#Jason takes it even further by lamenting that the only way he can be put to rest

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Instead of coming back as a crime lord, Jason pretends to be a vengeful revenant, haunting Gotham criminals and the batfamily.

This has… consequences.

[psychovigilantewrites]

Don’t Call Me That Pt. 2

Wordcount: 10,129

A/N:  I thought this part 2 would total up to 10k words, but when it hit 10k, I realised that I was only about 65 percent done. So based on the responses I got from tumblr, I decided to publish this first and then conclude the story later on!

TW:  mentions of r*pe, mentions of torture, mentions of drugging someone (??) , mental breakdowns, vulnerability, descriptions of anxiety

Also, HERE’S MY FAV MEMES!! I’m so sorry that I can’t tag respective meme creators, because I saved them on my phone and some of them I forgot to include your usernames!! I’M SO SORRY!!! And honest to god is wear there were more but i must have lost them im so sorry im so incompetent lmao

memeesss

You glanced at your phone.

It had already been a week in Hawaii with your friends, and Jason still hadn’t texted you.

Well, you should have expected it, really. Jason was a traumatised, mentally ill man who had been locked away for two years.

Of course he wouldn’t text you first.

You had contemplated texting him over the past few days, typing in an array of messages ranging from a simple “hey” to a whole paragraph, and deleting all of it without hitting send. Did he even switch the phone on? Was he surfing the internet? Or was the phone still there on the shelf where you had left it.

It was driving you crazy.

“Do you have a boyfriend we don’t know about?” a voice called.

You looked up and squinted at the man who was standing up, looking down at you. You were sitting on the beach, a little further away from the ocean where your friends were.

“What are you talking about?” you asked as Alex plopped down next to you.

“You’ve been fidgety the whole time,” he pointed out, combing back his dark shoulder length hair with his fingers, getting sand in them. “We’re on a private beach, and you’ve been fussing over your phone. Who are you talking to?”

“No one,” you grumbled truthfully.

“The girls have been gossiping,” he gestured to the two other girls playing in the water. Your closest friends. It was four of you in that inseparable group.

“Of course they have,” you groaned, “Tell them to SAY IT TO MY FACE, COWARDS!”

You shouted at them, earning you grins and middle fingers from the distance.

“They’re saying you’re in love with someone,” he chuckled, “But they always say stupid shit like that without any evidence. But sometimes, a girl’s intuition is just right, ya know?”

“Stop beating around the bush, Alex,” you rolled your eyes at him despite knowing he couldn’t see past your sunglasses. “No, I’m not in love. I’m just waiting for a text that might never come.”

“Why don’t you text him first?”

“Because it’s not as simple as that!” you flailed your arms, “He’s… complicated. I can’t just text him anything.”

“Girl, unless he’s Mr. Nottingham, or related to you, then it really isn’t that complicated,” he joked.

“Ugh,” you groaned again, falling back onto the cloth you spread out. “Fine. I’ll text him.”

“Atta girl,” Alex grinned, “I’m gonna head back in the water. Join us after. Please?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you waved.

Opening the text window for what had to be the thirtieth time, you finally decided to text him.

You: Miss me yet?

Staring intently at the small ‘sent’ below your message bubble, you waited for it to turn to ‘delivered’.

“Yes!” you hissed. It meant that Jason had indeed switched on the phone.

But after twenty minutes you realised that it didn’t matter if Jason switched on the phone if he didn’t want to talk to you. Cursing to yourself, you decided to join your friends in the water, hoping it’ll distract you from checking your phone every five minutes for a text message that might never come.

After an hour of actually spending time with your friends, all four of you returned to the villa, your mood elevated. Checking your phone, you could have jumped for joy when you saw not one, but four consecutive texts in a row.

Jason: Duck off. Jason: What the duck Jason: WHY CANT I SAY DUCK Jason: I DUCKING HATE THIS

You couldn’t let out a string of giggles.

“Oooh, lover boy texted you back, huh?” Alex peeked over your shoulder. “Gimme, I wanna mess with him.”

He snatched your phone from your hands, surprisingly swift and smooth for a civilian, raising it way above his head so you couldn’t reach it and opened the camera.

“Alex-!”

He threw his other arm over your shoulder and pulled you into his bare chest, crushing you before you could tackle him down. He snapped a picture and sent it.

You froze in horror.

“Why the hell did you do that?!” you yelled.

“Relax, I was just messing around,” he gave your phone back to you.

“You don’t- you don’t understand, you fucking asshole!” you screamed.

“I- I’m sorry,” Alex stuttered, surprised by your reaction. “I was just-”

“Fuck off!” you snapped.

Panicking, you saw the little notification below the picture turning from Received to Read.

No. No, no, no, no.

This was bad.

You didn’t want to overwhelm Jason by sending him photos of your activities, thinking that he might react badly to the sudden surplus of familiarity and sense of being close to someone. Now you were worried that he might start to push you away in fear, reverting back to how he was before, and months of progress would have been all for nothing.

He would probably start swearing at you, or worse- switch off the phone and reject any form of communication completely. You hurriedly texted a reply.

You: I’m so sorry! I didn’t send that, my friend was just messing around.

Expecting the worst, you braced yourself for the inevitable. Instead, he sent you:

Jason: Who the hell is that guy?? Jason: Why are you in your underwear??

Your mouth hung open as you stared in shock at the screen. Because you took so long to recover from the shock, he sent you another message.

Jason: ???

Snapping out of it, you texted back.

You: That’s just my friend. Sorry about that! And I’m not in my underwear, it’s a bikini! I’m in Hawaii.

You waited for him to reply, but ten minutes of you sitting anxiously on the turquoise sofa in the middle of the villa listening to the waves of the beach outside from the open doors passed by, and he still hadn’t.

Perhaps he’s busy- wait. There’s no way Jason would be busy. You tried to coax him into a conversation.

You: You can turn off your autocorrect if you want to swear without hassle. Go to your Keyboard settings.

You plopped your phone on the empty seat next to you and dried your hair.

“Ugh, come on!” complained Natalie, fully clothed and washed, walking towards the open concept kitchen from her room. “You’re getting sand everywhere!”

“Woops, my bad,” you grinned.

“There’s a shower outside on the porch for a reason you know,” she flipped her blond beach waves at you, looking through the fridge.

Alex stood quietly at the kitchen island, now scared to say anything.

You rolled your eyes. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Okay, I promise!” he grinned.

Ding.

Jason: fuck. fuck. fucking fuck. Jason: found it. You: Proud of you, man.

You went to your room and showered, then dried off and put on fresh clothes while waiting for Jason to reply.

Of course, he never did.

Groaning, you had to remind yourself that he was not used to human interaction, and texting would come unnaturally to him. Which meant that you had to be the one to keep the conversation going.

You: Do anything interesting since I left?

You saw him typing almost immediately this time.

Jason: no.

Of course not.

You: Have you been eating properly? Jason: yeah.

God, it was so difficult. You were in the middle of typing something when he replied again.

Jason: yoire not my mom Jason: yoire Jason: YOIRE Jason: FUCK WHY CANR I TYPE

You felt guilty for laughing, but you did anyway.

You: Now that you switched off autocorrect, it won’t correct your typos and misspells anymore. Jason: i fucking knw that. Ive been gone for two yeard not twenty. You: Then why do you sound like a grandpa? Jason: BECAISE YOU GAVE ME A FUCKINF IPHONE!! I USED AN ANDROID!!

Now you were really laughing out loud, so you sent him a GIF of a woman rolling her eyes.

Jason: wtf you can send gifs throug text now?? You: Welcome to 2020, my dude. Jason: im not your fucking dude

Typing a reply, Jason interrupted you once again.

Jason: teach me how to do that

Smiling widely, you found that you couldn’t wait for the next week to pass by so you could go back and see him.

***

“How’s Jason?” you asked the minute you reached the Cave computers, panting from the run down.

“Wow, hello to you, too,” Dick chuckled, spinning towards you on the wheeled chair.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and Bruce and Dick were in front of the computers, discussing a case that had connections to Bludhaven Police Department.

Gone for two weeks, you had a lot to catch up on.

“According to Alfred, he’s doing well,” Bruce answered, “Even started to ask for seconds last week. Now Alfred has been making portions for two.”

“He asked? For seconds?” you gasped. “How?”

“He left a note on the tray two days after you left. He’s been making meal requests, too. Texts Alfred in the morning to let him know.”

“Texted?!”

“Alfred slipped his number on the tray in case Jason wanted anything specific.”

“I slipped mine as well, but he hasn’t texted me yet,” Dick pouted.

“When did he start texting?” you ignored Dick.

“Last Sunday.”

So the same day you started texting him, then.

“He hasn’t texted me,” Dick sighed, looking dejected like a kid who was told Disneyland blew up.

“He’ll come around, Dick,” you offered him a smile, “I mean- he’s already texting Alfred!”

“Yeah,” he lamented.

“Okaaay, nice talk. I’m gonna go see him now, bye.”

You ran to the box, but stopped right before you opened the internal door. After checking your hair with your phone camera, you tried to stifle the butterflies in your stomach.

Ugh, you were so fucked.

Taking a deep breath, you knocked on the door.

“Yeah,” Jason’s muffled grunt answered you.

Pushing it open, your eyes immediately went to the bed only to find that he wasn’t lounging around reading a book like you expected. Instead, your mouth dropped open when you saw him on the floor, doing push ups.

Shirtless.

Jason had changed drastically during the two weeks you were gone. You noticed that he had definitely gained weight, as well as muscle mass.

“Uh, wh-what are you..?”

He stood up, and you swore your heart skipped a beat.

His muscles were much more prominent and defined now, and he looked like he was going to achieve Dick’s physique if he kept it up for another month or two.

“Welcome back,” he simply said before taking gulps from a water bottle you definitely had not seen before.

“Thanks,” you walked over and sat on his bed, “I’m glad to see that you decided to start taking care of yourself again.”

“What, this? This isn’t for me.”

“Huh?” you cocked your head in curiosity.

“I… I lost a lot of muscle mass. My body- it isn’t how it used to be,” he frowned, “And I can’t have you lusting over it when it’s not at its peak.”

“What- what do you-?” you stammered, suddenly getting hot.

Jason merely smirked and then continued his push ups.

You watched as his developing muscles rippled, a thin layer of sweat making his skin glisten in the light. It was amazing how he had progressed so much in such a short period of time. You guessed that he must have just been occupying his days by working out.

No wonder he’s been asking for seconds.

“Enjoying the view?” Jason breathed, pausing with his arms straightened, his head angled upwards towards you.

“No, shut up,” you looked away.

“Here, be useful,” he started, “Sit on my back.”

“What?”

“I’ve gotten used to my own body weight, I need extra resistance,” he elaborated, “Come on, sit on my back.”

“But it’s all sweaty,” you whined, pretending to protest. Definitely pretending- for the sake of your own dignity.

You got up and went over towards him anyway.

Carefully, awkwardly, you sat on his back as you would a park bench. You rested your palms flat against his sticky skin to stabilise yourself. Suddenly, he dipped down without warning, earning a soft squeal from you.

“Fuck, you’re heavy,” he strained, but continued to do the push ups. He was shakier, struggling with the weight, and after twenty-five, he paused. “Okay, I think I’m done.”

But before you had the chance to get off him, he suddenly stood up, throwing you off his back to have you fall on the floor on your ass.

“Jason, you assho-” you clapped your hand over your mouth, realising what you had just said.

Oh, no. Oh, fuck.

He stood towering over you, his jaw clenching as he stared you down with his cold, blue eyes.

“I’m so sorry! I forgot! It was a reflex and-”

“Whatever. I don’t care anymore,” he rolled his eyes, reaching for his bottle.

You blinked. Then scrambled to your feet.

“You don’t care anymore?” you repeated slowly.

“I don’t care if you call me that,” he huffed.

That made your heart swell and melt at the same time.

“I got used to your voice,” he mumbled, expression changing as he looked away. He frowned, as if he was angrily staring at a distant object.

You had just guessed that he didn’t like to be called his name because of a sense of familiarity, but now you were thinking that there was much more to that than what you had originally thought.

“So, I can call you… Jason?” you tested.

“Yeah, call me whatever you want,” he sat on his bed, looking up at you.

You smiled, thankful that you had finally crossed that bridge. “You know, I could get some workout stuff for you? Weights, bands, that bar thing that you can put at your door frame for pull ups…”

“You’d like to see that, huh?” he smirked.

“You flatter yourself too much,” you scoffed.

“How was Hawaii?” he changed the subject all of a sudden.

“It was fun. Beach was great, locals were great, loved the vibe- what are you doing?”

Jason had stood back up and started to walk closer and closer to you, getting all up in your space like a predator finally cornering its prey. You kept on taking steps back until your ass hit the edge of the desk.

Nowhere else to run, your heart started hammering. He leaned in, his hands resting on the desk on either side of your body, trapping you against the table and himself. You looked up and gulped. You could almost feel the heat radiating from his bare skin.

“Are you afraid of me?” he muttered lowly.

“Why would I be afraid of you?” you whispered.

“You tell me,” he said.

“Well, I’m not afraid of you,” you stated.

“Oh really?” he raised an eyebrow. Then, you felt his hand grip your wrist tightly, pressing down on your skin with his fingers. “Your pulse is very fast for someone who’s not afraid of me.”

“It’s because you’re all up in my space!” you argued.

“Didn’t look like you mind when your friend,” he snarled the word, “was all up in your space.”

“My friend? What- oh,” you widen your eyes in realisation, “You mean Alex.”

“Is that his name?”

“Alex is just a friend, nothing more. He’s just someone I’m close to,” you reassured him.

Which then made you think about why you were reassuring him.

“Oh, you were definitely close to him,” Jason growled.

“Wait- are you… jealous?” a smile creeped your lips.

He scowled at you for a few moments, and you could see the little tics in his expression that said he was annoyed. The flared nostrils, the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching, the very slight twitches at the corner of his left eye.

“No,” he finally said, taking a step back from you. “I’m going to shower. Since you couldn’t stop staring at me, the invitation is still open for you to join.”

“You know, I’m starting to think that maybe I prefer it when you were broody instead of this. Please go back to your depressive mental state,” you sarcastically replied.

Jason barked out an actual laugh. Though his laugh was odd, like someone who’s only now discovering that humans were indeed capable of laughter, you found comfort in it. It was no longer hysterical and devoid of humor. He was getting better, learning to embrace a connection with someone, and it made you extremely happy.

“Maybe I should,” he answered with a cheeky glint in his eye, “Then that way you can give me more sponge baths.”

He left you alone in his room, flushed and at a loss for words.

***

“I find it very odd that people would yell ‘Batman!’ when they realise you’re there,” you rambled while climbing out of the Batmobile.

You were absolutely drenched from the downpour that had been going on all night. It was 4 am on a friday night and you had just returned from patrol.

Bruce took off his cowl immediately, revealing tired eyes despite the relatively slow night.

“It’s like they’re saying ‘Look at me! I’m here! Please knock me out or hang me upside down from the-’ Bruce?”

Bruce had stiffen, staring at something behind you. You turned around and was shocked to see Jason in the mid-distance, sitting on the ground outside the black box that was his room, leaning against the cool metal.

He himself was staring intently at Bruce, not even sparing you a glance.

You looked back and forth between the two men, sensing a high tension silent conversation.

Then, Bruce’s eyes relaxed and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly in that hardly-there-Bruce-smile.

He gave Jason one stiff nod of understanding, then walked away to the computers at the other end of the cave, leaving you alone with his son.

Jason relaxed as you walked over to him, wringing your hair to squeeze out all the excess water.

“Aw, you waited up for me,” you teased, standing in front of him with your hands on your hips, grinning away.

“Fuck off,” he snorted, “I was bored.”

You noticed him clenching his jaw as he looked at you from top to bottom, eyes lingering longer on the ‘R’ on your left breast.

Ah, it was his first time seeing you in your uniform.

His uniform.

Suddenly, you felt like an imposter in those colors and had the strong urge to rip the uniform off.

You wanted to say something, but Jason beat you to it.

“There were times in that shit hole where I wanted to burn that uniform off my skin,” he grit, “Kept on thinking to myself. I wish I never became Robin. I wish I never met Bruce Wayne.”

Your heart shattered at his confession. It was extremely rare for him to bring up anything related to his two year torture, and the previous times were never in such detail.

Realising you needed to say something, you opened your mouth. “I’m so-”

“Don’t,” he cut you off, “You don’t have to say anything.”

Yes, sometimes you knew that he just wanted you to listen.

You nodded silently and went to sit next to him on the floor.

“It… suits you,” he forced out.

“Hmm?”

“The uniform. It suits you. More than it ever suited me,” he grumbled.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think your ass would look quite nice in green,” you joked, nudging his shoulder with your own.

He chuckled deeply, nudging you back even harder- hard enough for you to lose your balance and topple sideways, earning another breathy laugh from Jason.

***

Another month passed by, and you found yourself falling deeply for Jason- much to your dismay. You knew Jason wasn’t ready for any kind of intense emotions, and that it would take a very long time before he was.

So you swallowed your emotions down, stifling them and hoping it would go away.

The two of you had developed a pleasant friendship, often bickering and joking around, with Jason teasing you about your obvious physical attraction to him.

He also now occasionally waited outside his cube for you to come back after patrol, never really venturing too far from it, and still avoiding contact with both Bruce and Dick. Only you and Alfred had the privilege to speak to him.

Even then, sometimes you would visit his room but only getting a “I’m not feeling it today. Please leave.”

Understandingly, you would nod silently and leave him alone. You knew he still had his bad days, sometimes not eating his meals.

But mostly, he was getting better, both mentally and physically.

With nothing much to do the whole day, Jason was now obsessed with working out and bulking up. He now had a few simple equipment in his room- mostly weights.

You figured that it was a coping mechanism for him, a healthy outlet to channel all his rage and negative emotions into.

But come on. He was getting even hotter and it was making it extremely difficult for you to stop yourself from checking him out, fantasizing about him when he wasn’t around. Still, you couldn’t complain. Even though he hadn’t reached Dick’s size yet, he was very near to it, and his naturally bigger body frame and build made up for the still developing muscles.

Hell, he was now sporting a six pack.

But you knew that he was still not as well as you hoped he would be. The bloodshot eyes he had was proof that he doesn’t sleep well- and you soon found out why.

It was a little past midnight on your night off from patrol, and you were using your break in the best way you could think of- by sleeping. Something woke you up that night.

A soft knock on your door.

You frowned, eyes still closed, wondering who it was.

Bruce would usually knock twice. Strong, clear, and with purpose. Dick would start pounding rapidly on your door, annoying you intentionally. Alfred would give three soft knocks followed by a ‘Miss?’

Your eyes flew open. There was only one other person in the manor.

Throwing your covers aside, you jumped out of bed and rushed to the door to open it.

Jason stood outside your door in the dim lights of the hallway, frowning and running his fingers nervously through his messy dark hair. He was wearing a t-shirt with boxers, standing awkwardly.

“Jason?” you hated how your voice sounded so sleepy. You cleared your throat. “Are you okay? Would you like to come in?”

He nodded silently, and you made way for him to enter before closing the door behind you.

“Sit on the bed,” you told him while jumping back into yours, sitting up cross legged.

The bed dipped when he sat on it, copying your motion and crossed his legs.

You waited for him to say something, your eyes straining to catch his in the dark. But he just remained silent, staring into space and avoiding your eyes.

“How did you know this was my room?” you asked, starting with a light topic.

“Only one that was locked. I already know where everyone else sleeps,” he explained.

“That’s right,” you realised, “I tend to forget that you’re probably even more familiar with the manor than I am.”

“Did you know there’s an old dumbwaiter in Bruce’s room?” you saw him smirk from the shadows that was casted on his face, “I used to hide in there, waiting to catch him off guard.”

“What? Why?”

“Dick and I, we had a bet,” he recalled the memory, “Whoever gets to surprise Bruce first would owe the other a special favor. Only rule was that we had to have it on video as proof.”

You appreciated that moment, the first time he ever spoke about both Dick and Bruce as a fond memory.

“I won, by the way,” he continued, “But- I forgot to press record on my phone.”

“Oh, no,” you groaned for him.

“Yeah, and Dick refused to believe me,” he chuckled, “That old man didn’t want to admit it either. But I swear- the look on his face when I jumped out while he and some model were going at it- priceless.”

Your jaw dropped, and then you burst into a fit of laughter, tears filling your eyes.

“You- you- you jumped out on him while he was having sex?!” you squealed.

“Yeah,” he grinned, “I didn’t even care that it sort of scarred me, because I managed to catch Batman off guard.”

The both of you laughed, his deep voice mingling with your own on that quiet night.

“I’m glad you’re here, Jason,” you smiled warmly at him.

But then, his smile fell.

“I hate my name now.”

“I’m sorry,” you began, “You said it was okay to call you that, so I-”

“No, it’s fine,” he started running his fingers through his hair again, “It’s just- I don’t know.”

“You can tell me anything,” you reassured, “It won’t leave this room. I promise.”

He looked at you, worry in his eyes. “Okay. Fine. Yeah.”

You waited for him to begin.

He took a deep breath. “I’ve been having nightmares. Almost every night. It’s always the same one.”

“You want to tell me about it?” you prompted him after waiting for him to continue.

“I hate my name because he said it a lot. Joker,” he scowled, “After repeatedly burning my skin for my name, it’s like that’s all he said. In that annoying, high pitched, sing-song voice of his. Jason, Jason, Jason. It made me hate my name. It made me hate hearing it.”

“I- I didn’t know how much time passed when I was in there,” he continued, “But, fuck. It was- it was hell. And the worst part was that I kept on waiting for Bruce. Waiting and hoping for him to find me and save me. I was so desperate. You- I-”

He choked on his words. His eyes were squeezed shut and his lips tight.

You wanted to reach out to him, hug him, tell him that everything was okay now. But you didn’t. You waited for him to collect himself so he could finish telling you his story, just like how he wanted to.

“Anyway, I- despite all that,” he sighed, “That was the only thing that kept me sane. I kept on clinging onto the hope that he was out there, searching. And that helped for a while. Until- until that happened.”

He was breathing heavily now, fidgeting more. Jason was definitely getting increasingly agitated the deeper he went.

“Fuck,” he breathed, “Fuck.”

The moment you realised he was crying was when he let out a sniffle. You automatically took his hand in yours, squeezing it as a form of comfort.

“It’s okay,” you told him, “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready.”

“No,” he shook his head, “I need to. I have to. I can’t take this anymore. Keeping everything in, I feel like I’m about to fucking explode.”

“Okay, then take it slow,” you said, “No rush. Anytime you’re ready.”

He nodded, eyes still closed, as if he was afraid of letting you see him cry.

“One night,” he began, “I think- I don’t know what was different- but I think something went wrong for him. Or right? That’s how it was. Tormenting me was fun, but it was also an outlet for him. But at the same time when he was happy, he also tortured me. He came to me, and- injected me with some sort of drug. That never happened before. He made sure that my head was clear whenever he hurt me so that I could feel everything he did.”

“But- he did- and- immediately, I felt weak,” he continued, “I mean, I was already weak. But my head. It was cloudy. I remember everything clearly, but it was like my brain couldn’t process it, couldn’t communicate with my body. I felt like I was looking out through a window that was my eyes- like I was in someone else’s body, experiencing someone else’s moments.”

“He released me,” Jason’s voice was now barely a whisper. “He released me from the ropes, and I fell to the floor. And then he- he- fuck.”

He let go of your hand and started pulling at his hair, rocking back and forth on your bed. He was sobbing now, his shoulders jerking up in sharp intakes of breaths. The only thing you could do was to stay silent and hold back your own tears.

You rested your hand on his knee, giving him a textile connection with reality so he doesn’t fall into his own thoughts.

“You- he- he- ruh- ruhp-”

Your heart sank to your stomach in horror as you realised what Jason was trying to say. It was as if you were plunged into icy water, chills running down your spine at the true revelation of what he had gone through in that cursed cell.

“Oh, no,” you breathed.

“He pushed me down,” he choked, “Pushed me down and climbed on top. I- I couldn’t even fight him. I was- I was conscious the whole time and I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t fucking do anything.”

Your tears were falling down now, both at the sight of Jason looking so vulnerable and fragile, and at his confession. Not being able to help yourself, you threw your arms over his neck and crashed into his hard body, burying your face in the crook of his shoulder.

His arms immediately wrapped around you, clutching you so hard it was painful as he buried his own face into your shoulder.

“And he kept on saying my name,” he said in muffled cries, “Jason, Jason, Jason. The whole fucking time. And- and I knew. He didn’t do it for pleasure. He did it to torment me. He- he didn’t even- he didn’t even finish.”

Jason sobbed into your skin for the next few minutes, his tears soaking through your night shirt. “But I did. Even though it was painful. Fuck, the pain was worse than anything he had ever done to me before. But- he- I- I fucking came.”

The both of you were sobbing now, his ragged breaths mingling together with your own on that quiet night.

His grip on you was tight, as if he thought that if he let go, you would disappear. So he clung onto you with all his might to keep you there with him as he recalled the horrific events.

“That's what broke me. I was so disgusted with myself. I hated myself. And he- he saw everything and- and laughed. He laughed so hard, I thought he was going to choke and die. I’ve never seen him laugh like that. And I remember every single fucking moment of being helpless on that fucking floor while he- fuck. Fuck.”

“And then he left. He left me on the floor bleeding and I never saw him again. And I went fucking insane. I tried to kill myself so many fucking times. So many times, I lost count. That’s what I dream about every night. His laughs, and his ‘Jason, Jason, Jason’.”

And that was that. That was the story.

The end of Jason Todd.

The both of you cried long and hard that night in each other’s arms. Eventually, you both lied down on the pillows together, underneath the covers.

“Please don’t tell Bruce,” he whispered to you.

Your head was on his chest, his big arms wrapped around your waist, your legs tangled with his.

You smiled at that. Even with the trauma, even with the sense of abandonment he felt, he still wanted to protect Bruce from knowing the truth.

Because the both of you knew that the truth would kill him.

“I promise,” you whispered back.

And then the both of you fell asleep together.

***

“Has Jason been sleeping in your room with you?” Bruce asked you on one fine Saturday morning at breakfast.

It had been about a week and a half since the first time Jason knocked on your door and poured out his feelings to you.

“He gets nightmares,” you tried to explain.

He thought that if he told you everything, the nightmares would stop. But it didn’t. But he then realised that the only thing that made it better was sleeping by your side, having someone there to wake him up from living his own hell in a loop.

“And do the two of you… Just sleep?” Bruce frowned.

“Yes!” you widen your eyes in horror at the insinuation. “Bruce! Come on!”

“I know you have feelings for him, and I’m sure he does for you as well. But I don’t think something like that is what Jason needs right now,” he stated.

“Yes, I know!” you groaned at the thought having that kind of conversation with him, “Jesus, Bruce. I know. I’m just there to wake him up or help him fall back asleep. Nothing more.”

Bruce nodded, deep in thought. “Has he… told you? About what happened?”

You pursed your lips. “Yes.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“No.”

“Hmm,” his frown went deeper. “I understand. He will tell me when he is ready.”

“Exactly,” you smiled, hiding the fact that Jason may never tell Bruce what happened. Never the full story.

“He still hasn’t left the manor?”

“No,” you sighed, “I asked him if he wanted some fresh air. Just outside the main door, not even going down the steps. But he refused. Told me to, and I quote, ‘Fuck off’.”

“Well, he’s only just left the cave, and it’s just to your room,” Bruce thought out loud, “It’s still progress. Especially since he’s been talking to you about the past.”

“He only spoke about it one time,” you said, “And then never again.”

“I see,” he hummed, “And you’re okay with him sleeping with you?”

“Next to me, Bruce, sleeping next to me,” you corrected.

“Yes, and you’re okay with that?”

“Yeah, it’s all good,” you assured him, “I can kick him out any time I want- but I don’t want to. He looks like a lost puppy sometimes.”

“An angry lost puppy.”

You chuckled at that and couldn’t agree more.

*** While Jason got the sleep he needed when he was next to you, it was counterproductive on your end. You had never been with anyone before, and definitely had not slept on the same bed with another man.

So to feel his body heat and breaths against your skin, his occasional light snores, it made your mind go on hyperdrive.

Most of the time, the two of you would just lie down, your back against his front, or your backs against each other, or both on your backs just staring at the ceiling- and talked. You would be the one talking the most, of course, about anything you could think of. You would tell him about your day, your patrols, something you read about online, or the current news.

But that one particular night during week three of him sleeping next to you, the two of you were silent. It wasn’t an awkward or uncomfortable silence, but the kind of silence that was pleasant and was better described as a peaceful quiet.

You had your back pressed against his front and his arm was lazily draped over your waist. It was a cold night, and you were wearing just a tank top and pyjama shorts, snuggling under the covers that went up all the way to your nose.

Shifting a bit while snuggling comfortably, you pressed yourself against Jason’s body to get more of his heat. But then, you were met with something poking against your lower back.

“Ngh, please ignore that,” Jason huffed.

Oh.

For some reason, you forgot that Jason was a physically healthy male who was capable of having sexual thoughts and feelings. All this while, you thought you were the only one.

“Are you- uh- is that- uh-” you stuttered, feeling your face flush with heat.

Feeling your body suddenly alert with excitement.

“Yes, it’s my fucking penis,” he grit almost angrily, “What, never heard of an erection before?”

“Of course I have!” you argued rather defensively, “It’s just- I’m surprised, that’s all.”

“Why?” he demanded, “You didn’t think I could get it up or something?”

“No, of course not!” you denied, “It just didn’t cross my mind, that’s all.”

A pause. Then-

“Well,” he sighed, “You wouldn’t have been wrong.”

Your mind blanked for a second.

“What do you mean?” you asked softly.

“It’s my- fuck- it’s my first time,” he confessed.

“Your first time getting an erection?” you gasped.

“No, you idiot,” he snapped, “It’s my first time getting hard since… since… then.”

Oh. Oh, you were an idiot.

“It’s just- after that- even when I was downstairs, alone and safe, I- I couldn’t,” he told you, “I kept on thinking back to that time and- and I couldn’t. I found it disgusting.”

And immediately, like someone doused you in cold water, any feeling of horniness you had when you first felt his erection against you disappeared. You just felt so sad for him, but also angry. Angry that he had to go through all of that, and angrier that there was nothing you could do about it.

“So, why do you think you’re getting it now?” you asked. Perhaps talking about it in an objective manner would help guide him through his thought process.

“Are you kidding me?” he scoffed, “You’re fucking pressing your ass against my dick, what did you think would happen?”

“Wait, what?” your eyes widen, “You’re hard because of me?”

“No shit,” he said, “You’re hardly wearing any clothes, too.”

You shouldn’t feel happy due to the circumstance and context, but there you were ecstatic that he found you attractive enough to pop a boner after so long.

“Fuck,” he sighed, suddenly pressing himself closer to you.

His hand that draped over your waist when to actually grip it. Then, then, he grinded his hard on against your ass.

“Mmm,” he rumbled deeply, “Feels good.”

There. That was it. You were once again flooded with the feeling of heat that pooled at your stomach, a tingling sensation started at your core. Feeling hot despite the low temperature of the night, you clenched your thighs together, needing the slight pressure.

“Yeah?” you whispered.

“Yeah,” he grinded on you again, and then unexpectedly let out a chuckle.

“What is it?” you smiled, loving it whenever you heard him laugh.

“I thought… For the longest time, I thought I was broken. That he broke me,” he revealed, “I thought I needed to get all Wingardium Leviosa on this little fucker.”

“Oh my God,” you laughed and groaned at the same time, “You’re so fucking embarassing.”

He laughed along with you and continued. “But now I’m hard and- and horny. You made me feel like I’m normal again. Like I’m sixteen again, and getting horny over everything.”

Sometimes, we take the normal things for granted. Food, shelter, clothes. In this case, it was a goddamned boner. In a way, Jason’s erection was symbolic- however funny it sounded. Getting your sexual appetite and need back after being so traumatised was a massive leap for many people who had experienced the same thing.

It meant that Jason was healing well.

“Does that make you happy?” you asked.

“Not particularly,” he admitted, “But I’m definitely not sad either.”

“That’s good enough for now, then,” you beamed.

“Yeah,” he breathed.

Another few moments of silence. You could feel it, his cock pushing into you. However tempted you were to push back and grind, you held yourself still.

“Uh, Jason?” you voiced.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to like, take care of it?” you asked, “I mean. My bathroom is available. Or- there are many empty rooms.”

“No,” he simply stated.

“No?”

“No.”

“It’s kinda poking into me.”

“Just ignore it.”

“Ignore it?” you gaped, “How can I ignore it? You’re literally pressing it into my ass.”

“Well, then do you want to take care of it?” he teased.

You couldn’t argue back. “Fine, I’ll ignore it.”

He chuckled. “I’ll turn around.”

When he made the movement, you suddenly grabbed him by the wrist. “No, it’s fine. Stay here.”

You expected him to tease you like he usually would, make a crass comment, or even a ‘fuck off’.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around you again in silence, and the both of you drifted to sleep.

***

“Do you think this color suits me?” Natalie asked, holding up a floral red dress.

The four of you were at the mall in Diamond District. Now that high school was over, and everyone would be going off to separate colleges in a few months, you tried to spend time with each other as much as you could.

“Any color suits you, Nat,” you rolled your eyes, “You’re hot stuff.”

“Jesus, it’s like you’re shoving it in our faces at this point,” Sarah added, flipping her brunette hair to the side, tight curls flowing down.

“Aw, you guys,” Nat pretended to tear up, “I’m gonna miss you guys so much!”

“Not again,” Alex groaned, “We’ve been through this so many times.”

“I’m gonna be so miserable without you guys,” Natalie continued on, ignoring Alex’s interruption.

“I don’t know,” Sarah shrugged, “I think I’d enjoy New York. I can have pizza parties with the rats in my overpriced apartment.”

You chuckled at Sarah’s joke. Everyone was leaving Gotham except you. Deciding to continue with Robin, you opted for Gotham University- prestigious, old, and most importantly, close to home.

Your phone dinged in your pocket. You opened it to find texts from Dick.

Dick: OH MY GOD. Dick: I’m at the Manor. Dick: Was going to the Cave gym to work out. Dick: AND Dick: JASON IS HERE!!! WHAT DO I DO?!?!

That was new. Jason would usually just use whatever basic equipment he had in his room to work out. The fact that he was at the Cave’s sparring area where all the other fancier work out equipment were was out of the ordinary.

You: Just go. See if he reacts. If he suddenly stiffens and just stay there not doing anything, then leave. If he continues on, then it’s okay to stay- but don’t initiate anything! Dick: OKOKOK

You waited anxiously for Dick’s update. All four of you were now walking towards the food court, but you hardly listened to their bickering. Forty-five minutes passed before Dick texted you again.

Dick: OMG HE TALKED TO ME You: What did he say? Dick: He asked me to pass him his towel. You: That’s all he said? Dick: IT’S PROGRESS OKAY!!

Dick was right. It meant that Dick was now the third person Jason had spoken to. Adding another person to his list of contacts was definitely progress.

You were happy for him.

You:Is he still there? Dick: Nah he left Dick: But WOW he’s looking good. He must have been really going at it. I think he might get bigger than me soon You: All he does now is work out. He’s obsessed. Dick: Yeah I can tell

You decided to leave it at that for now and try to concentrate on your friends, but Dick sent another message.

Dick: ARE YOU TWO HAVING SEX?!?!

You spat out your drink, earning weird looks from everyone.

You: DICK!!!! WTF NO!!

Dick never replied.

***

“Can I ask you for a favor?” Jason asked, his voice breaking the silence of your dark room. The two of you were on your bed, lying down and staring at the ceiling.

“Of course,” you said. It didn’t matter to you what Jason asks for. He hardly ever asked for anything.

“Could you… Take me out tomorrow?” he requested, “If you’re not doing anything else, that is.”

“Uh, sure!” you nodded, surprised. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere,” he shrugged, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, okay,” you hesitated, “But- are you sure? I mean, you don’t have to go so far so quickly. Maybe you should start with just going to the backyard?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” he insisted. “I’m not a kid.”

“Okay then,” you agreed. “Tomorrow.”

You kept on glancing anxiously at him the next day as he climbed into the passenger seat of your car. He was quiet, but looked perfectly fine.

Switching the engine on, you drove out of the garage and out the large automatic gates. Trees soon surrounded the lonely road on both sides as you descended downhill into town.

“So where are we going?” he asked.

“I thought Robinson Park would be nice,” you said. It was around three in the afternoon, yet Gotham was dark as though the day was ending. It was cloudy, skies grey and wind blowing.

“You’re taking me to a park?” he scoffed.

“It’s more quiet than anywhere else,” you reasoned with him, “Less people. Spacious. Lots of greenery.”

“Whatever.”

Reaching the parking space of the park, you noticed that there were a few cars. Mothers and nannies liked to bring children out to the park around that time. Joggers and teens, college students and retired elderly seeking a little escape from the high rise buildings of concrete and glass.

You turned the engine off and proceeded to open the door, only then noticing Jason stiffening. Looking over to him, you saw that his eyebrows were pulled down in a deep frown, his jaw clenched, his hands in fists on his knees.

You didn’t say anything or make any comment. Leaning back into your seat, you waited until Jason was ready.

About five minutes passed before he took a deep breath, gave you a nod, and then opened his door.

The two of you walked along a path at the park, going deeper inside and further away from your car. There were a few joggers around, some tourists, and some teens taking photos. You saw a group of kids in the distance playing frisbee, and the others were walking their dogs.

An empty bench stood in the middle of the park, overlooking a clearing. You headed there, Jason following closely behind.

“It’s a bit gloomy today,” you pouted, “As if Gotham could be anything other than that, of course.”

You looked at Jason.

He looked like a scared dog being brought out for the first time.

His jittery knees were bouncing rapidly, his wide eyes were darting at every movement, his forehead was covered with a thin layer of sweat, and his breathing was heavy.

“Woah, woah,” you reached out to him, putting an arm on his back. “It’s okay. I’m here. Just listen to me talk, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he gulped.

“Try to calm your breathing,” you instructed, “Deep breaths, Jason. In… out… In… Out… Yeah, see that’s great.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, now calmer. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you smiled warmly, “You’re doing just fine.”

“No, I’m not,” he strained, “I feel like everything is too big. Too vast. The fucking sky looks like it’s going to crash down on me and at the same time suck me up into a void.”

“And despite all you’re feeling right now, you’re not breaking down or anything, are you?” you tried, “You’re okay, Jason. This is progress.”

“I guess,” he sighed, “I’m just- I’m so used to having four walls and a ceiling. Now everything feels too big.”

“I understand,” you empathized, “Whenever you want to go back, just say the word. Or we can even just go and sit in the car. No problem.”

“Yeah, okay, let’s do that,” he stood up.

The walk back to the car was faster.

“Fuck, I’m so fucking pathetic,” he said, running his fingers through his hair.

“No, you’re not,” you reassured him, “That was great, Jason. Come on, it was your first time outside in two years and a half. Cut yourself some slack.”

“I’m so fucking broken,” he choked.

“Don’t say that,” you scolded, “You’re not broken. And you know what, even if you think you are, we can always fix it. Baby steps. Maybe we can do this once a week. We were out for like, ten minutes? Next week we’ll try fifteen. How’s that sound?”

“Twice a week,” he stated, “I just want to be normal again.”

“Okay, twice a week, then,” you agreed, “We’ll try again in a couple of days, okay?”

“Okay,” he paused, “Thank you.”

“No problemo,” you grinned, “Would you like to stay here a bit longer or shall we go back?”

“Let’s go back.”

“Wanna stop by the diner? You can wait in the car while I ask for a take-away?”

“...okay.”

***

Jason and you had gone out twice more. Once three days after the first time, and the other a week later. The second time he went out, he lasted twenty minutes, though you were sure he was being stubborn on his part. He looked like he was having a heart attack, but he insisted on staying until he hit the twenty minute mark.

The third time, he was much much better. Surprisingly so. The two of you sat down on that bench for half an hour, with you even leaving him alone for a few minutes to get two ice cream cones.

After that, you took him for a drive around the city. He seemed to be more comfortable in the car, so you went all the way from Robinson Park to Diamond District, and back to the manor.

Bruce seemed very pleased with your update, and you swore you could see him actually smile.

“Thank you,” he had told you. “You’ve done more than I could have ever asked of you.”

“It’s no problem, Bruce. Really,” you reassured him.

“I’m his father. He is my responsibility. It’s my fault he’s even in that state. I wish I could do more for him,” he said solemnly.

“The fact that you understand what he needs is more than helpful, Bruce,” you smiled, “Not many parents can do that. You understand and respect him. That’s enough for now.”

He simply nodded.

Ever since your scheduled outings, Jason had become more and more relaxed whenever he was in the manor. He now walked to the kitchen on occasion to mess with Alfred while he cooked meals for him, sometimes sitting in the living room lounging on the couch while reading. Most of the time, though, he was down at the sparring zone of the Cave, working out.

But at night, he would never fail to knock on your door.

And at that particular night, you found yourself in the same situation again while lying down on your side with your back to his front, for the fifth time.

“You officially have to stop calling yourself broken,” you grumbled, “Because that thing poking into my ass is definitely not broken.”

He chuckled lowly. “You complaining, sweetheart?”

Oh, and yes. Jason now had started calling you ‘sweetheart’. Why? You had no clue. It was just a thing that happened. The look on your face when he first slipped it in was probably a sight to behold.

“No shit, I’m complaining, Jason,” you groaned, “You haven’t jerked off, yet? Not even once?”

“Nope,” he popped the P, “I just… I don’t want to… I don’t want to come.”

You sighed, understanding the situation. He had been disgusted with himself because he had ejaculated when Joker… Well, that. You hated to even think about it, so you always shoved the thought away.

“But unfortunately for me, I still get super horny,” he rumbled deeply, pushing his hips into you even more, “So fucking horny.”

“And then I have to suffer,” you complained.

“I can assure you, blue balls are more painful than something poking into you,” he bickered.

“It’s not that…”

“Then?”

“I get horny too, come on man,” you whined, “I’m a hormonal teenage girl. What did you expect?”

“You get horny too?” he whispered after a pause.

“Uh, yeah,” you admitted nervously. Somehow, the mood shifted, and your heart started drumming against your chest.

“Because of me?” he asked.

“Not you specifically, I mean,” you tried to back track, “You’re… Your dick pressing up against me like that, I mean, come on, Jason.”

“Simple question sweetheart,” he told you, “You get horny because of me, yes or no?”

You gulped. “Yes.”

Fuck, why did you say yes? You could have lied. You could have not answered.

“Yeah?” he breathed. You noticed that his hand was now on your hip, right above the waistband of your sleeping shorts, drawing circles onto your skin with his thumb.

You were nervous. The butterflies in your tummy was not helping you calm down.

“Yeah,” you squeezed your eyes shut, as if to protect yourself from anything he had to say.

“Fuck,” he groaned, gripping your hips and grinding his hard on against your ass even more. And did it… Fuck, did it get even harder?

Afraid of saying the wrong thing, and also out of nervousness, you remained silent. Jason’s chest rose and fall against your back, his respiratory rate increasing. His pinky finger slid underneath the waistband, testing the waters before slowly slipping his hand into your pants.

He went in so slowly, as if waiting for you to tell him no, to rip his hand away, to wrench yourself away from him. But you never did, so he went in deeper, caressing the skin beneath your pelvic bone, his heat just burning into you.

“You’re not wearing any underwear,” he commented, voice suddenly husky.

“I don’t wear them to bed,” you informed him.

“You mean to tell me,” he growled, “That all this while I’ve been sleeping next to you and you never had your panties on?”

“It’s more comfortable that way,” you mumbled.

“Jesus Christ,” he cursed. “Thank God I never knew. Would have been torture, and trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”

“Jason,” you gasped.

“It’s true,” he said, “Damn, sweetheart.”

He went lower, closer to your center.

Your core was tingly, small pulses of electricity buzzed through your body as Jason came closer and closer and closer and-

He slipped his hands between your closed thighs and cupped you.

“Mmm,” he moaned softly, “Warm. Fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy?” you laughed, even though you felt like screaming on the inside. Screaming for more.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, burying his face into your nape, taking a deep breath. “You smell nice.”

Oh, shit. You totally forgot about Jason’s aversion to strong smells.

“I’m sorry!” you quickly apologised, “I can switch to an unscented shampoo as well so it wouldn’t be too strong for you.”

“It’s fine,” he said, “I like it on you.”

He ground his hand into your center harder.

“Mmpf, Jay,” you breathed, “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, “I’ve never touched a girl like this before.”

“Really?” you widen your eyes in surprise.

“I was kept in a cell for two years, I couldn’t exactly talk, let alone touch, anyone can I?” he quipped.

“Right.”

“Teach me,” he said.

“What?” you whispered despite knowing what he meant.

A pause of silence. A deep intake of breath, a slow exhale.

“Teach me how to touch you,” he purred.

Fuck, you felt like exploding.

“Are you sure?” you asked.

“Yes. If you… If you want to.”

Your mind quickly tried to analyse the situation. Bruce had specifically said that Jason didn’t need any complicated matters in the relationship. It made sense. You didn’t want to overwhelm Jason with any confusion or uncertainty.

But at the same time, you’ve been figuring out how Jason thought, bit by bit. He’s told you many times that he just wanted to be normal again, to feel normal, to do normal things. And this was something that was normal, that he should do, that he wanted to do.

And you knew that he probably would take the rejection even worse.

“O-Okay,” you agreed.

Slowly, you separated your thighs, raising the one on top and hooking it over his legs behind you. Due to your shift in position, you felt the minute Jason’s fingers dip slightly into your folds.

“So, uh, this is my first time with a guy as well,” you squeaked, “But I’ll try to guide you.”

You licked your lips.

“Uhm, well, I guess you can start by running a finger up and down between my- oh! Yes, just like that.”

His middle finger slid down to your opening, and then up again slowly. His movements were uncertain, brushing only slightly against your clit unintentionally.

It was different, having someone else touch you. Somehow, despite the inexperience, it just felt better.

“Holy fuck,” he gasped, “You’re so fucking wet. Do you usually get this wet?”

You felt your cheeks heat up. “No? Yes? I don’t know! I can’t feel it.”

“Shit.”

You let him play with you some more, his fingers sliding up and down, sometimes pressing against your fleshy parts, sometimes circling and gathering your wetness, sometimes just parting your lips. Hell, he even tapped the tips of his fingers on you randomly or brushed into your delicate fuzz. You knew he was just exploring, feeling you for the first time.

And that thought made you smile and sigh.

“Teach me how to make you feel good,” he rasped.

“Uh, so your fingers are wet, right?”

“Yeah. Because you’re leaking all over them.”

“Okay, good. Now find my clit. It’s slightly above your finger, okay, to the left a bit. More. Okay, there! Yeah, right there,” you sighed, finally feeling that delicious pressure.

“Here?”

He tapped your clit.

“Ah!” you moaned, “Yes- but don’t just- nevermind, just gently circle it. Clockwise.”

He obeyed, and hell since when did Jason just obey?

He circled you gently, like you said. But he also went so, so slow.

“Faster, Jay,” you panted.

He went faster, making you groan in pleasure.

“Like this, sweetheart?” he muttered, his voice low and cracking, and sexy, and husky. You’ve never heard him sound like that before, and it drove you wild.

“Yeah,” you breathed, “Yeah, just like that. Fuck.”

“Feel good?”

“So good, Jay. Press a little harder now- fuck. Fuck. Yes, perfect. Just like that.”

The pressure built as his fingers did their magic.

“You- you’re surprisingly good at that,” you stuttered, “You sure- mmm- you sure you’ve never done this before?”

“Despite what you think,” he husked in your ear, warm breath tickling you. “I’m very good at following instructions.”

“I can see that.”

“But I’m also good at improvising.”

“Wha- oh. Oh. Fuck! Jason! Oh my fucking god!”

He started pressing even harder, and going even faster, throwing away the slow build you were going for and instead pushing you towards orgasm fast and hard, as if he was determined to prove something to you.

“Feel good, sweetheart?” he purred, “You gonna come soon?”

“Oh my- fuck, yes! Fuck, don’t stop!”

“You want to come for me?” his deep voice rumbled.

“Yes!”

What the hell? When did he learn how to talk like that?

Because with the mix of his heavy pants, his low voice coaxing you, his barrage of pleasure at your clit, you felt the familiar tightening of your core. You threw one hand back and found his hair. Running your fingers through them, you gripped them tight and pulled.

You pulled on his hair as he forced the orgasm onto you.

“Oh my God. Jason, I’m gonna- fuck- I’m- fuck- ah!”

You moaned loudly as you felt your walls flutter, clenching over nothing as you reached your high.

“O-okay, stop, fuck,” your hand went from his hair to his wrist, stilling him. He withdrew his hands from your pants, and went to grip you tight again by the waist.

“Fucking hell, sweetheart,” he groaned, grinding into you. You pushed your ass back, feeling his hardened length against your flesh in your post-orgasm bliss. “Jesus, that was so hot.”

“That was- yeah,” you giggled, “Fuck.”

His face was still buried in your neck. You could feel his lips on your skin.

“Uhm, I can, you know,” you sputtered, “Try to help you out?”

“It’s fine,” he breathed, body still tight against yours, “Just go to sleep.”

“Are you sure?” you asked again, feeling guilty that he didn’t get off. “I don’t mind.”

“I do,” he said, “It’s okay, sweetheart. That was great. I enjoyed that. I told you, I don’t want to come.”

“Okay,” you sighed.

“Go to bed.”

“Thank you, Jason.”

“Fuck, I’m so horny.”

“Jason,” you whined, “Really, I can help-”

“I’m kidding,” he chuckled, “Goodnight.”

You pursed your lips.

“Goodnight.”

[black-streak]

Saturday night's alright for fighting (but Sundays are meant for rest) - It's Cute

Part 9

The awaited family reactions to the cuddle fest. Dear lord, this took so long to write! Probably should have tried writing these characters once before attempting to write all of them now, but oh well. They're all a bunch of cheeky shits. Bruce may be a world class detective, but he's clueless with his family. You cannot change my mind.

Aaaaaand Tags: @poshplumcot @emjrabbitwolf @mystery-5-5 @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @fandomkitty8 @dast218 @silvergold-swirl @shizukiryuu . @my-name-is-michell @kurogaya913 @elspethshadow @thecatnipmademedoit @shamefullove @ladylucina28 @crazylittlemunchkin

Let me know if you'd like to be added!

~---~

The first one to happen upon their new normal had been Dick, not that they were aware.

Around 9 in the morning, he'd found himself passing by the living room off the side kitchen the boys were allowed to use (the main kitchens off limits to all but Alfred himself, with occasional exceptions for Marinette or Jason) only to stop and backtrack, lips twitching into a wide grin.

There on the far couch, Tim lay passed out with his laptop closed on the coffee table. This in itself would be enough to endear Richard, seeing as he rarely saw Tim crash without it being face first into his work, but what really sold it was the tiny body curled up on the couch with him.

Marinette became a new normal around the manor, having been attached at the hip to their youngest around 3 months ago. Richard could still recall her first visit, half hidden behind Damian where he stood in front of her as though shielding his new friend from their sight. She'd had curious eyes trained onto them as he led her past and up towards his room. They'd all let Damian think he'd gotten her past them for the moment, bursting into speculation the second the two's footsteps fell out of hearing range.

The curiosity only grew as her presence became a near constant, Damian always a step behind or in front of her. Dick vividly remembered the suspicious look Tim had shot his coffee upon hearing the youngest call her Angel. At that point, they stopped feigning polite and sought her out. 

She took to their proding with grace, if a little overwhelmed and flustered from the fast switch in temperament. They'd all granted the two space for over a week only to all start approaching her on the near constant. And constant it was.

Richard knew he'd overwhelmed her a little in those first few weeks, but it couldn't be helped. He had never seen his babybat so protective and borderline sweet before.

Marinette turned out to be one of the most humble, affectionate, and downright considerate people Dick had the pleasure of meeting. She'd charmed them all.

From the recipes she shared with Alfred over an afternoon tea, to the little trips she took with Jason to bookstores. From random breakfast dates with Stephanie to quiet sleepovers with Cass whenever she made a reappearance. Babs and Duke had yet to meet her, but he was sure they'd find a liking to her just as easily.

Richard himself had been endeared to her the moment he saw how Damian softened around his 'Angel'. It only grew when she started coming to him, a bundle of energy, asking him if he really was versed in trapeze like Damian said. The attachment solidified upon her admitting a solid knowledge in aerial silks, afternoons between the two lost in the gym, talking through stretches and showing off to each other on their preferred apparatus.

And here it seemed Tim had finally found his endearment to her. 

It's not that the two hadn't interacted before. They were often found dying over their own caffeinated beverage of choice, lamenting to one another the struggles of running their respective business. While Tim may run WE as its CEO, he obviously respected and commended her ability to run her own technically small business, holding extremely high clientele, both local and world wide while keeping her workload contained to manageable levels. Meanwhile, she saw and admired Tim's insane ability to manage a massive sprawling company without falling over dead. 

Otherwise, you could occasionally catch them sharing playlists or texting random nonsense to one another.

That, however, seemed to be the extent of their interactions. Tim seemingly holding her at a distance for reasons undetermined.

The distance seemed pretty shattered now, Mari curled up to him, both dead to the world. Dick simply watched, smiling softly from the doorway. Finally, someone who seemed to be capable of persuading Tim into sleep. He really shouldn't be surprised that Marinette was the one to make it happen.

Lifting his phone, he snapped a picture and sent it to the family group chat with the caption, "Laying bodily on top of Tim seems an effective way to force him to sleep. Think it'd work for me?" Tucking his phone back into his pocket, satisfied with the near constant vibration from the chaos he reigned, he finally entered the kitchen, poured a bowl of cereal for himself and left before either of the occupants a room over could wake to find him.

..

Alfred had taken the sight of them cuddling in stride. It'd taken place around two weeks after seeing the evidence of such in the family chat, courtesy of Richard.

Carrying books back into the library, the elderly butler couldn't claim surprise at finding Timothy curled around Marinette in a protective huddle as the two napped. 

Ever since discovering the young woman's identity, he'd seen how Timothy watched her, intrigued and almost instinctively possessive. Of course Miss Marinette had befriended Damian first and the two were as thick as thieves, but in costume, she was Tim's shadow. She normally followed him everywhere and when she happened to stray, the young man would get restless and paranoid, no longer sensing her silent company. Eventually, he'd either group up with one of the others until he sensed her again or happen upon her handiwork and suddenly calm down. Alfred couldn't say whether Red Robin was even aware of his own actions or simply following his gut, but either way, the two were magnetized. It was only a matter of time before the same happened in civilian form.

Watching as Miss Marinette nuzzled his neck and settled closer in a deeper sleep, Alfred expected the two would be together by the end of the week.

…

Damian knew his Angel had found a body pillow in the form of his older brother. Of course he knew, she told him within hours of the development. He felt no need to confirm any further. 

This didn't mean he never saw them cuddle. No, it just meant it never took him off guard. Maybe a touch put off at times, but not surprised. One minute he'd be hunting the manor for his tiny friend and the next he'd find himself huffing to himself and begrudgingly leaving the two alone after inevitably finding her with Tim. Sure, he spent most evenings monopolizing her time to himself, but he already found himself having to share her with the rest of the flock enough during daylight hours when everyone wasn't otherwise occupied with work. The last thing he needed was for the one brother who left her mostly alone to start taking up all of her spare time. 

While Damian knew that Tim had redeeming qualities such as his diligence and intellect (his younger self was rolling in its grave at this admittance) he still couldn't grasp what it was his Angel saw there. His older brother was a certifiable disaster. A sleep deprived, caffeine addicted, sarcastic mess of a man. 

Then again, so was she. And somehow, that didn't end in a clash of personalities, but instead, led to breaking each other's more impractical habits. As much as he loathe to admit it, they worked well together and he knew it to be true everytime he stumbled upon their sleeping forms.

Leaving to find Richard after another failed attempt to collect Mari to hang out, he felt a small smile tug at the edges of his lips. Despite the confusion over the match, he took his small joys in knowing Tim kept her warm and happy.

….

Stephanie and Jason thought the picture from Dick was a once in a lifetime opportunity to view the workaholics at rest. That somehow all that coffee addled energy cancelled each other out and the two just passed out in the delirium next to each other only for Mari to become a koala in her sleep.

Imagine their utmost shock and delight when upon entering the library, bickering over something neither can remember, they find the same happy scene before them. 

A wicked grin crosses Steph's face and she sneaks closer to the couch, leaning into the space by Tim's face.

Jason, seeing her intentions, immediately rushes forward to prevent the inevitable. 

"Do you have a death wish?!" He whispered, unknowingly too late in his warning.

Marinette's eyes peek open right as Steph reaches to poke Tim awake, a low growl sounding in their ears in clear anger and annoyance, glaring Stephanie down until the blonde withdrew her finger from where it hovered an inch above his cheek. 

Eyes flying wide, Steph cautiously backed away from the pissed noirette, hands raised in surrender.

"Sorry, Mar, backing off now," Steph promised in reassurance and slight fear.

Suddenly Tim shifted, pulling Mari closer to himself as though sensing her discontent. 

Snuggling into him, she kept her eyes on the pair until she deemed them a safe distance before burrowing into his chest, falling back to sleep.

Stephanie could only stare before whipping around to whisper yell at Jason, "What the flying fuck was that?!"

"Pixie pop does not take kindly to being woken up. Learned that the hard way a while back. Imagine it's the same for waking up her personal heater there," he shrugged, carefully dragging her back out of the library. 

Glancing back at the pair, he couldn't help but shake his head. The little pixie sure had them all wrapped around her finger, didn't she?

…..

Cass…. Well she honestly didn't see how it mattered as long as the two finally got some sleep. If that meant forcing each other to nap, whether it be in the guest room of the manor or in the deserted Batcave, him slouched in the office chair and her draped across his lap, so be it.

If she played ignorant and never acknowledged to herself that Marinette definitely should not know about the cave, nevertheless be sleeping in it, no one was the wiser.

……

Bruce rarely regretted muting the family group chat. Only two hours into its creation, the notifications had reached into the hundreds. He muted it without a second thought and never looked back.

At times like these, he almost wished he checked it every once in a while. It might have prepared him better for what had transpired in front of him.

Sitting in his favorite high backed armchair by the fireplace, he'd briefly taken note of his youngest sitting in the corner of the couch, one hand holding a book in arabic up to read, the other arm wrapped around Marinette where she slept pressed against him.

He knew Damian hated being touched in his sleep, but perhaps his sweet little friend was an exception after all? It wouldn't surprise him seeing as she seemed to be the exception to all of Damian's rules. 

Bruce couldn't help the softening in his expression at seeing his son finally open up and accept the affection of another human. Sure, the kid had always been loving towards his many pets, but it was wonderfully new to see that extend to the young woman under his arm.

The first time he heard Damian call her his angel, Bruce had settled himself with the knowledge that this woman was to eventually become his daughter in law.

So absorbed in his reflecting, he almost missed Tim's entrance. 

Shaking out of it, he nodded to his second youngest and turned back to his book.

He almost became reabsorbed in his own reading when he noticed Tim approaching the opposite end of the couch.

What happened next, Bruce could only watch in dumbfounded disbelief.

Tim settled into the couch, shifting so he reclined comfortably and pulled the blanket off the back and across his body. Once he seemingly deemed the position suitably comfortable, he moved the blanket to the side of him and sat up, leaning towards the two on the opposite end. 

Damian lifted his head and made eye contact with his older brother, a silent conversation passing between the two, before moving his arm off Marinette and carefully moving her away from him and towards the other. The pass off went smoothly, her weight shifting easily from Damian's side and into Tim's waiting arms. 

From there, Tim gently moved her over to his side of the couch, laying back into his original position only now with her pressed between his side and the couch back. Lastly, Tim pulled the blanket back over the two and finally settled down. 

Marinette herself stirred awake once the blanket fell around her. She seemed to take stock of the situation, looking over to Damian and then turning to blink blearily up at Tim. A small, contented smile graced her face before it disappeared into his collar, where she buried her face, promptly falling back to sleep. 

The same sleepy smile crossed Tim's face as he ducked down to nuzzle the top of her head where he followed her lead. 

Completely thrown off guard, Bruce looked back to Damian only to see his youngest completely unfazed as he returned to his reading.

Clearing his throat softly, Bruce successfully gained the other's attention without waking the other two occupants.

"When did this become a thing?" He gestured towards the cuddling pair.

Damian simply raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"You really ought to read our messages. They've been like this for a month now." And with that, Damian went back to his reading, a smirk hidden behind the pages as his father gaped at him in disbelief. It was going to take a small miracle for his father to figure out the other two were dating at this rate.

Snapping his mouth closed and clearing his throat once more, Bruce turned back to his own book, filing the information away for later, thinking to himself, 'Perhaps Damian isn't as possessive as I thought?'

[absolutelynochillonlydeath]

Garden Wraith

1. Aftershocks:

Over the wall and back again.

The soft flame of a lantern flickered and was blown out, now lying among the dead leaves and snow.

Walking deeper into the mist and snowflakes, they felt the cold surround them and the fog filling their heads cleared, water filling their lungs.

They shivered and shook, hacking out the water in their lungs as they desperately clawed their way up the muddy bank before collapsing, the darkness of exhaustion dragging them back down just as they caught a glimpse of their rescuers. It had taken every bit of energy he had to get them out of that lake, the cold seeping all the way down to his bones and to his soul, tugging it back to the place they had just escaped from. The smell of the lake and mud and an almost indescribable smell of what would only be described of as the dark clung to them as they were rushed to the hospital, but not as hard as he had clung to the tiny body in his arms.

Paramedics later told him how he hadn’t let go of his brother even when he had fallen unconscious and how brave he was to have not let his brother go through all of that. He didn’t feel like he deserved the praise and told them as much, but the adoring eyes from said younger brother soon stopped him. In the eyes of that child, even after all they had gone through, he was still the older brother that he admired deeply and that had gotten them out.

After being settled into their hospital beds, fussing nurses and serious doctors now out of the way, the boys experienced their mother’s hugs for the first time in what felt like a long time. And in a way, it was. They sunk into her warm embrace and the comfort she provided, feeling her love for them and both cried in her arms. The images and impressions from their experiences were still too fresh and the terror was still all too real for them. This lasted until they felt they could cry no more from relief and everyone was ushered out of the room for the night, the doctors keeping there for further monitoring, but they would be released in the morning. With that reassurance, their mother promised that she would return bright and early for them and they agreed, smiling at her softly.

Once alone in the hospital, the brothers turned to each other, tears in their eyes as they whispered about what they had gone through. They wanted to reassure themselves and each other so as not to think that had simply made it all up. The Unknown. The Beast. Beatrice. The Edelwood. Cloud City. Wirt almost dying. Greg’s deal. Greg almost dying. The escape. The lantern. The smaller boy held his frog close to him in a desperate bid for comfort.

���Wirt?” the younger asked.

“Yes, Greg?” the elder answered, trying to keep his voice from trembling, but was still hoarse from the previous tears.

“Is he gonna come back for us?” he asked quietly, his tiny body almost visibly trembling. The elder swallowed down the true terror he felt, his mind flashing back to the brilliantly shining arms that beckoned in the dark. But he shook his head to dislodge the image. They had vanquished that darkness. They had broken free and walked towards the light that was life. When they had awoken, Wirt’s first assumption was that he had had some sort of crazy fever dream while they had been drowning. It was a reasonable assumption considering all they went thought, but that illusion was shattered when he heard the sound of Lorna’s bell ringing inside of Jason Funderburker’s stomach. Not only that, but Greg was also spouting off the more lighthearted parts of their adventures rather than the darker parts that stuck vividly in Wirt’s own mind. Luckily, his parents wrote that off as just the overactive imagination of a child that just went through trauma, smiling and nodding to indulge the seven-year-old. Wirt wouldn’t know how to explain to their parents that their kids had been stuck in the quasi equivalent of Purgatory and had almost not made it back without being taken to a psychiatrist and possibly committed. Taking a breath, he blinked away the thoughts and shook his head.

“No, Greg. He’s gone and we’ll never see him again. We beat the Beast.” He reassured the younger and Greg let out a small, broken sob, sending a jolt of pain and shock through Wirt’s chest.

“I was so scared, Wirt. I…I thought…” he hiccupped and Wirt sat up immediately, concern creasing his brow. He had never seen his little brother like this. Sure, he had cried, he was only seven after all, but to see him sobbing in fear or pain or sadness wasn’t something he did. He was happy and carefree and everything that Wirt himself wasn’t. Maybe that was why he hated him for so long? He hated that Greg was so confident and friendly and people instantly warmed up to this sunshine child and his parents loved him unconditionally. And now, after everything that had happened, Wirt understood that too and lamented at how much of a horrible person he had been to his brother. How could it be that it was only as he was about to lose him that he realized how much Greg meant to him? He was lucky, incredibly lucky, that he learned this lesson before it was too late, and he vowed that he would never take advantage of that again.

With a slight huff from the ache in his bones, he untangled himself from the hospital sheets and padded over to the other bed, moving the frog to the other end of the mattress before sliding in and holding his brother tightly, rubbing his back in comfort.

“I know, Greg. I know. You were so brave to face him down like that and I’m so sorry I made you do that. I should have been better at leading the way out. I shouldn’t have lost hope and given up and I’m so sorry I failed you.” He whispered and hugged him softly, feeling his own tears threaten to spill over.

“What? Wirt, no! You made me the leader! It was my job to get you and Jason Funderburker out of there!” Greg cried quietly, nuzzling into his elder brother’s chest.

“No! None of this was your fault! You were a great leader! But I should have been good leader too. I was a bad one and got you hurt and I’m so sorry!” Wirt apologized, hugging the little body next to him. The image of Greg’s form slowly being trapped in the Edelwood made him tremble and he had to reassure himself with the feeling of the boy’s heartbeats beating beneath his fingertips.

“We’re out now and I promise that I’ll protect you. You’ll never have to see the Beast again. Not if I can help it.” Wirt whispered, taking comfort in the fact that Greg was calming down now, his trembling stopping and his sobs turning into small sniffles.

“Y-you promise?” Greg asked softly, eyes staring up at him. Wirt sighed softly and grabbed a forgotten object from the desk next to him, putting a small smile on his face.

“It’s a rock fact!” he whispered softly, playfully moving around the rock with a painted-on face. Luckily, that made the boy let out a small giggle and it filled Wirt with relief. There. A smile suited the child’s face much better than tears. And if it were up to Wirt, he would never have to see Greg cry about that again. From then on, he would be the best brother he could be and they would never have to experience something like the Unknown again

With their hearts settled and with the comfort the other brought them within reach, they fell themselves slip quickly into the arms of sleep, relief that it was all over now.

Sadly, that couldn’t be farther than the truth.

*

Over the next month, Wirt and Greg discovered that while they had left the Unknown, the Unknown hadn’t left them. At least, not completely. It had left them with a few souvenirs for their troubles that neither of them expected. On the whole, the remnants of it wasn’t all bad. For some reason, neither of them could be turned around as long as they were outside. They had discovered this when they had gone on a trip to their nearby park. Normally, they would have to keep a close eye on Greg who had a tendency to wander off and get lost, but he always came right back and when he didn’t and his mother panicked, Wirt always knew where to find him. It was like the forest itself was bending to his whim and sent a resonance into his soul as to where all things were within the forest. Greg described it as knowing where everything was in a dollhouse. It sent a tremor through the elder boy, but he resolutely pushed the fear back, excusing the occurrence as that he and Greg were just better at navigating through the forest now since they had spent so much time in it before. He had even joked with the younger boy as to how he had become an expert at Greg tracking and his brother laughed. It was a good reason and that was what he stuck with, trying to assure himself and Greg that there was nothing wrong and smiling a bit as Greg thought of how cool it was. It was a relief to know that they would never be lost in the woods again and Wirt tried to take comfort in that.

Another oddity that they boys noticed was that they now attracted animals to themselves, though the most common occurrences were the neighborhood and woodland animals. Frogs absolutely adored Greg and Jason Funderburker and it was amazing to see the amount of frogs that were on the lawn even when they really should be hibernating. The same couldn’t be said for Wirt. He seemed to attract birds. The most common, much to his embarrassment, was bluebirds, though more than that popped up including a few owls. Greg commented excitedly that maybe he was being invited to a wizarding school, to which Wirt rolled his eyes and tried to shoo them away. Stubborn bluebirds always ended up staying, though. Maybe Beatrice matched what she was after all? A few of them even reminded him of her when he attempted to shoo them away and they cast an unimpressed look his way, refusing to leave. Either way, these were things that Wirt could handle. It was harmless and altogether inconsequential to their daily lives. This was fine. It was even something fun to show off on occasion.

But then the dreams began, and Wirt felt his heart clench in terror.

As December rolled in and the holidays began, he closed his eyes in the comfort of his home, glad for the short reprieve and the time to spend doing nothing and fell asleep. School had been stressful as usual, but he was getting better at the whole “friends” thing. The Unknown, if nothing else, definitely taught him a few things about not being a pushover and talking to people better, including Sara and her group of friends. Or, well, they were his friends now too. After Halloween and after he was cleared from the hospital, she and him had talked about the tape he left her and about his feeling towards her. Sadly, she didn’t really see him that way, though she appreciated the tape, and asked if they could still be friends. It was a bit of a blow to Wirt’s pride, but he agreed. She was still nice and funny and sweet and made him feel comfortable about his interests. In turn, she introduced him to her friends and they all hung out now and got along with Greg as well. It certainly did wonders for his self-confidence and it was a bonus that none of them made fun of his poetry and even encouraged him to enter writing competitions and to try out for band of which a few of them were a part of. It was…nice, to have people he could trust and relate to. He even ended up talking to Jason Funderberker. The human, not the frog. He still found himself bristling around the boy occasionally, but the boy was harmless, albeit good at a lot of things and fit in well with their friend group. His life was going well and both he and Greg seemed happier for it, settling back into their normal lives even as the falling snow settled around them and reminded them of their escape from the dark forest.

However, as sleep released its hold on him and he opened his eyes again, he found that he had woken up in a familiar dismal forest, though it looked different than when he and Greg had left. The change didn’t help though and sent him into a spiral of panic as he begged for this all to be a dream, pinching himself repeatedly to try and wake himself up from this nightmare. It didn’t work and only served to throw him deeper into the pit of fear with the pain punctuating the all too real reality of the situation. The world blurred black around the edges of his vision and the colder wind fluttered through his clothes. Shaking from both the fear and cold, he saw that his clothes were his Halloween costume which vaguely struck his hazy mind as odd since that wasn’t what he was wearing when he went to bed. This shook him enough for him to be able to survey his surroundings, lungs still heaving, but when he looked around the snow-covered ground, a flickering light caught his eye.

There, sitting innocently in the mouth of the yawning, twisted hollow of an Edelwood tree, was a lantern. It flickered warmly within the vessel, almost taunting the teen.

There must always be a Beast in the Unknown.

A whisper. A fact. A promise. It flickered through his mind and that was it. Wirt felt the world tilt and the black overtook his vision. He woke up screaming for the first time since he and his brother returned, heart thundering and mind whirling. His breathing erratic and his vision dark, he breathed out slowly and saw his breath coming out in a cloud of ice. The room was almost frosted at first glance but disappeared when light was cast into the room.

“Wirt? Are you okay?” a small voice suddenly came from his door and he jerked his head to the entrance where a very tired looking Greg was rubbing his eyes, his other hand wrapping around his frog. Said frog also looked tired, but Wirt could have sworn it cast a worried look his way as well.

“I… I-I… Yeah. Y-Yeah, I’m fine…” Wirt croaked, the temperature slowly going back to what was normal.

“You sure, brother o’ mine?” Greg asked quietly, concern now taking over his soft, sleepy expression.

“Yeah, Greg. Just…just a nightmare. Go back to sleep.” He murmured reassuringly, though still a little breathless, and Greg hesitated before nodding, stepping out and closing the door behind him. With that, both boys lay down in bed, minds and hearts racing at their experience. Wirt tried his best to fall back asleep, hoping that he wouldn’t dream again while Greg could only stare at the ceiling, reeling and trying not to give in to fear. Wirt didn’t know it, but his eyes glowed in a similar way to the thing they feared the most. He wasn’t sure if his older brother knew yet and he didn’t know how to tell him if he didn’t.

*

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, an older man stared in awe and horror as something that he had seen almost every day for many, many years and caused him many a headache along with a few nightmares changed before his eyes.

A single glyph on the cave wall, copied down meticulously in his notes, so out of place and seemingly unrelated to the rest of the symbols all bunched together was shifting and changing. In the previous month, he had noticed that the symbol had begun to blur around the edges. At first, he had thought that either he or his family had accidentally smudged it a bit. It wouldn’t be a surprise considering how old his notes were and how many of said family had handled the book, so he disregarded it and shelved his book again. But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed. A few days later when in his lab, he happened to glance over at his forgotten corkboard of notes and theories in the corner of the room and his heart leapt into his throat. That symbol had had its own little section when he had been studying it before dismissing it when nothing came of it. Looking at it now, though, all surfaces on which the symbol had been drawn on were smeared even worse than the one in his notes. Now he knew for a fact that something was going on. His family all knew that no one should touch his notes, even his brother and the man hadn’t even glanced that then through all the years of his absence, so he knew that this wasn’t their doing. The previous symbol was almost completely indiscernible and looked like it was shifting into something else. It worried him deeply since he knew that nothing like this had ever happened before. At least, not without some sort of outside interference and that couldn’t happen in his lab. He had fortified his home with everything he had against everything her could after the almost apocalypse not too long ago, so nothing unwanted should have been able to make it down to the basement without his knowledge. Nodding, he resolved to keep an eye on the symbol and hope that it meant nothing.

By the end of the month, the symbol had completely changed and the new shape that took its place filled his stomach with a sense of unease he hadn’t felt in a long time. He learned to trust his gut feelings like this and if the symbol changing by itself didn’t already concern him, then the feeling it gave off now absolutely left a pool of ice in his chest. Gathering up his courage, he walked upstairs to tell the rest of his family about his discovery and give some kind of warning. They would need to be watchful and wary of this new development. Nothing would endanger his family ever again.

Silently, the dark shape of a lantern filled the spaces on the papers, the center almost glowing brightly in mockery of a flame.

*

[jane-the-zombie]

Beached Zombie || Morgan & Jane

TIMING: Present! PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems + @jane-the-zombie SUMMARY: “i just want you guys know Meri has spent at least half of this jane chatzy going ‘mOrGANN’” - Kat. OR Jane finds an undead body on the beach. Discoveries were made.

Morgan didn’t sleep. The heavy, cotton-covered oblivion she was used to falling into when she reached her lowest lows no longer came for her at night, no matter how still she lay or how long she kept her eyes shut against the dark. There was only so long she could try to make her dead chest match Deirdre’s breathing, only so many times she could lay down at the bottom of the pool and reach for that memory in Karen’s backyard of being still in a way that was okay. And the grass, sometimes, was too prickly--or at least, Morgan remembered the grass being prickly too well to rest in it. And so she would walk elsewhere, at night to pass the time, or the hours during the day that had to be marked somehow. So sometimes, Morgan went out. Sometimes just to the streets around Deirdre’s neighborhood. Today, the beach. With her body plastered to the cooling sand as evening came, and the tide barely kissing her at all as it withdrew. She remembered how she’d been held here the last time she’d visited:  their first date to see the sunrise, and the stories she’d read aloud and the sand in her hair when they rolled to the ground kissing like they had just invented it. She remembered Galveston and the pungent smell of the salty sea, the brine on her skin. She’d fallen asleep like that so often, cradled and contentedly nowhere. If she was still enough for long enough, would she find her way back to that? Could something stick to her long enough to take her there, or somewhere else.

Morgan spotted a runner out of her dead, unblinking eye and thought about sighing as they came to a stop, looming over her. She waited, drooping inside with disappointment, and waited until their hand was hovering just over her body. “Boo!” She deadpanned.

Jane almost fell flat on her face when she saw the body during her evening run. She was too hungover for this. Days where she wasn’t working or practicing some “new extreme sport” were usually spent bar hopping and having fun that way. She was too old to bar hop - god she missed it when bartenders didn’t recognize all their customers. Really, she was missing not being in a small town. Portland was the farthest thing from the largest city in the world, but there were more things to do, at least. The only thing keeping her from trying to transfer again was the fact she just signed her lease and cases here were interesting. Jane almost felt a little bad lamenting her own situation while approaching a goddamn dead body. Clearly other people had it worse. Other people actually died when something happened to them. Jane cursed as she skidded to a stop near the body, quickly doing once over. Definitely dead, or close to it. Damn. She was going to be here all day processing the scene. Who dumped a fucking body on the beach? The woman didn't look like she had washed up. She had already sank to her knees, one hand reaching for her phone, the other going to check the pulse - “Boo.” Jane let out a noise somewhere between a shriek and a loud expletive, falling backward onto her ass. Her eyes narrowed. Her first thought went to public disturbance, but she wasn’t really in the mood to work in the first place. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Jane snapped. “Get up.”

Morgan stayed death still as the woman toppled. She was curious in some new, morbid way whether or not the woman would think she had imagined the whole thing. One of those ooo-woo coincidences/hallucinations/hypotheticals that just couldn’t be anything so stupid and sad as, woops this girl died but she’s still here and kinda broken. This bitter thought gave Morgan a new idea. She waited a few more moments, just in case doubt would set in, then she flopped up to a sit and reached out for the woman’s arm for an assist. As she staggered to her feet, pulling herself up, Morgan twisted as hard as she could until her shoulder came loose. It wasn’t hard. All she had to do was forget the shoulder was hers and forget the idea of hurt. There was a dull ache in the spot where the bones had come loose, she didn’t feel nothing, but if she were herself, if she were alive, she would have been screaming. “Oh, gee…” she deadpanned. “Ow.”

Despite herself, Jane reached to help the woman up. “Honestly, I was about four seconds away from calling in a dead - What are you doing?!” Jane’s voice raised in half panic and exasperation as she let the woman go. “Are you insane?!” There was a time when Jane dislocated her shoulder at a rock climbing gym, and even in all her adrenaline filled bullshit, that still hurt like hell and she had a half a fit about it while getting loaded into the ambulance. “Are you - Are you not in any pain?” Her face twisted in confusion, staring at the woman like she had three heads. The deadpanned ow… Was she on something? Drugs? No, she showed no signs of that. Her eyes narrowed and she had half a mind to twist her arm back herself. “We need to put your arm back.” Unless she was driving yet another person to the emergency room.

“What do you think I am?” Morgan asked. She shook her arm free of the woman’s grap and looked at it dangling from its socket. She poked it until it swung like a pendulum at her side. Her muscles strained at being pushed in this way and the ache was so close to sharp it was almost pleasant. Morgan approximated how her shoulder ought to belong and pulled it back in place, tested her work with a stretch, and waggled her fingers in front of the woman as if to prove everything was fine now. “Guess that's the problem solved,” she said, a forced hollow cheer in her voice. “Do you need something to feel good about this, or are we done here?”

There was a sort of morbid curiosity in watching the woman work her shoulder. Jane almost winced sympathetically, but the words what do you think I am were lodged directly in her brain. “What do I think you are?” Jane repeated, raising an eyebrow. Memories of Jason showing her how his bones didn’t break and how things like chopping off a wrist or two didn’t hurt. Actually, she was fairly certain Jason never felt pain - not really, anyhow. She was hesitant to bring that up though, until her shoulder was properly - oh. Jane was going to offer to set it herself. “Are we done here?” Jane repeated, pinching the bridge of her nose. “No, we’re not done here. First of all, do you think it’s funny laying there pretending to be dead? Because it isn’t. And second… Can I check your pulse, please?”

“Who says I was pretending?” Morgan replied darkly. “And who are you supposed to be, exactly? I’m pretty sure I don’t owe anything to some woman off the street. I didn’t ask for your help with anything. You interrupted my nap.” She grimaced at the thought. If only she could nap. If she could take a break from everything for even just an hour, no haze, no hunger, no death blanket. She deflated, tired, in her own way, and ready to be home. Whatever she had wanted to find here, it wasn’t going to turn up today.  “And it was kind of funny,” she added sheepishly.

“What do you mean?” Jane said, quickly. Jason had insisted that he was dead even though she couldn’t really see how. He was a functioning human, and suddenly his diet made way more sense than it had during the time they had been together. “You were the one playing a bad joke, and I could very well -” What, arrest her? Public disturbance. Get a slap on the wrist and she’d be out by dinner time. That was an abuse of power and way too much fucking work though. And more importantly, Jane tilted her head slightly. “ - anyway. Are you dead, then? A zombie? Is that what you’re saying?”

“You’re avoiding my question, and I don’t think there’s anything against laying on the sand before dark,” Morgan said with a huff. She backed away from the woman, arms folded over her chest. “I’m--I’m a what now?” She laughed, shrill and nervous in a way that she really, really hoped sounded more incredulous. Ha-ha-ha-the-very-IDEA and l-o-l-that’s not REAL! “I’m sorry, what now? You--obviously watch way too many movies. Where would you even come up with something like that, huh?” It was a good thing, at least, that the dead didn’t sweat, because as she scrutinized the jogger, she couldn’t help but feel like she had pushed too hard to seem convincing now.

“Jane Wu. New in town. Police detective.” Jane said, folding her arms over her chest as she stared at Morgan as she started laughing that unconvincing laugh. The kind of laugh that screamed hahahaha I’m definitely not guilty!!! Don’t look at me!!! That kind of laugh. She was now more certain that she was right. That she just found someone else that wasn’t her shitty ex that was like this. Jane held up her hands, defensively. “Whoa, it’s alright, you can save the song and dance.” She reached up moving her hair to show the bite scar on her neck. “See? I’ve uh, met others like you. Clearly. That can do that thing with your arm. And I bet you have no pulse too. Am I correct?”

Oh, stars. A cop. Morgan grimaced and stepped further away again. This was the last person she needed looking into her life. Between the dead magic and living with Deirdre, and toppling into undeath thanks to her best friend, Morgan had plenty to hide. But that, as it turned out, was not her main concern. Jane moved back her hair and revealed a wide scar in the blurry shape of a mouth on her neck. Morgan’s facade fell and she slowly lifted the cuff on her wrist. Their scars weren’t the same, exactly, but there were mottled impressions of human-like teeth, the same hungry shape. “But you’re…” Acting pretty normal. Breathing. She grabbed Jane’s wrist and pressed down hard, searching for a pulse of her own. “A-are you breathing just for the fun of it or what? Are you--not dead yet? How do you know all this then?”

Jane curiously peered at Morgan’s wris. Sure enough, there was the bite mark scarred onto her skin. Jason’s had been on his leg. He never did tell her how he was turned or how he died. HE didn’t tell her a lot of things. Morgan snatched her wrist, pressing down hard on her wrist to find a pulse. “Ouch!” Jane hissed, trying to yank her hand back. “Hey, easy! Use my neck if you want to feel my pulse it’s easier. No, I’m not dead yet. The person that bit me didn’t mean too.” She said, backing up slightly. “He freaked out and told me about it. And showed me.” And then she dumped his ass for good, but that seemed a little too personal. “What’s your name? How long have you been… like this?”

Morgan let go and folded her arms again, guilty for real now. She hadn’t thought she was pressing hard enough to hurt, but there was a red mark on Jane’s skin where her thumb had been, and for all she knew it would be bruising up by the end of the day. “Didn’t--didn’t mean to? What do you mean he didn’t mean to? How do you ‘accidentally’ do this?” Even Remmy who ‘hadn’t meant to’ had still very much meant to. Teeth breaking skin was no joke on the effort-meter. “I’m...Morgan,” she said quietly. “Were you called onto the scene of that crash on Main Street? Some of the debris…” She touched her stomach, remembering the pain. “Someone was with me and they...did this.” She went stiff. Remmy wasn’t something she wanted to think about right now. “I’m sorry about your wrist. I don’t...feel right. I didn’t mean for it to hurt. I...couldn’t tell.”

Jane ran a hand down her face, shaking her head. “It’s - we were - he lost control, for a second, I guess. We were in a relationship.” Jane tried not to think about it, really, it was easier not too. Focusing on living forever and knowing that she could enjoy every ounce of the adrenaline without the fear of death was easier. She wanted that far more than she wanted to be bitter over some spilt relationship. She shook the thoughts off, listening to Morgan, and her heart sank. “No, I wasn’t called to that crash.” That awful crash on Main Street had turned Morgan into this at the last moment. Morgan wasn’t taking it well at all. Jane pressed her lips together in a thin line before waving it off her wrist. “Don’t worry about my wrist, I’ve certainly had worse. You… don’t sound happy. I’m sorry that… this happened to you. If it wasn’t what you wanted.”

“You mean during sex,” Morgan said, her face falling. She hadn’t even thought about that. She’d been too depressed and afraid of Deirdre realizing how different she was to worry about sex. But if Deirdre did somehow want her still or if she did dig up the rest of herself and come back, there was going to be sex. Sex where she might somehow bite her, hurt her with something worse than a bruise that healed in a matter of hours. “Oh-my-god, he bit you during sex, didn’t he. Had he not eaten? Were you doing--I don’t know, other biting type things? Or--” Morgan stopped herself before she got carried away and covered her face, mortified. This was probably not something Jane wanted to talk about. She could only imagine how frightening it must have been. But-- “No,” she said, lowering her hands to look at Jane with disgust. “No I am not happy. And what do you mean ‘if’? Did your boyfriend not explain everything to you? Who would want this? No one should want this!”

“He didn’t exactly explain that bit, it’s a bit of a story,” Jane said, rubbing the spot on her neck. She didn’t get a chance to tell Morgan that everything had been fine until there was blood everywhere, but that was a whole long story. Jane hadn’t even been that bothered, other than trying to stop the bleeding. She’d been laughing at him because he was freaking out. But Morgan’s face turned to disgust, and she realized that she had said the wrong thing to Morgan. Crap. She held her hands up slightly, taking a step back to give her enough space. “He explained everything. I made him. Explain it to me, I mean,” Jane said. She needed to be careful not to upset Morgan - after all, she just died. And she clearly hadn’t wanted to become a zombie to begin with, nor did she have the time to process it like she did. “I’ve accepted what’s going to happen to me when I inevitably die. I -” Jane lowered her hands, cutting herself off with a slight shrug. “I’m going to live forever.”

Morgan stepped away from Jane. She didn’t know if she was insulted or outraged or afraid for her. It was the most feeling she’d had since she died and she didn’t know what to do with it. “I hope you dumped his ass because that is not what this is,” she said. “What, you think this is Twilight for the Walking Dead? This isn’t about forever, Jane. This is death! Have you seen a dead body? That is what we are! I hurt you, Jane, because I can’t feel anything! My death is so thick around me, it’s like I’m being smothered by a goddamn comforter. I can’t even find half the person I used to be right now and I haven’t slept since a fucking rod went through my abdomen and impaled me on the ground. Can you seriously tell me you’ve thought about what it might take to miss something that awful? You don’t know anything. I hope you’re a lot older than me when you do.” She turned away and started up the shore.

Jane wasn’t sure if she should follow Morgan, she seemed fairly angry about the whole thing. Understandable, because this wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t have the time to decide if that’s what she wanted. After a moment's hesitation, Jane followed up the shore. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That it happened to you.” That’s all there really was to say, though she was certain Morgan didn’t want to hear it. Most didn’t after something bad happened to them. “And you’re right to be angry. You should be. It’s just that I’ve - I’ve done my grieving over what’s to come. It’s been a while since this happened to me.” Hell, if living forever - being around to see how everything changed? That took sacrifice. And it was a sacrifice she was willing to make - well, it was a sacrifice she had no choice in making anymore. Why bother denying the inevitable? Jane patted her pockets for a second. “Hey, wait a second.” Jane asked, catching up. She found one of her cards, and held it out. “It’s my card. If you want to talk more about this... not on a beach after you’ve played a prank on me. Or anything else.”

Morgan stopped at Jane’s call and turned over her shoulder. She took the card and squeezed it between her fingers. She didn’t know if she wanted anything from her or if talking to someone who thought this was all somehow going to be okay would help her feel any better. But she could bring herself to turn the offer away. And-- “Okay, I know I just yelled, but what about the sex thing?” She mumbled, embarrassed at how callous the fixation sounded out loud. “Can we talk about that later too?”

She gave her card to a lot of people - particularly those she knew were going to need more help later. Victims of assault, robberies, etc… This was a little different, but Jane could at least recognize that someone was struggling. “It’s alright that you yelled,” Jane said, shrugging slightly as she stuffed her hands into her pockets. Her eyebrow furrowed slightly. Sex? She wanted to talk about sex? Like in general or to her specific incident. Dear lord. “I - Yes. Of course we can talk about the sex thing,” Jane said carefully. “Contact me any time, I always have my phone on me and I’ll always make time.” She paused for a moment, before adding.” And for the record, I did. Break up with him.”

[mobius-prime]

206. Sonic the Hedgehog #138

Return to Angel Island (Part 1): The Message

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Jon Gray Colors: Jason Jensen

We're in for a big one, guys! This is another four-parter, and it's time to finally find out what's going on on Angel Island! But first, Sally and Sonic have to deal with the blowback from the king about their little Tommy mission. King Max chews them out for a while, with Sally tersely accepting the scolding, but Sonic actually attempts to cover for Sally by lying (badly) that she only came along because he kidnapped her. Of course, the king doesn't believe him, and after coldly calling into question Sally's ability to rule in his stead when they leave on their tour, he sends them off.

Yikes. Seems things are going to stay frosty between these two for a while. That afternoon, the king and queen, along with Uncle Chuck as their advisor and Antoine as their bodyguard, depart for their world tour. Shortly thereafter, everyone is hanging out in Chuck's diner, which is currently being manned by Jules and Bernie, while Sonic confides in Knuckles and Julie-Su about his troubles with Sally. Julie-Su points out that Sally's feelings are understandable to a degree, as she herself struggled for a long time after Knuckles' return from the grave with feeling comfortable about him going back into battle. The conversation is interrupted by a sudden crash at the door, and everyone is shocked to see a badly injured Charmy and Saffron enter the establishment and immediately collapse. They're immediately taken to receive medical attention, and after that Sally questions the two on what exactly happened. Charmy and Saffron relate, stricken by grief, how Eggman attacked their home at the Goldenhive Colony, and try as they might, they failed to save anyone - and they mean literally anyone. Their parents, all their friends, every single other member of the colony is dead now. I have to say, while this is certainly an… effective way of kicking to the curb Kenders' weird plans to shunt Charmy away from the spotlight, it's also an incredibly brutal way. I mean, how many others here have lost literally everyone they care about? Oh, wait, Knuckles is getting there! Fittingly, at that exact moment a transmission comes through on the Technolo-Tree, but the only thing that can be made out through the static is that Locke is apparently being held prisoner on Angel Island. And at that moment, Knuckles' patience, so carefully maintained just a couple issues ago, finally snaps.

Sally, you have to remember that it's been almost an entire year that he's been off his island, and he knows he still has friends and family stuck there, with Eggman doing who knows what to them. Can you blame him for wanting to rescue literally the only home he's ever known from Eggman's brutal occupation? Sonic sheepishly leaves with Knuckles, and together they, Julie-Su, the Chaotix (back together again! Also this time including Ray, who's been severely sidelined for quite some time now, and Saffron), and Bunnie all pile into the FFS and fly to Angel Island. Bunnie remains behind at Sonic's request, since he wants to make sure Sally still has a heavy hitter watching over Knothole while they're gone, and everyone else airdrops in, landing in the Marble Garden Zone. Sonic races away to do some split-second recon, and comes back with some pretty horrendous news - there's an honest-to-god prison camp not far from there location, sponsored by Eggman, run by dingoes, and filled with enslaved echidnas being worked half to death by their captors. So, naturally, the intrepid infiltrators race directly in and start causing some havoc.

Okay, this is something I've danced around for quite a while now, but… I really don’t like the portrayal of the dingoes as this weird military hive mind. Penders very obviously based them off of Nazi Germany in many ways (like… as we saw before in KtE#22, his hints toward this weren't subtle at all), and I believe he's even said that he deliberately only ever showed male dingoes, avoiding portraying women and children among their ranks, so they didn’t appear too sympathetic. Quite aside from the fact that that's a kind of ridiculous and sexist position to take especially given that one of the comic's current most threatening villains is in fact female, this just turns the dingoes into cardboard cutouts of villains instead of an interesting opposing faction in this world's political landscape. I mean, how much more interesting would they be if the story bothered to humanize them, make them relatable? But of course, that would mean that Penders would have to portray his precious echidna society as less than honorable for discriminating against them, and we can't have that, so instead they're all just military hardasses who love xenophobia and hate democracy. Hell, even the actual Nazis had more depth to their evil actions than the dingoes. And, to be fair, I know that this arc is written by Karl, not Penders, but he's just building on everything that Penders has established here, so I'm still putting the blame on Penders.

Anyway, the heroes make quick work of the dingoes stationed in the camp, though Knuckles takes a bad blow that Sonic has to save him from due to his lack of powers. Knuckles begins to protest at being helped, but he's suddenly drowned out by chanting… from the echidna slaves they've just freed. They're all bowing down to him and calling him the Avatar, hailing his return. A flabbergasted Knuckles spots Remington among the crowd and asks him what the hell is going on, and Remington explains that there's been a bit of a, eh, religious revival shall we say, among the echidnas on the island ever since he returned from the dead. Apparently, there's an old prophecy from the Ancient Walkers stating that someone will come back from the dead and deliver everyone on the island from their suffering, and, well, Knuckles fits the first part of that criteria. However, he'd barely come back from the dead before Eggman made his move on the island a year ago, preventing Knuckles from returning until now.

So things have kind of deteriorated to a severe degree in Knuckles' absence. Echidnaopolis is now Dingo City, and the dingoes are led not by General Stryker, who is conspicuously absent, but instead General Kage, a cyborg underling of Eggman's in charge of finding the Master Emerald somewhere on the island. Of course that's what Eggman is really after here, and they've captured Locke with the intention of getting the location from him one way or the other. He's been chained upside down in some dark room, and Kage has been torturing him nonstop for the past few days trying to get him to crack, to no avail. Eggman merely encourages Kage over video call to keep it up, while we transition to the Lava Reef Zone, which is where Knuckles has led all the rescued echidnas to, away from the prison camp. He's here because this is approximately where the message informing him of his father's capture originated from, but suddenly the group finds themselves surrounded by smoke, and out of the smoke steps an army of Dark Legion soldiers, surrounding them with weapons drawn…

Mobius 25 Years Later: My Dinner with Sonic

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jason Jensen

…but who cares about all that interesting plot stuff when we can watch some forty-something moms chat next to a pool where their annoying kids and husbands are playing? Apparently, despite their husbands' rivalry, Julie-Su and Sally have actually become pretty good friends over the years, and lament that they barely get together anymore because of Knuckles and Sonic's hatred of one another. Sally is upset because of how distant Sonic has been acting lately - according to her, he barely talks to anyone he doesn't have to anymore, including Tails, whom he hasn’t spoken to in three whole years now! Excuse me, what?! Okay, Sonic and Knuckles at least have some precedent for their rivalry, however weak that precedent is, but I cannot even begin to imagine a world where Sonic just straight up ghosts his best friend for apparently no reason. Literally, no reason is given! He just doesn't like Tails anymore now! Also, in this timeline, Tails is married to Mina and he's moved to Downunda, because why the hell not? Who needs to make sense or give reasons for anything in their plot? Oh, but that's not all! If you thought that was the extent of Sonic's incredibly out-of-character writing, you thought wrong!

That's right - Sonic the forty-one-year-old father, war hero, and king of an entire nation is apparently so petty about not being able to hit a volleyball in the pool that he thinks it's acceptable to shove his own young son under the water so he can get to the ball instead. And this isn't just some case of me taking these panels out of context - on the very next page Manik rightfully calls him out on this, only for Sonic to irritably say that Manik has been "getting in his face all afternoon" and that this was the only way he could get to play with the ball. And then, just as if to rub this in our horrified faces, Knuckles also comes over and points out how terrible of an action this is, and when Manik speaks up SONIC FORCES HIM UNDER THE WATER AGAIN TO GET HIM TO STOP TALKING. I just… I cannot even begin to express how bad this is. This is literally the opposite of Sonic the Hedgehog. You cannot get further off the mark than Penders just has right here. Everything about Sonic's characterization in this arc is bad and inaccurate to who he really is, but this interaction right here is the cake topper, the prime example of just how much Penders does not understand the characters he is trying to write. I can pinpoint this as the exact moment I lost all remaining respect for Penders as a writer. I've defended him before, and I stand by my opinions that I do enjoy many of his earlier stories for the comic, but this is a goddamn travesty. Penders. Needs. To. Stop.

*sigh* We have to finish today's issue, so let's… let's just get to the end. Everyone goes inside for dinner, with Sonia and Manik heading out to play with Lara-Su while the adults have dinner together, because apparently they're so stuffy they don't even let their own kids eat with them. Knuckles and Sonic start arguing at the table, big shocker there, while Abby desperately tries to serve them dessert and their boring wives try to rein them in.

Are we gonna hear anything about what the "drone problem" or the "Overlander uprising" entailed? Those sound too interesting, so NOPE! Instead, the kids walk by and overhear the argument and promise each other they'll never fight like their parents do, while Manik tries to put the moves on Lara-Su, who is not having it. The argument ends when both Knuckles and Sonic belch simultaneously while their wives scold them disapprovingly - I think Penders is trying to go for a comedy movie sketch type thing here where classical music ramps up in hilarious intensity behind the bickering over the family dinner before everything ends on a few sharp notes from the string section, but it just comes off as utterly cringeworthy. Knuckles finally - finally! - manages to get to the point of this entire arc, which is to tell Sonic about how the world is ending. Yes, it took this long for him to tell the main character of this goddamn comic about the main conflict of this goddamn arc. Kill me. Someone please kill me.

…are you kidding me?! You mean all this time we could have been exploring the ramifications of a planetwide environmental disaster caused by dimensional travel, and the possibility of having to evacuate the planet's population into space, and instead we got to watch two boring husbands belch at each other over goddamn dinner?! I'm done. I'm so done. Everything about this sucks and I hate it. Ken Penders, if I ever see you in person, I will be throwing these hands.

[builder051]

Mike and Jason at Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving-time!  It’s a little early, but I’ll have another (better?) treat to post a bit closer to the actual day. It’s not the Stucky novella, though, so don’t get your hopes up quite yet.

I’ve combined prompt #15 from the 100 prompts list with a scenario I’ve had in my head for ages.  This one features Mike and Jason, who are possibly my fave OCs at the moment.

Huge trigger warning for self-induced vomiting in a situation that is simultaneously ED-related and NOT ED-related.  Honestly, you’ll have to read it to understand it, but for me it’s really real and really relatable, and I hope it’s not too overwhelmingly dark and/or stressful.

___

Mike lays curled on her side on the floor of her childhood bedroom, staring up at the blank white walls and lamenting the fate of her old WNBA posters.  She’s barely been out of the house two years, and not even permanently at that.  She’s still expected to trek back to her parents’ home for holidays and summer vacations.  It seems the least they can do is to leave her a tiny bit of herself in this supposedly personal space.  But it would be beyond their current care factor.

Dinner had been a disaster, hence Mike’s current posture.  Why aren’t you in therapy? had kicked off the conversation over appetizers, the turkey had been carved to threats to cut off the housing allowance, and mashed potatoes doled out along with explicit expectations of exactly how much of each food Mike was to eat.

“Jason didn’t get any green beans,” Mike’d pointed out.  Her brother had shot her an ugly face, and their mother’d just turned to pull pies out of the oven.  But then he’d made it up to her by snagging Mike’s roll off her plate when no one was looking.

Jason’s high position in Mike’s mind starts to fall, though, when he calls her name over a soft knock on her bedroom door.  The knob turns and the door creaks inward, the corner of it clipping Mike’s head and adding to her physical misery.  But maybe having a headache is good.  It gives her a better reason to be nauseous.

“Ow.  Fuck,” Mike complains, not moving from her sprawl.

“Jesus.  What’re you doing?”  Jason retracts the door a few inches and leans his head inside.

“Nothing.  Dying.”

“Well, you better hurry up because Mom wants you to come downstairs and taste-test her cookie dough or something,” Jason says.

“Fuck.”  Mike draws her legs further toward her torso, gathering static from the plush carpet.  “Why can’t you do that?”

“Because she’s…being a bitch,” Jason whispers, admitting what they both know.

“It’s another fucking test,” Mike mumbles.  Eggs and sausage for breakfast, grilled cheese for lunch, then stuffed dates and the whole goddamn dinner spread, cooked with butter and cream and everything rich and calorically expensive…wasn’t that enough?  She knows logically the servings were reasonable, but it does nothing to suppress the reflux bubbling in her throat.  She takes a deep inhalation and wills the dizzying nausea to dissipate.

“Mike?”

She lets out her breath.  “Don’t fucking throw me under the bus with her.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jason asks desperately.

“Make Dad do it.  Leave me alone.”

“Dad just asked me if my relationship with Colby is ‘serious,’” Jason says.  “I said maybe, and I walked away.  I’m not going back down there right now.”  He gives an awkward nervous laugh.

Mike swallows her stomach back down to its rightful place.  Guilt increases her inner turmoil; she’s currently wearing one of Colby’s festive and slightly frayed blue and green plaid shirts with light-wash skinny jeans.  Light wash because they might make her bony thighs look a tad fuller.  Not that they’ve done much good fooling her mother, though.  “I…I can’t right now,” she says softly.  “I just…can’t.”

“Hey, I’m not here to, like, torture you or anything,” Jason says, his voice caught between irritation and genuine concern.  “What’s wrong?  Besides mom.”

“Nothing,” Mike says.  She rolls so her knees are on the ground with her torso draped over them and her forehead on the floor.  She breathes down the collar of her shirt and wills the roiling of her stomach to let up.

“Yeah, right,” Jason says.  He pushes the door open another few inches and squats in the doorway a foot or so from Mike’s shoulder.  “I’m serious.  Stop being a jerk and talk to me.”

Mike pauses for a moment.  “I don’t feel good,” she whispers to her knees.  She can feel the skin of her stretched stomach sitting on her denim-clad legs.  Mike experimentally clenches her abdominal muscles, which makes her feel slightly less enormous, but also sends her gulping down rising bile.

“Like, really, or just…I don’t know…in your head?”  Jason’s tone makes it clear it isn’t a dig.  But it doesn’t do much to keep him from sounding as ill-informed as their father.

“Like I’m gonna fucking puke all over this fucking carpet,” Mike growls, shoving herself to standing and wrapping both arms around her stomach.  She fights vertigo on the way up and pauses to steady herself with a shoulder pressed to the wall.

“Hey, breathe for a second, I’m sure you’ll be ok.”  Jason jumps to his feet and tries to put a comforting hand on Mike’s back, but she brushes past him and steps down the hall toward the bathroom.

Mike uncoils one hand from her middle to shut the door behind her, but Jason inserts a hand to stop her.  “Leave me alone,” she breathes. Disgrace foams up her throat and crumples her face.

“What are you doing?” Jason asks seriously.  He locks his dark brown eyes on Mike’s greener set.

“Just…just stop,” Mike whispers.

Jason shakes his head.  His arm falls to his side, and Mike presses the door closed.  She turns the lock with a satisfying click.

Mike isn’t sure if she’s going to sob or retch, but she knows she needs to settle in front of the toilet.  She heaves as soon as she’s down, but all that comes up is spit.  Which is ridiculous, because she can feel every ounce of everything she’s eaten since dawn pressing up against the base of her throat.

The nausea makes her hairline damp, the back of her neck sticky.  Mike’s hands and feet feel freezing compared to the wet heat rising from her core.  She retches again in a disgusting, belchy way and watches clear snotty fluid fall into the toilet water.

“Godfuckingdamnit,” she whispers under her breath.  It has to happen.  It has to happen now.  If Mike sits here wallowing in nausea for another minute, she’s going to die.  Have a brain aneurysm and keel over on the bathroom floor because every inch of her is screaming in pain and clammy sweat.

She shoves her right sleeve up to the elbow and looks down at her trembling hand.  It’s not about calories or fats or even the size of her bloated stomach.  She just wants a second of relief from the horrendous feeling tearing around inside her, and she knows exactly what to do about it.

Mike jams her index finger unceremoniously down her throat.  She pulls back as soon as she feels a mush of stomach contents wash over her hand.  It’s thick and disgusting and hard to get up, the result of too much food and too little fluid, but she rides the next couple heaves and feels the pressure inside her lessen.

Fresh sweat of relief beads on Mike’s brow as she breaks off coughing for a moment.  Then she retches again, all on her own, and the tang of cranberry sauce mixes with the sourness of stomach acid, making her wince and screw up her eyes, which are dripping hot tears down her cheekbones.

Mike tears off a ream of toilet paper and uses it to wipe her face, then to remove the gunk of mucous and vomit from her hand.  She tosses it shakily into the toilet and flushes away the mess, then sits back on her heels for a second.  The beginnings of dehydration have her head throbbing in time with her heartbeat, and shame ignites a blush in Mike’s ashen cheeks.

It’s not like that, Mike tells herself.  She didn’t keep her hand pressed down against the back of her tongue until only yellow bile came up. She let her body do things…normal bodily functions…naturally.  For the most part.

“You’re.  Fine.”  Mike pronounces it with as much force as she can with her hoarse and quivering vocal sound.  She shoves roughly to her feet, using the edge of the countertop to hold her up under a little residual vertigo.

Mike brutally scrubs her hands with the sickeningly floral scented hand soap, then splashes cool tap water over her puffy face.  Her eyes are red, but not bloodshot.  It looks more like she’s just been crying.  Which, to be honest, she has been.  But just a little.

She breathes into a towel for a second, then unlocks the bathroom door.  Mike intends to retreat back to her old bedroom, but she nearly trips over Jason, who’s sitting on the floor of the hall with his knees to his chest.

“What?” Mike snaps at him, her voice shot.

“Mike.”  It’s a sad whisper.

“I threw up.  So fucking what?”

“I know,” Jason says, staring at Mike’s hand, then into her face.

Mike balls her fists.  “No, you don’t.”

“I…It sounds different.  You have to know that.  You have to know I know that.”

“You’re a fucking perv,” Mike spits.  She passes Jason’s crouched form and heads for her room.  “You know nothing about me.”  She thinks about explaining it to the details, describing the degree of grossness until Jason’s face pales and goes green around the edges, but footsteps are coming up the stairs.

“Stay away from me,” Mike threatens.  She swings open her door and slams it shut, turning the lock.  She leans her head against the thin wood, feeling her eyes prickle with tears again.

“Where’s your sister?” Mike hears her mother’s voice ask.

“In her room,” Jason answers with what seems to be the verbal equivalent of a shrug.  “Said her stomach hurt.  Like, cramps or something.”

Mike freezes and lets out her breath in a slow, shaky gust.  She hasn’t had a menstrual cycle in 18 months.  She doesn’t know whether her brother’s aware of that or not, but, as she listens to her mother’s footsteps retreat back down the stairs, Mike thinks perhaps Jason does know her just the right amount.

[tgwltw]

Hi, I absolutely love your batboy X reader imagines. Can I request one of Damian being jealous of Jason's S/o as he sees her as a Sister figure and wants her to himself?

I wasn’t too sure what you meant butI decided to take it with stride! You requested Damian being jealous of Jasonright? Because Damian wants Jason’s s/o to him? At least that’s what I thinkyou want but nevertheless! Sorry if it’s short and thank you for requesting! Hope you enjoy!

Damian frowns as he stares at you cradling Jason to your chestwhen Jason flops down on the couch after a taxing mission. He ignores thejealousy burning in him and tries his hardest not to let his disdain show fartoo much. He honestly does not know whatyou see in Todd. Damian feels a little bit conflicted because if you didn’t gettogether with Todd, there was no way he could probably have meet you and that,in itself, was a scary thought.

“How was patrol, Jay?” You ask him when Jason madehimself comfortable on top of your chest. You ran a hand through his hair,massaging his scalp lightly just as he likes it. Jason murmurs somethingincoherent and you nudge him. “Actual words, babe." 

Jason pulls back to roll his eyes at you. If that was anyoneelse, you would have smacked them already but alas, it was Jason. "Hadsome close calls but other than that, ’s fine.” He mutters, recalling theevents that took place during patrol. “At least none of us got injuredthis time around.”

You frown slightly but nod your head nonetheless. “At thevery least, you are still keeping your promises so I can’t truly be mad.”You press your lips against his and Jason smirks in to the kiss. He pulls awayafter a bit. 

“I’m going to hit the showers first.” He slowly pullsaway from you before pausing entirely to give you a look. “You’re welcometo join me if you want.” He smirks at you and you playfully swat at him.

“Just go take your damn shower, Todd and come backhere later.” You tell him and Jason lets out a chuckle before pressing akiss atop your head. He turns around to leave but is surprise to see Damianstanding there. 

“Yo, Demon Spawn. I didn’t notice you.” He laments andDamian narrows his eyes at Jason. 

“It would mean that you would have eyes at the back of yourhead, Todd.” Damian says smartly, before heading towards the couch to sitdown a minute distance from you, arms crossed. 

Jason shrugs his shoulders. He has got to admit now that he hasspent some time with the Demon Spawn, he wasn’t that bad of a kid.“Okay,” Jason decides to leave the two of you be and heads for hisbedroom. 

Damian then turns to look at you onlyto flush slightly because you are looking at him. He thinks it’s silly that youare going out with Todd especially because you could do so much better withoutTodd and again, the frown on his face deepens because if you had not met Todd,how was he supposed to meet you?

You smile before shaking your head. Hisattitude sometimes reminds you of your pet hedgehog, Bo. Or rather, Bo remindsyou of Damian. They were so alike and you find both of them extremely adorable.Jason has always told you that Damian cherishes the ground you walk on mostlybecause he sees you as a respectable older sister figure. Though sometimes,Jason would grumble over how much Damian likes to hang around you too.

“Nothing, Damian. How was your night?”You ask him. Honestly you were honored Damian looked up to you as an oldersister. Being the youngest in the family, you had no one looking up to you andyou have always wanted a younger sibling even if this younger sibling came inthe form of Jason’s youngest pseudo brother. “Jay told me the two of you had acouple of close calls.”

Damian nod his head curtly. “Yes,that is correct.” It was not any of their faults and he remembered Jason goingthrough the bad villain rather quickly because in the midst of fighting, Jasonhad promptly told him to make it quick because he wanted to go home to bed, to(your code name). “Sister.” Damian calls your attention and you nod your head,prompting him to go on.

“Are you happy?” He questions as helooks away from you to stare blankly ahead.

You furrow your eyebrows together. “Thatis very subjective, Damian.” You point out. “But if you ask me if I am happy ingeneral, yes, I am. Am I happy with my current life? It worries me whenever Jayor you or any of the family goes out for patrols or dangerous missions but Iknow that all of you will always try your hardest to come back home so that isa relief.” You explain and Damian turns to look at you once more with anunreadable expression. “Am I happy with Jason? Absolutely. Of course, like anyother couples, we fight with each other and sometimes it’s always over thesilliest things like leaving the toilet seat up!” You grumble but Damian snortsat your revelation – it seems like Todd has a habit of leaving the toilet seatup. “But we still love each other very much and I absolutely adore him.”

Damian nods his head slowly. Hisbrain is now formulating another plan – he really wants to keep you to himselfbecause you have never treated him like the adult he thinks he is but rather asa kid that is growing up, that craves for attention, affection and whatever itis that Damian needs. Perhaps if you stay in the family, stay with Jason and ifJason proposes to you, Damian will have that bond with you forever.

He nods his head curtly at yourexplanation before giving you a small smile. “Thank you for entertaining myquestions, sister.” You smile at him before pulling him in a brief hug. If thiswas just about anyone, Damian would have shove them so far away but this is you– so Damian just accepts the hug. He pulls away quickly though when he hearsJason’s obnoxious steps. “I will leave you to Todd now.”

Damian pecks your cheek and leavesthe living room just in time to catch Jason walking towards where he had just comefrom. He stops Todd from advancing any further. Jason stares at Damian. “Bestyou put a ring on sister’s finger, Todd.” He states before leaving Jasonsurprised by what he had just said.

Jason walks to you still somewhatdazed by what Damian had just said. Did the brat go through his bag again? Hecould have sworn he hid the ring box very carefully.

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Jordan Staal Update; Coyotes Injuries; Deadline; Dahlin – February 19

  Jordan Staal was back at practice for the Carolina Hurricanes, but this time he was in a regular jersey instead of a non-contact one. For a player returning from a concussion, this is a significant step. I imagine he’ll need a few more practices under his belt before he’s cleared, but it looks like he should return to the lineup sooner rather than later. That’s a huge boon for the Hurricanes in this playoff push, if not overly fantasy-relevant.

*

Pontus Aberg should be back for Minnesota’s game Tuesday night while Victor Rask will not be.

*

Boone Jenner returned for the Blue Jackets having missed their last couple games, skating in his usual spot with Nick Foligno and Josh Anderson. Anthony Duclair, meanwhile, was a healthy scratch:

  Asked why Duclair is a healthy scratch again, Torts said: “bad listening skills.” Wouldn’t elaborate.

— Tom Reed (@treed1919) February 18, 2019

  I know it’s the way of the world that a player at the end of the roster will get nitpicked to death while those at the top of the roster will not. However, it always struck me as a way to alienate a guy who could help a team win.

*

Corey Crawford is still skating with Chicago, which continues to be a good sign, but there’s still no firm update on a return.

*

We got an update from Craig Morgan at The Athletic about a few of the injured Arizona players:

To summarize:

Still not expecting Antti Raanta to return this year.

Christian Dvorak’s conditioning stint length is not determined, could be one game, could be several.

Michael Grabner is back skating with the team but in a non-contact jersey following his eye injury. There’s no firm timeline yet.

Jason Demers is also skating with the team in a non-contact jersey recovering from knee surgery. Don’t expect him back anytime soon but it certainly seems possible he’s back before the season is out.

The Coyotes will get some reinforcements in the next month but it’s a question of how many players and if it’s too late to push for the playoffs. It’s a wonder where this team would be with any injury luck.

*

After an unlucky start to the year, Vladimir Tarasenko is up to 0.46 goals/game (he was 0.46 over the previous three seasons) and 0.89 points/game (he was at 0.89 points/game over the previous three seasons). Hope you all bought low when we told you to.

*

Carolina is having a bit of fun with Don Cherry:

  The jerk store called…we are now taking orders!

» https://t.co/FWVvmuiYym pic.twitter.com/kDoJdRPvxM

— Carolina Hurricanes (@NHLCanes) February 17, 2019

  Heaven forbid players have fun playing a game. 

*

Brent Seabrook was scratched just before warmups for the Blackhawks with an abdominal strain. When there is a timeline for his return, we will pass it along.

*

Colorado has seen their power play go cold of late so Nathan MacKinnon was dropped to the second power play unit. They also split their top line across their top three lines. I'm as confused as you are. 

*

Victor Hedman left Monday night’s game at the end of the first period and did not return. Though Jon Cooper wouldn’t elaborate much further, he said he didn’t expect it to be serious.

*

We are less than a week away from the trade deadline, typically one of the busiest times of the year for fantasy owners outside of draft week. Just a reminder that we’ll have you completely covered here at Dobber Hockey. Any trade of significance will be broken down here by either myself, Ian, Cam, or Dobber himself. Whenever fantasy owners see a trade go down, they should head over here within the next few hours to get a breakdown of what that means for them and their fantasy leagues.

*

While on the topic of trade deadlines, we need to get something out in the open: a lot of what happens between now and the end of the season is driven by luck, and that goes for both teams and individual players. With about one quarter of a season left, just think of all the quirky things we’ve seen this season alone in quarter segments:

Through the season’s first 21 games, Buffalo had one fewer point than Tampa Bay, The Rangers had one fewer point than the Flames, and the Blues were 30th in the league.

In that same span of games, Matthew Tkachuk had as many points as Nikita Kucherov, Max Domi had as many points as Johnny Gaudreau, and Pekka Rinne led all goalies in save percentage at .944 (he’s been a .901 since).

In the next 20 or so games, Jonathan Huberdeau put up as many points as Sidney Crosby and Sean Monahan, Gaudreau led the league in goals (what?!), Vegas accumulated the most points in the league while Buffalo, previously fourth, fell to 22nd in the league. The Rangers went from accumulating one fewer point than Tampa Bay through the first ~21 games to accumulating 20 fewer points than Tampa Bay over the next ~21 games.

Those are a handful of extreme examples, but I think fantasy owners will get the general idea. We can talk about how Player X is a good fit, or Player Y will get better line mates, or Team Z is suddenly better defensively because of an acquisition, but the truth is we’re at the mercy of the hockey gods (and ensuing puck luck) a lot more than we’d care to admit.

It’s not to absolve everyone of their sins in decision making. There are still optimal decisions to be made that can put a fantasy roster in the best position to succeed. That does not guarantee success, or even make it likely. Just something to keep in mind if Matt Duchene gets traded to Winnipeg and puts up 11 points over the balance of the season.

*

On the topic of luck, I wanted to check in with the best ball league over at Fantrax that Dobber, Cam Metz, myself, and others from around the industry took part. For those unfamiliar, best ball leagues are draft-only. That means you draft your team and leave it, with no trades or free agency. Your best scores from a pre-determined number of players – your best 6 out of 10 forwards, 3 of out of 6 defencemen, and 2 out of 4 goalies or whatever – determine your overall score.

In these types of leagues, it can be helpful to stack and try to hit a line that explodes for the year. I did exactly that by drafting Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau, and Mark Giordano. That worked out well! However, injuries have gotten the better of me, having lost John Klingberg for six weeks, James van Riemsdyk for six weeks, Oscar Klefbom for nearly two months, Justin Schultz for over half the year, and Taylor Hall still hasn’t returned to the lineup, having missed eight weeks already. That’s two of my top three defencemen (and a potential top-5 blue liner) plus my first round pick with significant injuries. Needless to say, I’m nowhere near the top (though I’m second in points/game, I’m last in games played because of the injuries). Cam Metz can still win the title though and has drafted a solid squad.

That’s just a long lament to show that even if your players perform that you hoped they would (and I do think I drafted a very good team, as evidenced by being second in points/game), there’s still the injury factor that can crop up at a moment’s notice. Not only do fantasy owners need puck luck, they need injury luck. Fantasy hockey amounts to a roulette wheel sometimes.  

*

Dobber released a couple of his rankings last week but the one I want to focus on is his top-100 keeper defencemen list. Namely, one defenceman on the list, coming in at number 20: Rasmus Dahlin.

Before the season, I was adamant that Dahlin would not be worth his ADP in standard Yahoo! leagues (you can read my stuff from the offseason here, here, and here. That’s not all of it, but it’s a start). He’s already surpassed my projections but whether he lives up to his ADP remains to be seen. All the same, I wanted to say this: his rookie season has been exceptional.

In the history of the NHL, Dahlin is one of three defencemen to average 0.55 points per game in their rookie season, the other two being Bobby Orr and Phil Housley. Not that he’s guaranteed to maintain that mark over the balance of the season, but the fact he’s at that point when we’re a week away from the trade deadline speaks volumes of his talent.

This production isn’t all smoke and mirrors, either. In cases like this, we’d often be concerned with a sky-high individual points percentage at five-on-five (he’s under 40 percent personally which is kind of high but still outside the top-40 defencemen), a sky-high on-ice shooting percentage (he’s at 8.7 percent, which doesn’t even lead the Sabres and is outside the top-60 league-wide), or a high secondary assist rate (that is high, by the way, tied for 10th across the league). While there is a bit of a concern of a slowdown because of the secondary assist rate, the additional power play time he’s seen recently can make up for that.

Under the hood, he’s driving offence at a considerably higher rate than his teammates on the blue line, and at a comparable rate league-wide to other dynamos like Morgan Rielly and Mark Giordano. He can find his teammates regularly in shooting positions and can get out of his zone and into the other zone with control as often as almost anyone (from CJ Turtoro’s viz):

  His performance in the defensive zone still needs work but, I mean, come on, the kid is 18. We can cut him a little slack!

All this is to say that Dahlin is performing every bit the future superstar he has been. Though that may not be enough to pay off his preseason ADP, this is about as good as we could possibly hope for. I can’t possibly imagine he can be had for cheap in dynasty/keeper leagues, but I would be checking with the Dahlin owner in your league. If he can be a top-30 fantasy defenceman as an 18-year old and do it without being driven by luck, we’re only a couple years away from a top-5 defenceman.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-jordan-staal-update-coyotes-injuries-deadline-dahlin-february-19/

[theconservativebrief]

The second half of 2018’s fall TV premiere week brings with it a slew of comedies, new and old, as the afterlife dwellers of NBC’s The Good Place move on to a new location and scene stealer Lil Rel Howery finally gets his own sitcom with Fox’s Rel (which technically debuted a few weeks ago but moves to its regular time slot this week).

But the week’s biggest “new” series is Murphy Brown, the 1988 stalwart that has returned for its first season since 1998, with most of the original cast in tow. (It’s the 11th season of Murphy Brown overall.) Does Candice Bergen still have it? Do you even have to ask that question? (You saw Book Club, right? Good movie!)

Oh, and there’s also a show where God friends somebody on Facebook, and it’s nowhere near as bad as that sounds. Promise!

Few of these shows are great, and as critics, we often have limited information on whether they’ll get better. (It’s rare to impossible for broadcast networks, especially, to send out many episodes for review beyond the first couple.) But there’s something in all of these shows worth checking out, especially if you’re a particular fan of their genres.

(A note: We’ve only given ratings to shows where we feel we’ve seen enough episodes to judge how successful they will be long-term, which for right now is just Murphy Brown and The Good Place. In the case of both shows, we’ve seen new unaired episodes in addition to prior seasons.)

[embedded content]

Good news: The Good Place is back.

The NBC comedy is one of the best shows currently airing. It’s smart, it’s touching, it’s funny, it’s well-acted — and even in its third season, it’s firing on all cylinders.

Season three picks up where season two ended, with our heroes sent back to Earth to test out Michael’s (Ted Danson) theory that, given the opportunity, they would change their lives enough to make it into the Good Place.

Of course, saving the souls of everyone’s favorite humans — self-professed “trash bag” Eleanor (Kristen Bell), mortally indecisive Chidi (William Jackson Harper), navel-gazing socialite Tahani (Jameela Jamil), and Jacksonville, Florida’s very own Jason (Manny Jacinto) — isn’t quite that easy. But it wouldn’t be The Good Place if it was.

From the start, showrunner Mike Schur has been perfecting the art of subverting expectations and throwing curveballs into the story at a rate that would cripple pretty much any other show. The new season doesn’t let up in that regard, as its twists and turns pull off a three-season hat trick.

That it works comes down to the fact that nothing on The Good Place is done for shock value; at the risk of sounding preachy, it’s all in service of a larger arc, as well as a reminder — whether you believe in the existence of a Good Place or not — to be good, even when it seems impossible. —Karen Han

The Good Place debuts Thursday at 8 pm Eastern on NBC. Don’t miss it, ya dink!

[embedded content]

The first three episodes of the new season of Murphy Brown, which reunites liberal lion news anchor Murphy and most of her pals at a cable news morning show, aren’t very good. The jokes are mostly easy potshots at Donald Trump (would you believe that Murphy calls him “orange” in the first episode?!), and the live studio audience is so over-mic’ed that every little utterance they make sounds like wild laughter and applause.

In the 2018 revival, Murphy and her friends are hosting a sort of Fox & Friends for the type of left-leaning folks who watch Murphy Brown. And putting Murphy in the hollow confines of a morning show could be fun! But the new Murphy Brown doesn’t even try to explore these contradictions, or the sheer anachronism of the show’s existence in this era.

It instead exists in a world in which support for Trump is inexplicable and if the press just found the right words to speak, it might make him disappear; this is a show that takes every opportunity to harangue America, Republicans, and the press for not having the calm, collected wisdom of Murphy Brown.

And yet there’s something here. For as sitcom-silly as it is for Murphy to be dragged into a tweet war with the president in the season premiere, the heroine of this revival serves as a specific panacea to people old enough to remember Murphy Brown, peddling a kind of sitting-on-your-couch activism designed not to effect change but, instead, to make you feel less alone in these scary times.

And every so often, there’s a flash of the old show’s panache, or a line reading that Bergen knocks dead, or a flicker of terror at how bad things have gotten and how bad they could still get, and the show comes to life, for a moment at least. It’s not good, but it’s comforting. —Todd VanDerWerff

Murphy Brown season 11 debuts Thursday at 9:30 pm Eastern on CBS, with a special 35-minute episode. For much more on Murphy old and new, read our comprehensive explainer.

[embedded content]

On paper, the premise of God Friended Me sounds so very, very stupid. Miles, an atheist played by the effortlessly charming Brandon Micheal Hall, hosts a podcast where he dunks on believers. And then one day, he receives a Facebook friend request from “God.” He accepts the friend request, and God suggests other friends, who turn out to be part of a massive puzzle that could only be assembled by someone omniscient.

Does Miles start believing in God as a result? Nah. To God Friended Me’s credit, the show lets Miles think that what’s happening to him involves either the actual God … or such a sophisticated artificial intelligence that it seems like God but is, instead, just really good at predicting what people are going to do. (Shades of the late, lamented Person of Interest!)

Miles spends a lot of the pilot trying to figure out who “God” is, like he’s not in a TV show where it will take him 100 episodes or more to solve the mystery (and where he will almost certainly learn that “God” is actually God or, like, a conglomerate of psychic rabbis). But somehow, God Friended Me has a good shot at wearing down your (very reasonable) defenses.

Hall earns my earlier descriptor of “effortlessly charming,” bearing even more of the load than he did on ABC’s one-season-and-done comedy The Mayor. And the series has surrounded him with equally likable supporting players, including Violett Beane as a journalist who joins his cause, and Joe Morton as his — dramatic irony!!! — minister father?!

If God Friended Me were at all cynical about its premise, it would be unbearable. Instead, it’s earnest and cheesy and a little stupid, which turns out to be the right approach. When the puzzle pieces snap into place, it works, the viewer’s cynicism be damned, because it’s silly in the way that a golden retriever licking your face is silly — you eventually just kind of give in and laugh about it. —TV

God Friended Me debuts Sunday, September 30, at 8:30 pm Eastern on CBS. If you grew up in the Protestant Church, try singing the title to the tune of “Love Lifted Me.” You will never be able to stop. You’re welcome.

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The mileage you get out of Rel will likely depend on how much you like its namesake, Lil Rel Howery. On the bright side, objectively speaking, Howery has charm to spare, and after supporting turns in Get Out and Insecure, it’s nice to see him as a leading man. Rel’s creators, Josh Rabinowitz and Kevin Barnett (The Carmichael Show), also seem to be keenly aware of their star’s strengths, as the show’s pilot opens with a monologue that depends entirely on how well Howery can sell a scene where he’s essentially talking to himself.

That said, Howery is stuck doing most of the heavy lifting. Rel is based on Howery’s own life — his character is named Lil Rel and, like Howery, is divorced with two children and from the West Side of Chicago — but the specifics and depths that such a correlation ought to provide aren’t quite there. At least, not in the pilot.

Though Rel occasionally plays a little too hard into its multi-camera comedy format (audience laughs are a difficult thing to master; if a show relies on them too much, they become annoying rather than helpful), there’s clearly potential for growth. The natural rapport between Howery and the rest of the cast, including Jessica Moore as Lil Rel’s longtime friend, Jordan L. Jones as his brother, and Sinbad as his father, is great, even if they’re aiming wider with their jokes than Howery, who seems to have something a little more substantive in mind as far as the long game is concerned.

Which is all to say, if you’re a fan of Howery’s work, Rel is worth tuning in to. The series has the potential to become something special — just a little further into the season. —KH

REL airs Sundays at 9:30 pm Eastern on Fox.

Last Man Standing (Friday, 8 pm) returns after a year off the air, with some cast changes and a new network — it used to be on ABC; now it’s on Fox. Tim Allen is still front and center, though. We’ll post more comprehensive thoughts soon, but if you liked Last Man Standing in its first go-round, you will probably like its return episodes.

Last Man Standing’s Fox debut is followed by The Cool Kids (Friday, 8:30 pm), which gathers a lot of great actors (David Alan Grier! Martin Mull! Vicki Lawrence! Leslie Jordan!) only to strand them in a bland story about retirement home shenanigans. With a cast this good and a co-creator like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Charlie Day, there’s a world in which The Cool Kids evolves rapidly into something truly funny. It’s probably just not this world.

Also, NBC’s Saturday Night Live (Saturday, 11:30 pm Eastern/8:30 pm Pacific) is back this weekend and live coast to coast. Obviously, we haven’t seen it, but the series’ season premieres are often among the best episodes of the season. This one is hosted by Adam Driver with musical guest Kanye West. Keep an eye out for the debut of new cast member Ego Nwodim.

Original Source -> 4 TV shows to check out, from The Good Place to Lil Rel Howery’s new show

via The Conservative Brief

[frontproofmedia]

Guillermo Rigondeaux and The Quest for Vengeance

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By Hector Franco

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Published: December 09, 2017

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A man can do anything with time and patience. It is up to him to choose the right time to strike. Tonight fans of the sport of boxing will witness history as Cuba’s Guillermo Rigondeaux (17-0, 11 KOs) will move up two weight classes to take on burgeoning Ukrainian superstar Vasyl Lomachenko (9-1, 7 KOs). The bout will be the first time two two-time Olympic gold medalists meet in the professional ranks. Rigondeaux and Lomachenko are not two ordinary former amateur fighters as Lomachenko amassed an outstanding record of 396-1 winning Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012. Rigondeaux had an impressive record of 463-12 winning Olympic gold in 2000 and 2004. 

The bout is intriguing as it puts two men together at different stages of their careers as Lomachenko at 29 years of age seems to be in his prime and ready to take on any challenge. The Cuban at 37 years of age is likely at the tail end of his career, and the bout with Lomachenko could be his final big fight. The two Olympic stars share a common thread in the professional ranks as Bob Arum’s Top Rank promoted both men. Currently, Lomachenko is one of Top Rank’s most prominent stars along with former undisputed 140-pound champion Terence Crawford. The man known as “El Chacal/The Jackal” was once part of the Top Rank stable until he unceremoniously parted ways in July 2014. Rigondeaux’s final bout for the promoter was against Sod Kokietgym (64-3-1, 28 KOs) in China whom he stopped in the first round. 

While Arum has given praise to Lomachenko by lamenting him as the best fighter since a prime Muhammad Ali when Rigondeaux was part of Top Rank he was treated as more of a nuisance. After Rigondeaux’s dominating victory over Nonito Donaire (38-4, 24 KOs) in April 2013, there was more complaining than praising thrown at the Cuban’s way. Rigondeaux won’t be confused with someone like Arturo Gatti for being in all-action back and forth fights, but he is not the 122-pound version of heavyweight John Ruiz either.  With a victory over Top Rank’s prized possession, Rigondeaux can enact his version of vengeance over a promoter that he feels may have done more damage than promoting. 

Since leaving Top Rank, Rigondeaux has fought seldomly reducing his activity to just one fight per year. In 2016, the Cuban only fought once against James Dickens (22-3, 7 KOs) in the United Kingdom. The bout only lasted two rounds as Rigondeaux landed a left hand that broke the jaw of Dickens. In 2017, Rigondeaux has fought just one round against Moises Flores (25-0, 17 KOs) on the undercard of the rematch between Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev. The fight was ruled a no-contest after Flores was deemed unable to continue after Rigondeaux landed a punch at the bell. For Rigondeaux, this was just a standard addition to add to his boxing story as a professional. 

Lomachenko has been active this year having fought Jason Sosa and Miguel Marriaga in impressive performances. The Ukrainian is ranked by most as one of the top five fighters in the world and the momentum going into a fight with Rigondeaux is on his side. Looking at the two men’s records as a professional they are on relatively even terms. Lomachenko has the advantage in activity and age, and Rigondeaux holds an edge in being undefeated and having the distinction of once being the unified WBO and WBA 122-pound champion. 

Rigondeaux will meet Lomachenko at The Theatre at Madison Square Garden on ESPN in front of what could be the largest television audience he has performed in front of in his career. There is a calm confidence to the Cuban that makes one wonder if he knows something that us fans and pundits do not. Make no doubt about it; this is Rigondeaux taking a gamble by moving up to take on Lomachenko. It is possible that he loses the fight and never seen from again. The opportunity to crush another elite member of Top Rank’s stable and bring his career back to relevance by also defeating one of the best in the world pound-for-pound in one fight was too good of a chance to pass on. 

"“Let them talk and enjoy this moment before the storm comes. I’m going to hit Top Rank so hard that they will not recover. The Nonito thing will be nothing compared to this.” "  -- Guillermo Rigondeaux

Rigondeaux’s quest for vengeance will conclude Lomachenko. The hope for fans and pundits alike is that the fight looks as good on canvas as it did on paper. 

PREDICTIONS: 

Hector Franco

Lomachenko-Rigondeaux will be a technical chess match that will be just as much about the fighter’s mental capabilities as their physical. The advantages that Lomachenko has in age and activity make the fight tough to call for Rigondeaux. A bout between two technicians can sometimes turn out to be ugly such as when Timothy Bradley met Devon Alexander in 2011. However, it could also bring a beautiful bout to be studied for ages such as when James Toney faced Mike McCallum or when Juan Manuel Marquez met Marco Antonio Barrera.  

Lomachenko will not be as successful against Rigondeaux as he has been against past opponents. The fight will be close with plenty of swing rounds, and ultimately Lomachenko will win a close and controversial decision that many feel could have gone to Rigondeaux. 

Lomachenko by decision

Steven B. Weinberg

I am picking Rigondeaux by decision.  Lomachenko is great, no doubt - he is certainly one of the most exciting fighters I have ever watched, his footwork, his angles, his ability to bob and weave - the "Matrix" nickname is well earned.  However, I think he has primarily faced "come forward" offensive oriented fighters that have provided the opportunity to highlight his skills.  

The most common knock I have heard against Rigondeaux is that Lomachencko is too big, and stepping up two weight classes creates too much of a size advantage for Lomachenko.  However, there is a re-hydration clause limiting Lomachenko to 7 pounds after the weigh-in, so right off the bat, I think any potential size difference is negated.  Further, Rigondeaux has a 2 1/2 reach advantage over Lomachenko.  That reach will serve him well as a counter puncher who will be able to bob and weave himself, negating Lomachenko's angles.  Finally, we know that Rigondeaux has one-punch knockout power.  While the knockout may not follow Rigondeaux up two weight classes, the punching power will.  Lomanchenko is going to feel that power on the counter, and that will eliminate Lomachencko's Matrix-like moves.

Even if I am wrong, and Lomachenko wins, this fight promises to be the sweetest display of the science that fans will remember for very long time.  

(Feature Photo: Marilyn Paulino)

[fmlfpl]

Lineup Lamentations - GW33

Our Transfers, Captains, and Starting 11s.

WALSH (abridged version written by Alon)

Transfers:

OUT: Kun and Tony Valencia

IN: Kane and Joel Ward

So RE: Kane/Bookaku debacle on the pod we decided to go with what was initially dialed in - simple - Kun to Kane. Walsh later chimed in after listening to the pod from Japan to “fuck Lukaku” and bring in Kane and cap him :).. so there we have that. I think Romelu is NOT essential going forward except for this week. Not having big Rom this week is a very very scary risk but Walsh plays dangerously and so here we are.

The second transfer was done when me and Walsh were texting today, like 6pm my time and 7am his time in Japan we got it done. We decided to fuck off Valencia and that whole headache. Hard to imagine him starting more then 1 match in their next three and we decided to triple up Palace who have a great fixture this week and obviously the double next week. Ward the safest/most nailed fuck in their backline so here we are. And Walsh obviously a massive Palace supporter made it all sweeter.

GK: Big Tom Heaton 4 life. But actually not for life he will probably be fucked off by Walsh next week for Valdes.

DEF: Alonso 4 actual life (fuck off Tom). Bellend is away at ‘Boro so maybe Arsenal will keep a clean? Don’t hold ur breath. New great friend Joel Ward comes in against a shitty ass Leicester side who will probably rest 4-5 lads before their UCL second leg vs Atletico (which is now all that matters for them).

MID: Keeping Siggy and Ayew was decided on by Guest Jason, Derek, and me on the pod and so here we are. Siggy is at Watford (PLUM) and brother of Jordan is at Sundy (PLUM) so all of our fingers are crossed that we did good by Walsh. Wilf the legend easily keeps his place and Alexis on thin ice (but not really) is well overdue a tit for the both of us.

FWD: Walsh loooooves Kane. I remember Walsh getting in Kane in 13/14 season when I barely knew who he was and he was priced at like 5.5 mil.. It’s nice for Walsh to have Kane back reunited with Harold or Harrison or who cares. Ibra absolutely nailed into all relevant FPL squads from GW34 onwards with their two upcoming doubles and rounded out by the of nowhere confident Benteke who could haul home vs Leicester. I feel it at least.

CAP: Kane. Scenes.

ALON

Transfers:

OUT: EVERYONE BABY IM ON WILDCARD FUCK EVERYONE

IN: WILDCARD LETS FUCKING FUCKKKKKKK4206969

OK I’ve been tinkering for literally hours today. I’m worthless. Here’s where I ended up and I’ll dig into it below:

GK: Pickford the god has been in my team a long long time and I surprisingly don’t hate him, I kind of love him. That’s saying a lot tbh..

My second GK is Valdes purely for the ‘Boro double gameweek next week. He probably won’t start again for me all season.

DEF: We were all talking shit on Alonso on our text thread and then he put in a peach of a FK and everything was immediately retracted. I know the clean sheets yada yada yada but we love him for his attacking intent. We’re getting basically an attacking winger for 6.4 (when I bought him) who’s out of position listed as a defender and therefore gets clean-sheet points on a top three defense. He’ll also be essential for GW36 and GW37.. It’s simple as that so back off of me and him. Starting Kelly this week home to Leicester - Palace are in scenic form and as I wrote above Leicester are shit and will be resting a bunch of people. Could be a cheeky clean / baps type of game from old friend Martin who should be nailed for at least the next 3-4 matches with their injuries and Sakho unable to play vs LFC. And lastly Holgate in there as mostly an enabler with his cheapness but also because I want to start him this week home Burnley so that’s all that needs to be said about that. Fuck Burnley...

Rounding out the bench Bailly is in as one of only two nailed United defenders (the other being Rojo). Bailly I like a lot more and is seemingly much better on bonus so I’m there. He’s also just a way better player for me which I’m hoping secures his spot more firmly when other guys eventually return. Stephens another bench dweller and $$$ enabler but he’s seemingly nailed. He will not see the pitch for me until GW35 home to Hull (maybe) and then the two doubles GW36 and GW37.

MID: Alli I’ve been saying for weeks on weeks is the best midfielder in the game in terms of value and tits. Kane back is a small dent as Spurs will still fuck most teams sideways. Alli not goin’ anywhere. Alexis I presented my case for him on the pod and my inability to part with him is a large part of the reason I ended up wildcarding after all. Yes he’s in bad form, yes he’s playing out wide, yes Arsenal are fucked up right now. But I think over the rest of the season and two doubles his class will shine through. You wanna leave in the summer Alexis? Show me. Zaha one of the few who kept their place in my squad through the wildcard grinder and how could he not do? He’s a fucking festival and will probably get sold for 50million this summer. Not to mention he doubles in GW34. And lastly King. It had to be King. It’s the obvious move and the template move but he’s just the best guy for the spot since the Southampton’s first (of two) double gameweeks is further away then we thought it’d be. If, say, Soton were doubling this week or GW35 I’d’ve maybe gone Redmond or JWP instead but I cannot reason that in this moment. Go on Josh.

My bench / 5th mid is Romeu. I was tinkering with this spot maybe most of all spots. I had a cheeky Leadbitter in there (good stats but not nailed) and some other fucks too. I ended up with Romeu and his nailedness and his two doubles approaching. He doesn’t have any attacking prowess whatsoever but he will probably play ~360 minutes over GW36 and GW37 and that at minimum is 4 points per GW. Maybe some clean sheets and maybe some bones that could rise a bit. But I’ll take 4 points a week.

FWD: The holy trinity. Romelu the god home Burnley this week looking to cement the fuck out of his very shiny golden boot. King Kane returns and we have all wasted no time to get there. He’s the best player in FPL and there is really no one else to even consider ahead of him for me. And lastly Ibra. Nothing more to be said for Ibra. We all know he’s not explosive and we all know that he’s essential. I hate saying players are essential but Ibra really is.

CAP: Sticking with my pod guns and keeping it on Rom. Kane is sooooo tempting because of his much lower ownership percentage but I gotta stick with my twats here. Kane might not start or might just play 60-70 minutes and Lukaku at home vs shit teams is as automatic as one can get this season. Let’s ride it.

SPECIAL GUEST DEREK C.

Transfers:

OUT: Costa and Aguero

IN (For -4 Points): Lukaku and Kane

Even though it is tough for me to imagine kicking two of my favorite bros to the curb, it seems that Alon did a good job of convincing me live on the pod this week to bring on one of my FPL debut strikers, Bookaku, and the mouth breather, Harold "my real fucking name is Harry" Kane. I will take the -4 hit, which I have only done maybe once or twice this whole year, it makes sense to me due to their tasty fixtures and likely high captaincy rates. Additionally, I still do not have any Spurs players so it seems prudent to finally bring one on.  Harry, please treat some dongs for me and make this reunion worthwhile.

GK: For the first time since GW27, I am going to go with General Lee Grant.  Tommy Boy is playing at Everton and I am hoping Bookaku scores a hat trick against while the fusion of the Confederate and Union archenemy Generals is playing Hull at home.

DEF: Fresh off a delightful dinner with my parents and me, Marcos A. will get his spot, per usual.  Chelsea is playing Manure so not necessarily expecting a clean, but Alonso's constant flanking of the wing and involvement in the offense makes him a locked starter on my side.  My other Stoke lad and a stalwart on my squad since GW1, Pieters, will also get the start.  Lastly, I will go with Valencia and hope he plays more than 60' despite Mou's vague comments about his status.  He played all 90' in the Europa match but with all of United's fixture pile up, who really knows what will happen with him.  If Valencia gets rested, I will have Holebas first off my bench.

MID: With Arsenal desperate for a win, Alexis survives one more week on my side and I expect him to return against Shiddlesbrough. Wenger's recent remarks that Alexis prefers to play wide than upfront makes me think he may not be back up top this season which makes me sad, alas.  Another one of my loyal lieutenants, Siggy, will get his spot again.  No assists or goals since GW 28 has been a complete joke, but the tide must turn for him and his desperate shit team.  Leroy Sané gets his second start for my side this weekend.  He hasn't returned in a couple of gameweeks but I really have loved his involvement and the chances he has had in recent memory.  With Kun out for me, he is now my only City representation.  Lastly, but certainly not least, Wilfried gets the final spot for my team this week. Returning in three of his last five fixtures he has looked great and Palace has also been playing very well, beating Chelsea and Arsenal in two of the last three gameweeks.  I am hoping for at least an assist from Mr. Zaha this week against Leicester.

FWD: Divock gets his likely last go around for me ahead of bringing on Zlatan next week for the doubles.  I am kinda nervous that Sturridge will get the nod ahead of Origi but fingers are crossed.  My two new lads, Rom and Kane, will get the last two slots up front.  Nothing else needs to be said here.

CAP: BOOKAKU. This is not a very exciting or unique captain shout but feels like a safe and responsible move.  Kane versus Bournemouth is also on my mind but I am still nervous that he will not play the full game.  Although Bookaku has frustrated me at times this year in certain games when it seems like he is barely involved or even touches the ball, it cannot be overlooked that he has the second most points in all of FPL, only behind Alexis.  Burnley is a nice fixture at home so hoping for an explosion from the Belgian while Everton try to make an unlikely push for a top four finish.

[legends-of-direbear]

Dead Man’s Switch || JD/Veronica: Heathers: The Musical AU

Genre: Heathers: The Musical (AU from Shine A Light)

Summary:  When Veronica McNamara is driven to commit suicide, Veronica’s determination to save her drives JD to make a promise to keep Veronica safe.  Even from himself.  Apparently Sherman is making a change.

Part 3

Note: this is not intended to glamorize toxic relationships.  If you find yourself in a relationship where you are the only thing keeping someone from harming themselves or others, please get help, because that’s not healthy or right.  

Triggers: attempted suicide, murder, bullying

“Forget Heather Duke,” Veronica insisted, putting a gentle hand on his arm.  “If it wasn’t her, it’d be someone else.  There’s always going to be someone else.”  And there would be—Veronica was starting to realize that unless they decided to just blow up the school, everyone would continue shifting upward on the ladder, being evil to one another in their quest to draw attention away from themselves.  “Maybe it’s better that we know the enemy,” she added, trying to dissuade JD from having any similar thoughts that he could be pushed to act upon.  Veronica couldn’t stomach the idea of trying to justify loving a mass-murderer.

“Sure, sure…” JD muttered bitterly, his hand brushing along the belt under his duster, and Veronica wondered if he’d truly gotten rid of the gun like he’d promised.  There was no way she’d be able to explain a gunshot in her backyard to her parents.  “Just a long, never-ending line of assholes that constantly beat down on everyone else.”

After another moment, though, he brought his hand back up to comb roughly through his hair, before grabbing his mallet and slamming it into the orange ball still at his feet, causing Veronica to jump.  The ball raced along the grass, slamming against the brick steps before ricocheting through a nearby wick and rolling to a stop.

“Nice shot Jason,” Veronica’s mom called out with a smile as she carried a plate toward them. “Although please be careful—I’m not sure the steps can stand many of those sorts of ricochets.”

“Sorry Mom,” her daughter apologized for the boy, hand slipping into his to pry away the mallet and intertwine their fingers instead.  JD’s expression seemed to soften, his fingers happily curling into hers.

“Would you kids like some pate?” Mrs. Sawyer continued with a playful smile, holding out the tray. She glanced at the two.  “What happened to Heather?”

“Oh…she had to go, Mom,” Veronica explained, not wanting to go into depth about the mess that was now her life.

“Oh, well, I’m glad you had some fun—things have been getting so heavy lately for you.”  The older woman placed a sympathetic hand on her daughter’s cheek.  After a quiet pause, she turned to the boy in front of her.  “So Jason—it’s so nice to finally meet you.  Veronica’s been very secretive about the new man in her life.”

“Mom,” Veronica whined, her face flushing; but the words seemed to cause JD’s face to brighten even further, and she hoped that all thoughts about Heathers had managed to brush themselves from his mind for now.

“Well, there isn’t really a lot to say, I guess,” he admitted, reached over and taking the liverwurst with a nod of thanks.  “I only moved here a couple weeks ago, but I think your daughter is absolutely amazing.”

“I’m glad to hear it—so do we.”  Mrs. Sawyer gave a goofy chuckle at her own joke.  “Oh, and Veronica?  Martha called looking for you the other day—don’t forget about your other friends now.”

“Definitely, Mom. Thanks.”  God, Martha.  Veronica didn’t know what to do with her best friend; she was having a really hard time accepting Ram’s death, and if the brainy brunette didn’t feel so weird about doing it, she would be making a more solid effort to be supportive of her during her best friend’s grieving.

“Good.”  Veronica wondered if her mother saw something in her own eyes, because she paused and continued to consider her daughter a little longer than the girl thought was necessary.  Her gaze flickered over to JD, before leaving the plate out and wandering back into the kitchen where her father was probably puzzling over a crossword.

“I should probably get going too,” JD lamented, picking up another cracker as his hand released hers to wrap around her waist.  “I’ll see you tonight?”

Veronica smiled and nodded—it was a dangerous line with JD, controlling herself and controlling him, so when she could allow tiny gaps in responsibility to just be seventeen with him, she seized them.  And crawling up into his bedroom window or milling around the 7-11 had definitely become one of those things.