#and most importantly custody of my special little guys so let's go i guess

[winepresswrath]

djenks does not feel like he's writing specifically for my 17 year old self the way tamsyn muir or nd stevenson do but he does fall into the category of writers i trust to mostly share my sensibilities and interests and have something interesting to say about the project of being a person. tbh while i think it is actively good and healthy to read and watch things that are not the product of people who share my sensibilities and interests there is something really enjoyable about that trust fall. call it clown to clown communication or recognition of communal experiences in art but it's nice it's good. parasocial high fives all around.

[betweentheracks]

Updates//Recent Inactivity

Hello all! This is me finally taking some time to sit down and offer up a rundown on how life is currently going as a means of explaining my inactivity. This is a personal post that is guaranteed to be both rambling and emotional so if that is not your cup of tea, I understand and happily advise you just skip over this post as it is not relevant to the actual content this blog was intended for.

EDITED: After reading this back I now realize this is really just me spilling the tea on my own life and is laughably dishy in details which is extremely not my usual stance on my personal privacy. But idk, it was cathartic so I'm leaving it as is despite the urge to redact 70% of what I say.

I'll start with the good news that I am officially out of lockdown and have remained COVID-19 free since my return home from the hospital. This also means my son finally was allowed to come home to me which is dazzling and exciting and also a little terrible too. He's at a precocious age where tantrums are the cool way to communicate and having been gone for so long completely thrashing his established routine has caused friction. He came home and his parent was not the same as when he left; is much weaker and less energetic than before, paler and shaky - but also there's the addition of my best friend having moved in to assist and take care of me/him while we all do our best to muddle through.

The readjustment has been rough and a lot of this week has made me incredibly thankful to have practically zero memory of how I was as a child. There have been injuries: I have been whacked in the face with the metal cover for a floor vent while dozing on the sofa instead of paying rapt attention to whatever silliness he was showing off to me, there was his complete dismissal of me asking him to stay back and away from the hot oven as I pulled lunch from it's fiery jaws only to then be faced with a toddler quickly approaching with his hand raised to touch so I naturally made a move to block him and in the process I let go of the oven door which slammed upward and clamped my arm tightly between it and the inside cavern of the oven while it was set to a roasty 400 degrees Fahrenheit - earning me a mangled arm with burns of varying degrees, and then we also had that fit where it seemed like a much more grand idea to scale the babygate cordoning the stairs and I had to rush up them to stop him from tumbling face first down two flights and of course did the falling all on my own and did it backwards then slammed painfully into the wall of the landing. This all happened within a 48hr time frame and makes me wonder why I am so catastrophically inclined.

I have bruises that range the majority of my spine courtesy of the wall and stairs, two minor first degree burns on my forearm that are in the shape of an equals and quite large despite the lack of actual pain I feel from them, and the underside of my forearm was instantly blistered then popped then melted down into a horrid glob of skin mush and sticky red-orange and is a second degree burn that I have been assured is no real cause for concern as long as I tend it with care. In all, I managed to escape my momjuries relatively unscathed and with a child that was scared senseless at having hurt his momma and is quick to listen and never stops cuddling me in the time since. Here's hoping he isn't significantly traumatized from this since exactly none of this is especially his fault and is due to my clumsy, accident-prone status in life.

So yes, The Toddler has returned home to me and after some happenings we have settled and are happy. However, his blast from the past father has suddenly just decided to reemerge after more than a year of radio silence and static and has slapped me with a custody petition. Hooray. While I have no worries on this matter due to my mother working for one of the top custody lawyers in the state and snagging him as my representation, and the utter lack of competency on my estranged baby daddy's end clearly being displayed in literally anything and everything the idiot does/says, I do have to now go through the overhaul of a custody case and that is just so weak and exhaustive. Not to mention the basis of his claims that I am not fit to raise a child are founded in my health concerns and the crazy work schedule I keep; ironically, my health is making it so that I have much less insane hours and makes this fairly moot but to each their own I guess. Also worth noting on this matter is that he only did this now because he was recently placed under penalty for child support back pay and nothing in this world matters to him like his money and this is his special way of getting one over on me for tampering with his meager earnings. (He's a wannabe musician - the soundcloud rapper sort, just so we are all on the same page here). If I thought for even a second this was a genuine desire to be an active and stable parent I would be a lot less pressed to act in favor of making it legally binding that he can only see him under a supervisory condition and share time evenly, but it just is not believable in the slightest.

So the thing is - my health is actually quite dismal presently. I'm due in for open heart surgery on the 8th of April and until then I have been doing my utmost to mind all the nagging I get from doctors, PT specialists, the surgeons that will be slicing and dicing me, and my in-family medical practitioner that sometimes remembers he is also my brother and not just an MD. But like, you guys, this surgery is terrifying and technically is two surgeries rolled into one. They'll be cracking my chest open and then stopping my heart while they lift it from where it sits sweetly unhinged and lopsided in my body and very finely shave away some of the excess muscle that has built up around the wall of my heart as well as some unfriendly scar tissue that has lingered since my last surgery years ago. Granted there is no accidental slip that nicks my ugly gargantuan heart and renders me as good as dead, once this first part is finished the other surgeon will need to be deft and very quick to place this ventricular assisting piece in the valve that has all but given up on functioning altogether and do so in the time remaining before the time limit for my heart being essentially unplugged from by body is up, which would also feasibly mean my death. Lots of exciting and terrible sounding consequences, am I right?

Well let's bear it in mind that I am just below 30 in age and therefore not duly experienced in the realm of facing down my own mortality via making all necessary legal arrangements and managing my affairs and assets so that, in event of my untimely death, the custody case still doesn't stand a chance of snatching my son away to the sad misfortune of being raised by a man that has stated openly he only has interest in his kids so far as what they can do for him/get for him in terms of benefit and that he would be unwilling to be hypocritical and never deter his children from drugs and a lifestyle of extremely questionable moral integrity and hygiene alike. Eugh. But I also have had to make sure there is a DNR in place just in case things go wrong during the operation, my will has also been finalized and notarized, all my savings and financial/material assets have been squared away to come into my child's inheritance when he is of age and, most importantly, a document that states clear and direct instructions for him to be placed in care of my mother or, if she is unwilling or incapable, he will be under custodial order and guardianship of my best friend whom he has always viewed as a pseudo-dad anyway. Legally binding and even in light of the paternity petition this document supersedes parental right by way of the provided evidence I have submitted to prove a lack of parental credibility. That's right, I spent days lowkey stalking and sleuthing about to capture what I needed to show this man for what he actually is and I have precisely zero guilt or shame for doing it; this is my child on the line and that means momma doesn't have to play by the rules of snitches getting stitches or whatever other scary street rules he tosses at me as idle threats. (He's done this routinely for all the years I have known him, and it is somehow both pathetic and hilarious because he knows for a fact that, if I wanted, I could throttle him in less time than it would take for him to form a rational thought between his drug soaked braincells - I was also a person of less than savory character not too long ago and can handle myself very well. But I digress because I am losing my track of thought.

After the surgery I will have so damn much PT and rehab, all of which will be specific to varying parts of my body that will need to be reworked and strengthened. Weeks, months of it really. This surgery is major and hits heavy enough that I will be in the hospital for at least 10-14 days just recovering from it without taking into consideration any number of complications that could pop up. Hell, if they get in there and find a situation worse than they currently have an understanding of in the limited capacity of cardiology tech can provide of such a gnarled beastly heart and realize they can't really do anything with it after all, I'll be added to the transplant list. I think this is more daunting to consider than the surgery, honestly.

In that way that doctors have about them, I was "comforted" by being informed that this was an inevitability and I would have been faced with this in a matter of years - less than a handful actually - but the way COVID-19 chewed through me sped it up. I'm sure my years of substance issues were also very helpful in this endeavor, but either way I still am unsure whether I feel better knowing this or not? Mostly I think I feel conflicted and hopeful tempered with the caution of life being super shady in the ways it has often brought me to the doorsteps of dying in situations that seem like odd chance. I also am gifted with being so capable in jinxing myself that I brought myself to COVID-19 ("The way life is going I'll probably square up with Rona next week or some bullshit." Positive test flagged within the following week) and also into labor ("Watch me go into labor on Labor Day since that would be the sort of universal pun that would strike my bad penny having ass." Indeed hatched my youngling on Labor Day of that year) by saying some things within the scope of my bad humor that instantly manifested as reality so I'm not taking any risks here lol.

The gist is that life is really stirring up the winds over here and so I haven't been online and posting anything that would make my blog valid in a fat minute. I do apologize for this and also for the fact that this post took me nearly a week to type up, but when things calm a little I will be back in full. For the time being I will be sporadic and do what I can when I can!

Thanks to anyone that read this mess all the way here! And a big thank you to all of you still supporting me!

[g-on-ef]

Dusk till Dawn

A/n: Guess who's birthday it is ??? This girl's !!!!! and in celebration of my birthday I am going to update all my stories this week ^^ starting with my favorite Dusk till Dawn hope you guys enjoy this chapter ^^

Chapter 1 

Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Rejected?

“I would kindly as you too not do it,”

Nine little words that have been floating through Damian’s head since he left the café, after Jon headed for the break room Damian wanted to run after him and ask him what he meant by that but before he could Kon, Jon’s older brother stopped him and told him that it would be best if he left him alone and kindly asked him to leave.

He didn’t want to leave if anything he wanted to fine Jon and talk to him but the look on the older boy’s face told him he should leave now unless he wanted trouble and if he were honest the last thing he wanted was for the paparazzi to find his hiding spot and give Kara as well as himself trouble.

His father made it clear that he wanted no trouble, no PR nightmares, no bad press from the media at all. With the wedding coming up soon his father was doing everything and anything to make sure nothing soiled the Wayne name.

Which is why Grayson was forced to stay away from Wally and spent as much time as he could with Gordon while Todd wasn’t allowed to be seen anywhere near Star City since people were already hinting he and Roy may or may not have something going on between them.

It bothered Damian to no end that he, Todd, Drake, and Grayson had to hide their sexualities from the world, but his father and Selina made it clear that everyone had to know or at least believe that the Wayne brothers were as straight as a pole. Which was stupid if you ask him.

One look at Grayson and you would no he was anything but straight. Rubbing his forehead, he entered the Mansion and was annoyed to find Melody and Selina sitting in the living room talking about Allah knows what.

“Should’ve gone to the park,”

Maybe if he was quiet enough he could sneak pass them and into his room so that he won’t have to deal with either one of them.  

Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to walk by undetected, Selina caught Damian trying to sneak pass them.

“Damian,”

Damian cursed himself for not moving fast enough, turning around he saw Selina walking over to him, it took everything in him not to run the other way or yell at her and call her every horrible word he knew, and since he knew almost ten different languages he knew plenty of horrible names he could call Selina.

“What,” he asked rudely, Selina ignored his rudeness and instead continue speaking to him as if his hatred for her didn’t mattered.

“As you know, tomorrow is Gotham Fashion Week,”

“Yeah, I already know that,” he grumbled.

“Which is why you and Melody must be seen everywhere and anywhere as much as possible, it is important that nothing, and I mean nothing ruins the Wayne name before the wedding. Everything has to be perfect or as perfect as we can get it with you and your brothers,”

Damian just rolled his eyes and stopped himself from saying the first thing that came to his mind and that was telling Selina to shut up and not worry about his brothers or him since neither one of them had control over what the paparazzi say her and his father however...still Damian chose to say something that wouldn’t cause an argument which would result in his father punishing him,

“I already know this Selina, now, can I please go to my room there are somethings that I need to do,” she looked at him for a moment before dismissing him with the wave of her hand.

Damian rolled his eyes before he headed for his room. He’s twenty years old and yet Selina treats him like his sixteen or worse five.

Still, he had no time to worry about Selina and her stunts right now he had other things to think about. Once he entered his room he turned on his computer and waited for the monitor to finish loading. Once it was completed he began his search.

“It’s not stalking, I just want to know more about him,” one thing that his mother always drilled in his head was this, knowledge is a powerful weapon and the only thing that can make brute force fall to its knees.

He needed, wanted, had to know everything he could about this boy. From what he gathered is he is Kara’s nephew so assuming if she’s either related to Jon’s father or mother he should probably start with Kara first and work his way from there.

Looking through Kara’s social media he found some photos of Jon lucky for him she tagged him in them. Smiling to himself he clicked on Jon’s username on his Instagram and cursed out loud.

“Fucking hell! Why did you have to have it in private?”

Looking at Jon’s IG he saw that it was private and the only thing on it was a picture of him smiling, his arm around a girl with orange hair and freckles on her cheeks. She was cute, she was more than cute she was beautiful and her and Jon…they looked good together, maybe that’s why Jon asked him not to flirt with him, maybe Jon was already dating this girl and he didn’t want to cheat on her, Damian felt a little bad for flirting with someone who was taken.

Despite all those cheating rumors, Damian hated cheating, despise to the point where if he saw anyone doing it he would do everything in his power to ruin them, maybe that’s why he hated Selina. Oh, who was he kidding it was exactly why he hated both Selina and his dad.

Taking a deep breath Damian rubbed his temples, he did not need to think about his dad or Selina; right now, what he needed to do was go back to Kara’s café and apologize to Jon for even trying to flirt with him.

Sure, he didn’t know he was taken but he still felt bad for even thinking of asking the boy out. Taking a deep breath, he turned off his computer grabbed his keys and headed back for the café, if he explained his reasons maybe the boy would forgive him and hopefully they could be friends. Maybe not friends since the only thing that he will be thinking about is having the blue-eyed angel beneath him, or above him whichever works well for him.

“No, stop Damian bad thoughts very, very bad thoughts,”

Leaving the room, he went through the back door of the mansion to go see Jon, no way in hell did he want to see either one of those money grabbers at the moment.

“Damian,”

Damian stopped dead in his tracks. Cursing everything he knew he turned around as his father stepped closer to him.

Most people say he looks like his dad but then again, if anyone saw his mother they would surly change their opinions and say he was an exact replica of his mother.

Bruce Wayne was a good man, sometimes when he wasn’t trying to control of his sons lives, of course his status of playboy billionaire did back fire even if it was just a ploy that he for some reason wanted the world to believe he was.

Because of his sleeping around resulted in four children being born out of wedlock. Dick Grayson was an accident that happened when his father was only 18, Bruce met a woman who was traveling with the circus a one-night stand resulted in his older half-brother.

Unfortunately, Grayson’s mom died in a horrible accident when Grayson was only eight.

Todd’s mother was a prostitute and didn’t want her son to do anything with Bruce Wayne, sadly for her she had no choice but let him in Bruce’s life, when it was discovered that Todd was his second son, Bruce filed for custody and won, because of her addictions as well as her profession she was seen as an unfit mother despite her doing her very best to make sure that Todd had a happy childhood, still, the court didn’t care if the child was happy they only cared about the money and Bruce’s lawyers paid them a lot of it.

Drake’s mom wasn’t anything special, she just slept with him, had the kid, dropped him off at Wayne Manor and left. No one knows where she went or who she really was since Bruce found out that everything about her was a lie and vanished into thin air.

The final woman his father had a child with was Talia Al Ghul. A beautiful woman who was once an actress, then model, then a fashion designer. She was a successful woman whose career ended before it began but that was something Damian did not like to think about if he did he would feel more anger towards his father and that harlot.

“Yes, father?”

“Where are you heading off to?”

No way in hell was he telling him where he was going, the only people who knew of the café where his brothers and all four of them sworn to secrecy and never tell Bruce about it. It was their go to place to be whenever they needed to escape the craziness that is their life.

“I was going to the park,”

Bruce looked at him before saying,

“Well, your stroll to the park can wait you and I are needed somewhere,”

“Where?”

“We need to go with Selina and do some wedding shopping, I also need you to be seen with Melody as much as possible,”

“We’re going to town so that the paparazzi can see me walking with the beard?”

His father glared at him,

“Melody is your friend and I already promised Dick after your break-up with Kitty you’ll be taking a break from bearding,”

Damian rolled his eyes, both he and his father knew he only said that bullshit to Dick so that he will get off his back about Damian and the unnecessary bearding.

“Then why does Melody have to come? More importantly why don’t you and Selina go off by yourselves and let me head over to Maya’s instead?”

“I already told you Damian, the wedding is all Gotham and the world is talking about and everyone knows about your relationship with Selina and how you don’t get along with her-“

“Not my fault,”

“Damian,” his father turned into a disapproval tone one that made him roll his eyes.

“I already told your brothers and you from the beginning that I do not want anything to ruin this wedding and the public needs to know that you and Selina are getting along,”

“You mean they need to see me getting along with her and they need to see me dating a girl so no one assumes I’m anything but straight right?”

Bruce stared at his son while Damian glared at him,

“Of course the public also needs to see me as a cheater, a liar, and someone who breaks their precious blond princess, they also need to see me as white as possible so that my music could sell faster, of course that doesn’t stop them from calling me every horrible name in the book because my mother is Talia Al Ghul, but of course they already saw me as a horrible person when I punched a guy for calling me and Maya horrible names and instead of helping me you allow the story to spin to see me as the bad guy and Kitty as my ‘savior’,”

Damian glared at his father as he continued with his speech, he wasn’t sure why he was lashing out at his father, but he felt great about to do it,

“You and Selina say you don’t want any PR nightmares or for the Wayne family name to be soil but don’t you think it’s already too late since both you and Selina were the ones who allowed The Word, and every other source of media to talk shit about me, hell you guys were the ones who decided to give me the playboy image, but now with this stupid wedding coming you want me to be well behave young man? Fuck that,”

Bruce’s face was bright red as Damian threw every horrible thing the media has said about him back at him and while he didn’t want to admit everything he said was true he couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty for putting Damian through all of the crap he’s endured and instead of helping him he made it worse.

Before Bruce could even form a retort the door from the back open and in came Maya.

“Hello Wayne family!”

Maya was a beautiful woman and Damian’s best friend; the girl wasn’t afraid to speak her mind or tell the world that she was a proud lesbian. It swelled Damian’s heart with joy that his best friend was free and able to be herself, she was an amazing person and deserve to be happy. Like Damian, Maya was a singer as well as an actress and she was amazing in both. Her voice was incredible and was able to go through different styles of music, she even won a Grammy for her album.

“Maya, what brings you here?” Bruce asked confused as to why she was hear.

Maya smiled brightly at him before she hooked her arm around Damian’s and lead against his shoulder.

“The answer to that is simple, Damian and I made plans for lunch and I decided to swing by early so that we can head over to our favorite diner since it’s always pack during lunch time,”

“I see,”

“Welp, if you need us you know where we’ll be,”

She then pulled Damian out the door before Bruce could say or do anything, once the two were out the door they looked at each other before sprinting to her car. Knowing Bruce, he’ll come out the door and order them to stop whatever it is they are doing and force them to go with him and Selina to go wherever it is they were going.

Once they reached her car, they both got in and drove off.

“Where to bro?”

“Kara’s café, I need to see someone,”

“You, need to see someone at Kara’s café?”

Maya knew about the café, she was one of the few Damian trusted to know about the place, not only did she know but she was also a frequent customer, the two loved the place and always enjoyed going there together whenever they could.

“Yes,”

“And who is this someone?”

“Some guy I met,”

“Oooh, Damian Wayne met some guy and he wants to see him?”

“Yes, but it’s not like that,” he quickly said before she could form an idea that he did not want to hear.

“You sure?” she asked giving him a smirk.

“Positive, I just need to talk to him and apologize,”

“For what?”

Damian’s became a bright red color before he said,

“Flirting with him when he has a girlfriend,”

Maya looked at her friend, if there was one thing she knew about her friend in shock.

“Did he tell you? More importantly did you know?”

“No, and no,”

“Then how do you know he has a girlfriend?”

“Because I was going through Kara’s Instagram and found his Instagram and in his profile pic was of him and cute red head hugging each other and smiling with one another,”

“And that made you think he had a girlfriend?”

“Yes,”

“You know, that might just mean they are friends, right? I mean you and I cuddle all the time and we’re still friends,”

Damian thought about her words, of course she might have a point, the two might be friends but then again…

“I don’t think they are friends,”

“What makes you say that,”

“Well, when I was at Kara’s café earlier today I saw him and flirted with him and he looked uncomfortable, so I think she might be his girlfriend,”

“Ahh, okay so maybe he is taken,”

“Yeah so I need to apologize to him,”

“Question,” Maya asked as she pulled into the parking lot of the café.

“What’s that?”

“How are you gonna tell him that you know he has a girlfriend without sounding like a stalker?”

Damian’s eyes widen in fear, he…hadn’t thought of that…