#They've all got nutcracker jaws

[phoenixcatch7]

The Wayne doll house

Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.

The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.

It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.

There was nothing there when he went back.

-

The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.

The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.

So civilian it was.

Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.

"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."

"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.

"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."

Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.

"I think.... I would be best for that."

The team stared.

"Batsy?"

Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.

"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."

"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."

"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."

Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.

"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."

Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."

"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"

"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."

For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.

"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."

"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"

"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.

Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.

"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."

-

"Alien?"

"No."

"Reanimated corpse?"

"No."

"Uh... Demon?"

"Hm. No."

"You're not just a meta human, are you?"

"No."

"Vampire?"

"No."

"Robot??"

"No."

"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"

"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.

"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."

"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."

Flash groaned again.

-

Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!

'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.

So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.

With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.

"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."

The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.

He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.

The click of the door jerked his head up.

Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.

Flash screamed.

Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

The biggest, brightest, gaudiest display in all of Indiana

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles, day 5

Prompt: domestic fluff

Rated: G

CW: one slight mention of PTSD

Tags: Post Vecna; everybody lives; pining; Steve Harrington has a crush on Eddie Munson; Christmas

It's starting to snow by the time Steve gets home, white flakes floating in the headlights of the beemer like balls of cotton. It crunches under his feet as he sloshes towards the front door. 

Even with Christmas more than two weeks away, they've been swamped with customers lately, the cold wind and unending snowfalls luring people inside. Now, away from the buzz, the world seems quiet. Peaceful, covered under its white blanket. 

Except Steve still hasn't learned to trust that peace. Even after more than a year, even with El assuring them time and again that it's over, they've won, … he still flinches at sounds in the night, looks for escape routes and things to fashion into weapons when entering a room. He isn't sure he'll ever stop.

He shakes his head to chase away the thoughts as he scales the steps to the front porch. He isn’t sure where they're coming from. Probably a combination of stress and the looming depression that always hangs over him at Christmas time, when all of his friends are with their families and he's left in this big, empty house, alone. He’ll take a shower, heat a microwave meal, and see what's on TV, that will-

The front door is unlocked. 

He's certain he turned the key not once, but twice before he left. 

Steve slides into the dark entrance hall on silent feet. He passes the umbrella stand, eyes scanning his surroundings, and his hand finds the hilt of the nail bat. There's a creak from overhead, like feet on floorboards. 

The attic. 

The hatch is gaping open as he creeps upstairs, the foldout ladder down. 

He holds his breath and inches his way upwards, rung by rung, bat clutched in one white-knuckled hand. 

"Hello, Steven," growls a voice, and he abruptly comes face-to-face with a grimace full of too-large teeth. 

Steve yelps, slips on the ladder, and goes sprawling on his ass. The nail bat rolls off into the shadows. 

"Oh, shit!" Another face appears behind the monster. One haloed in a mane of dark curls and crowned by a fuzzy Santa hat. "You okay, man?" 

"Fuck," Steve curses, clambering to his feet and rubbing at his sore butt. "Eddie? What are you doing up there?" 

Eddie rolls his eyes and flashes him a toothy grin. It tugs at the scar on his jaw, the one he claims looks totally metal but hides under his hair most of the time. The one that Steve wants to map with his lips.

"Picking up that drill Wayne wanted to borrow. Told you I'd swing by after my shift at the garage." 

Steve settles down on the dusty floorboards and frowns. "Wasn't that at noon or something?" 

Like he doesn’t know. Like he hasn't memorized all of Eddie’s shifts. Only stopped dropping him off and picking him up every day because Eddie told him to stop. No satanic panic mobs left, no need for a bodyguard.

Eddie cocks his head in confusion and glances at his watch. "Why, what time is i- … whoops. Guess I got side-tracked." 

He shakes the monster- which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a life-sized nutcracker. Its red-cheeked, too-wide smile mocks him and Steve just barely manages to not flip it off. 

Instead, he looks over the cardboard boxes around Eddie, all in various states of unpacked-ness. String lights coiled in thick tangles, dusty elves and reindeer and sugar canes. 

"Dude," Eddie says. He's pulled several colorful baubles from somewhere and is looping the strings over his ears. It looks ridiculous. It looks adorable.  "You never told me you're hiding Santa's village up here." 

"Didn’t even know we still had this," Steve mumbles, pulling the nearest box closer. It contains the huge neon letters spelling MERRY XMAS. "It's been forever since we got them out. Way before-"

He trails off. The words hang unspoken in the stale air. 

"I always wanted this, y’know?" Eddie says. His fingers are tracing Rudolph's shiny nose. "The whole shebang with the lights and the decorations and the music. Only so much you can do at the trailer." 

Steve hums vaguely, watches the way Eddie’s eyes crinkle, how the tip of the Santa hat flops into his face, and represses the urge to brush it back, trace those dimples with the pads of his thumbs. 

Eddie is looking at him with big, expectant cow eyes. 

"Huh?" 

"I said," Eddie repeats, sways into his space. "We should totally do it. Get all this stuff out. The biggest, brightest, gaudiest display in all of Indiana." 

Steve bites back a laugh, ignores how his stomach flutters at Eddie’s huge, excited grin. 

"I dunno. Sounds like a lot of work for just me." 

"Yeah, about that …" Eddie’s smile dims and his gaze drops. "I've been meaning to ask …" 

He starts to pick at his cuticles, so Steve habitually reaches for one of his hands to stop him. 

"Ask what?" 

Eddie sucks in a breath, and the next words rush out on the exhale, all at once. 

"So Wayne sort of took the holiday shifts because a guy got sick, so it'll just be me, and I thought …since you'll also be … alone, y'know, maybe we could …" 

"Eds," Steve says. The flutter in his stomach is turning into a hurricane. "Are you asking if I wanna spend Christmas together?" 

"What? Nah!" Eddie winks at him. "As if you'd deny me, please! I'm asking if we can get your ridiculous light show out." 

Steve snorts a laugh, chest warm and tingly and bright. "What, all of it?" 

"Hell yes, all of it," Eddie throws his head back and cackles, almost losing the hat. "It's gonna be our year, big boy!" 

They stay up in the attic for a long time, bickering and joking and unpacking boxes upon boxes of sparkly decor. Outside, the snow continues to fall. 

Steve hopes they'll get a white Christmas. 

Part 2

All of my holiday drabbles