, what emotional raw strength, and stamina that must have taken out of Steve. But with the impact of a drilling arrow through his chest, Danny realizes the delicacy of his demand – the demand to see 'more' of Steve. Steve hasn't refused Danny's ask. He just agreed on the spot, more like a reflex he starts to regret, maybe? Danny can't breathe.

Admiration, devotion, and respect so profound it hurts render him speechless. Danny's lost for words. He can't grasp fast enough how the mood changes, like the wind in the air. The sails of his soul feel a different blow. Danny stops walking to the door across the living room.

Steve's lips still show the shadow of a confident smile but his eyes grow darker with the pupils enlarging. Danny knows he asks a lot of the guy. They're bonding and the sheer thought of this incurable romantic, stupid motion makes him slow down his steps.

Danny has no idea which way to go. He doesn't have a clue where Steve's 'home-grown jungle' could be. There's ridiculous thick jungle all around the funny, out-of-shape house and along the gravel road leading up to Steve's place. And Danny has also no clue if Steve's even up to let a stranger into his green world if Steve has ever shown anyone at all where he disappears when the world closes him on him.

The truth is Danny's shaking. The adrenaline finally kicks in despite the light banter about coffee mugs moments ago. He's not sure if he could hold up the level of a solid mood, they both have worked up so hard to reach. Maybe the tour through Steve's refuge isn't such a good idea.

Steve's fresh out of a solid panic attack Danny has caused and to be honest, he feels slightly out of his depths. Anxiety fits aren't new to him but the shock still stuck in his bones how Steve freaked out, eyes wide and glassy. Maybe, he should just leave. Let Steve have some time of his own. Maybe he should even call Steve's sister to make sure he gets through the night without dark, hellish nightmares. Mary. Steve's sister's name is Mary.

Steve's watching him with an intensity that gets Danny's legs heavy and his steps difficult. "You're not coming?" His eyes find Steve's and his heart stops for a beat. "Help me out, big guy. I don't know what has changed between my question to show me your garden and my steps toward this door."

Steve stays stubbornly silent and Danny slips deeper into a sadness he can't explain. He follows Steve with his eyes.

Steve places his mug gently on the countertop and comes over to where Danny stands rooted to the spot. He's unable to see anything else but Steve and the way large dirt smudges show where he has wiped off the dirt to get to his weapon. Steve's bare feet sticking out from worn leg pants, the skin dirty from walking without shoes. The sight touches Danny's heart unprepared. His hand curls around the mug pressed to his chest. There is weariness but also skittishness to Steve's posture. He watches Danny as if he regrets having agreed to show him around.

"Look, Steve, no offense taken if you change your mind. We don't have to go visit your jungle. I didn't mean to pressure you or to make you uncomfortable again." Danny gushes, in a hurry to cut through this heavy, thick mood he can't fend off. "I was just trying to steer us away from this abyss of terrible memories – whatever. Steve?"

Steve's gaze is like the softest of kisses. Danny almost drops the mug. Steve walks past Danny and brushes against his drawn-up arm. Danny revels in the sensation to smell Steve's skin, earth and sweat, and to have a memory of how damn solid and hard Steve's abs feel pressed to his arm. Danny wants to walk right out the front door. He's not sure he's ever mustered that much self-control not to turn around and to grab at Steve's shirt to pull him in.

Steve's fingers curl around the door pull at the light-blue wooden door that shields a private part from curious eyes. "Danny, I'm good. I said yes and I'll show you my garden. It's just – no one ever saw it. I haven't – there hasn't been anyone further than this door and I'm kind of – kind of nervous but I want to show you, make you see."

Danny approaches carefully. He places his mug on the small table on the way over. "Make me see what?"

"That I'm not just the broken guy you helped putting back together just now." Steve pressed the handle down. The door clicks open and with his hand sprawled wide on the wooden surface, he pushes the door wide open. "Follow me."

Danny steps through the door like through a guarded gate and finds himself in a different world. He knows instantly why Steve hides this place from the public, guards it with everything. It's not the plants or the amount of green that embraces Danny in a way he has never felt plants and flowers and trees before but it's what hovers over this secret place of peace. It's the pieces in Steve's soul that aren't damaged, aren't eaten up by cruelty and death. This place is vibrant with life and love. So much love.

Danny gasps. He can't take another step in his shoes. It's not right. He has to feel. He wants to touch the earth with the sole of his feet, just like Steve. Danny toes off his loafers and pulls his socks off. He has to close his eyes when his bare feet step on Hawai'ian soil. It's wet and cool and soft.

Steve's smile grows wider again as if Danny has passed the first important test. God, what a weird, intense day.

"Did you grow and built that all by yourself?" Danny spreads his arms wide open to take in just everything. The variety of flowers, bushes, small trees, pots, and flowerbeds are an orchestra of beauty and care. The silent melody of wholeness tugs at Danny's heartstrings. The strain to keep the balance of the two worlds is visible on Steve's face. It's like darkness and light and Steve stands in the middle holding both worlds together. It's breathtakingly beautiful and painful at the same time.

"Mostly. This place belonged to my mother's family. I inherited it when she died. She passed it on to me because she knew how important it has been, since the first time she took me with her to help with the seedlings. She had a green thumb, like her mother. I've got her talent to grow things."

"I'm sorry, man, to hear you lost your mother."

"Thanks. She was sick, cancer. She never showed us how much pain she had to fight. She always had a smile for me and Mary. We lost her when I was sixteen. It's a long time ago. She's still here though –" Steve stops talking.

Danny can't look at him. "I'm glad you have something to remember her. It's good she lives on in the plants. It's powerful. Beautiful even." The picture of a small boy and his mother, laughing with their hands in the soil, rushes through Danny's mind.

The little, covered lanai is tidy and stocked with two battered wooden chairs and a small table. Sun-bleached worn pillows lie on the chairs. And countless flower pots with a variety of plants and flowers in different stages of growth frame the small, comfortable chill-zone. Watering pots stand lined up, filled with water at one side, right next to the wall with the garden tools. Time stands still in this perfect place where another tide of the world's ocean rises.

"You have a cat?" Danny points astonished at the two bowls in a corner of the lanai. One was filled with dry food and the other one with water.

Steve steps up to his side, closer and with a shy hesitation as if he wasn't still sure about how Danny takes in all the information he spills so freely. Steve breathes a soft chuckle. "Not exactly. I would love to adopt this little guy but he's too shy. It's a stray, a tabby cat. He drops by almost every evening. He sleeps on one of the chairs. I can't touch him yet. It's a he because – big balls, you know." Steve snorts. "He's a wild one. He survives somehow out here but I want him to have a place to refuel his strength and to take a nap when he feels like."

This new cat information does funny things to Danny's heart. "Who takes care of the place and the cat when you're, uh, not around?"

Steve gaze wanders over his small, safe, green kingdom. "Mary and Kawika. Mostly Mary, my sister. I need to know she looks after the wild, brave cat when I'm not here. But I'm not going anywhere anymore."

Danny ignores the last bit. That's a too sensitive topic to touch now. "Where does Mary live?" Danny has decided to ask as much as Steve lets him.

"She's my neighbor. She lives close to the ocean in a beautiful house with her husband Kawika. They looked after my house when I was gone."

"You're good with your sister?"

"Yeah," Steve plays with his toes in the soft soil.

"Do you mind me asking questions?" Danny can't stop himself from getting positive confirmation.

"No," Steve shoots him a side-glance.

"What about your father?"

"He's remarried and lives with his wife about a one-hour drive from our place. We don't get along so great. I live in my parent's house but it's big and it's just me there, so – "

"You prefer this place," Danny fills in the gap.

Steve nods with his hand shoved down his back pockets.

The setting sunlight gets reflected in something hanging on the wall right above a shelf lined up with wonderful big blossomy flowers.

"Why plants? Why flowers? Even if you inherited your mother's talent, I would have imagined you more with cars or even small planes, motorbikes You know, stuff like that, wild and dangerous but not flowers and tender plants that need so much care to grow." Danny asks while he walks over to have a look at the bright reflection where the sunlight gets caught.

Steve's right behind him and waits to reply. Danny steps onto the wooden floor of the lanai and is about to reach out to grab that shiny thing when he hears Steve sharply draw air into his lungs. He stops and freezes. He pulls his hand instantly back when he recognizes what he's spotted.

Dog tags.

TBC

Also on AO3

[kinglazrus]

For the prompt list thing any chance you wanna do random, #5?

Random #5 - “I would call you an imbecile but that’d be cruel as you wouldn’t be able to spell it.”

It Could be Weird

Danny’s life is weird. Everybody knows it. Even if they don’t know about his part-timejob of being dead, they know about his eccentric ghost-hunting parents, and his uptight psychology obsessed sister, and his own eternal fascination with space.

They know the food in his lunchbox is sometimes alive. They know the lump in his backpack’s water bottle holder isn’t a water bottle but a compact ectogun. They know Danny sleeps above a portal to another dimension.

But they don’t know the weirdest thing about Danny’s life which, amazingly enough,is not the fact that he’s half-dead. It’s that for the past five nights Danny has come home from ghost patrol to find Dash Baxter sitting in his living room, wearing glasses.

Tonight, Danny sneaks in through his bedroom window, phasing through the class. He dumpsthe thermos on his bed—he’ll empty it out later—shakes out the dust and dried ectoplasm from his hair and transforms. Snatching a hoodie off his chair, he fires a harmless ectoblast at his radio on his way out the door, cutting off the music he put on to make it seem like he was home.

He hops down the stairs, tugging the sleeves of his hoodie over his split knuckles, and pauses on his way to the kitchen. Just like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, Dash sits cross-legged in front of the coffee table. His homework is spread out before him, a textbook at his elbow, a pencil in his hand, and a frown on his face.

Jazz sits on the couch holding an identical textbook—Danny’s copy, he recognizes thebloodstain on the spine—and quietly talks Dash through a lesson on cellular development.

Despite coming home to a similar scene four days in a row, it’s still so bizarre thathe stares too long and Jazz catches him watching.

“Did you do your homework?” Jazz asks. The unspoken before ghost hunting lingers between them.

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Fine. I’m going to do it now,” he says.

“You’re still lying,” Jazz singsongs. She slips a page in Danny’s textbook and glances up at him. “You need to keep your grades up if you want to keep…”

She glances at Dash, who’s pencil has stopped moving and is sitting oddly still.

“… making friends. After school.”

“Making friends.” Danny raises an eyebrow at her. He wishes that’s what he was doing after school. It’d be a hell of a lot kinder on his bones.

Jazz flushes but refuses to be cowed. “Get your stuff, you’re working in here.”

Danny tips his head back, groaning, and heads back upstairs to get his backpack.

—

Danny hasn’t touched his homework in five minutes. He gnaws on the end of his pencil,the metal band squishing between his teeth, flicking the eraser with his tongue to make the pencil swing back and forth. Every few seconds, Jazz sends him an admonishing look over the top of Danny’s textbook.

“That’s not working,” she says.

“I’m contemplating the philosophic implications of my assignment,” Danny says.

Jazz doesn’t look impressed.

Danny doesn’t really blame her. His chin is resting on a math textbook.

“It’s important,” he says. “How can I figure out how many pounds of fudge Anabelle has leftover without first considering why she has it? Or where she got it from? Or what the hell a triangle has to do with it?”

Maybe she’s a distant relative of their father’s.

Jazz rolls her eyes and leans over Dash’s shoulder, scanning the questions he’s working on.

“This one’s wrong,” she says, pointing halfway down the page.

Dash huffs, scowling, and furiously erases his answer.

It fascinates Danny. He’s never seen Dash so focused on something that didn’t involve a football or beating Danny up. Not to mention the glasses. Since when does Dash have glasses? They’ve been in the same class since kindergarten and he’s never seen them before.

Not to mention, Dash hasn’t insulted Danny once since he sat down on the other side of the table. Maybe Dash got hit in the head by a stray ectoblast when Kitty showed up during gym class.

Danny spits his pencil out of his mouth, ignoring the disgusted look Jazz gives him,and says, “I thought you already proved you could tutor the ‘untutorable.’”

“I did,” Jazz says. Shaking her long sleeve out over her hand, she reaches out and swats Danny’s pencil back toward him. “I thought you were being philosophical about brownies.”

“Fudge,” Danny corrects her. “And I decided the Fenton appetite is beyond the comprehension of even the greatest philosophers.”

“Anabelle’s a Fenton now?”

“My favourite cousin.”

“Uh-huh.” Jazz closes her borrowed textbook and sets it down on the cushion beside her, folding her hands in her lap. “If you aren’t going to do your work you can just–”

“Jazz!” Their mother’s voice echoes up the basement stairs. “Can you come downhere for a moment?”

Jazz sighs but gets up without a fuss. She points at Danny before heading downstairsand says, “Be nice. Don’t distract my student.”

“Me? But he's­– wait, your student?”

Jazz turns away, leaving Danny sputtering and alone with Dash.

It takes Danny a moment to compose himself. When he does, he shoves his homeworkaside, slams his hand on the table, and leans across it into Dash’s personal space.

“Okay, what the hell, why do you keeping coming here?” Danny asks. “Are you hitting on my sister again? Because she already said no, don’t be a creep. I sent the last guy who messed with her to the Ghost Zone.”

Rather than leaning away, Dash gets in Danny’s face and sneers. “Chill out, Fenturd, don’t be an ass.”

“If you're–”

“I said chill out.” Dash shoves Danny’s face away. “You’re sister’s pretty smart, okay? And I need help with science.”

“You really think I’m gonna believe that?” Danny sits back and crosses his arms. Like hell. He remembers how gross Dash was hitting on his sister in ninth grade. Two years was not long enough to recover from that emotional travesty.

“I’m failing the class, okay?” Dash snaps, cheeks red. “I gotta pull my grade up to a C or else I’m off the football team.”

“Oh.” The fight goes out of Danny pretty quickly. He scratches his head and looksaway. “Okay, whatever. My grades aren’t that great either.”

“Yeah, but you’re a loser.”

“Seriously?” Danny glares across the table. “You can’t be civil for two seconds? I wastrying to be nice or whatever, but if you’re just gonna be an ass about it, fine. Wonder how you’re friends’d react to that.”

Dash wrinkles his nose. “What? They already know.”

“And they didn’t kick you out of your little club?” Danny asks flippantly.

“You think we’re that shallow?”

Danny stares at Dash. He can’t be serious. He can’t be that oblivious. All the A-listers care about are looks, money, and popularity, and Danny knows that firsthand.

“I bet Valerie does.”

Dash at least has the mind to look ashamed, and Danny feels a little vindicated at the sight of his downturned eyes.

“You guys were pretty damn cruel to her after she lost all her money. Are you telling me that wasn’t shallow?” Danny asks smugly.

“Like you’re so great, Fenton.”

“A hell of a lot better than you.”

Dash laughs. It’s loud and mocking, and he throws his head back as he does it. “Oh my god. You know how many times I’ve seen you brush off those friends of yours? Didn’t you, like, ditch them to go to a party freshman year? And you replaced them with robots once.”

“Hey, there was more going on there!” Danny defends himself. He doesn’t even know how Dash heard about the robots, but there was more to it, a ghost that could make you greedy.

Danny took care of it pretty quickly once he realized what was up, although that didn’t stop him from feeling like a massive jerk afterwards. But at least he didn’t mean it, and he knew he was a bad friend at that time.

“I don’t think you realize how much I don’t give a shit,” Dash says. “Just leave me alone, Fenton. And if you tell anyone besides my friends about this, I’ll shove you in so many lockers.”

Danny scowls. “Fine. Don’t flirt with my sister though.”

“No problems there. I’m not into girls.”

It takes Danny a second to process that. “Huh.”

“You got a problem with that?”

“What? No. Like, pretty much everyone I’m friends with is in the queer community,myself included. I thought you liked Paulina. And, you know, you flirted with my sister? And pretty much every single cheerleader.” Danny thinks back, trying to remember if there were any hints. Dash used to flirt with girls a lot, but he can’t actually remember him hitting on anyone in the past year. “You know what that is? Growth.”

“Don’t quote gifs at me, loser.” There’s less bite in Dash’s insult and more resignation. The sound of a man who will put up with what he hates for something he needs.

Danny almost smiles. Almost. Dash is still a massive dick, but Danny hates him a little less than usual right now, if only because he isn’t trying to get with Jazz after all.

They fall silent, Dash returning to his work while Danny just sits there and thinks. He glances toward the stairs once, wondering what’s taking Jazz so long, but doesn’t totally mind it. Being alone with Dash isn’t as horrible as he thought it’d be.

He gets bored pretty damn quickly though.

“Okay, the glasses, you have to tell me,” Danny says.

Dash groans, closing his notebook. “They’re glasses. I wear them and stuff gets less blurry. Fascinating.”

“Yeah, but I mean!” Danny waves his arms in a meaningless gesture. “Since when do you have them?”

“Since I got them.”

“Oh my god, I hate you.”

“Feeling’s mutual.”

“I’d call you a sap, but I think you’d punch me for it,” Danny quips, unable to resist.

“I’d call you a loser, but it’s redundant.”

“I can’t believe you know what redundant means.”

Dash glares at Danny. Normally that look makes Danny nervous, because it’s usually followed by a punch to the got or some other, equally painful retribution, but right now Danny’s actually enjoying himself and Dash doesn’t look like he’s about to snap.

“Quick, write the word down before you forget it,” Danny says, tapping Dash’s notebook.

“Shut up, you moron.” Dash swats Danny’s hand with his pencil.

“Oh no, you’re backsliding. Write it fast.”

“Shut up!”

“Want some help? Here, r-e-t-”

“You are such a fucking idiot.”

Danny beams. “I’d call you an imbecile, but I think that’d be cruel since you probably can’t spell it.”

“I swear to god, Fenton.”

“Hey, don’t be mean to my brother!”

Danny ducks his head to hide the shit-eating grin on his face as Jazz returns. She’s glaring at Dash, who sputters as he tries to defend himself, and Danny silently vows to join them for tomorrow’s study session, too, if this is what it’s going to be like.