#and its CANON that Branch made rooms for his brothers and since in this AU he also has sisters then ofcourse he made rooms for his sisters

[ninja-troll-lover]

*at 3am* Hazel: *runs into Branch’s room and turns on the light* Wake up sleepyhead! Branch: *wakes up* Dude! Hazel: *cackles* Poppy: *sits up from where they were sleeping behind Branch* What the fuck, Hazel? Hazel: *jaw drops* Wait WHAT-

[starry-bi-sky]

I absolutely love your older brother Danyal Who left to protect Damian story, can you add on to it because I wanna know how he would interact with the family and maybe he knew Jason when he was in the league before he left or He would turn invisible and spy on the batfam to check up on Damian from time to time so he knows things about them

i've actually thought about Jason knowing about Danny in the League before! I made a little meme about it in one of my meme dump posts! Ultimately it's non-canon to the au and would have to be part of an offshoot branch or a variant of the au due to continuity reasons.

Meaning that if Jason knew about Danyal, I don't think Damian would have been able to keep his existence (and "death") a secret for long. Or at least long enough for it to be revealed that he was alive. Jason would have asked about Danny at some point, maybe even right away upon re-entering the family and seeing Damian there, depending on the context. I can see him asking whether in front of everyone and in private too, depending on that context as well.

Ooooo and! I just remembered this, but there's no guarantee that Danny and Jason would have even met while Jason was in the league too -- some depictions I've seen of this au have Jason around while Damian is still a baby, or as a young kid. The timelines are notoriously wonky. -- and Danyal "died" when Damian was five. Depending on the ages, the timeline, and all that jazz, Jason could have very well entered the League when Damian was five sometime after Danyal's death.

Or he could've been there to see Danyal, meet him, and eventually become close enough to him to figure out that Danyal deeply adored his little brother and everything he did was ultimately meant to be for his benefit -- in a twisted up way. Hey, we could even go a step further and say he was there the night Danny got his facial scar. It really would all depend.

But that would require me sitting down and recharting the timeline in order to fit that in without any significant plot holes; like deciding ages, how long Jason's with the League before splitting (ultimately he spent five years away from Gotham before returning. How many of those years am I willing to keep him in the au?), when he was there, etc.

Something I am simply not interested nor have the energy to do for this au this far in ashdgf. So for the sake of my own sanity and the continuity of the main au: Jason did not know nor know about Danyal in the League.

However its still a fun idea to think about! So some things I've thought about if Jason did know Danyal in the league:

- For the hispanic jason truthers: Jason sometimes called him diablito; 'little devil' since the whole 'grandson of the demon head' thing.

- Danyal had a habit of sitting right outside Damian's room at night to listen for intruders, something he's done since Damian was a baby after the initial attack that resulted in his scar. Jason would sometimes sit with him if he found him like that.

- If Jason was present -- both physically and mentally -- for the day Damian was born, he saw firsthand the way Danny was so happy to meet him. The light shining in Danyal's eyes as baby Damian latched onto his fingers is not something he could ever forget.

- This means he was also there the day Danyal got his scar a few days later. Bursting into the nursery with Talia and seeing Danny hovered in front of the crib, almost drenched in blood with his face split open, is not something he'll forget either.

- (fun fact, did you know that head injuries bleed the most even if it's a shallow cut? Danny's scar, which in order to still be prominent at 15, would be from his hairline to his jaw, would've been bleeding profusely. And scars shrink with age! This is not only because of healing, but because your body grows except the scar doesn't. This i know from personal experience -- i have a scar on my knee from 2nd grade that used to stretch horizontally from kneecap to kneecap and needed two large bandaids to cover. But now is barely any longer than the first joint of my pinkie. It has not faded.)

- Nor will he forget the thousand yard stare in Danny's little blue eyes as he looked up at Talia and, in a little voice, said; "They were gonna hurt Damian, momma."

- He and Talia both tried convincing Danny to use the lazarus pits to heal his face without a scar, Danny refused and kept refusing. It was proof he'd protected his brother and he wouldn't accept any of their reasoning. It hasn't impaired his sight or ability.

- Jason held his hand while the cut got stitched up. Danyal didn't cry once. He stared at the wall over the doctor's shoulder, and the only indication that Jason knew he was in pain was when his grip tightened in his hand.

- Jason left shortly after Damian turned three, so he was somewhat aware that Danny was going to begin distancing himself from Damian. Damian's memories of him in the League are fuzzy at best.

- When Damian joined the family and Jason was hanging around/reconciled with them, he asked Damian in the cave about Danyal. He said; "By the way, where's Danyal? I'm surprised he's not hovering by your side."

- He did not like the way Damian tensed up and refused to meet his eyes. When Damian finally revealed that Danyal was dead, he refused to believe it, and continued to refuse to believe it long afterward. Danyal? Gone? The little eldest demon was dead? That sounded completely unlike him. That boy was too stubborn and loved Damian too much to stay buried.

- They got into an argument about it right there in the cave. Jason thought Damian was lying to him, and Damian was not appreciating how much Jason cared nor him saying Damian was a liar.

- Jason has a few photos of him and Danyal and Damian in the league. All of them happened when Damian was too young to remember them. He has one or two photos of Danyal before he got his scar. He eventually shares these with Damian.

- I did have one idea where he found Danny in Amity Park once and had to be threatened by Danyal to not tell anyone.

okay that's all i've got for now. Onto the others!

"[or] would [he] turn invisible and spy on the batfam to check up on Damian from time to time so he knows things about them"

He wouldn't do this actually! Danyal is essentially in something like deep cover right now, and his whole reason for leaving the League is the belief that him being near Damian or the two of them being together is dangerous to Damian. That they will eventually be pitted against each other, and Danyal refuses to harm his brother in any sort of capacity.

The very last thing he would do is try and do anything that would indicate that he was alive -- including going invisible and flying over to Gotham to see Damian. The Waynes would figure out eventually that they were being spied on. They have experience with the paranormal and the weird due to Gotham shenanigans and basic hero craziness. They have incredible reflexes and intuition, you know how people can feel it when they're being stared at? That. That would happen, and when they can't shake the feeling of being watched, they'd get paranoid and seek out the cause of the feeling.

In some issues, afaik, Wayne Manor has protections against magical creatures. That place is more secure than Fort Knox; Danyal would not be able to get in or near it without triggering some sort of alarm.

And so, Danyal would do the opposite, and in fact would avoid Gotham like the plague -- in order to stay away from Damian, he has to stay away from Damia. And he'd probably avoid some of the cities where he knows his father's affiliates and allies lay, just to be safe. This is relatively easy to do since he's 15 and not leaving Amity Park any time soon.

If, for any reason, his foster family or school (for the 'visiting gotham' trope) made a plan to visit Gotham, Danyal would find a way to get out of it, by any means necessary.

It's just not a risk he's willing to take, and the 'deep cover' thing is something I mentioned in my Ellie and Damian Meeting oneshot (its in a reblog of my "danny and dani meeting" post). The only reason Damian hasn't immediately flown out to Danyal is because of two main reasons:

he has no idea where he is

Bruce forbade it for the time being because it could spook Danny off.

If Danny found out that Damian knew he was alive, knew where he was, and was going to come see him, there's no guarantee that Danny will just... stay. There's no guarantee that Danyal won't freak the fuck out and disappear off the radar, and then they'll be back to square one. Finding and meeting Danyal requires patience and proper planning, they can't dive headfirst into this.

Besides! Danny keeps tabs on Damian and his father (and eventually by extension his siblings) through news reports and articles about them! Sure not all of them are truthful, but the things reporting their actions, whereabouts, etc, he keeps and prints out and puts in a little shoebox/scrapbook in his room!

The folder on his father is huge because he started it a few months into moving in with the Fentons and it spans back decades. and Damian's is currently the smallest since he just recently appeared in public eye. Most of it is things like, Wayne Inc announcements for charities, galas, etc. Not tabloids or gossip. Positive publicity stuff.

He keeps them under his bed, and he pulls out his father's scrapbook to tell him about patrol whenever he comes back and needs to stitch himself up. It lets him pretend that he's actually telling his father about what he's done.

As for Danny interacting with the fam -- it'd be awkward but non-hostile! Danny's... not sure how to act with them, he'd be not unlike a skittish stray cat that you're trying to befriend who keeps running away. He only knows them from what he's parsed out from news articles written about them -- both civilian and hero -- and anything Talia's told him.

There's for sure a resemblance between him and Damian in more than just looks -- they both hold this sort of powerful or confident air around them that seems exclusive to the Al Ghul family -- and there's of course that pride in their abilities. They have similar speech patterns -- although Danny's more relaxed due to Sam and Tucker's influence. And they both share an intense care for animals and the environment that's also pretty standard for the Al Ghul family.

Overall though he's just... rather quiet. Snarky and witty, but quiet. Unsure and seemingly analyzing them, trying to figure them out. He's quietest around Bruce -- not because he's afraid of him or anything, but he's overwhelmed by him. He's wanted to meet Bruce since he was a child, and now he is and he doesn't know what to do. It's a strange feeling to have.

You can find him sitting in the same room Bruce is in and find him just, watching him. Watching him from various, obscure places. He seems content to just exist in his presence, and confused when Bruce speaks to him -- like he's not totally comprehended the fact that he's actually there in front of him.

Damian and Danny have perhaps the most awkward interactions with each other out of everyone -- they have old issues they need to sort out like Danny purposely distancing himself from Damian, and intentionally orchestrating their past interactions to result in Damian hating him, and Damian needs to figure out who his brother really is beyond what he led Damian into thinking.

There's a lot of one-sided yelling matches where Damian airs out his grievances at Danny, and Danny sits there silently and lets him. Danny apologizes to him for treating him so coldly in the past, that if there's anything he could go back and redo, it would be that. That he doesn't expect forgiveness from Damian, but he wants him to know Danyal's sincerity. He tells him that if he wanted, Danny could return to Amity Park and he won't bother Damian or his family again. Al Ghuls don't cry, but i think Danyal does when he apologizes to Damian.

[ghost1643]

Saiki K corpse bride au

So before we start let me tell you this is a non ship fic for Saiki. It's more like a revival short story about friendship more than romantic relationship.

It is also based off an old AU idea I had of necromancer Shun.

It also works with trans Saiki, which is canon.

~~~~~~💍~~~~~~~

Our story starts when Shun is 8 and the family dog runs out into the road. He doesn't know how when he stops to think about it. He just remembers his baby brother and dog going out to play, then popping his head out to seeing the car hit it.

His brother screams running to their mother leaving Shun to go pick up the poor thing. He slowly takes them into his arms sniffling as he wraps their tiny body up with his own coat to keep his brother from being scared for life.

Shun then sits on the lawn sniffling cradling the dog in his arms. Yet, as he mourns he finds he cut himself on something. Maybe it was the dog's claw. Maybe it was on the road. All he knows it's that his blood dropped on the dogs nose...and suddenly he could feel it's body shifting.

The dogs body shifted back to the way it was before and it wide awake. Just like that he preforms his only revival as his mother comes rushing out. Thankfully when the dog is brought back, sure with a broken leg, but he brought him back. He brought back their dog.

A dog that lived for another 5 years until turning 15 and dying peacefully in its sleep.

He's also revived bugs before. Right after this he found a smushed butterfly and got curious if maybe his dog wasn't really dead...maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

So he pricks his finger and drops some of his blood on the smushed butterfly. The butterfly pops back into its lively form, flying off. He's resurrected a butterfly.

And from there he starts to convince himself that he's the jet black wing, just like in the manga. He's determined to prove that he's got this power for a reason. He has to have them for a reason.

....which comes back to bite him in the butt one day in high school.

~~~~~~~~~💍~~~~~~

So to put it simply ...shun messed up. Let's just say that.

To be honest he should have thought this through more. All he knew was that his friends asked him to come to a Halloween party, and he was determined to prove he was the jet black wing once there. They had been joking about the powers he had told them he had.

"No Shin I can get most of it. Like the magic hand thing I could see how that pops into your head." Aren sighs looking at him. Shun blushed looking down at the campfire as his few friends talked around him about him.

"Yeah, and we can see how you got the whole magic bought thing.." Chisato says leaning back holding a drink in her hand.

"Look I can do the stu-

"We're not saying you can't we just go a big question.Like how did you get necromancy out of it?" Nedō asks looking genuinely curious.

"What do you mean? I've done it before."

"Suuuuureee you have." Aren sighs.

"No I mean it! My brothers dog go hit by a car and I brought him back! And I brought bugs back before! I mean it!" Shun says determined, mainly cause this is on the one thing he knows he can do. He has done it before. It's the one thing that's made him determined to prove he's special.

"We know it's just kinda hard to believe."

"Oh and Reita talking to ghost is easier to believe!" Shun blurts out glaring at the purple haired boy.

"Yeah well I don't claim to be able to bring them back!"

By now other students are seeing the argument and have stopped to watch.

"Look we aren't-"

"NO, NO I am sick of being to butt of the joke! I will prove it to you! I will revive something for you guys! Name anything! Name a single dead thing and I will revive it!" He yells determined to prove himself. He's done with this all. He's gonna prove he's special and not a liar.

"Shun you don't have to. We just wanna know where the idea came from." Aren sighs holding his hand trying to be supportive. To him this is just his friend trying to find a way to explain why he was so ignored as a child.

"No I'll do it! Name one thing! One thing an I will bring it back!"

"Oh we could send him the the corpse forest!" Saiko suggested from the watching crowd. Everyone just looks seeming pale.

You see the corpse forest is an old forest where people have said to been buried after being murdered for years. So they are told not to go there under any circumstance. Like at all.

So yeah, Shun goes with his friends to the forest to prove he cane revive a body. From here things are gonna spiral.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~💍~~~~~~~~~~

Once in the forest the classmates keep looking for a dead thing. And for once they find nothing but a creepy forest.

After a while they go to give up when they find a branch that Nendo is certain is a hand. Yet, to everyone else it looks like an old withered branch. It looks like it has been through hell and is ready to give out. Not to mention Reita hasn't seen a single ghost here so this isn't a dead person.

Regardless of this they have Shun probe his powers. They have him prick his finger on a rock and have a drop of his blood fall onto the corpse. Fro there they wait...some classmates to tell jokes and his friends to be there for emotional support when it doesn't work again.

So they wait

And wait

And wait.

Nothing happens so the jokes dusty coming from the classmates. Ones about the powerful jet black and his skills. Ones that make him tear up a bit, quickly rubbing his eyes getting a tear wiped off his face which also lands on his hand...

And that’s when it happens.

The branch traces up grabbing the person slides to it, which happens to be Saiko. Everyone screams running off except for Shin and his buds. At first some start to try and pry the hands off of him in a blind panic. Then suddenly Shun drops to his knees and starts digging the hand up. No one clues into why until the digging brings up another hand that’s been trying to free itself.

That’s when those who stuck around realize Shun brought back a person. He brought back a dead person who was currently suffocating in the ground.

Needless to say they dig with him just as the hand lets go of Shun. That is except for Nendo. He seems to just be holding the hand that’s above ground now which he explains had been shaking in fear seconds ago.

As they dig they soon unbury a pink haired corpse who is gasping for breath while their body reforms, while shaking for a second. Once they catch their breath they all just sit around for a second wondering what the hell just happened when Nendo speaks up, still seeming to hold the hand, (that is now clinging to him since the corpse is still scared crap less of what they just experienced no matter how much he denies it) speaks up.

“So we’re all buddies with a necromancy..pretty cool...”

~~~~~~~💍~~~~~

The body Shun brought back belonged to Saiki, a young Psyche from the 1800’s, who was killed by a supposed suitor for identify different from his birth gender. A suitor who may or may not have stole Saikis money when he was killed, and may have buried him alive without telling any one of their families. And by bringing him back, Shun has effectively given him a second chance at life..a life with enhanced powers.

Turns out once when a Psychic is revived their powers just jump up and get better. Shun doesn’t know how gut all he knows for sure is when Saiki first described his power to read minds and float an object in the air, he definitely didn’t mention being able to teleport.

Of course they learn this together when Shun moves Saiki into his father’s old abandoned work room which hasn’t been used for year since his dad left. And it takes so readjusting for the both of them. Shun, to have a person in his life who was picked on for being special too and having someone who acts more like a father than his ever did in his life. Saiki, for living in a more accepting time and with new powers seeming to pop up every other day now.

Thankful Shun’s friends are there to help keep the peace and keep everyone happy...and in Nendō’s case get some new people to try new restaurants with.

Either way they’re happy he’s around, and happy to have a new friend.

(This idea may be built upon more later down the line lol)

[autisticgaycastiel]

Pride Month Destiel Fic Recs 🌈✨💖🏳️‍🌈

hi hellers! so since it’s pride month and I’ve spent the last 7 months reading a truly RIDICULOUS amount of fanfic, I thought i’d compile a mini rec list of fics that centre around LGBTQ+ themes - enjoy! feel free to reply with your thoughts on the fics or other recs :)

Mi Casa es tu Casa by MalMuses

(au, word count: 29k, rating: E)

An AU with a two-person love triangle where Castiel works in an office by day and helps his brother to open an LGBT-friendly bar by night, and Dean is struggling with his sexuality while working a dead-end job. Things get interesting when Castiel begins to receive phone calls from a cautious-but-charming mystery man 'Armando', but Cas becomes torn when a sexy new maintenance man starts working in his building...

i’m a sucker for a two-person love triangle and this fic is a great slow burn - i also really enjoyed the exploration of Dean’s sexuality, and the scenes where Dean is called to Cas’ office are very funny!

Sam Winchester, Ally At Law by amidsizedfrog

(canon, word count: 3k, rating: T)

Sam is an overly supportive straight ally and Dean is a homophobic gay person. Coming out was never going to go smoothly.

This is the first fic in an excellent series of canonverse fics about Dean coming out to different family members and i would DEFINITELY recommend reading them all - this particular fic is very light-hearted and hilariously accurate in that Sam, Dean and Cas are all terrible people who have trouble communicating - a quick but worthwhile read!

Go Down With This Ship by PorcupineGirl

(au, word count: 31k, rating: E)

Since he has to stay deep in the closet to protect his job as a children’s librarian in conservative Wichita, Kansas, Dean’s main outlet for sexual frustration is writing and reading slash fiction for his favorite show, Devil Boys. When he starts corresponding with AngelofThursday, another male slash writer in his ship, he really is just looking for friendship… but when it seems like more might be on the table, he’s not going to turn it down. If only he didn’t also have a crush on Cas, the hot volunteer at his library branch…

I told you, I’m a sucker for a two-person love triangle! This is such a unique AU concept and I was apprehensive about it at first but SO pleasantly surprised - although it’s a bit more angsty, the setting is perfect for a very interesting exploration of both Cas and Dean’s sexualities!

oh sooner or later it all comes down to faith by @sobsicles

(post-canon, word count: 62k, rating: E)

Getting used to Heaven is something of a marvel. It ain't perfect, and Dean thinks he'd hate it if it was, which is probably why it isn't.

Or: Dean and Cas work through their shit in Heaven post-15x20 and adjust to eternity together

I couldn’t make this list and not include one of my all-time favourite destiel fics. This fic has LITERALLY everything you could possibly ask for, including excellent writing and characterisation, Dean working through his repression and coming out, a truly hilarious scene when Dean first arrives at Cas’ house, some cracking Sam moments, literally all of their found family, Cas nearly killing John Winchester, and they have a bar!!! *chef’s kiss* a delight!

First Impressions by suckerfordeansfreckles

(au, word count: 7k, rating: T)

When Cas wakes for the first time after his surgery, it takes him a while of uncoordinated blinking and thinking until he realizes where he is, why he’s here. And then the giddiness comes, sudden and overwhelming, when he looks down at his chest and there is none. He's happy, and giddy, and so thankful. And then a nurse wheels in his new roommate, one very obnoxious and flirty Mr. Winchester. Cas just... cannot wait to watch all of this play out.

A really sweet and fluffy fic with trans!Cas, perfect for if you need a bit of cheering up, plus a little cameo by Charlie! Also the first in a series - if you enjoy this one the others are definitely worth checking out.

He Will Be A Friend of Mine by @menschdean

(canon, word count: 900, rating: G)

Supernatural came out in 2005.. Brokeback Mountain came out in 2005 (with its hetbait posters).. Dean loves cowboy movies.. thinking about 26 year-old, mid s1 Dean…. going to the movies...

a ‘missing scene’-style fic that I think about on a fortnightly basis - i did not know it was possible for >1k to absolutely unzip me before i read this fic. Early seasons Dean and Brokeback Mountain are truly an excellent combo

Stories Are Made of Mistakes by wildhoneypie

(canon, word count: 5k, rating: T)

In which Cas is human and doesn't understand basic concepts like: clothing, Mythbusters, moisturizer, and Greek food. Dean is...Dean and doesn't understand basic concepts like: boyfriends, language, how to tell your friend that he's a walking miracle, and when not to quip.

Short but very sweet, with human!Cas and an oblivious Dean coming to terms with his feelings (and freaking out when Cas tells the waitress they’re dating!)

17th Birthday by @the-wednesday-tales

(canon, word count: 1.1k, rating: T)

Inspired by an excerpt from John Winchester's Journals. Dean celebrates his 17th birthday with his first solo case, and comes to a heartbreaking realization.

Ok so this one is more angsty than the others on the list (this fic broke me and I think about it twice a week) but it’s well worth a read because who doesn’t love reading about teenage Dean grappling with his sexuality?

Married for a Week by JessJesstheBest

(au, word count: 11k, rating: T)

“It wasn’t until he was standing at a fake altar in front of a fake priest clasping hands with Castiel Novak that Dean thought he may have made a terrible mistake.” Or, the one where Dean and Cas get fake married. FOR SCIENCE!

A super fluffy fic where the boys are both vets, Cas is asexual and Dean is aromantic - it’s great to see the love and intimacy develop between them during the course of the fic, with plenty of funny moments too!

A Room Of One's Own by NorthernSparrow

(canon, word count: 94k, rating: E)

All Dean wants is a little privacy. Cas doesn't understand.

A smutty and hilarious fic chronicling Dean’s realisation of his attraction to Cas and coming to terms with it - an absolute classic by the BRILLIANT NorthernSparrow.

[bigskydreaming]

The multiverse trip trope, with the canon Batfam ending up in a No Capes AU, where their counterparts, being equally hyper-competent but having no secret identities to hide or vigilantism as the primary focus for channeling their energies into....are equally ridiculous to all vigilante versions of the Batfam, but in vastly different ways.

With no need to hide his athletic abilities or to try and distance himself from immediate association with his past acrobatics, Dick focuses his time and efforts on gymnastics after Bruce takes him in. He’s an Olympic gold medalist before he’s twenty, hailed for practically reinventing the nature of high-bar routines thanks to his innovative ways of melding elements of his former acrobatics with his gymnastics regimens. 

Because of his many medals and natural charisma, he’s also a highly sought after brand face, asked to endorse or act as a spokesmodel for all kinds of things. He takes a particular savage joy in having his revenge on society as a whole, for the grief they gave him growing up, between the jokes about his circus background and ‘garish’ ensembles he patterns after his old costumes. Each year, he himself quietly seeks out talented designers who because of their backgrounds and the elitism of the high fashion world, are only able to advance so far in that industry. 

Acting as a silent investor for them with the funds from his endorsement deals, he charms his way through backroom deals and opens the necessary doors to get his designers into the high profile fashion shows that can make designers’ careers, allowing them the much needed opportunities to showcase their designs and get them out into the world and in front of potential buyers. 

But in addition to their own designs, Dick then commissions the designers he patrons, to design for him the most absurd things they can come up with. The kind of high fashion wtf’s that Ugly Betty’s wardrobe department could only dream of making, and then making into a punchline. Design for me an outfit you wouldn’t even inflict on your most hated enemy, Dick says to them.

And each year they do, and Dick models those looks personally. Then he sits back with his siblings and cackles with malevolent glee as the snobby ‘it crowds’ of his generation later turn out in droves to purchase his ‘signature looks.’ Strutting around town in imitation of the poise and charisma he pulls off effortlessly - but those, no amount of money can buy, and given they’re the only reason Dick Grayson alone can get away with wearing this stuff and still look as good as he does when doing so - well, the socialite circles inevitably end up looking utterly ridiculous. The harder they try and sell it with artificial confidence that Page Six and talk show hosts see right through, the more they get shredded to pieces with scathing jokes and headlines that put anything they ever managed to come up with to shame.

Meanwhile, the revenue from their frenzied purchases of these ‘must-have’ looks of the season? More than enough to launch the careers of Dick’s designers, right up to the A-List, where Dick leaves them to do what they want and make the most of it, with his eternal gratitude for humoring him and his rich kid eccentricities. (Not that his designers haven’t all since long figured out the joke and gotten vindication of their own out of it, as the designers and buyers who tried previously to shut them out because of their humble backgrounds, now all rush to try and rip off their more out there and high profile ‘Dick Grayson Looks’ with their own versions, over-saturating that particular market demographic just as people start catching on that these designs were always doomed to fizzle without Dick wearing them himself......leaving Dick’s designers with an open, uncluttered path right to the demographics they actually want to sell to, with the designs nobody’s attempted to imitate yet because they were too busy keeping eyes glued to Dick’s peacock ensembles).

Bruce has long since given up expecting he’ll ever understand his various children without them making an effort to translate first.....so the first time he walks in on Dick, Jason and Duke watching E! with a focus they’ve never displayed for sports, and with the coffee table covered in so many papers and flow charts and graphs, the den looks more like a War Room rather than just three of his boys watching Entertainment Tonight with frightening intensity. 

Bruce just waits in the doorway for them to notice him and arches one eyebrow when they do. Oh, there’s a point to all of this, he’s sure. But damned if he can figure out on his own just what the hell it might be.

His eldest just beams at him with his thousand watt smile.

“Love me or hate me, they all want to be me,” Dick sing-songs. Then he shrugs innocently, as though that explains it all.

It doesn’t, Bruce is fairly certain.

“Why?” He asks somewhat plaintively, after his struggle to select one of the many, many questions buzzing in his head glitches on that one syllable and refuses to budge until he at least voices that much.

“We’ve been over this, B. Its part of our Twenty Seven Step Plan to Destroy the Upper Class,” Jason says impatiently, still jotting notes in pen on one of the graphs, eyes still locked on the TV. “God, its like you never listen, I fucking swear.”

“That running joke you two had when you were in high school?” Bruce asks blankly, focusing on his two eldest. Duke is paying absolutely no attention to him any way, leaning over to cross something out on the same graph Jason’s working on, scrawling some kind of correction while Jason nods like that makes total sense in whatever bizarre arithmetic they’re all working off of.

Dick sighs in the fond manner of a parent whose child has just done something particularly endearing. “You gotta admit, its kinda cute he still thinks we’re joking when we talk about class warfare.”

“Eh,” Jason grunts noncommittally. “Benjamin Button he is not.”

“If you boys don’t mind, could you do me a favor and make sure to clarify when you’re making fun of me? I have trouble spotting the insults otherwise,” Bruce says dryly.

“But that’s what makes it fun!” Duke says, beaming with his own version of Dick’s thousand watt grin. Equal in intensity, but where Dick’s tends to burst into being all at once like a supernova, Duke’s tends to sneak up on you, slowly increasing the illumination until you realize you’re blinking spots out of your vision and it hits you that you haven’t been able to see anything but blinding luminescence for awhile now, and you don’t even know for sure how long.

“Well how about just this once, you boys take pity on me and cut your old man a break,” Bruce says, still in tones as parched as Saharan dunes. “Explain what I’m looking at here as though I’m five.”

“Christ, B, you’re not freaking geriatric,” Jason mutters. “You’re only in your forties, its way too soon for you to try and milk the senility angle.”

“We’re documenting record of public reactions to the latest fashion crimes of Gotham’s A-List,” Dick cuts off Jason, taking the aforementioned pity on his father as he provides an explanation that is in no way helpful.

Bruce squints at the screen. “But aren’t those the same outfits you wore during your Fashion Week thing last month?”

“Well yeah, but on me they look good,” Dick shrugs.

“Don’t gloat,” Jason says to his brother. “It’s tacky.”

“Facts are facts,” Dick says without a hint of apology. “Lying in the name of false modesty would be the true dishonesty.”

“Incredible. You even manage to put a pious-sounding spin on being an egotistical shit,” Jason marvels. “How do you do that?”

Dick shrugs again. “It’s a gift.”

Bruce clears his throat. “And what’s all this documentation for, anyway?”

“Dick’s book,” Duke says matter of factly. Bruce would be flattered by his children’s apparent belief he can intuitively leap from one esoteric comment straight to an epiphany like some kind of goddamn gazelle - if he weren’t still so lost.

“Dick has a book? Since when? I thought Jason was the writer in this family,” Bruce frowns. “And I’m quite certain there was a big to-do made when you were all much younger, where it was decided that each of you would focus yourself on distinct pursuits not overlapping with any other siblings’, so as not to kill each other in your inevitable quest to be number one.”

“Well first off, Dad, if you couldn’t handle a little competition between your children, you shouldn’t have adopted competitive children,” Dick lectures absently, still scribbling away at those damn pages.

“Its not like you all came labeled with future character traits,” Bruce says crankily. They ignore him.

“And secondly, upon discovering that the agreement we all signed was the end product of carefully dropped hints aimed at making us believe we all came to the table of our own volition, when in fact, they were merely the machinations of the mastermind known as our meddling father,” Jason intoned, finally looking up at Bruce to raise one eyebrow at him significantly, “the Treaty of Wayne Manor’s South Family Room circa 2012, was thus deemed by all signatories to be fruit of the poisonous tree, and subsequently rendered null and void.”

Bruce’s frown deepens. “How did you figure that out? And why are you suddenly talking like a Bond villain?”

“Well it was mostly more of a theory until just now,” Dick beams at him. Dammit. You’d think he’d know better than to walk right into things like that by now. “But Tim had a hunch pretty much from the start, except then we all ended up branching out towards different interests anyway so it didn’t seem to matter that much, and we figured why not let you keep thinking you got a win there, you know?”

“I have the most thoughtful children.” 

“We do try,” Jason hums.

“We try,” Duke snorts. “You add snarky commentary.”

“That was implied.”

Duke rolls his eyes and rolls right past that. “And Jason’s talking like that because he’s got that book tour coming up in a couple weeks, and he’s test driving new Eccentric Author Aesthetics.”

“Gotta give the people what they want,” Jason shrugs. “My fanbase expects the precociously grumpy darling of the New York literary circuit to be baffling and unpredictable, I give them baffling and unpredictable.”

“And here I thought you’d said you hated your fanbase. And rather then giving them anything, last I heard you were claiming to be withholding your sophomore manuscript just to spite them,” Bruce says. His voice is still lost and wandering in the desert, not a hint of precipitation to be found. “In fact, I distinctly recall wanting to take you out to celebrate the rave reviews of your debut novel, the week of its release. Only you were busy having a diatribe about how ridiculous the reviews were and how nobody had any business calling the barely coherent linguistic finger paintings of an emotionally stunted twenty-one year old the ‘next great American novel’ and it called the entire slate of reviews’ credibility into question as any brains capable of producing thoughts that erroneous should be required to display a count of their individual brain cells before anyone even considers viewing any thought produced by them as potentially being credible.”

“And you thought he never listens,” Duke snickers at his older brother. “Sounds like a direct quote to me.”

Jason just shrugs again, not remotely moved. “Yeah but I hate everything, so its not like that really means anything. Also, I’m full of shit. I thought everyone knew that.”

“He’s not subtle,” Dick informs Bruce.

“Subtlety’s for losers,” Jason defends himself. “Like tact.”

Bruce clears his throat again. “Back to the matter of Dick’s book?”

“Oh, right!” Dick chirps. “I have a book. Well, will have. This is research for it.”

“So you are taking up writing after all?” 

“Hah!” Jason barks out loudly. “Dick can’t write for shit. He can’t even write a thank you card, forget about a whole fucking novel.”

“Umm, I can write, I merely choose not to,” Dick sniffs pointedly. Then he rolls his eyes in disgust. “And Jesus Christ, chill, Prince Passive Aggressive. I can’t believe you’re still making such a big deal about that. Let it go already.”

He and Jason both shoot quick looks over at Duke about two seconds after Dick’s last sentence. Duke looks up just in time to catch their glances darting away again.

“Hang on, why did you both look at me, like you thought I was about to start singing that stupid song from Frozen?” Duke frowns at them suspiciously. “You guys do know that I’m not Stephanie, right?”

“Yeah but you have been hanging around her an awful lot lately, and she’s contagious,” Jason points out. Duke’s frown deepens for a moment, but then it wings out of sight and he shrugs, perfectly at ease again.

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

“Anyway, its Dick’s tell-all book on Gotham high society,” Jason continues on. “I’ll be the one actually writing it of course. He’s just the pretty face getting slapped on the cover, but I mean, that’s the only reason people are gonna wanna buy it, so I’ll probably just phone it in anyway.”

Bruce focuses on the only part of that reveal he can handle at the moment. “Jay, you’re not remotely capable of ever phoning something in.”

“How dare you accuse me of having a work ethic. Rude and disrespectful. My reputation isn’t built to withstand that kind of slander.”

“And feel free to mock all you want, but my pretty face on that cover is what’s going to earn me my first SCPF,” Dick announces loftily.

Duke looks up. Opens his mouth. Shakes his head. Closes it. Looks back down. Sighs. Looks back up again. 

“Not that I don’t know better than to ask, but what the hell is an SCPF?”

“My version of an EGOT that I just made up while Jay was being offended by a compliment to his work ethic. Spokesmodel, cover model, print model, fashion model. The four cornerstones of the modeling world, which I will then have conquered, leaving me free to move on to other endeavors.”

Jason studies his older brother gravely. Then he shakes his head.

“Even as a complete and utter joke, that combination of words disgusts me. You make me physically nauseous sometimes, you know.”

“Another gift of mine, I suppose. I have so many,” Dick muses, leaning back and examining something on the chart he was scribbling on, as if trying to take in another angle for some no doubt ridiculous reason. Why were his children like this. 

“Before this migraine finishes settling in and pitches its tent for the night, anyone care to tell me just what exactly this tell-all will be telling?” Bruce sighs. It was never too early to start damage control when this particular combination of his kids were conspiring together.

“Oh, everything,” Dick says breezily. “Who had affairs, who embezzled from their companies, who bribed or blackmailed or bought off this or that. All kinds of juicy sordid stuff, real page turner stuff, you know? You’d think important people would do a better job of keeping high stake secrets all hush hush instead of dropping them all willy nilly at various galas over the years, but c’est la vie.”

“Its almost like there are potential hazards to condescendingly assuming the uneducated circus brat someone adopted as an obvious PR stunt, like, just can’t understand a lick of what people say around him, what with his thick foreign accent obviously conveying he just don’t know English words so good nope, nope, nopers,” Dick concludes merrily, a familiar sparkle in his eye. One that usually heralded social cataclysms to come.

“And so you’ve taken it upon yourself to warn the public of those potential hazards. Good for you, son,” Bruce says sardonically. Despite his best efforts, the corners of his lips keep tugging stubbornly upwards.

“Just trying my best to give back to the community that’s given me so much,” Dick shrugs in the closest approximation to an ‘aw shucks’ vibe that Bruce has ever seen his son manage in as long as he’s known him. Jason reaches over and smacks the back of Dick’s head.

“Hey!” The elder brother snaps back, rubbing the back of his head with wounded dignity. He glares at his smirking brother.

“My bad. I thought you were against false modesty. Just trying to help keep you honest, bro.”

Dick narrows his eyes at him. “Touche,” is all he says.

“Last question before I give up and admit defeat,” Bruce interjects before that escalates. As tends to happen in moments like the previous. With no limit to how long or how far that escalation might last. By his count, his two eldest boys were somehow still engaged in four entirely different extended, longterm feuds they seemed somehow able to treat as separate and distinct from each other, with one of those stretching all the way back a good ten years, and still no end in sight as far as anyone knew. 

How did they determine what fights would end in minutes and which warranted stretching out over a course of years? Bruce really couldn’t say. How did they manage to stop and start the same argument off and on for all that time, without letting the last-addressed state of the argument affect how they interacted when their fight was back on ‘pause’? No idea. How did they seem able to treat each different matter they fought about as its own distinct entity that had no bearing on anything outside that particular argument, with no overlap or cross-pollination as far as anyone else had ever been witness to, and why did they even bother doing so in the first place? God, Bruce dearly wishes he knew.

Unfortunately, for all that his entire horde of children often at times seem to exist on a wholly separate and private plane unreachable by the rest of humanity, Bruce’s first two children to fill the halls of Wayne Manor with laughs, screeches and occasional declarations of war and an intent to maim, dismember and murder - 

Well. They at times seemed to possess a language and extra senses unique just to them, and baffling to the entire rest of the world and their own siblings as well.

Oh well. At least Bruce could take some small comfort in Duke’s occasional glance of wary confusion, thrown towards one or both of his brothers when they weren’t looking.

“Yo, this is Planet Earth, hailing one eternally out of touch bachelor billionaire way up in the atmosphere,” Jason sharply cuts into Bruce’s distraction with a snap of his fingers. “Are you trying to milk the senility thing again? We’ve been over this. You need at least another decade of mileage before we’ll validate your senior citizen card.”

“Right.” Bruce rolls his eyes at his son, but shakes his head to clear it nevertheless. Ah, yes. “Yes. Indulge me, please. What exactly does what you’re watching have to do with Dick’s....tell-all, and how does whatever all of this is count as research?”

“Oh, we’re just keeping record of public shaming of every snobby rich jackass to buy one of the fashion monstrosities Dick wears at Fashion Week, only to then look utterly ridiculous and absurd when they try and wear it in public and everyone points and laughs,” Duke chimes in.

“I see,” Bruce says, his lips twitching again. “And this of course all ties back into class warfare and...what was it again...oh yes, the Twenty Seven Step Plan To Destroy The Upper Class?”

“That’s right,” Duke nods.

“I even know what the title is going to be already,” Dick smiles with bared teeth. “I’m going with: ‘Weapons of Choice.’“

“Of course, as I keep explaining to him, nobody gets final say on the title of their book, and there’s every chance the publisher will end up changing the title to something they pick,” Jason says with a pointed look at his brother. 

Dick’s willful obliviousness visibly deflects Jay’s arched gaze long before any point can hit and make an impact. “And as I keep explaining to him, if they try and change the title, I will simply explain to them that they are incorrect and it already has the perfect title and one can not improve upon perfection.”

Jason strangles a gutteral, incoherent growl before it can fully escape from his throat. “I want to throttle you.”

“I know,” Dick says sunnily.

“Well, as long as you’ve thought this through, which you clearly have, I have no doubt you’ll get the results you’re after,” Bruce says. Doubtfully. Though of what, he’s not entirely sure. His sanity, thinking that yes, half a dozen precocious, willful and utterly incomprehensible children, that’s the ticket, exactly what my life needs. Yes, that was probably the matter actually in doubt.

“Ugh, B, you’re not getting it,” Dick complains. He exchanges frustrated glances with his brothers. “He’s not getting it.”

“It’s not rocket science,” Jason says patiently. “Basic rule of street fighting....the most effective takedowns come from aiming at someone’s weakest point. Whenever possible, go for the throat. What’s the equivalent of the throat as far as Gotham’s upper class is considered? Public image.”

“Destroy their public image, destroy them,” Dick finishes cheerfully. “They crack, get egg on their face like the nursery rhyme says, and bam, Humpty Dumpty has a great fall and all the queen’s knights working as a team still can’t put them together again and while they’re distracted the pawns can slip past them and become queens!”

Jason stares at him. “I know what you’re doing and its not going to work.”

“What am I doing?”

“Deliberately mangling the fuck out of a bunch of different well known sayings that you know perfectly well how they really go, while doing that thing where you act like you’re the most airheaded ditz to ever live and have a brain that runs off of helium instead of oxygen like the rest of us. Because you know damn well how obnoxious that is to anyone who knows exactly how intelligent you really are and that you actually have a mind like a steel trap that remembers fucking everything, no matter how inane, which is fucking rude, because that’s wasted on you and also, stop it. I told you. Its not going to work.” 

“Oh Jay.” Dick tilts his head to the side and grins wider. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Uh huh,” Jason says, unconvinced. “Then what, pray tell, are you doing?”

“That thing where I trick you into believing I’m doing the more obvious seeming thing and then annoy you with my fake airhead routine until you end up flattering me and paying me compliments when pointing out why my airhead routine could never work on you and is thus just annoying,” Dick says brightly.

Jason’s eyebrows inch incrementally together with the slow, ominous scrape of stone grinding across stone. Dick is entirely undeterred, and simply shrugs again with a painfully fake display of innocence.

“Its dinner time and my ego needed feeding. Thanks for that bee tee dubs, it was getting hungry. Nom nom.”

“Yeah,” Jason says casually, after a good ten second pause. He nods decisively. “Okay, I’m going to murder you now.”

He lunges for his brother, but Dick’s resting pose is the equivalent of anyone else impatiently waiting at the starting block of a race. He’s up and on his feet, gracefully dancing out of range of his younger but bigger brother’s wider reach, and has darted halfway towards the other exit to the room by the time Jason finishes scrambling to his feet. Not that any of that delays the younger man from taking off in a dead sprint in pursuit of his laughing sprite of a brother the second he does. 

Bruce stares after them for a moment and then shifts his gaze down to Duke, who’s still seated contentedly on the floor, blithely unaffected by Dick and Jason’s mad dash out the room as he continues scribbling down notes.

“I will pay you all the money I have, not to grow up to be like them,” Bruce says in the gravest possible tone he can manage. “You don’t even have to wait til I’m dead.”

Duke sighs and shakes his head. “B, c’mon, man. I’m clearly on Team Class Warfare. I’m insulted you think I can be bought.”

Bruce frowns. “You all are way, way too fond of this trolling thing you do.”

“Mmm. Agree to disagree.”

[thevoidcannotbefilled]

Can you talk some more about this FMA-in-TMA-'verse AU? If you don't want it on this blog, then I'd be fine with something on your other blog, so long as you send me the link to the post (because I wouldn't otherwise see it prolly).

I’m fine with it here!

Okay there’s two versions. 1) Non-Archivist version. The journey is the same but there’s a statement at best. 2) The version where in his research to get his body back to normal, Ed ends up at an Institute possibly even The Magnus Institute or at least, the German branch of the Magnus Institute (bc Amestris is based vaguely on Germany), where Ed ends up as a researcher and then possibly as an Archivist. 

Either way the backstory is the same:

Ed and Al are very young when their Father leaves them with their mother left behind. Hoenheim was a strange man, memorable, but still, every strange. He had this gaze, not unkind, but it seemed far too long and far too sharp, and as far as anyone could tell, at the very least, Pinako would say, he seemed as old as he was the day they met him. But some people just age differently…right? Right. 

Either way, Trisha raises Ed and Al alone, and the two are free to explore their house…and eventually their father’s study. In there, they find various odd things. Books especially, some of which say from the Library of Jorgen Leitner…? 

Trisha finds them before they get a chance to read too far. 

But their interest in the supernatural is peaked, and in the little research they saw, they found a fascination with the power it could hold, but to use and to be wary of. They don’t go far, but they look into little things, ghosts, Leitners, even vampires, and with it, they gain knowledge that children shouldn’t have at their ages. 

And then Trisha dies.

Now, they know ghosts exist. They know powers beyond their imagining exists. They’re children, and they love their mother…so they try to bring her back. 

From here, idk the exact series of events. Maybe they still would go learn from Izumi (which since this is probably modern times, it wouldn’t be as okay to take children, but she probably would send them info. She probably would be Slaughter or Hunt aligned, I’d think? Maybe Beholding, but Hunt seems the best of the three). 

I think they’d try to research End specific things and a little bit of Flesh…and of course, it goes wrong. Their mother…she doesn’t come back.

Tbh, I would find it most interesting if they accidentally created a creature..and it lived. A weird combination of Flesh and End, not really living but living enough to have a heart and be made from the ingredients of what makes “people”. There wouldn’t be a door or Truth… just the End and the Flesh mixing and Al and Ed paying the consequences of it. 

I can’t think of a way where Al’s soul could be bound. I just can’t. The only way it could work… if we go FMA canon, where Al is in the body of the creature they made… but instead of dying the moment it was created, Al is just stuck in it. Ed meanwhile loses a couple limbs, but more importantly, he’s marked by the End and the Flesh….maybe gaining ability from the End in its mark. 

From here, Ed probably journey’s his brother. Al can’t come along because of the new monster form, so Ed would be alone. 

If Ed becomes an Archivist and researcher…well, he’s already marked by the End and the Flesh, he would make for a good Archive, no? 

I’m gonna go a little bit on the first one, not too much. But just imagine Ed, Roy, Riza, and all the others being stuck in a room together in an Archive with ED as their boss. Or or or, Roy was being trained as an Archivist bc he was marked by the Slaughter and later Desolation, and Ed being put with him as a back-up Archivist/researcher. 

King Bradley is probably the head of the Institute, with Father being a Web Avatar with a bunch of other avatars under his beck and control (all based off different powers. Envy: Stranger. Lust: Web or Hunt. Gluttony: Flesh. Greed: Vast Bradley: Beholding but with Slaughter tendencies. Sloth: Buried with a side of Flesh and Lonely. Pride: Dark). Father put Bradley there on purpose in order to keep an eye for any good contenders. 

Hoenheim and Father were twins years ago. Father manipulated Hoenheim into being a part of a Web ritual, and ended up making him an avatar in the process. The ritual, of course, failed, and Father after years of observation realized that bringing one person wasn’t enough, he needed many. 

Hoenheim left Trisha for similar reasons as in canon: he wanted to become human for him family. He just ended up being too late. 

Quick fire things in no particular order:

- Moral conflict between Ed and the others. He is a character who’s main thing isn’t killing in a killed or be killed world, so he’ll have to deal with that.

-Riza’s dad was probably involved in some desolation shit, and as a result, Riza got a fire tattoo on her back to which Roy burned off for her. 

-Listen I want Olivia in this but idk how, but she’d be marked by the Slaughter just by how hardcore she is. Alex Louis Armstrong might be a member the Archives as well, or he might just be a random dude? Hmmm. Maybe he would join the Archives later. 

-Hughes is def a part of the Archives. He realized something was fishy about this whole Institute business, but he got killed before he could tell anyone the details he found. 

-Nina and Alexander is part of a Flesh thing, and it’s just as horrific as canon. 

-Ed has HIGH empathy for all monsters, even the worst ones because of Al’s state. As a result, he nearly gets himself killed a lot trying to see the humanity in avatars that don’t want to be human anymore. 

-Al is at home getting used to his form. Possibly if there’s a scene where they have to hide or at the very least, get away from the Institute, they go to their place, and everyone in the Archives realizes what Ed’s been fighting for this entire time. Al is in fact, coherent in his new body, if in constant pain, and can barely speak. I feel like he does a lot of research while Ed is gone, in a different way. 

-Pinako and Winry are physical therapists. They help Al in whatever way they can. 

-Oh! When Ed first loses his limbs, they don’t bleed. They just cut off perfectly, so he doesn’t bleed out. He gets prosthetics. 

-Baby faced Ed says he’s 18. Keep in mind, he probably tries to join the institute when he’s 12. He is somehow let in to the bafflement of everyone and his own smugness. At 14, he’s moved down to the Archives. 

-Idk if his crew would lead to the end of the world, but it could easily lead to the end of the world with the Web at its center. 

[missmorior]

Pawn

so have i mentioned I love dumb tropes and nonsense that could probably never be canon in the au? because i do.

Before they were Pawn, they were no one. A vessel like their many other siblings. Unremarkable among the great mass; their elder brother had a crown of horns and wings that looked like fathers, far more than their own. They had no white markings on their carapace like their siblings and clutch mates. They had no skill with a nail, but they did have a great deal of Soul to use for magic.. What little they knew of course. This was all for the best though; they were to be hollow, to best serve their father’s purpose. A hollow creature neither needs nor desires a name, and it most certainly would not stand out among a great many others of its kind. Their siblings had already begun to look for names- to ask for them or to choose those for themselves, but not-yet-Pawn didn’t. They wouldn’t. They…

They were certainly not jealous when their sister named herself a queen. Nor were they bitter over their nearly voidless sibling now burning with the flames of something dark and terrifying, being called the King’s vessel- being called Rex. They didn’t long for identity, like Rook sought, nor a purpose like Knight. They had no desire to seek out something all their own like Bishop’s lights. They were… They were..

They were alone, wandering away from all the other vessels and the handmaidens watching them.

They fought down the choked feeling in their throat and tried to reclaim the same void they’d managed to achieve down in the Abyss before their mother came. No feeling. No thoughts. Just silence. No more doubts, no more jealousy. Just pure, empty, hollow void. They needed to be that. They would achieve it. For their father. For their kingdom. But why did the choked feeling not go away? What even was this? They didn’t like it. They wanted it to stop, and walking away from everyone made it hurt but the idea of turning around and going back made them only feel worse. So they kept walking. Scrambled their way under thorns that caught and tore at their fragile wings to a clearing that looked like it hadn’t been visited in longer than the vessel had been alive. Within the simple chamber was a table, carved from stone, and two chairs. Atop the table lay some strange board, with little figures on it. Two sides mirrored, one in white and the other in black.

To go up and investigate would show they had curiosity all their own. But if no one was looking… No one would know, right? And one of the pieces was out of place, so surely it wouldn’t be a bad thing to go put it back?

Tip-toing as softly as they could manage, the vessel made their way over to the table and clambered up onto the tall chair on the side of the board with the black pieces. It hummed with a strange sort of magic, almost like Soul but more contained. It.. Was fascinating. Nobody was around to see them, they could allow this little bit. All the pieces lined up and the different shapes- there was one that had a helmet like some of the guard, and like their rambunctious sibling’s shell. Another that looked like a castle, the edges mirroring their large sibling’s horns. Yet another that had a glittering crystal atop it, even the black pieces had a jewel- the youngest of their clutch would love it. But the piece that had been moved was unremarkable. Simple. One of many others like it on the board. What purpose did it serve out of place? Was this.. a game? They’d heard mention of games played on a board but never allowed themself to react or look before. What kind of game needed all these different pieces? The two tall pieces were so fancy too and-

There among the white pieces were carved a familiar crown, and branches. The King and Queen. Father and Mother. The black had no such detail, but the vessel couldn’t tear their gaze away. They reached out, gently touching the pointed horns of the king piece before looking back to the lone white piece moved to the center of the board. This could be bad. This was someone’s game, and a hollow vessel had no desire to play. But what could all this be? What purpose did the pieces serve? It called to them- and the king…

Before they could stop themself, they answered with the exact same move with a black piece from their side, and then quickly scrambled back away from the table like it would catch on fire and scorch them for daring to touch it. No reaction from the board. How.. Silly of them. Of course nothing would happen. It was just an empty room with a forgotten game.

Until without warning, another white piece moved all by itself across a space.

The vessel was fluttering back up into the seat without a second thought.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

It had been purely on a whim that the Pale King had bothered with the dusty chessboard that day. His and his wife’s game had long sat abandoned, ever since the infection had begun spreading within Hallownest as She clawed her way back to relevance after he’d sought to erase every trace of Her. The godforsaken moth was a persistent nuisance, but his plan to contain Her would hold the key to the kingdom’s survival- but not the survival of the happiness within the palace. Too long Root had holed herself away in her gardens, refusing to return to the palace after they’d worked together to bring forth the vessels. Not that he could blame her, her soft heart would have gotten attached to the vessels as though they were children and suddenly the cost of what must be done would be…

His claws kept tapping away at the cold stone before him, but his mind had drifted elsewhere, to the only two vessels to be found. Perfect creations. No mind, voice, nor will of their own. Exactly as he had designed them and yet… And yet he found himself able to understand how his wife could have seen nothing but children. Were the circumstances different then perhaps… And only one pure vessel was necessary to contain Her, would it truly be so terrible to indulge Root's desire for a child of their own? They could certainly have actual children, not tainted by the unpredictable void. It was advantageous if he simply had to find a logical reason to, the throne would not be truly secure without heirs.

His musings very nearly distracted him so much so that he missed an answering move on the board; and for several moments did nothing but stare, the sight and his mind not connecting until he blinked. Had.. Had she decided to play once more? Out of sentimentality? Or perhaps this was a small forgiveness, a way of letting him know despite her need for space that she still stood with him. The black pawn met his own head on, a perfect mirror. How very like her. The king hummed to himself, and continued on with the game as usual- though it quickly became apparent that either his wife had forgotten the rules entirely, or she had allowed one of her servants access to the chess board.

Ah… Yes, that was more likely. Well, then he would be done with the game swiftly and send them back to their chores with a brutal defeat.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

They were at a loss for how the game worked but the more they watched the white pieces move, the more they figured it out. There wasn’t a chance of their victory but it didn’t sting like other failures when their own king piece was knocked over by the castle wall piece. They’d learned and as the board reset itself, they were strategizing a new approach. If the pieces all had certain roles… It was like an army. Strategy. You had to take down the king to secure victory, but not lose your own. The queen was the most valuable next to the king, able to move every which way as far as she pleased. Strong and brave. (Like Reine claimed she would be. As though she was truly royalty and not just a vessel like the rest) The castle wall moved in a straight line, charging ahead to strike threats before they could reach the small pieces. (Like their big sibling, always defending the smaller and weaker ones) The helmet piece moved in odd ways; clever, tricky, never quite doing what you would expect and striking when you weren’t looking. (Their malformed sibling, with the backwards legs and thick shell, always quicker than they appeared) The bejeweled piece, moving in an odd line apart from the others, able to be overlooked. (The youngest’s mischief, ever unexpected)

The smallest piece. Only moving forward one block at a time aside from the very first move. One of several others. Unremarkable. Unnoticed. Cast aside as the more skilled pieces were moved about the board.

An unnamed vessel. Traits like so many others. Without voice, but able to be what was needed.

They picked up the small piece and held it a moment, claws running over the smooth black surface. They looked to the gleaming white crown of the king piece.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

After such a sound defeat he didn’t expect for the servant on the other side to start a rematch so soon. Did they believe their loss was just a fluke? Against their king? Perhaps Root didn’t tell them of who had control of the other side of the chess board, and they thought they were playing the board itself? Regardless, he appreciated the tenacity if not the odd strategy. A singular pawn seemed to be their focus, trying to get it across the board but falling to pieces in the game once he captured it. Very well, it was another swift victory. The Pale King stood and smoothed out his robes, ready to turn and leave his study to oversee how the Great Knights were progressing in their assignments to purge the nests of infection-

The black pawn moved again.

Wyrm held a moment, narrowing his eyes at the chess board. Again? After two such losses? Did they truly believe they could still win against him? Was he wrong yet again, and it was not tenacity but stupidity that led the impudent servant on the other side to continue trying to best their king? The lone piece seemed to challenge him, standing apart from the ranks and waiting. Again, he swiftly defeated his unknown opponent. Again, they started with the same move. He immediately defeated their pawn and their strategy crumpled within several turns. Again. And again. And yet again.

Each time the pawn drew closer and closer to his side of the board, and each time their strategy grew better as they lasted longer against his onslaught. He would place a knight to take that damned pawn and a knight of their own he hadn’t thought in range would take his. A rook would block the path to the pawn just as he was about to set his queen on it. The bishop and queen would dance across the board and prove a nuisance to be dealt with and before he knew it that pawn was but two rows away from his king. Every. Single. Time. What did they have to prove by losing? What was there to this pawn that they were so determined to base an entire strategy around getting it across the board? It would be queen’ed if it successfully reached the other side, yes, but to base an entire game upon the slim chance a single pawn would make it? They had no clue how the game worked so surely they didn’t know that. So what…

He paused, claws tapping at the rook held in his hand as he stared down that lone pawn. He could take it now, and once again win within the next turn. But he wanted to see just what would become of this. Just what was their goal.. If not victory, for surely a bug after that would have given up long before now, then what?

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Their hands shook as they watched the board, their piece the closest they’d managed to make it to the king. They’d gotten so, so close but they were running out of time. Their own king was in danger, all their other important pieces backed into a corner, and there was a white castle piece directly line with their piece. They wouldn’t make it to the king. Not unless there was a mistake. They’d have to try all over again and they- they weren’t sure they could. It’d taken so long already and they were making so many mistakes but they had to just- they had to! It was just a game, they told themself, this was stupid they should leave. It was Never just about the game, a traitorous voice within them replied.

The castle didn’t move.

The king moved forward to close the distance.

And for the briefest of moments the vessel couldn’t breathe, staring down at the board before them. Ignoring every other piece but the two now face to face. The tiny, replaceable vessel- nothing special, nothing grand. The white king- their father, their hope, their goal.

What do you want, it seemed to ask.

Notice me. Notice me, notice me, notice me I’m right I’m what I’m supposed to be I’m void and nothing and p l e a s e- Let me prove myself.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The Pale King sat back and crossed his arms, an amused smile crossing his face. What a bold little pawn. Moving in a way completely illegal in the rules to stand beside his king. Attention? Is that what they sought? What a childish request- he was almost tempted to grant it.

And it had been some time since he’s spoken with his wife… A visit would be in order. They could come to an understanding on the matter of the vessels and stopping the plague, and on keeping her servants from playing around with enchanted chess boards.

How odd though, that when he picked up that notorious black pawn it felt cold to the touch. Almost as if a measure of his own magic ran through it.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

They sat for a time, wiping at their shell and the inky void that bubbled over their eye sockets. They must’ve hurt themself playing. Or stressed themself out too much. Hopefully this wouldn’t be too bad, and they could just stop by a fountain and wet their cloak to wipe away the dark stains.

The vessel patted their piece proudly, feeling something swell in their chest that they couldn’t name- but it felt good. Right where they should be, next to their father. Soon… Soon it’d be the same for them for real too. Maybe… If they wished really hard, and put all their magic towards it…

Maybe they could cast a spell to make sure he would find them. The piece.. The- pawn. Pawn. Yes. That’s what they would be. Just like here, and they’d stand at their father’s side as the hollow knight when they reached him.

They just had to keep trying.

[aisu-zeilia]

To Allure and Impede

SUMMARY: Marvin Lockens was fifteen when he was brought under Jameson Jackson’s wing and first started learning how to control and use his magic. Since then, he’s met Henrik Schneeplestein, the Castle’s doctor and his father figure, Chase Brody, the Castle’s Third in Command and best archer around, Jackie Bullmon, the Second in Command and Head Guard who’s always wearing red, and Sean McLoughlin, the King Himself, as well as various others. Yet, despite being with them for more than four years and proving to be a skilled mage, they all still treated him like the shy child they first met. And he was tired of it. What happens when he meets a stranger in the woods, who gives him cards to hand out and disappears into the shadows? What happens when he hides it from everyone? What happens at the Masquerade?

W̙͍̠̿̄͘h̬̲͇̻͎̍a̖̣͇̯͌̈͆ͯ̒͊̿t͇̗̖͕̻̽̄̑ ͚̼̜̪̥͎ͪͬ͊ͦͫ̉̚H̻̯͈͎͇͎͇ͣͣ͛͛ͣ̇ã̠̼̝̖̫̌̽ͯ̍̑p̝̌̐̿̔ͩͤṗ̷̻̳ͤ̂͋ͬ̋͒e̫̪̣̽̐ń͓͚̞͈̲̯͡s̶̀̐͋͂̈?̥̖͊͘

Chapter 3 Words: 1439 Warnings: Mental Breakdown, vague mentions of abuse, self deprecating talk A/N: OOOOHHHHHHHH BOY YALL ARE GONNA MURDER ME FOR THIS CHAPTER AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Not gonna lie i hurt myself writing this. But hey, I TRIED ADDING FLUFF and ended up adding angst too im SORRY. Anyways, all chapters arw under #TAI AU

and btw, thank my beta readers @lin-apples and @jackjames-exe as per usual

previous // next

Inhale. Exhale. In. Out. Left. Right. Left. Right. Blink. Keep running. Dont look back.

they don't care. They can do better. They dont need you. They'll throw you out too.

Marvin kept running. He ignored the branches hitting his face. Ignored the searing pain in his chest. Ignored the cold, the tears in his clothes. Run away from them. Run away from those thoughts. Don't think. Focus on running. Don't let them find you. Hide. Don't disappoint them.

He didn't know when he reached the familiar house, nor how. All he knew was that one moment he was tearing through the mud, falling, running. The next, hes shivering, wet from tripping into the small stream, knocking on the dark wood door.

A woman opened the door, wavy red hair messy and tied back. She blinked for a few moments, before registering how the mage apprentice in front of her looked. "...Marvin? Marvin, hon, what happened?!" She exclaimed, cupping his face and pushing his green hair away from his eyes. "Come in, come in!"

"You...what happened hon? You're covered in dirt and you're wet, Lucy can you start the fire?" She pulled him inside, already working to remove the wet articles of clothing. "Lets get you warmed up so you dont get pneumonia or hypothermia, ok?" Lucy, who Marvin remembers seeing with Henrik and Marissa, had brought over a quilt and handed it to her mother. She promptly wrapped him up, pulling him to the fire. "Come here, tell me what happened. Talk to me."

Marvin was tearing up, shivering and curling close to the mother figure. Everything in his mind was beginning to settle in, and it was terrifying him. But Marissa didn't push, just held him while Lucy wrapped around his waist. ".....it's okay hon, you're alright...you're safe....."

The dam broke, and suddenly he was clinging to her, sobbing, letting everything spill from his lips. Telling her about the woods, the mystery person, the cards. He told her about the ride home, the lies he told, the outburst. He told her about how he snapped, how he ran from them, how he ran away from the castle. He told her about how he was scared and didnt know why, how he was terrified.

The entire time, she listened. She held him close, carding a hand through his green hair. She didn't let go. Lucy had left, most likely to retrieve something to help comfort the apprentice.

" .....oh hon....." Marissa breathed, seeming to hold him even closer than before. "i won't tell Henrik about this, or Jamie. But i do advise you to give those cards away and get rid of them." A whine escaped Marvin's lips. He didnt want to confront them, not now. There was too much fear, too much tension.

Marissa seemed to sense this. "It doesn't have to be immediately, just soon, alright? Now, Henrik isn't due home any time soon, with the masquerade coming up. And I'm not telling anyone about you being here, so if you want to stay for a few days you go ahead. But for now, lets get you cleaned up." The ginger helped him up, guiding him to the guest room. She chuckled, seeing a bunch of her daughter's stuffed animals being spread over the bed. Even Marvin smiled softly at the sight, the 10-year-old's attempt at cheering him up warming his heart.

"There's clothes on the bed. If you need anything either come get me or tell Luce to come get me, okay?" Marissa murmured. "My room is right down the hall."

Marvin was torn. On one hand, he wanted to go in that room and disappear forever. On the other hand, he wanted, no, needed comfort. He needed to be held, to be told it was alright. He needed to feel safe.

He fell onto his knees, wrapping his arms around Marissa. She made a small noise of surprise, but held him tight. It didn't matter that Marvin was an adult, it didn't matter that it had been years since he was held like this. No, right now it was a mother, holding the scared fourteen year old child that was covered in scars and left on the streets to die, all because he had abilities that were feared. All because he didn't know control yet.

She guided him to the bed carefully, turning around only to let him change into more dry clothing, and tucked him in. At one point, Lucy had joined them, curling up next to Marvin. Marissa had smiled, and stayed with them. She hummed a lullaby, only stopping when they were both asleep. Carefully, she took off the mask that hid his scars, and set it on the nightstand.

She smiled, pressing a kiss to both Marvin and Lucy's foreheads. While Marvin was only a little more than ten years younger than her, and found on the streets, he was her child. And just because he was nineteen, that made no difference to her.

Marissa got up, blowing out all but one of the candles. She quietly walked to the door, taking one last glance at the pair.

"Sweet dreams Marvin, Lucy" she murmured, shutting the door.

"You don't really believe her, don't you?" 

Marvin whirled around, seeing the figure of the person in the woods. Around him, there was nothing but a black void. It seemed to be endless, not an ounce of light anywhere. And in the center of it all was a dark silhouette of a person, covered by a cloak. Though, he could see the green eyes underneath the hood, slitted like a cat's.

"You think that you can stay away for a day or two, and everything will be alright?" The male continued, steadily approaching the mage. "You think it will be normal? News flash, Marvin, it won't be! They'll use this against you. Call you a child, make choices for you. Never give you your freedom."

"....whst do I do?" Marvin looked down, defeated. Whoever he was....he was right. They would see him as the baby, the child that was brought to Jameson four years ago. Nothing more.

The figure grinned. " Perform. Pass out the cards. Make yourself known. If everyone loves you, it will be easier for you to have the freedom you crave. The freedom you NEED. The freedom they won't give you."

The world seemed to grow darker, and Marvin could tell he was waking up. "And one more thing. Don't tell her about this. In fact, don't tell anyone." His voice echoed, before the figure surrounded by darkness disappeared from his vision.

"-vie! Marvie!"

Marvin shot up, breathing heavily. He was slightly ahaking, and covered in a cold sweat. Light peeked in from behind the curtains, and a candle close to dying sat on the dresser.

He jumped, feeling hands wrap around his waist. It was Lucy, hair messed up and looking worried for the older male. "....you were shaking and saying things...." She murmured, sounding concerned and scared. Marvin was like her older brother, afterall. And to see him vulnerable....it was scary to see those who are like protectors break.

Marvin breathed a sigh of relief, pulling her in for a proper hug. "Shh, its okay....I'm alright, see? Just a bad dream." He murmured. He was well aware that later he would be handing out cards, giving everyone a hint of magic in their lives. But for now, it felt like his heart was saying that it was best to stay and be a protective older brother. And so he would listen, at least for a little while.

Jameson was pacing. He had hardly any sleep, save for when he dozed off for just over two hours at his desk. So far no one had found him. Jack had to stay in the castle, so he tried to help search in discreet ways. Henrik had stayed as wel, in case Marvin returned or was brought back injured. Chase had taken his horse and combed through the woods, finding nothing but a couple scraps of material too close to the castle to help. Jackie had taken to the streets, having no luck. He even tried Marissa and Henrik's house, but she denied him ever coming by. 

To say he was stressed was an understatement. He was filled with concern, worried about Marvin. It was his fault, he was the one who snapped. And, according to Henrik and Chase, he had been acting weird all day. Yet he never noticed it.

Jameson sat down in his chair, running a hand through his hair and leaning back.

He just hoped Marvin was okay.

WHOOOOOOO okay just a heads up:

Marissa is Henrik's wife. We dont have a canon name for her or her child's canon name/gender. All we know is that Henrik jas a wife and kids, and I had a friend name her. She found Marvin on the street, face scarred up and just overall beaten up. She took him in for just over a year, then he started going with Henrik to the castle to be taught by Jameson. Hee would always go home with Henrik tho.

now you know.

[sheps-shepherd]

Title: Intuition

Rating: G

Pairing: None (but lots of brotherly AschLuke and Guy being a good friend)

A/N: And here we go! This year’s Lorelei Day spectacular, featuring the return of what I’ve been lovingly referring to as the Brothers AU. I was originally going to write some sort of sequel to Traditions - last year’s story - but I decided to take the baby route this year in honor of my new nephew being born yesterday! I’ve had baby on the brain ever since. Enjoy!

[Modern AU/Canon Divergence]

Dedicated to Baby Ayden! <3 

It was a beautiful night to be awake at two in the morning. The sky was a rich inky black, with faint purple puddles of wispy clouds streaking out overhead. Small dots of twinkling stars were scattered throughout the mass, like sprinkles atop a black frosted cake. A perfectly round full moon completed the picture. A spot of bright white in the sea of darkness. And it was quiet. Practically silent, save for the occasional chime of a cricket or rustle of leaves as the wind whistled by.

Guy took his key from the ignition, tipped his head back, and yawned for all he was worth. His eyes watered from the strength of it. What he wouldn’t give to be back in his apartment, cocooned warmly in his blanket, fast asleep in his bed like he had been just twenty minutes before. He glanced up at the house standing in front of him, the only house on the block with windows tinted orange with light, and sighed heavily. Surely he wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines. Rubbing his hand over his face, Guy clambered out of his car and headed up the driveway.

The door was unlocked, just like he’d been promised. Guy stepped inside, wincing as the sound of a crying child assaulted his ears, a sharp contrast to the previous tranquility of the front yard. He was in the middle of shedding his shoes and hoodie when he caught a movement at the edge of his vision and lifted his head. Asch was standing at the top of the steps, his black nightshirt hanging off of one shoulder and his crimson hair mussed from what clearly was not sleep. The boy’s emerald eyes were hazy and his lips were pulled tight. He looked as tired as Guy felt.

“How long has he been up?” Asch sucked in a large breath, held it, and let it whoosh back out of his lungs.

“Too long.” He turned sharply and stalked back down the hallway from which he’d come. Guy climbed the staircase and followed behind him. The crying became louder and stronger as he walked, and he wondered just what had little Luke in such distress.

Luke was a good baby – or at least, as good as a four month old infant could be. He ate most of his food when he was fed. He didn’t fuss much. It wasn’t hard to put him to sleep. And while he cried his fair share, just like all babies did, he was easily appeased and quieted back down after being given what he wanted. So why the younger Fabre child was awake and crying at such an early hour was beyond him. Guy was actually surprised Asch had even called him. He was by far the best at dealing with Luke, potentially better than their mother even. It was normally no problem for the redheaded boy to figure out what was upsetting his little brother and taking care of it. Guy hoped nothing was seriously wrong; he didn’t want to be the one making a phone call to Suzanne at two in the morning and explaining why he and her sons were currently at the hospital.

Guy poked his head into the nursery. Luke’s room was painted a soft blue, with a white stripe on the wall behind his crib where his name had been carefully spelled out. Stickers of white trees decorated the remaining empty space on the other three walls. More stickers were used for splashes of color: red, green, and yellow birds sitting in the branches of the trees. There was a wooden dresser doused in white to match the room and complimentary shelves filled with small toys and framed photos. A mobile hung over the crib from the ceiling; a ring of birds, squirrels, fawns, and leaves that spun in a slow circle to the clicks of a child’s lullaby. The tune was inaudible tonight. Guy only knew it was on because he could see the animals “running through the leaves” above the child’s mattress. Asch was standing at the crib, peering down at his baby brother as he wailed.

“How long has he been up?” Guy asked again, stepping into the room. The redhead glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the wall behind him.

“Two hours. I heard him start around midnight.”

Luke was apparently not pleased that his older brother’s attention had shifted to something that wasn’t him. He wailed out again, and Guy could see his feet pounding the air through the thick bars of the crib.

“You tried feeding him?”

“Yes.”

“And changing him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you try giving him his pacifier–?”

“Yes!” Asch suddenly whirled to face him, cheeks pink. “Do you really think I would have called you if I hadn’t already tried all that? I don’t know what else to try!”

He was screaming. Guy was pretty sure it was frustration gradually leaking out of him and not an attempt to be heard over the also-screaming baby. Asch’s shouting most likely wasn’t helping much, and was instead only serving to terrify the infant and cause him to cry harder. Guy kept this thought to himself. “I fed him, I burped him, I changed his stupid diaper twice! I tried giving him his pacifier but he won’t keep it in his mouth, he won’t pay attention to his rattle and he won’t stop crying!”

A particularly loud burst erupted from Luke. Asch groaned and clamped his hands over his ears, head bowing so his chin touched his chest in defeat. Guy could see all the signs of an exhausted ten year old boy, who was tired and desperate for sleep and whose last desire was to be up at two in the morning taking care of his pain-in-the-butt baby brother. Asch looked like a college student who was up all night studying for an exam early the next morning, when he should have been looking more like a well-rested fifth grader.

The blonde stepped forward and placed his hands on Asch’s shoulders. “Okay, just calm down. You freaking out is making him freak out more, so take a deep breath, and relax.” Asch huffed, still annoyed and frustrated, but obeyed and inflated his chest with air. He repeated his actions from earlier: hold the breath and let it out slowly, the air forcing its way through his half parted lips and emitting a faint whistling sound. Guy gave his shoulders a rub. He could feel the muscles hidden beneath his fingers tense and contract whenever Luke released a howling reminder of his unhappiness. Crouching down to the older redhead’s level, he asked, “When did you feed him last?”

“Almost two hours ago,” Asch offered, more mindful of his volume this time. “I fed him before he fell asleep, so when he woke up crying I thought he was hungry. He drank about half of his bottle.”

“And you remembered to burp him, you said?” An affirmative nod. “All right, and you changed him twice?”

“After he finished eating and before I called you.” Asch found something interesting on the wall to his left and shifted his attention there. “…I didn’t know what else to do. I thought it would make him stop crying.”

“You did fine.” Guy patted the boy’s shoulders a few times before straightening his legs and heading over to the crib. He peered down at the wailing infant inside. Luke had his little hands stretched above his head, fingers closing and opening repeatedly. His feet, tucked warmly away in little red booties, were flailing and kicking, pounding against the mattress and tangling the blanket around his small legs. The baby’s cheeks were as red as his tuft of hair, and his big green eyes were shining with tears. A pale green pacifier and a matching rattle had been shoved into the corner of the crib above Luke’s grabbing hands. When Guy placed the rattle into his hold, however, Luke only offered another scream and dropped it.

“Tried that,” Asch muttered as he padded up to the crib and stood beside the blonde. “He doesn’t want to play with it, and he keeps spitting out his pacifier. I even tried holding it to his mouth to get him to keep it in, but he just cried around it.” The redhead sighed, crossing his arms and leaning against the edge of the crib. “What do you want, Luke?” More crying. More grabby hands. “What, do you want Mother? Mother’s gone. She left with Father and they won’t be back until tomorrow, so you might as well stop crying about it!” He was all but snarling towards the end, and Asch turned away, retreating back to the center of the room. Guy left him alone, knowing that his parents’ frequent leaves for business trips upset Asch more than he would ever admit. The blonde was pretty sure it was Asch himself who truly wanted their mother home.

As the boy walked away, Luke emitted another blood curdling screech. He raised his hands straight upwards, fingers nabbing desperately at the air above him, tears overfilling his eyes and cascading down his cheeks. Guy blinked, and then smiled as he realized just what Luke was so unhappy about.

“You silly little kid.” He undid the latches on the side of the crib and lowered the guard down. He made sure it clicked into place at the bottom before reaching inside. “All right, c’mere, Luke.” The infant’s wandering hands instantly latched onto the cuffs of Guy’s sleeves as he bundled the redheaded child into his arms and lifted him from his wooden prison. Almost immediately, the wails quieted down to sniffles and whimpers. “There you go. All better now, hmm?” Guy turned to face Asch, who was watching the scene wide eyed. He smiled. “He just wanted to be picked up is all.” Asch’s face flushed red, embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of such a simple solution.

“Maybe he just wanted you,” he mumbled bitterly, no doubt nursing a now bruised brotherly ego. “Maybe he was just being as loud and annoying as possible knowing I would call you eventually.”

Guy gazed down at the baby nestled in his elbow. While much calmer, Luke was not yet appeased; tears still ran down his face and his fingers were going haywire, grabbing once more at something that wasn’t there. Or, more accurately, grabbing towards something he wanted.

“Actually, I think you’re the one he wants.”

Asch blinked owlishly. “Me?”

Guy crossed the room to where the redhead stood and bent forward a bit, offering to hand the infant over. Asch hesitated for only a moment before he held his arms out and allowed the blonde to place his younger sibling into his hold. As Asch brought him close to his chest, Luke finally stopped his feeble noises. His big green eyes stared up into those of his older brother. The tears were turned off. His little hand reached up and caught hold of Asch’s shirt, clinging to it tightly. He inhaled deeply, and the two older occupants of the room watched the little body give a slight tremor as the child then exhaled what was presumably the remains of his sour mood. The nursery was almost unnervingly silent now that the crying had stopped. Watching the siblings fondly, Guy smiled and said, “He just wanted his big brother to hold him.”

The older sibling lifted a finger, and gently wiped at the baby’s cheeks, clearing his pinkened skin of moisture. Luke gave a soft coo of acceptance. Asch looked up incredulously. “You mean, babies know that kind of stuff?”

“Of course they do.” Guy chuckled. “He knows you’re his older brother, Asch. He knows who you are. He loves you. He wanted you to love him back.”

The boy’s gaze went back to his little sibling, still tenderly stroking his cheek with the tip of his finger. “…Idiot. Just cause I’m not holding you, doesn’t mean I don’t love you, okay?” Luke raised a chubby hand and grabbed Asch’s finger in a small fist. He offered a quiet cooing noise, but other than that paid the statement little mind. He recognized his big brother’s voice, and that was good enough for him.

“Something might have scared him when he woke up,” Guy suggested as he watched the siblings. “You should probably wait until he falls asleep again before you try putting him back in his crib. In case he gets scared again.”

“Yeah, I will.” Asch looked up at the blonde, and again Guy couldn’t help but notice how exhausted he looked. “…Sorry I called you for something so stupid. I should’ve thought to just pick him up.” Guy reached out and settled his hand atop Asch’s head.

“Don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t have told you ‘call me any time’ if I hadn’t meant it. But.” He crouched down so he was eye level with the redhead. “While I’m old enough to be up at two in the morning and still be all right, you’re not. So after Luke falls asleep, you better get back to bed yourself. Even if you don’t have school tomorrow, you need rest. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Guy smiled, ruffled the boy’s fluffy mess of crimson hair, and stood up. “I’ll let myself out. Stay here with him. Is the spare key where it normally is?” Asch nodded confirmation. “I’ll lock it behind me then. Night, Asch.” He gave Luke’s forehead an affectionate rub with the pad of his thumb. The baby blinked, pausing in his tugging of Asch’s finger, and craned his head back to try and see the culprit. Guy smoothed down the tuft of hair on his head. “Night, Luke.”

“Goodnight, Guy.” The blonde gave Asch a pat on the shoulder before turning and making his way out of the nursery.

Asch watched Guy’s silhouette disappear from the room, watched his shadow bop along the wall until that too disappeared from his sight. He listened as sock-covered feet padded on the wood flooring, the steady sound suddenly halting just moments before the hallway was shrouded in darkness. More footsteps, and then a clicking sound as the living room light was shut off as well. The creaking of the stairs, the scuffling of shoes on the landing, and finally the front door opening and shutting.

He waited until he heard the sound of the lock sliding home before he finally moved. Still carrying Luke, Asch walked back out to the living room, moving to stand in front of the large windows that opened up a view of the yard. He could see the driveway, could see Guy trudging down it to where his car was parked at the bottom. The house was quiet and still and dark. A soft buzz echoed through his head and fizzled in his ears, his auditory senses still not quite caught up with the fact that there was no longer any screaming to be heard. Luke was tucked in his arms, pleased and pacified, entertaining himself with gnawing on his fingers. Asch reached up and gently pulled the tiny hand away from the equally tiny mouth. He let Luke revert back to holding onto his finger, unfazed by the warm feeling of saliva beginning to coat his skin.

Guy had reached his car and climbed into the driver’s seat. Asch heard the hum of the engine starting, saw the headlights light up orange. The blonde peered through the windshield and met his gaze. He waved with a smile. Asch didn’t have a free hand to wave back, but he kept his gaze trained on the figure of his friend as the car backed out of the driveway. Seconds later, the outside of the house was just as dark as the inside, and just as quiet, too.

Asch stood at the window for a while longer, staring out at the empty street, rhythmically rocking the infant in his arms. He felt the grip around his finger loosen and pulled free, positioning Luke’s little hand on his stomach. His brother’s willingness to comply let Asch know he was getting tired once more. “I’m sorry for not seeing that you were scared,” he said, voice silky soft so he wouldn’t startle the child. “I’ll remember for next time, as long as you promise not to scream so loud.” Luke’s eyes fluttered sleepily, his head lolling against Asch’s chest as he melted into the warmth of his big brother’s body. Asch adjusted his hold. “C’mon. Let’s go back to bed.”

He carried his brother back down the hallway and into the nursery, where the gate of the crib was still down. Asch went to place his brother inside, then stopped himself. What had even scared Luke in the first place? What if whatever it was scared him again? He glanced down at the bundle in his arms; Luke was staring back up at him, eyes glazed with drowsiness. “…All right.” Asch straightened up and settled his baby sibling back in place. “Father doesn’t have to know.” He left the nursery, turning the nightlight off with his foot as he passed it.

Luke was fast asleep in his arms by the time Asch walked back into his bedroom. The blankets on his mattress were spilling halfway to the floor, kicked aside in his rush to get down the hall when he’d first heard Luke start crying. Balancing his baby brother carefully against one shoulder, he crouched down and gathered up the fallen covers, throwing them back onto the mattress. Luke snuffled into the crook of Asch’s neck, but didn’t wake up.

The first time Asch had slept with Luke in his bed, he’d been terrified. Terrified that Luke would roll over or shift somehow and fall off the bed. Terrified that he’d roll over and end up accidentally crushing his younger sibling without even realizing it. But nothing had ever happened. Luke always stayed relatively still when sleeping, and somehow Asch did too. He was convinced that being around babies brought out some kind of hidden intuition in people that helped them do things like not roll over in their sleep and crush the baby next to them.

Asch knew how this worked. He set Luke, still wrapped in his blanket, down in the middle of the bed. He grabbed the throw-pillows from under his bed – where he stored them at night when he didn’t need them – and used them to form a wall around his little brother. That done, Asch climbed in himself, careful not to dip the mattress too close to the infant and disturb his slumber. He pulled the blankets back up, only as high as Luke’s chin so his face wouldn’t be covered in his sleep. Luke turned his head to the other side and fit his tiny fist into his mouth, still sound asleep. Watching him made Asch smile.

“You know,” he murmured, reaching out to gently set his hand on the baby’s stomach. “I think I’m getting the hang of this ‘big brother’ thing.”

Luke was silent. Asch pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

He still had some learning to do, but he would get there. Someday, he would be the best big brother ever.

“I promise.”