#Sad Flash hours

[mutable-manifestation]

The Ghost King (of Miscommunication) - Ch.15

Part 1-12, Part 13, Part 14

Part 15! (here!)

***

Once the portal is shut, it’s like the world freezes.

Superman lay weakly on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling in confusion.

Martian Manhunter skids to a stop just past where the portal had been, having reacted too slowly to make it.

Flash remains where he’d skidded to a stop upon his return, mouth hanging just slightly open and chest unmoving like he’s forgotten to breathe.

Signal, Spoiler, and Robin kneel around Nightwing, who sits on the floor where they’d caught and placed him.

Red Robin and Orphan support Batman, who’s already halfway back up when he stops moving.

Alfred and Oracle watch, half-standing and rolled back to see everything, respectively.

Then the moment is over.

Flash looks at the Kryptonite in his hands and rushes to put it back away.

He berates himself the whole way there; he should’ve done something! He could have had Jason halfway across the planet before that thing could blink (or it could’ve possessed him on his way and taken Jason somewhere else to shove him through a Horrifying Rip in Space-Time that felt wrongwrongwrong).

By the time he returns the conference room is a flurry of organized chaos; Martian Manhunter is detailing Aquaman’s location and activity to an attentive Oracle, Batman grills Superman on his possession at the other end of the table, Orphan and Robin are wrapping the area where the portal had been in caution tape, and Signal stares on.

The rest of the bats - and their ‘Agent A’ - are absent.

Batman is going to chew him out, he knows.

He deserves it for freezing like that when the newly-littlest Robin was being kidnapped right in front of them, he thinks.

No matter that the Speed Force felt like it was screaming in his ears and grating against his skin just from being near that…thing.

---------------

Dick and Stephanie are furious to be sent away, but Bruce doesn’t budge.

All of them had been up for hours longer than was healthy, even compared to their standard levels of over-exertion. At least two of them would need to be fresh enough to patrol the next night.

The last thing they needed was to give the criminal elements of the city enough false hope to start making more trouble than usual. They had to focus on finding Jason.

It had been a priority before, certainly, but in an abstract way. They’d wanted to find him, they’d suspected kidnapping, but they’d also known Jason’s tendency to be less predictable.

To run off on his own.

To disappear without warning.

He’d done it plenty since his return from the dead, but it had become less frequent over time.

They’d worried and they’d searched, but there was always the lingering hope that Jason simply wanted time away again. That Dick’s early-patrol jokes had simply grated a tad too much.

They knew better now.

Jason had been kidnapped - was still kidnapped - and they had been powerless to prevent it despite the fact that both he and his captor of the hour had been right in front of him.

It takes another two hours to get Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and John Constantine to the Watchtower.

Arthur had been in a closed-door meeting and hadn’t seen his messages until later on, Hal had been off-planet and the fly home had taken time, and Diana and Constantine had been dealing with their own separate crises.

By the time they’d arrived all of the scanners that Tim had brought back had once again turned up a heaping helping of nothing.

All they had to go on for information now other than the interaction itself was Superman’s account of possession - marked by a lack of memory - and Flash’s description of the effect the portal had on the speed force.

Constantine circles around the cordoned-off part of the room as Bruce gets the new arrivals up-to-speed.

It’s more interest than he’d shown at Clairemont Street.

He hopes that means he knows something that can help get Jason back.

…

(Bruce had held his son in his arms and lost him anyway.

Jason had gone away and returned to him twice - both returns had been a miracle.

This is the third time now.

The phrase “three strikes, you’re out” rings through Bruce’s mind.

He won’t stop trying to bring Jason back, but he can’t stop the creeping sense of dread and grief forming itself into a ball in his throat.)

***

Fun Fact (for this AU if it isn’t DC cannon): Most portals are made by spacial dilation/folds. Space is bending, but it’s still space. Ghost Portals rip a literal hole in space, so what Wulf just did is the closest a thing like the Speed Force can come to being injured and its ‘agony’ echoed out to Flash as dread due to how close he was to it.

[emilyscully]

So, baby girl, good luck taking care of yourself

[bitternace]

if youre still taking the top 100 song rqs - how about 34 and something kairi related? ❤️ (dont worry about it if you're already swamped with rqs!)

but i regret just one thing: i never got to change your mind

[ID: a digital drawing of kairi from kingdom hearts. the background is a sketchy rendition of the tunnel in Traverse Town's secret waterway. the shadows are a little chunky, and the circular waterway frames her from the shoulder up.

she is in her kingdom hearts outfit, shown from the thigh up. with her back to the audience, kairi holds her right arm behind her back, shoulders tense. her right hand is curled into a fist. /End ID.]

[alistairs]

'Cause I'm the World Ender, baby and I'm back from the dead

[x]

[soulmvtes]

was in london on the weekend and my camera stopped working :(

[mars-ipan]

the prednisone was mean to me overnight :(

[lemony-snickers]

dear body: when I complained about being So Very Tired for no reason, what I meant was that I wanted to wake feeling rested after a long night’s sleep, not that I wanted you to wake me up at 2:30 am and keep me awake.

[curestardust]

[acebytaemin]

my god i just woke up from THE most detailed gentle and heartbreaking dream about jinki im in my bed like 😮 what was THAT

[jadegem20]

I closed the curtains and blocked out the rest of the hazy light that struggled its way through the smoke and debris. The power had gone out an hour ago and I had officially turned off the news about three hours before that. The constant blaring of the emergency alert system had been making my head ache. They didn't have anything new to say anyway.

I found my way, in the darkness of the highrise, to the liquor cabinet and grabbed the bottle of ‘82 whiskey that was stashed away for our anniversary. I slowly creeped back to our room listening to the eerie silence of a city that has stopped breathing.

I stopped with my hand on the brass door knob and waited. For what? I don’t know exactly. A miracle? A worm hole back in time? An ounce of hope? Nothing found me, in that dark apartment hallway on the 64th floor in the middle of downtown New York. No particle of light revealed itself to me, one alive among the millions dead and dying.

With a creak, I found myself opening that cream colored door.

The air was still and smelled of the cinnamon candle you had lit in the corner. The dim flame flickered as the air from opening the door passed through the room, then flickered again when I walked past it. I smoothed the covers on my side of the bed before sitting on top of them. I cracked open the whiskey and took a deep swig. It burned going down, but at this point physical pain didn't matter as much.

I looked over on your side of the bed. The comforter was disheveled and lumpy. I could see your dark hair laying on your pillow. It draped over your face, like it had done many times before in your sleep. I could almost believe you were sleeping if not for the unnatural stillness of the body below the covers and the empty bottle of pills on your nightstand.

At least the tears had stopped flowing, but I suspected there wasn’t anything left in me to cry. I took another swig of whiskey and frowned at the burn of life inside me.

Most people would have some regrets or longing for the life that they once had. I did. And I grieved. For whatever this earth had been. For whatever I once was. For the mess we had made. And lastly, for you. My happiness, my love, my person.

There wasn’t anything left of me to give. The world is empty, and so am I.

[westidia]

for some reason this makes me tear up 😢I miss the old Candice, but I do like the new her.

[flutteringfable]

that's what she said, what she said, don't you know the meanings are hidden under cover?

[gurophilia]

My commissions are always pwyw, so to hopefully raise funds for a new motherboard, I’m doing flash comms! I start as soon as payment is received (and I’m not at work) and not stop until your art is ready!

Examples at http://gurophilia.carrd.co

[nochepsicodelica]

"All those drinks are gonna do you dirty, ma. You're gonna throw up if you don't get some food in your system, so eat," Toji says, pushing the box closer to you.

You giggle at his serious face, before standing up from your chair for the fourth time, trying to go around him. Toji's used to this by now and stands up, bringing you back down to your chair.

"Stop getting up and eat your food. You literally begged for this. Why aren't you eating it?"

"Why aren't you eating it?" You return, raising your brows at him, seductively. It doesn't come off too sexy when raising your eyebrows makes you immediately squint because of the light going into your sensitive eyes, but it does lure a chuckle out of Toji.

"I'm ignoring that. Just eat. I don't wanna hear you upchucking in a couple hours."

"You won't hold my hair back?" You pout. Your feigned little flash of sadness produces real tears in this state, so it's a little confusing for Toji when you start giggling while wiping at your reddened cheeks.

"Your food's getting cold. I know how you are about reheating fast food, so eat it before it goes to waste."

You smile at him, your eyelids almost completely shut in your drunken daze. Toji can't even lie, it's cute. It's the only reason he's not up the wall about this little situation. Then you decide to drop a bomb on him.

"I'm not hungry anymore. Too tired to eat." You rest your chin on your palm, shutting your eyes. It feels nice. It would take less than thirty seconds for you to fall asleep.

Fuck. Think, think, think...

"Hey." Toji pokes your forehead, lightly, earning a hum and a furrow of your brows. "What if I feed you?"

You laugh, giddily. "Ooo, you trying to romance me?"

"Sure, if you eat."

You laugh again. "Toji, you dog, you. I'm not putting out." You shake your head, eyes closed with a dumb grin on your face. "No, sir. It's food and then goodnight for me."

"You already put out for me, earlier, doll." He smirks at the way you blush, clearly having an 'oh, yeah...' moment. "Eat some more so we can go to sleep."

"Hm?" You hum, rolling your eyes open after your blink of sleep. You crack a grin as soon as you look at Toji. "You wanna kiss me sooo bad. Look at you."

"I'm not gonna kiss you. You're not listening. You think you deserve kisses for that?"

"Uh... yes? I mean no. Pshhh, nooo. Of course, not."

"That's right. So eat, or you'll go to sleep without kisses, tonight."

"Noooo," you whine, dramatically. "Wait! Fine, fine. Look." You take a huge bite of your sandwich, your cheeks puffing up as you chew. "Oh, this is really good," you say, muffled by your mouthful of food.

"Don't choke, doll. Small bites are fine," he says, picking up a napkin and wiping the excess condiments off your face.

You push through it and gulp down the bite. "That was a lot. Got bread stuck on the roof of my mouth." You take a sip of your drink to wash it all down. "Did I look so pretty for the party, today?" You ask, your lips curling as you put the cup back down.

"You did, mama. Stunning. Swept everyone there, off their feet."

You smile, the gesture transitioning into a giggle. "Even Shiu?"

"Yup. Even Shiu said he wanted a piece of you."

You gasp. "No... Did you fight him?"

"Nah, I wanted to, but I kept my cool. If he had put his hands on you, then I might have, but I had my eye on you all night, to make sure nobody did more than look at you."

"I wouldn't have followed him anywhere, anyway." You roll your eyes, suddenly so hostile against the host of the party. "Probably would've kicked him in the nuts and gone to find you."

"Yeah, that's a smart idea, doll."

Toji's elaborate answers to your questions kept you awake long enough for you to mindlessly eat while he talked. You were at the end of the sandwich when you realized how much you had eaten and how full you were.

"Can't... do it..." You groan, lying on the arm you have extended on the table. "Too full." You sigh, heavily, setting the rest of the sandwich down on the scattered fries in its box.

"That's good, ma. You don't have to eat it, anymore. We can go to bed, now."

You let out another heavy sigh, sluggishness washing over you before you force yourself to stand up from your chair, this time with Toji's 'okay'. He looks at your little belly as it protrudes from your dress, proof of how full you actually are, and pokes at it. Your usually soft tummy is temporarily stiff and it's adorable.

You grab Toji's hand so that you don't stumble as you walk. Before leaving the table, he finished the remainder of your sandwich in one bite and threw out the container with the remaining cold fries.

"Damn, you were right, baby. That was good."

"Mhm," you mumble, waiting for him to lead you to the room.

Toji helped you brush your teeth and wash your face, and when you finally made it to the room, he helped you dress down into comfier clothes. Now, you're in bed together and you're in his arms trying to doze off, but you can't with the way he's smothering your face with kisses. It's just kiss after kiss with him and you can't focus, but It is what you wanted. After all, you stuffed your face for this.

[glassygate]

Bad news: My story flash drive killed itself

Good news: I have a backup!

Bad news: From 2019...

[oflgtfol]

ive been having trouble sleeping again lately and so after a long and tortuous 40 minutes of dozing i was just about to fall asleep for real when i get startled fully awake by a severe fucking thunderstorm and i cannot resist watching a thunderstorm out my window so now im utterly wired. Wide awake. i need to be up for work in a little over an hour.