#but in a way that sets vlad in a really bad light

[batsyheere]

Bruce tries to adopt Ellie, who is immediately against it. She keeps throwing him off her trail and he keeps tracking her down. She's honestly concerned, and normally she would handle her problems by herself- but this is Batman.

So when Bruce gets a little too close and Ellie is just so tired... she calls for Danny.

"Mom!"

Cue college student, perpetually tired and overworked Danny "High King Phantom" Fenton appearing from the very shadows Batman normally does himself, seeing the situation and going off at this "clearly older man" chasing his daughter in the middle of the night.

Cue the most elaborate "stop trying to adopt my kid before I adopt yours" series of battles

[rosemaryhoney27]

Vlad's Mistaken Capture part 5

Vlad Masters was not a quitter.

Yes, he had kidnapped Jason Todd four times. Yes, the last time, he had somehow ended up with Bruce Wayne. Yes, he was beginning to suspect the universe itself was laughing at him.

But he was Vlad Masters. Billionaire. Genius. Powerful halfa.

And he would not rest until he succeeded.

This time, he was being extra careful. No assumptions. No rushing in. No grabbing random dark-haired people in hoodies just because Gotham had bad lighting.

No. This time, he would triple-check his target.

And so, after meticulous planning and extensive observation (from a safe distance with binoculars, because apparently, his eyesight could not be trusted), he finally made his move.

He waited until his target was alone. He phased in silently, struck fast, and before his captive could even react—

Success!

Vlad grinned as he materialized inside his new hideout, placing his captive in a chair and securing them with ghost-proof restraints.

He stepped back, triumphant. "At last, Daniel, I—"

A familiar voice, deep and gruff, interrupted him.

"You really need to give up."

Vlad froze.

The figure in the chair lifted his head.

Jason Todd.

Again.

Jason smirked lazily. "Hey, Vlad. Miss me?"

Vlad made a noise that was somewhere between a scream and a dying cat.

"HOW?!" Vlad yelled, clutching his head. "HOW DO I KEEP GETTING YOU?!"

Jason shrugged, all too pleased with himself. "I dunno, man. Maybe I’m your destiny."

Vlad howled in rage, pacing frantically. "I triple-checked this time! I watched him for a week! I made sure it was Daniel!"

Jason grinned. "Uh-huh. And yet…" He rattled his restraints mockingly.

Vlad stopped pacing, took a deep breath, and then slowly turned back to Jason.

He narrowed his eyes. "Wait a minute…" He stepped closer, scrutinizing the young man. "You were following Daniel, weren’t you?"

Jason’s grin widened. "Gee, what gave it away?"

Vlad’s eye twitched violently.

Jason had known Vlad was watching. And instead of doing anything normal, like avoiding him or warning Danny, Jason had deliberately led Vlad into yet another terrible kidnapping attempt.

Jason chuckled. "You know what they say—fool me once, shame on you. Fool me five times? Man, that’s just embarrassing."

Vlad screamed.

CRASH!

The skylight shattered again.

Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin dropped down in perfect synchronization.

Nightwing sighed, hands on his hips. "Vlad, buddy, you have got to stop."

Red Robin just shook his head. "At this point, I think you’re doing this on purpose."

Robin glared. "This is beyond incompetence. This is a level of failure I did not think possible."

Jason smirked. "And yet, here we are."

Vlad, losing the last shreds of his sanity, just phased through the floor, screaming the whole way down.

Jason let out a long, satisfied breath. "Man. That just never gets old."

Nightwing sighed. "You set him up, didn’t you?"

Jason grinned. "Oh, absolutely."

Red Robin groaned. "I knew it."

Robin crossed his arms. "I refuse to participate in any more of this nonsense."

Jason leaned back in his chair, utterly content. "Hey, who’s up for bets on round six?"

Tim sighed. "I hate that I know you’re right."

Meanwhile, somewhere in Gotham, Vlad Masters was screaming into the void.

But he wasn’t giving up.

One day…

One day, he would win.

part 6 up next

[avaritia-apotheosis]

5 Universes Parallel and 7 Perpendicular

Trouble often found Constantine like maggots to a corpse

A DPxDC Crossover // Read on [AO3] [FF.net] // Fic Masterlist

Trouble often found Constantine like maggots to a corpse. 

This time, Trouble’s name went by Danny Fenton. Some random kid— “hey I’m fourteen!” — with an impossible physiology and a soul that not even the most desperate demon or benevolent angel would take. Not because Danny is in any way particularly good or evil, but because Constantine is 99.998% sure the Lords of Hell and the Heavenly Hosts even knew what Danny’s soul even was in the first place. 

(If you could even…call it a soul, anyway. He isn’t sure how he can explain it, and Danny has zero clue at what Constantine’s asking for anyway. “It’s science,” Danny would say with a shrug. “Weird science, anyway. Something about ectoplasm and imprinted consciences and mutations in the DNA. I’m not sure on the specifics, but my parents can tell you.”)

Of course, being lost in another fucking universe probably didn’t help.

He clips another cigar and lights it. Cuban, full-bodied, good blend; he got it as a bonus from some clients a few weeks back and he’d been slowly making his way through the pack. He lets the smoke settle on his tongue before he puffs it out, slinging his legs up to rest on top of the coffee table with a groan. 

Danny scrunched his nose at him, uncrossing his arms to go over and open a window. 

“What?” Constantine rolled his eyes, gesturing to the boy with a cigar. “You don’t get to complain. You don’t even need to breathe.”

“Yeah and smoking still makes everything smell like crap. It’s a terrible habit, y’know.”

He huffs, smoke billowing out, and makes a note to himself to smoke like he’s a goddamn dragon just to annoy the kid. “Hey, I think putting up with a bit of my bad habit is enough compensation for having to help your penniless ass, brat.”

Danny scoffed. “It’s not like I had any choice in that.”

Which was the crux of the matter, of course. See, Constantine has had his fair share of inter-dimensional or inter-planar travel. But shit like parallel universes …well, that was more the Justice League’s purview anyway. All those alternate universes where everything is a distorted mirror of their own reality—and apparently home to way too many evil Supermen to be comfortable with— not exactly Constantine’s cup of tea. He’s had his fair share of experiences with them, but definitely not enough to actually help someone whose universe is nowhere even remotely similar to his own.

Oh, according to Danny his Earth did have a London and an America and a Korea, etc. The majority of their countries were the same, give or take a few that only seemed to exist in Constantine’s universe. But it was the people where they differed.  Remarkably, there was no Justice League in Danny’s world. Or any kind of superheroes at all. ( Like in comic books? Danny had said when Constantine asked.)

As far as Danny knew, he was the closest thing that came to a superhero in his world and half of the time people just consider him a menace.  Even big shot ‘civilians’ like Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, or Oliver Queen were non-entities in that parallel world. Instead they got some creepy asshole called Vlad Masters who should probably get another hobby that isn’t ‘terrorizing a fourteen-year-old.’

But where this strange alternate world lacked in martians and cosmic world-ending threats, they made up for with a shit ton of ghosts. Which brought them to their current predicament: through a ridiculous set of circumstances that Danny really didn’t want to explain, the kid managed to tumble through a rift in the Infinite Realms (something that Constantine hasn’t heard of but you’ll be damn sure he’s gonna make it his business to know) and landed probably five parallel universes and seven perpendicular universes away from  his own earth and right in front of Constantine’s doorstep. (No, those were probably not the correct scientific terms but Constantine was a fucking occultist not a physicist so sue him.)

(Actually, don’t. He’d rather not deal with it.)

Constantine did try his best to do right by the kid. He’d taken Danny’s case up to the Justice League to see if they had the tech that could send the kid home. No such luck at the moment. And even if they did, they weren’t sure if they had the capabilities to connect to not only Danny’s specific branch in whatever cosmic tree was keeping everything afloat, but the correct version of Danny’s universe as well. Constantine’s other contacts said much the same thing.

And since Danny Fenton didn’t exist in this universe, he felt bad leaving the kid alone, so he offered him room and board at his place until they could find a way to get Danny home. (Or until the kid got sick and tired of Constantine’s antics and just moved out.)

(Or until Danny died. Constantine had a pretty bad track record of getting his friends killed by association, y’know. Though considering Danny’s half-ghost… could he even die again?)

(Better not push his luck.)

Constantine set his cigar aside. Danny’s still by the window, elbows propped up on the sill, eyes trained a thousand miles away. No— ‘light-years’ is probably the correct measurement here. 

Constantine rests his chin against his knuckles. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Danny shrugged, chin nestled against his open palm, fingers curled near the seam of his mouth. Nervous nail-biter, maybe? “Just…worried.” His voice is level, but you could feel the anxiety nestled deep within from the sharp staccato of his fingers against the windowsill. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. “I’ve never been gone this long from Amity Park before. It tends to…attract a lot of annoying ghosts, and it’s up to me to make sure their trouble doesn’t get too out of hand.”

“Ah. Define trouble.”

Danny laughs. “It depends on which ghost it is, I guess. Some of the regulars honestly just want to annoy me. There’s the Box Ghost—yeah that’s literally what he calls himself, he controls boxes, no I am not making this up—who should really learn to just stay in the Zone already. I think my record for beating him is like 15 minutes, and 10 of those minutes was just trying to find him. Skulker’s a bounty hunter that’s just dead set—pun intended—on skinning me for my pelt. I don’t know what he’s gonna do with that pelt, and at the rate things are going I don’t think I’ll ever find out. I’ve probably destroyed more of his robot suits than anyone else.”

Some of his rogues want to skin him? Huh. Maybe Constantine should be more concerned about how nonchalant Danny is when describing all of this. “If you got regulars, then that means you also got ghosts that only come in sometimes, right?”

“Yeah…” Danny raked a hand through his hair. “It’s part of the reason why I’m so worried. Those kinds of ghosts have been coming up at an alarming rate recently. Like, the last ghost I dealt with was this guy named Undergrowth. He’s big, green, looks like a giant weed, and is pretty much able to control all plant life. He took control of the entire town and essentially enslaved everyone using mind vines. I literally had to develop a new powerset just to fight him.”

“Huh. Must be tough, having to fight all this on your own.” 

“It is, yeah…but I’m not alone. My friends help me.”

Constantine lowers his feet to the floor. He scoots up to the edge of his ratty old sofa and pats down the spot next to him. “Friends? That’s good, at least. Tell me about them.”

“Well…” Danny let out a sharp exhale, eyes wavering between the window and the empty spot on the couch as if deciding where he’d be more comfortable being at. Eventually, he pushes himself away from the window and tentatively sits down on the couch, fingers drumming against the burgundy cushions. “There’s Sam and Tucker. I’ve known Tucker since forever ago, but the two of us became friends with Sam back in middle school. They were there with me when I, well, became this. And ever since then, they’ve been helping me fight all the ghosts that’ve been coming through the portal.”

There’s a smile on Danny’s lips as he talks about them. Soft but bright. A flash of teeth every time he has to hold back a laugh whenever he suddenly remembers a funny story. He talks about Tucker’s genius with technology, Sam’s interest in the occult,  and how the two of them have a running argument regarding their food preferences. He goes into anecdotes about their adventures, and how so many of Danny’s own victories couldn’t have been done without their help.

“Sounds like you trust them,” Constantine said.

“With my life.” There’s an air of gravity in the way Danny said those words. As if they were an unwavering truth of the universe.

He placed a comforting hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Then trust that they’ll be able to hold down the fort until you get back.”

Danny’s eyes widened a fraction, before he hung his head low, smiling sheepishly. “Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Suddenly finding himself feeling very awkward at this almost-tender moment, Constantine slapped his knees once and pushed himself off the couch. “Well, best stop your worrying for now, kid. Come on, grab your jacket. Let's go get some Nando’s.”

Danny’s brows scrunched up in confusion. “The heck is Nando’s?”

“Oh you poor, poor, American. Come on, let me introduce you to the wonders that is peri peri chicken.”

Trouble often found Constantine like maggots to a corpse. But maybe this time, he didn’t mind Trouble so much. 

[k3nz1ekorn]

Jayvik actor au- Flowers and Tequila (Pt.1-According to Plan)

Character cheat sheet: Viktor-Vladimir/Vlad, Jayce-Joel, Vi-Viola, Cait-Cathrin/Cat, Mel-Miah, Savannah- Sevika, Sky- Skyler, Powder/Jinx-Piper/Hexa, Ekko-Elijah (not all characters listed are in each fic)

Summary: Joal and Vlad finally share a first date, Joel just hopes it will all go according to plan.

A/N: finally another part! Wanted to get part one out for Valentine's Day, especially since I haven't updated this series in a few weeks. This chapter doesn't really get nsfw but it gets a little suggestive towards the end so be aware! Next part will in fact be smut lol

Joel looked at his reflection in the mirror coated inner walls of the elevator, letting the fingers on his free hand come up to fix his hair for the hundredth time since the doors closed. To say he was nervous would be the understatement of the century, today was too important for him to mess it up with bad hair or bad cooking.

Today was his first date with Vlad. The Vlad he’d been pining after since their first day on set, the same Vlad he’d confessed and seemingly been rejected by a few weeks ago, the Vlad that he’d been tricked into re-confessing to in Miah’s trailer after that whole misunderstanding. The Vlad who he’d made out with for an hour after they had finally sorted out their feelings and gotten past their own stupidity. 

He felt his cheeks heat at the memory of it, how Vlad had felt in his arms, under his palms, against his lips. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, attempting to calm himself down before he could work himself up. It would be a little more than just embarrassing to show up to a first date with a raging boner, so he had to get it together.

Reopening his eyes he gave himself another once over in the reflective material in front of him. He had chosen something casual, of course, since he was cooking and would have to move around a bit he would need to be comfortable. His shirt was a deep green button up, the buttons being a striking gold against the dark material. His pants were simple black slacks, paired with dark brown leather shoes and a red belt with gold accents around his waist. He had a black jacket covering it all, it was getting a bit chilly these last few days as fall neared. He held a bouquet of bright yellow flowers that he knew were native to the area Vlad had grown up in and a grocery bag full of all the ingredients he needed to make dinner for the two of them. He’d already coordinated what Vlad did and didn’t have from his checklist and had his driver make the stop so he could pick the rest up on his way over. 

The elevator let out a ding, breaking from his thoughts and the doors slid open after what felt like an eternity of nothing. With another deep breath Joel stepped out into the dark brown and beige hallway, Vlad’s apartment number wasn’t far from the main landing so it didn’t take long before he was standing outside the nice wooden door, hyping himself up to knock on it and start what he hoped would be the best date of Vladimir’s life.

“Okay Joel…” He whispered to himself, “there’s no pressure. You know him already, you’ve been friends for months now! Just don’t burn the food and everything will be fine. You’re literally just making tostadas, you make them all the time, just breathe.” Joel looked to the ceiling and shut his eyes for a moment to let any remaining nerves dispel. “He’s just a really handsome guy…who you really want to impress…” With a final deep inhale he brought a hand up and knocked three times against the door. A brief shuffling and light clicking could be heard on the other side and it took no time at all for the door to open and reveal his date for the evening.

Joel did his best to muffle the gasp he let out because wow…Vlad looked breathtaking. It wasn’t hard to do, he always thought Vlad looked good.

He was in a simple red knit sweater, snug but not too tight, and dark brown straight leg pants with his brace situated snugly overtop of it. He seemed to only be wearing slippers over his socks, which made sense as he was in his own home after all. 

His face though…had he always looked this good though? This beautiful? He couldn’t have, if he had Joel was sure he’d have died by now.

Vlad’s hair was styled messily, falling over his glasses perfectly. He was wearing glasses by the way, something Joel knew he needed but had never gotten to see firsthand before. Vlad chose to wear contacts on set most days, making the need for glasses nonexistent; he still kept them in his bag though, that’s how Joel knew he needed them.

He was wearing makeup, something light it looked like, something natural to enhance his already striking eyes. He’d seen the man in a variety of forms, covered in a pound of stage makeup, that makeup he’d worn to the karaoke bar, but this was definitely one of Joel’s favorite looks so far; aside from his bare face of course.

“Joel, hello.” Vlad spoke from the other side of the threshold and Joel realized he’d been staring.Not just staring, but staring with his mouth open, it was only just a bit, but it was definitely noticeable if the amused smirk on Vlad’s face was anything to go off of.

“Hi.”

Smooth dude.

“Would you like to come in then?” Vlad giggled a bit through the end of his sentence, tilting his head to the side as he opened the door wider to invite Joel to enter his home. His giggle sent butterflies through Joel’s stomach, it wasn’t a sound he got to hear often.

“Yes. Thank you, that’s very kind.” Joel stepped through the door and past Vlad, stopping just out of the way to let the door be closed behind him.

He took a second to take the apartment in, it was cozy, that was for sure. The walls of the main area were light gray, those of the kitchen being a light cream color. Vlad’s living room consisted of a plain comfy couch covered with pillows, on each end were small wooden end tables, and behind it was a long shelf in a matching pattern to the end pieces. In front of the couch sat a beautiful mahogany coffee table, intricate patterns swirling up the legs, with books and scripts thrown about on it. The kitchen was a bit more spacious, thank god, large counters and beautiful up to date appliances took up most of the space, a plain white fridge, oven, and dishwasher taking up most of the remaining space after that. There was a breakfast bar with high wooden stools, cushioned in a dark fabric, separating the two areas. To the other side of the kitchen was a simple wooden table and chair set, something with beautiful craftsmanship though. With his family being full of blacksmiths he’d been exposed to other similar trades, so he definitely knew good craftsmanship when he saw it.

“Your apartment is lovely, Vlad.” He spoke as he turned back around to the other man. He was standing just in front of the shut door, cane situated to his left side, posture relaxed. “Oh! Uh-” Quickly Joel took the flowers into his unoccupied hand and pushed them in the direction of a very pleased looking Vlad. “I picked these up for you on the way. I wasn’t sure what kind you liked, but I remembered you-”

“I mentioned these to you when we were running lines with Miah. I remember, yes, but I’m a bit surprised you do.” Vlad interrupted him. His eyes crinkled a bit at the corners and the look that came over his face could only be described as fondness, and Joel’s heart fluttered at the sight.

“Yeah.” 

Another banger line.

“Would you like a tour or anything? A drink perhaps?” Vlad started to move to the kitchen, most likely to find a vase for his new flowers. Joel followed behind him as he thought over his options. 

“There’s no need for a tour, I’ll just ask if I need to go anywhere.” Joel set the bag down on the counter and started to remove his coat, setting it on the stool not too far away on the other side and taking any of the perishable items from the bag to put them away. “Do you mind if I put some of this in the fridge? A drink sounds nice and I don’t want to leave anything out while I get them poured.”

“You may use the fridge, I’d rather not get food poisoning on our first date. What did you have in mind then? For drinks, that is, my supply is a bit limited.” Vlad looked at him from where he was filling a dark blue vase with water. Must be for the flowers, they’d look good in it.

He noted the use of the word first and it made Joel’s chest fill with a bit of warmth, had the other thought about more dates already? He knows he had, both before and after he knew Vlad returned his feelings. He already had a list of date ideas saved to his phone, the beach, restaurants, plays and movies he thought the other might like. 

“I was thinking tequila? If you have tequila, that is, I have a second and third choice if you don’t.”

Joel watched him think for a moment as he turned off the water, moving the vase over to the breakfast bar to put the flowers in it.

“I believe I do have that actually.” He bent at the waist to reach into a cabinet next to him and Joel quickly averted his gaze back to the tomatoes in his hands so as to not oggle the man’s butt. “AHA!” 

“You got it?”

“It seems hosting every now and then does pay off. Viola left this here a while back, it should work well.” Vlad set the tequila down on the counter and turned the labels to Joel for approval. “I don’t typically drink tequila, but I remember you seemed to quite enjoy it the last time we drank together. I shall give it another chance since you seem to favor it so much.” Vlad continued on as he picked out the appropriate glassware. Joel took a second to look over the label, it wasn’t his favorite but it wasn’t a bad brand. He had to get Viola onto his brand, he noted, lest she leave any more.

“That works, let me get those poured and then I can get started on dinner.” Joel finished putting everything he needed into the fridge and walked down the counter to take a comfortable place next to Vlad and flashing a smile.

The next few hours moved with ease, speeding by as the men fell into a comfortable rhythm with one another. The conversation flowed well, no awkward pauses or lags, and once cooking had started there was no shutting Joel up. He had always enjoyed narrating what he was doing, dicing the tomatoes, seasoning the ground beef, even crisping up the tortillas. Vlad clearly loved it though, Joel could tell by the way he seemed to ask questions whenever he moved to a new task or step in the recipe. 

“You’re making homemade guacamole?”

“I brought chips, we need a dip for them.”

“You could have bought one.”

“You’ll never want store bought dip again after tasting my mother’s guac recipe…except maybe the Tostitos queso.”

The food had been delicious of course, Joel knew it would be, and after cleaning up they had moved to the couch with a second round of drinks. One of the Saw movies had been put on in the background, they’d both seen it before so it was good background noise as the conversation flowed on between them.

Joel was seated in the middle of the couch, feet firmly on the floor in front of him as he talked animatedly about another project he’d been working on. His shoes had long been discarded when they moved to the living room and he’d undone the top button of his shirt at some point, his sleeves still rolled up to his elbows from when he had made dinner.

Vlad was leaning against the back of the couch to the side of his date, his good leg bent and resting in front of him on the cushions, his bad one resting with its foot on the carpet. His head was supported by his arm, propped up so he could listen intently to Joel’s ramblings. 

Also to stare at him, he was finally free to do so after all. Joel definitely had been picking up on that throughout the night, that he knew he was free to ogle and admire what he hadn’t been able to before. He had been able of course, but there was no way for him to know that. It was obvious he knew now though, the half lidded eyes, the quiet hums, even the lip bite he’d received earlier when he’d had to stretch out after being hunched over to make their food. 

They were talking about some of the other projects they had been doing on the side during filming breaks and gaps in their schedules, Joel currently on a tangent about a horror role he’d booked.

“Filming doesn’t start for another few months, but my management team thinks it’ll really open doors for me in that genre.”

“I’m sure it will, it sounds promising. Anyone who can pass up having you on their cast list is an idiot.”

Joel gave a shy but excited smile, Vlad had been doing that all night. He’d been showering him with compliments and praise since he started making dinner and honestly it was getting difficult to not react to it. He’d been suppressing a blush since entering the elevator to come up, and now with the drinks in his system he feared it was becoming increasingly obvious.

“Y’know V…I still remember the first time we met.” He leaned back into the couch, tilting his head on its side so he had a clear view of the other. 

Vlad raised a brow and a smirk crawled over his face.

“As do I. You kept me from falling on my ass.”

Joel let out a chuckle, eyes partially closing.

“Yeah…sorry I ran off by the way. Glad I got to see you again though…I’d been hoping to.” Vlad’s expression changed to one of mild surprise. “I thought you looked…really good. I was pretty upset I’d had to run off so fast without a proper introduction.”

“You were upset?” 

Joel let out a laugh at the indignation in Vlad’s voice, he was so adorable.

 “I had to watch the prettiest face I’d ever seen walk away from me. After getting to feel up your arms, and you were upset?” Vlad had sat up properly now, his brows knit together in annoyance, arms gesturing out to emphasize how strong he seemed to feel about Joel’s arms. 

“My arms?”

“YES your arms! Have you seen them? Your hands too- Gods Joel, do you realize what you look like?” 

Vlad seemed to be in disbelief at the mere thought, distraught even. As if the idea of Joel not knowing he was attractive was the end of the world or something.

It was because of this that the blush Joel had tried so hard to fight finally made itself known. He could feel all the heat creeping up his neck and cheeks as he looked away from Vlad to the coffee table. His hands were fiddling with themselves in his lap and his tipsy brain had no time to process when Vlad leant over to pluck one up out of his lap.

His eyes darted back to the other man on the couch, mouth wide open in shock, as he watched Vlad manhandle his appendage.

“Honestly Joel, these things have their own fan club!”

That was a new piece of information. A fan club? For his hands? Who in their right mind would care about that enough to- 

Wait.

Hold the phone.

Joel zeroed in on the way Vlad was inspecting his knuckles as he continued to talk, to shower him with praise, shower his hands with compliment after compliment. It was interesting.

Maybe it was because he was inebriated, or maybe he was just ready to take a risk, but Joel took the moment to intertwine his hand with the one Vlad had been using to hold his own. He carefully watched Vlad’s face as he did so, to make sure he wasn’t overstepping at all. The other hand, previously in his lap, came to rest on top of the clasped hands. His breath was coming out heavier now due to how nervous he was, but his voice came out surprisingly even when he next spoke.

“Are you one of the fans?”

The man across from him stared at their intertwined hands with a blank expression, eyes neutral and mouth set in its usual resting line, however it didn’t last. Vlad’s eyes locked onto his own and a wicked smirk made its way across his face as a light blush overtook him.

Joel memorized how he looked, flushed like that. 

“Hmm…I’m not sure. They do have a lot to like about them, but I’m not sure I could classify myself a fan.” Vlad let his other hand come up to Joel’s chin, tilting it up so they were eye to eye, and leant forward so their faces were mere inches apart. Joel thought he might explode, his face was burning and he nearly whimpered at Vlad’s next words. “But I may be…persuaded…eh?”

Persuaded? He could do that.

[five-rivers]

timer

@echoghost1 @everfascinated

.

It hovered over the surface of the portal, clearly separate from it.  A large, flat, disk shape, with a pale, luminous face.  More vivid numbers circled the edge, painted neatly.  A single, delicate, metal hand pointed towards the number seven, on the left side of the clock.  It had been pointing there for the past hour or so, ever since it had been noticed.  

Maddie drummed her fingers on the workbench she stood next to.  The timer - because what else could it be? - was, thus far, a mystery to her.  Usually, Maddie liked mysteries.  Exploring the mysteries of the Ghost Zone had been the reason they had built the portal in the first place.  This mystery was fascinating, and Maddie was excited about it, but it was also incredibly troubling.  

Obviously, the timer - hovering, green, immovable - was ghostly in origin.  What else could it be?  But how did a ghost place get in here to place it?  For what purpose?  How much time was left?  What was it counting down to?  It couldn’t be anything good.  Ghosts had no love for her family or their works.  

As soon as she’d noticed it, she and Jack had started taking readings, but nothing they did gave them anything conclusive, or any way to get rid of the thing.  

It was frustrating and troubling.  Frustrating and troubling.  

“Uh, Mom?  Dad?  It’s six and we were wondering if you wanted us to order dinner or anything…”

Maddie looked up to see Danny coming down the stairs.  

“Oh, sure!” said Jack.  “Pizza sounds great, son!”

“Yeah.  What are you even– What’s that?”  

Danny stared wide-eyed at the timer for a long moment, and Maddie moved to reassure him.  Danny was always so timid around ghosts, so afraid.  This timer was doubtlessly malevolent, but she and Jack wouldn’t let it do anything to Danny.  

Briefly, Danny’s eyes gleamed green.  Then, slowly, but inevitably, he collapsed.

Maddie leaped forward, keeping Danny from hitting his head on the bottom step by the narrowest of margins.  “Jack!”  

“What happened?” he asked, hurrying over.  “Danny?  Danny?  Talk to me, son!  Can you hear me?”

Danny’s eyes fluttered open briefly, overly reflective, then shut again.

“I’m setting up the quarantine booth,” said Maddie.  “Will you carry him?”

Jack nodded, grimly.  

They’d gotten the quarantine booth set up after Vlad’s unfortunate recurrence of ecto-acne and the revelation that ecto-acne could be contagious under certain circumstances.  It was sealed, filtered, protected, shielded.  Every precaution they could think of had gone into it. 

… and, yes, they should use those precautions more often, but Maddie and Jack loved getting up close and personal with the subjects of study.  

“We need to get that thing shielded,” said Jack as he set Danny on the bed.  He rushed out towards the timer and started setting up shield projectors around the portal.  

Maddie, meanwhile, pulled the medical scanner free from the ceiling.  Well, ‘medical scanner’ was a very sci-fi way of putting it, when really it was quite prosaic, if you knew how it worked.

She positioned it over Danny’s body and set it to taking data. 

Temperature, low, heart rate, low, bones, intact, nervous system… that part of the scanner didn’t work all that well, ignore that reading…  

Ectoplasm levels were off the charts.  

Maddie inhaled deeply.  Stay calm, stay calm.  They would fix this.  They’d cured Vlad and Danny’s friends, they could cure this, whatever it was.  They would get rid of that timer and they’d save Danny.  

“Mom?” said Danny, weakly.  

“Hey, sweetie,” said Maddie.  “How are you feeling?”  

“Bad,” said Danny.  He tried to sit up, but Maddie pushed him back down.  “What’s happening?”

“You collapsed suddenly,” said Maddie.  “We’re trying to figure out why.”

Danny raised one hand to his face.  Green light reflected off his hand.  Understanding flicked over his features.  

“Okay, but I think I’m feeling better, now,” he said.  He tried to sit up again.  

“We need to figure out what happened before you go running around,” said Maddie, pushing him down again.  She looked over at Jack, through the thick, transparent sides of the quarantine booth.  Jack was now trying to throw a towel over the timer and–

Wait a moment.  

“Stay down,” she told Danny.  “Let the scanner do its job.”  She walked out of the quarantine booth.  “Wait, Jack, wait.”

“But we have to keep it from affecting Danny.  We don’t know if its effect is visual or what.”

“I know, I know,” said Maddie.  “But look at it.  Look at the hand.”

The hand, which had been pointing at the number seven, was now pointing at the number six.  

Jack scowled at the timer and tried to throw the towel over it again.  The towel passed through it.  “Are we sure this is a timer, Mads?  Maybe the numbers are counting down charges or something like that.”

“I don’t know, it still looks more like a timer to me.”

“But why did it affect Danny like that?” 

“I don’t know.  We need to start decontamination procedures right away, though.  His ectoplasm levels are off the charts.  The sudden spike is probably what made him collapse, but I don’t know how this could have increased his ectoplasm levels so much so quickly.”

I don’t know either,” said Jack.  He picked up the latest version of the Fenton Finder (which incidentally, still detected Danny more often than not) and shook it.  “None of the detectors we have pointed at it picked up anything.  Nothing going towards Danny, nothing ambient, nothing anywhere else.”

Maddie had hoped that their detectors had picked something up, but with the continued failures of the Fenton Finder, maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised.  

“We’ll keep looking,” said Maddie.  She was forgetting something.  What was she forgetting?  “Jazz.  We need to tell Jazz, so she doesn’t come down here.  What if it only affects minors?”

“Righto,” said Jack, shoving the Finder at Maddie.  “I’ll do that, you start the decontam procedures!”

Maddie nodded tightly and turned back to Danny.  She could see his eyes gleaming from here.But they could fix this. 

[goodfish-bowl]

Never Really Knew (DP x DC)

DP Side Hoes Week 2024 Master Post

Day 5: Dani - self-defense

Summary: There were plenty of things she knew, but it was all things that had been downloaded into her head. There was very few things that Dani had actually experienced in her extremely short life. Dani’s trip after being freed from Vlad goes well until it takes a turn into Gotham, New Jersey. Takes place after "Kindred Spirits", but before "D-Stabilized".  

Word Count: 2173

AO3 Link

Dani had known that traveling by herself would be dangerous. She knew it in the same way she knew advanced mathematics and classic literature. It was knowledge she had but had never experienced, programmed and downloaded into her head. She knew a lot of things this way, and very few things the other way. Dani had wanted to experience everything, to learn the way everyone else did. But she hadn’t known, not really, just how dangerous this task would be for her. She doubted Danny knew either, or he probably wouldn’t have let her go. 

Dani wasn’t having any trouble with money, so to say, Vlad’s credit card covered that, but there were very few places that would both accept credit and let a 12-year-old rent a room for the night. So while she was good on food and any other thing, shelter was a lot harder to manage. It had been fun, at first, buying a tent and camping equipment, and staying at parks while she explored the area, but yet again, a 12-year-old couldn't rent out a campground, so it was a bit riskier every night she stayed. If she stayed in the wrong place or too long, she would get chased out. She lost a few tents this way. She lost a few more to thefts that happened while she was out and about. 

The campground was fine when she was just about, but they weren’t always an option, like in the bigger cities, where she was now. Normally, Dani was able to keep her head low, and hang out on a rooftop for the night, but that wasn’t really a good option with vigilantes of Gotham frequenting those spaces too. She had to find a different place to sleep for the night, which she supposes is what got her into this whole mess too. That and not knowing, to an instinctual degree, that she should not have come to Gotham all alone. 

Dani had bunked down for the night in one of the many abandoned buildings around, even setting up her cot and some of her other camping equipment. This was not where she had woken up. 

Dani woke up with a full body ache and a piercing migraine, and immediately curled up on herself with a soft hiss. Everything hurt. Slowly, as Dani came to, her senses faded back into focus. It smelt generally terrible, like BO and urine, along with the faint tinge of mold and cigarettes. There was the sound of someone else crying near her, whimpering, and the more distant sound of laughter. She could feel the bare concrete under her as it tried to drain away what little body heat she actually produced. Her tongue tasted vile in her mouth, still full of fuzz with a metallic aftertaste in the back of her throat.

Dani was locked in a dark, generally dingy cell, with the only light coming from a yellow street light that managed to crawl in through the basement window, and a white fluorescent light that climbed under the door. There were a few other kinds locked up in here with her, in various stages of crying or passed out. Some of them were hurt, bad. Dani had been kidnapped in the worst city to be kidnapped. 

Slowly, feeling her whole body protest, Dani pushed herself to a kneeling position, drawing the other kids' eyes to her. She gave them a shaky smile that probably looked closer to a grimace. Dani felt her clothes and found that all the belongings she kept in her packets were gone. Darn, no more credit card. No more anything, really. Well, that sucked, but it wasn’t like they could keep her here for long, ghost powers and all that. Dani should get out as soon as she can, and run for the hills. She was sure whoever had captured her wouldn’t even notice one less child.

Dani strained her ears to listen to the voices from under the door, but a sniffle from one of the other kids in the room stopped her in her tracks, shutting down her plan of running out alone. Stupid Danny and his stupid protective streak. She would have to figure out how to get them all out together, and probably fast if the pick up in activity from under the door was any indication. Dani went over to the window, straining to look out of it, trying to figure out where it let out. 

“Hey,” Dani whispered. “Do any of you know where we are?”

There was a soft murmuring among the other children, before a scruffy-looking boy answered her in a thick Gotham accent. “Somewhere in Crime Alley. That window has metal bars in it, no way to get out from there.”

Dani hissed under her breath, letting go of the window sill from where she was straining to lift herself onto it. 

“Do you know where it leads?” She followed up. 

“Just some scummy alley.”

Dani nodded, that was at least something good, no one would notice if she passed some of the others through intangibly. 

“Okay, I can get us out,” Dani declared, keeping her voice intentionally low. 

“How do you plan to do that? You a meta or something?” one of the slightly older girls demanded. 

“Something like that,” Dani answered sheepishly. “Come on, I can take us directly through the wall,” Dani gestured through the window. 

The others were too scared to protest, and slowly Dani began to file them one to two at a time through the wall, into the alley above. Every trip burned through her reserves, and she hadn’t noticed just how many of them were in the cell with her. After the fourth trip, Dani felt fragile, only able to pass the boy with the thick local accent through, but not able to go through herself, she would hurt herself if she tried.

“Butter biscuits… I can’t get out, I’m out of energy,” Dani called out. She was going to have to figure a way out, no powers unless absolutely necessary, she might risk destabilization otherwise. 

The boy peered down at her from the window, looking grim. “I’ll go get help,” he stated before leaving her all alone in the room. 

Dani let herself drop to the ground as soon as he was gone. She felt so tired, vaguely ill, and tried her best not to not fall back asleep, but still get a little bit more rest before the rest of her grand escape. She spent those minutes listening to the voices as best as she could, planning. She really shouldn’t use her powers for the next bit, but Dani also really needed her stuff back. It would have to be worth the risk, it was the only way she could really afford anything. All she needed was just her wallet with the card in it. Everything else could be replaced, emergency cellphone included. She might have a window to get it when whatever help that boy had mentioned showed up. 

The voices on the other side of the door grew frantic along with an even more distant sound of gunshots and shattering glass. The door slammed open, causing Dani to fall onto her back in fright. The man’s eyes were blown wide in fear, teeth bared. His eyes narrowed as he probably noticed the lack of children in the room, and spat out a nasty curse before his eyes locked onto her. 

“Fuck it, we only need one hostage, a half-dead brat will have to do,” the man spat, practically snatching her up by the arms, causing Dani to cry out in pain. 

Dani had to scrunch up her eyes under the artificial white lights, leading into an open warehouse. She struggled for just a second before there was something cold and metal pressing against her temple. 

“Try it, brat, and your brains will be blown out all over the floor,” the man growled, and Dani froze. 

It was a gun. Dani knew it was a gun, and finally, it sunk in just how much danger she was really in, and tears began to run down her face. She didn’t want to die! She had only just begun to learn how to live in the first place. She needed more than a few months to figure herself out!  

The man didn't do anything as Dani began to cry, but one of the other roughly dressed goons in the room, holding an even bigger gun, sent the one holding her a dirty look, before a confused realization passed over him. 

“Where the other kids?” The other guy asked. 

“Hell if I know. Only one left was this shrimp who looks well and ready to keel over. She’ll fucking have to do.” 

There was another loud bang as a door somewhere in the warehouse was thrown open. 

“Red Hood! Don’t fucking try it or I off the kid!” 

Dani strained to see through her tears and hysterics. Was this guy supposed to be her help? But Dani was already held hostage, how much help could this ‘Red Hood’ be?

“You know I don’t like people fucking around with kids on my turf,” a modulated, artificial voice spat. 

“Which is why you’re going to let us go, so that this little girl’s brains don’t end up splattered all over the ground,” The guy holding the bigger gun argued back. 

There was a creak from the rafters and the other guy opened fired, sending rounds into the ceiling. A large figure dropped down, returning fire as they fell. Dani’s eyes widened at the heavily armed figure in a red helmet and leather jacket. He was both the coolest and most terrifying person Dani had ever seen. The guy with the bigger gun went down with only a few well-aimed shots. 

Red Hood towered over Dani’s current kidnapper, who pressed the gun harder into her temple, causing another wave of panic to go through her as her eyes strained to dart back and forth between the man holding her and her ‘savior’ who had just definitely killed someone. 

“There you are, you shitty bastard,” her kidnapper growled. “Now!”

Gunshots came from a completely different direction, catching Red Hood by surprise, but not before he managed to take out one of the two new assailants, and a stray bullet slammed into the arm holding the gun to Dani’s head. The man recoiled, practically tossing both her and the gun aside, forgotten. Dani ducked down, scrambling the best she could away from the center of the fight, but exhaustion and a horrible pinch in her ankle weighed down on her entire being. 

Dani looked back after hearing a few more gunshots. The guy who had been holding her was dead, but Red Hood had taken a couple of hits himself, stuck kneeling as the final kidnapper pointed his gun directly at Red Hood. He was going to be killed, and then Dani knew she would quickly follow him. Panic seized her body and core, dredging up what little energy it could. She couldn’t let Red Hood be killed, Dani didn’t want to die. 

 Dani dove for the gun that had been tossed away in her. The knowledge of how to use a gun quickly clicked into place, just like all of those other things she knew and had never experienced. Dani was keen on never feeling the chill of a live firearm in her hands again, nor the image of the man dropping dead from a clean shot as she fired. 

The gun clattered to the ground and Dani was well aware that Red Hood was full-on staring at her beneath his helmet. 

“Kid-” the modulated voice called out, but Dani yanked on her invisibility, pulling as hard as she could, running off. 

Dani had killed someone, sending full-on shivers and nausea through her, compounded by the protests of her fragile anatomy as she tried to maintain invisibility. She quickly found her things, which had been haphazardly tossed into a corner, snatching the wallet and nothing else. It felt like she was falling apart. 

Dani made it to the exit before Red Hood spotted her again. 

“Wait!” He called out, sounding panicked. 

Dani couldn’t help the reflexive glance back, likely showcasing the bright glow of her eyes, and the thick trickle of ectoplasm as it seeped out of her nose before she fled into the night. There was cursing and heavy steps behind her, so Dani did the only thing she could and transformed as soon as she was out of direct eyesight, doing her best to ignore the familiar sensation of destabilization as it began to set in. She even ignored the swear-storm of the vigilante she left behind in the alley. Dani was going back to Amity Park as soon as she could, but she now knew, deep in her gut and in the sour taste of ectoplasm in the back of her throat, just how dangerous it could be on her own.

[izloveshorses]

Cowboy Like Me

ao3

Rated M, 5k, smut, western au 🤠

~~~

“Get me a whiskey, will ya?”

The sun was just starting to set through the windows, the cigarette smoke and the dust in the air making the beams of light thick and hazy, almost heavenly. Dmitry about laughed at the thought. As if this place wasn’t as far from heaven as it could get. 

Dmitry poured the shot, the amber liquid catching in the light, and slid it to the man too drunk to sit upright. “Take it easy,” Dmitry said. “Last one, okay?” 

The man grumbled something unintelligible but he probably wouldn’t remember this conversation tomorrow, so Dmitry didn’t take it personally. 

Since things were slow, Dmitry took his time lighting a cigarette, inhaling slowly. Just one small breath of relief. It wasn’t like he had a bad life here. A rough one, sure, with the usual crowd he got, hungry and angry and bitter creatures they all were. And the saloon he owned, though filthy down to every crack in the wood, was, really, a fairly decent establishment. 

But he couldn’t help but notice he was mildly miserable almost all the time. That he felt more like a ghost than a person. Aimless and hollow.

The doors swung open, squeaking loudly on their hinges. His eyes couldn’t help but trail up to the source of the noise and linger there. By the sudden silence without the piano going or the noisy chatter, Dmitry wasn’t the only one to stare.

And who could blame him? She was too pretty, too clean, for such a place. Her reddish blonde hair was neatly pinned into an updo, the fabric of her dress lacy and such a rich and deep shade of blue it was nearly black, her chin raised so high there was no doubting she came from a world of civilized refinement far from here. Most folks around here got their pride beaten out of them. But this young lady hadn’t a speck of dirt or hardship on her. 

Her piercing blue eyes found his. Slowly the bar returned to its normal chatter, the piano picking up again. Dmitry started cleaning a glass as she made her way to order. 

“What’ll it be, miss?” he asked without looking up. 

“You stole something of mine last time I was here,” she said in a clear, commanding voice instead of ordering. “I came to demand you return it.”

He just raised an eyebrow at her. “Bold accusation. All I do is pour drinks.” 

“I know it was you.” 

“How do you know,” he tossed his towel over his shoulder and set the glass down, “that I didn’t pawn it off as soon as you left town? If you’re so sure I took whatever it is you’re looking for?” 

She was still narrowing her eyes at him. “I don’t think you would’ve done that.” 

He rested his hands on the bar, leering over her. “If you want it so bad,” he smirked, “you should just go on and take it.”

They stared, daring the other to break first. Slowly she reached to steal the glass he had just cleaned, and then, like she owned the place, found the neck of a bottle of vodka, all without breaking eye contact. And she poured herself a shot, knocked it back, her pretty throat swallowing it all in one gulp. While she was still in his space she plucked his cigarette from his lips and backed away from the bar. 

Dmitry, god help him, watched her amble up the stairs. When the chatter returned, he vaguely realized the whole saloon had fallen silent to watch the exchange. It wasn’t every day someone threatened the man who poured the drinks, after all.

“Hey, how come the lady can walk away without paying,” the drunk man at the bar whined, “but you’re charging me for every shot?”

Dmitry pulled the rag from his shoulder.  

“What, if I give you a kiss and bat my eyelashes, I get a discount?”

Dmitry removed his apron. “Just don’t fall off your stool, Ivan.” 

“Aw, fuck you!” 

He stepped out back to find Vlad, snoring with his feet propped up on the wooden porch railing. Drunk as a skunk already. He kicked at his legs and Vlad startled awake. “Cover the bar for me, will you?” Vlad only grunted, still nursing the heartbreak from when his lady left him a few weeks ago, it seemed. But he pushed himself up and followed Dmitry inside. Vlad was in charge of the hospitality side of things at this saloon, only here to keep the few rooms upstairs in order and such, but, even in his depressive state, he was capable of pouring drinks in Dmitry’s absence. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably.

With his friend behind the bar and the saloon seemingly calm— at least for now— he made his way up the stairs, and had to force himself not to take two steps at a time, only because he knew the entire saloon was eyeing him. A part of him didn’t really care anymore. On the landing Marfa and her girls silently glared at him through their cigarette smoke, flicking ash to the floor, while he passed. Maybe because they knew they would never get business from him in particular. 

He knocked twice at the usual door, then tried the knob. The sun cast long shadows in the room but his eyes still found her easily. She was seated at the rickety vanity, her hair unpinned and falling over her shoulders in golden curls, reading a book in one hand and holding her— his— cigarette in the other. He slowly pulled the door shut. 

Her eyes flicked up at him, then back down at whatever she was reading. “Took you long enough.”

In spite of himself, he smirked, because damn, he couldn’t help it. “In case you forgot, some of us actually have to work around here.” 

All she did was hum, unimpressed, and slowly rose to her feet after snuffling the cigarette in the ceramic ashtray. It had only been a few minutes, but the candles on the mantle were dripping wax. 

“And you’re the one who was gone for…”

His retort died on his tongue when she let her gorgeous, spotless dress slip to the dusty floor. 

All right then. 

Dmitry didn’t take his eyes off of her but blindly kicked off his boots. She moved in a wide arc, slow but purposeful, her footsteps creaking the floor, smirking at him all the way. And, like the complete idiot he was, his smile widened. “What brings you to Saint Pete’s this time?” he asked when she sat at the edge of the bed. “Business or pleasure?” 

Her blue eyes were light, playful. “Just passing through.” 

He tsked, kneeling in front of her. “You’ll have to be careful,” he drawled, “there are some scoundrels in these roadside towns who’ll rob you dry.” 

His hands slid down her ankles, unbuttoning her silk shoes one at a time. But her fingers tilted his chin up towards her so he would look at her. “I can handle myself,” she insisted. 

He managed a soft “I know” just before she kissed him, and flashes of light sparked in his vision. 

Dmitry didn’t know what to call it, this thing between them. ‘Arrangement’ was too detached a word. But it— whatever it was— started on an evening where she genuinely was passing through, all the way from New York to wherever it was she was going, he couldn’t remember, and by some stroke of luck her train had to stop here overnight instead. And when she ordered a drink at his saloon, alone and unaccompanied, well. He had to make sure she was all right. So he kept checking up on her, making small conversation. Even had a drink with her when she asked for the company after the bar died down. 

And there was this… current, of something. Of want, maybe. Of recognition. Between them. Something he hadn’t felt before. So when she beckoned him to follow her up to her room after he closed the bar, and then proceeded to unbuckle his pants, he was surprised, of course, but not startled. Because nothing had ever felt right, like this. 

Or maybe he was just really fucking lonely. 

What is this? he had asked. Not because he wanted to stop, but. It seemed like the only reasonable question to ask when a stranger was actively pulling down your trousers. 

Her blue eyes had met his. Whatever you want it to be. 

So he had cupped her face and bent forward and kissed her, and that was the end of that discussion, as far as he was concerned. 

The following morning she had resumed her journey, leaving him with nothing more than a kiss on the corner of his mouth when she thought he was still sleeping and the ghost of her smell on the ugly paisley sheets. And she stopped in on her way back a few days later, as if to prove she was not just some lucid hallucination, and then after another couple months she came in again, and… well. You see how the pattern formed. 

They didn’t talk much beyond what was necessary. She told him to call her Anya, though he was pretty positive that wasn’t her real name. He didn’t blame her. It didn’t matter anyway. All that mattered was that when she was here he wasn’t thinking about his dead father or the lawmen threatening to raid his saloon once a week or the patrons with guns and tempers who were sore losers at the poker table. All that mattered was her skin, her eyes, her sighs. 

It was obvious she came from money. Sometimes she would babble something in French, which meant she was well educated. Maybe her father was some oil tycoon or something. Sometimes he thought about asking, insisting on a real answer as to why she ventured all the way out here. But if she wanted him to know she would’ve told him. And, then again, he didn’t exactly want her to know all the dark parts of himself he wasn’t so proud of, either. 

So now, when she was letting him unlace her corset, he didn’t dare ask why. Or how. A lucky man at the poker table didn’t question his winning hand, didn’t ponder how the dealer possibly dealt him the perfect lineup of cards, didn’t ask if this was some fluke or trick. He just cashed in his chips and ordered another round of drinks before anyone got suspicious. 

Unlacing and unbuttoning her garters and petticoats was Dmitry’s way of cashing in. 

When she was here, he didn’t want to waste time on pondering such things, because if he did, there was a chance she would wake up and remember she had better things to do than romp about with some street rat who—

“Anything interesting happen today?” she asked as she peeled his shirt off of him, eager thing she was, and he couldn’t help but take some pride in how breathless she sounded. 

He was too busy to answer at first, tired of chasing after her, his hand curling around the nape of her neck and tangling in her hair so he could kiss her proper, nipping at her lower lip. Hold still, goddammit. And for a second she did. Melting against him, angling her jaw open and sighing, his hand cradling her head. His knees were on either side of her, kneeling like a stupid religious beggar, with her arms looping around his neck.

Her hands traced down to his chest, always curious, and pushed him away slightly. “I asked you a question, sir.”

He snorted an exasperated laugh. “I’m getting there,” he insisted, angling her jaw with his thumb so he could kiss her throat. “Missed you too much. And you’re still in too many clothes.” 

Her sigh was strained. “It hasn’t even been that long.” 

“Three weeks and four days,” he huffed out. The shortest time they’d been apart since this started, sure, but still. Enough to make him feel pathetic and impatient now that she was within his reach again. He felt his fists close around the fabric of her slip at her side and back. “So forgive me for being a little…” 

She bit back a smile. “Libidinous?” He didn’t know what that meant, and his confusion must’ve shown on his face because she let out an entirely unladylike giggle before he could puzzle out the word. This was always embarrassing, saying or doing something absolutely stupid in front of this beautiful, intelligent, remarkably educated young lady, revealing his hand that he really couldn’t keep up with her like he pretended he could. But instead of teasing him she lifted her arms so he could lift her slip off of her. And then, scarring his dignity even more, he actually let out a noise at the sight of her. He impatiently threw the garment away— off off off!— as she lowered herself to her back, hair fanning out around her on the mattress, pulling him down with her by his cheek and the scruff of his hair. 

Once she was finally—finally— bare, he hovered over her, planting kisses on her soft skin. Sometimes they didn’t even bother taking their clothes off before getting started. Other times she would slip into something a little easier to remove, or, like tonight, she would make him earn it, one button at a time. He huffed as he nudged her legs apart with his knees. “You missed it,” he said into her sternum. “Poker game this afternoon ended in a big fight. Had to pull them apart and they dueled out front.” 

“Sounds dangerous,” she said, fingers digging into his shoulder when he noses at her breast. “I thought I smelled gunsmoke when I got here.” 

He smiled at her. “Don’t worry, the crowd tonight has really mellowed down.” 

“I like it when they’re a little rowdy.” 

His mouth found her nipple, earning a broken exhale. She wouldn’t let him leave marks that would be visible in the morning— she was a lady, after all, wherever it was she came from and wherever she was going— but sometimes he nipped at spots only he would get to see. Like on her stomach or the inside of her thigh, or here, on the soft flesh of her breast. Just for him. “If they were rowdy,” he murmured, his voice husky and low, before hovering over her face, “I would still be stuck down there.” 

As if on cue, roars of laughter erupted downstairs, loud enough to hear up here. The piano kept on with its ragtime tunes, muffled by distance and the wooden walls. 

He thought she liked the idea of it, having a real cowboy from the Wild West all to herself, all rough and jagged with his rowdy saloon and bar fights and gunslingers obeying him, only tame for her. Little did she know he couldn’t shoot a gun to save his life and he was terrified of horses and bourbon gave him a stomach ache, so he made a pretty lousy cowboy at that. So maybe it was good they didn’t talk. Lest whatever illusion she had crafted for him gets ruined and she never comes back. 

She cupped his cheeks. “You wouldn’t dare keep me waiting.” He had just enough time to smirk before she tangled her fingers in his hair and kissed him. Her tongue slipping against the seam in his lips, his head tilting to part his mouth open for her and properly deepen the kiss, she tasted like the vodka he served, warm and sharp at the same time. Addictive. Making his stomach roll.

His fingers found their way between her legs, earning a muffled gasp into his mouth, a fist tightening around locks of his hair, the feeling so good he had to squeeze his eyes shut for a second. He knew her well enough by now, all her tells, that he could coax her over the edge pretty quickly. The rhythm of it. The allure, the push and pull. The way her hips bucked eagerly into his hand. Needy. Always so needy for him. 

“Easy,” he murmured. “Save some of that energy.” 

She huffed, annoyed he was telling her what to do, probably. “Need more.”

His fingers curled inside her, thumb brushing over her. “You know I’ll always take care of you.” The words came out a little softer than he intended, laced with something tender. But he moved a little faster, even though he didn’t like being told what to do, either. Her arms looped around his neck to keep him close. In return he sucked kisses down her neck, following the path of goosebumps lighting up her skin, paving the way for him.

She really was gorgeous, writhing below him like this, so much that sometimes it made him forget to breathe. She was probably the most beautiful thing he would ever get to see. And sometimes he couldn’t help but marvel at it, his luck of the draw, that she let him even look at her, let alone brand kisses on her skin, trace constellations on her freckles, whisper prayers into her flesh to a god that may have existed only to have created someone like her. 

When she came all over his hand, pulsing around his fingers, her nails dug into his shoulder blades so much it hurt. Let her mark him up. Let everyone know he was taken. If only for tonight. 

She sleepily opened her eyes, offering him a dazzling smile that he couldn’t help but kiss. With her breasts brushing against his bare chest and her knees squeezing his waist and her pretty sighs in his mouth, his trousers were tight and uncomfortable. With one hand he propped himself up above her and with the other he undid his belt and shimmied out of his pants.

She pressed a foot against his hip bone until he was on his side, and then on his back. Dmitry had stopped bothering to ask how she would like to take him this time. She always told him what she wanted, or just took care of it herself. Like now, as she was straddling his hips and angling him against her entrance. 

And then, god help him, he moaned when she sunk around him, her palms on his stomach, not one to waste time. She felt so good his vision went white for a few seconds. This was always good. Every time. 

She wiggled her hips back and forth for a second, either to test the waters or just to torture him, he wasn’t sure. But he did moan out a “Fuck…” just the same. 

She smirked, and then started moving for real. 

She just. She was so perfect, Dmitry didn’t think he could ever be with anyone else. She ruined him. Ruined everyone that wasn’t her. 

He wanted to sit up and kiss her, the sorry sap he was, but her hands were on his chest now, pinning him down. She was so small he could easily take control and have his way with her. But he liked seeing her like this, taking what she wanted from him, confident and needy. His fingers dug into her thighs, so hard that maybe he would leave bruises, and his hips snapped up to meet hers, needing to exert at least some of his frustrations of the day. That first night he had been so careful, fucking her slow and tender until the sun rose, but he learned pretty quickly that wasn’t what she came here for. She didn’t want gentle from him. So now he knew she could take it a little rough, a little mean, a little dirty. 

She really did love his body, he could tell by the way she always caressed him like this. Obviously. She wouldn’t be the first. But he was dumb enough to think there was something more to it than that. Hope, maybe. There were moments where she would look at him with something affectionate and loving, would laugh with such fondness at things he said, that his heart would crack with want. 

Sometimes he wondered if he could get her to his shitty house instead of staying in this shitty room, even if it wasn’t much better. But it was his own home, and he had his kitchen, and maybe he could make her breakfast in the morning… 

She let out a little moan, his attention snapping back to the present. Her breasts bouncing, hair cascading over her shoulders, back arched… he didn’t want to miss a thing. 

His hands slid up to hold her waist, hip bones digging into his palms, steadying her. She was close. “Doing so good, darling,” he encouraged. “Want you to feel good.” 

She bit her lip, rolling her hips this way and that. “Fuck,” she swore, “don’t stop doing that.”

In spite of everything he smirked, but did as told, pistoning his hips at the angle she was clearly enjoying. The mattress groaned and creaked under them as she bounced faster on him. 

Dmitry wasn’t an idiot; he could piece together the clues. She probably didn’t get to be this… unbridled… where she came from. Didn’t have the freedom to curse or get mouthy with a man without consequence. Didn’t get to ride whatever man she pleased without marrying him first. And Dmitry was probably nothing more than a means to find release from having to be so buttoned up all the time. 

He didn’t know why she came here. Why she picked him. What kind of life she came from. But if she needed to cope with whatever darkness existed in her or her life— and, let’s face it, everyone on the fucking planet needed to cope with something— then he was sure as hell not gonna complain about it. He was happy to provide whatever distraction she wanted. Even if it left him ragged and gasping and ruined. 

Her hand found his, locking them together, eyes holding his own. “Dima…” 

She didn’t often use his name. Not this gently. And there was that feeling again. Like his heart— his soul— was trying to hammer its way out of his chest to get to hers. Like it recognized her. 

“Anya, I—” he whimpered, cutting himself off. No need to tell her he loved her or something stupid. 

He kept babbling, nearly growling, as he felt her reach her peak. That’s it, feel good on me. Feel good on me— 

When his thumb brushed over her she shattered above him, completely wrecking him in the process. It took everything he had to thrust a few more times before he spilled himself inside her. 

After she slumped on top of him, breathing hard, she curled against his side, and he kissed the top of her head. The sun had set by now so she was nothing more than shades of silver and blue in the evening light. This was always his favorite part. Where she let him hold her, dropping that mask of regality and haughtiness, where she was just a girl and he was just a boy. And he could pretend, at least until the second or even the third round, that he was hers and she was his, in this small way.

He was happy, here, like this. You could say that was probably just the sex talking, but. He felt safe with her. Felt wanted. For once. 

“Do you have to go back downstairs?” Anya finally asked. 

He shook his head. Vlad could handle it. Hopefully. Maybe. Regardless, Dmitry wasn’t sure if he could even walk himself out of bed just yet, anyway, his legs were still shaking. 

Vlad probably wasn’t even aware of what Dmitry was up to right now, he wasn’t exactly lucid at the moment. Dmitry didn’t blame him. If Anya decided to never see him again he would probably be in the same state of misery, too. 

At first, Dmitry thought Vlad wasn’t aware of what was going on between him and this young lady from the east coast. But last time, the morning after Anya had left, Dmitry was sweeping the floor when Vlad stopped him, helped him light a cigarette. 

Is she paying you? Vlad had asked. 

Dmitry’s fist tightened around the handle of the broom, exhaling a long drag. No. But he gave his answer quietly. Because it wasn’t like women hadn’t paid him for a night upstairs before. 

Are you paying her?

Dmitry’s head snapped up. No! 

Ah. I see. Vlad only nodded thoughtfully. Dmitry thought that would be the end of the discussion, so he continued his chore, but his friend rested a hand on his shoulder. She’ll break your heart.

At the time Dmitry had rolled his eyes. What did he know? 

But now, his sorry heart felt so fragile he thought it could shatter at any moment. 

Because happiness didn’t really exist for people like him, in this place. Because men like him were destined for nothing more than to drink themselves to sleep on the back porch and wake with wet eyes, or slump over on a barstool because he had nowhere else to go, or get shot in front of a saloon after a poker game. 

“You sure you don’t want to go down and check?” she went on. Dmitry shook his head again and his fingers brushed up and down her spine. “We started earlier than usual.”

He smiled up at the ceiling, tilted his head down to look at her. “Do you want me to leave you alone for a while?”

“No,” she said. “It’s just… you like taking care of people, is all.”

He blinked at her, a little surprised. If this was just supposed to be a casual rendezvous here and there, how had she noticed this? How could she observe parts of himself even he wasn’t aware of?

Dmitry escaped the warmth of her arms and rolled to sit at the edge of the mattress. She whined in annoyance, but he only bent forward to collect his trousers and dig through one of the pockets. His fingers snagged on the chain and he held it aloft so she could see it, nearly laughing at her expression— relieved and incredulous how dare you at the same time. If she weren’t naked and lithe and irresistible on the bed he might’ve even called her adorable. When he brushed her hair away and secured the chain around her neck he kissed the bump in her spine where the clasp fell. The golden locket, studded with green gemstones, was resting on her sternum between her breasts, back where it belonged. 

Anya’s fingers traced over the locket while she flattened herself onto her back. “So you did steal it.” He grinned and nodded as he got comfortable at her side again, arm draped over her middle, kissing her shoulder. It would’ve been so easy to swipe her jewelry or her purse from her every time she visited him. If it was anyone else, he might’ve gone and done it. But he didn’t dare with her. Not until last time, when he was watching her sleep, the locket sparkling in the moonlight. “Why?” 

He swallowed, wet his lips. “Because I wanted you to come back.” 

She wore it every time, never took it off. He figured this one would be important enough. 

Her eyebrows furrowed. “I always come back.” 

But he never knew when she would come back. Or even if. If this would be the goodbye, this time. And, dammit, not even his spite could stop his heart from turning sentimental and sappy at the thought of losing her. Even though he knew she came from a world of gold lockets and pretty parasols and fancy garden parties and her pick of the litter of eligible suitors— hell, she could even be married for all he knew— he heard himself ask, “Why do you?”

She bit her lip, hesitating. Perhaps deciding if she should keep playing their little game or actually be honest. Her fingers picked up the locket, holding it up so they both could see. “This belonged to my grandmother,” she said quietly, popping it open to reveal not a photo but an inscription. He hadn’t opened it at all, felt too wrong and invasive, but she was showing him now. “I haven’t seen her since I was seven years old.” 

Dmitry frowned, struggling to follow. “Dead?”

She shook her head. “She lives in Paris now.”

“Oh.” Paris. The complete opposite of this town, he was sure. 

“And the life my family wants for me…” she brushed her fingers over the inscription— something written in French, he now recognized— and closed the locket, set it over her heart. “It’s not enough.”

Dmitry swallowed. But this still didn’t explain anything. “Anya…” he whispered. That may not have been her real name, but she responded to it like it was, her blue eyes flicking to his. “Why do you keep coming back here?”

She looked so vulnerable, so small, like one wrong word from him would cleave her in half. But she took a breath. “Hope,” she finally answered. “That maybe this time you’ll ask me to stay.” 

Now it was Dmitry’s turn to be confused. “Who are you running from?” he asked, because that was the only reasonable explanation as to why anyone would want to stay in this dump, to stay with him of all people. 

But she just shook her head, her smile so fond he started to doubt. “Running to,” she corrected. 

Oh. He wanted to argue, to say no one in their right mind would choose this, that he— a nearly illiterate orphan with hardly a penny to his name— couldn’t give her the life she deserved, the lifestyle she was used to. Nothing about him or his life had happiness on the horizon. But. but. She was looking at him like she already was happy. Like he had the answer to what she was looking for. He didn’t know what to do with it. 

And, well. If happiness existed for him, here she was, in person form. 

He maneuvered so that he was hovering over her and dropped a single kiss to her neck. “You’ll have to work,” he drawled. Her face lit up with relief. “Everyone around here has to earn their keep.” 

Even her laugh was pretty. “Of course.” Her knee slid up his side, until her calf was hooking over his hip. “I’m a hard worker.” 

“Pretty thing like you?” He found her hand, smooth as porcelain, a hand that hadn’t seen a day’s labor. But she was strong. He knew that. She was brave for coming all the way out here on her own so many times. She had to know how to fend for herself, how to take care of things. And she was smart as a whip. Not porcelain, then. Polished and beautiful, yes, but not brittle. Made of stone. His lips twitched into a smirk before he kissed her knuckle. “Think you can handle it?” 

Her hand dragged up to cup his face. “I’ll have you know,” she started, “where I come from, I am the fastest sharpshooter in the county.” To prove her point, she took her thumb and forefinger and angled her hand at him, closing one eye, like she was aiming a revolver. “I’ll protect you.”

His smile grew. Well, then. He kissed her mouth, slow and soft and sweet, like she deserved. Maybe one day he could see himself deserving the same tenderness, too. “Stay.” 

[ouroboros-hideout]

WELCOME TO DOGTOWN - Part 2

Second part of the small text of a (hopefully) future collection of stories in the Noir!AU setting. Vlad already lives a few years in Night City now - under a new identidy, a false name, spying for SovOil on their rivals Petrochem. His wife just earned herself a profitable job in Dogtown so he is a regular visitor of the small district.

I have people in my most inner circle who would never set foot anywhere near Dogtown or even to Night City. Their ignorance, arrogance and fear of anything unknown and below their own status would keep them away like two opposite poles repelling each other. But I wasn't like them. Not quite. I have always lived in an in-between world, the gray mixed by the light of the upper class and the darkness of the lowest stratum of society. And again and again, the stench of ruin and despair attracted me like a moth to a flame. 

I almost pitied that my work had not yet taken me to this depraved place and that at times I was only a guest in the luxurious heights of the hotel, the heart of this district and jewel of the self-proclaimed leader, if my friend Roy arranged it for me. I would like to explore the human abysses that blossomed here like richly cultivated fields, but so far my visits have been sporadic and short-lived. All I could feast on were the stories I heard around town, and well, more recently what my beloved could tell me.

“You are really trying your luck, Mister. How often have I told you already I hate the smell of cigarettes? In the apartment, in the car, on your clothes, on you.” 

I took another drag and flicked the stub onto the floor of the underground parking lot as I heard her footsteps approaching from behind, still too late to conceal my little crime. Admittedly, it had become a foolish habit over the years and was now part of the ritual of picking up my Wiosna from her work for Hansen and taking her back to the city. But it gave me pleasure when I managed to get under the hard shell she had surrounded herself with, even if it was only visible through the small crease between her brows on her otherwise perfect and even features when she was angry about something. 

“You're not going to deny me a kiss that I've been waiting for all day. Would you?” I asked with the mischievous grin of a little boy as I opened the car door for her. She tried to avoid my gaze as if to scold me for my bad behavior, all under the watchful eyes of Hansen's men who guarded the place and always eyed me with great suspicion whenever I waited here for her. They did not know anything about my profession - otherwise I probably would have never seen the insides of the massive concrete walls surrounding Dogtown. Just another face between all the others in the crowd that came to this district - with favorable contacts.

I closed the door again, a slight chuckle shaking my shoulders as she slipped past me without further notice of my request. But I knew it wasn't just a way we played our little games, it was an unease that still haunted her when she couldn't hide in her much-loved cyberspace and do business in the world of the living. Not that she needed my protection - she was no longer the innocent and vulnerable girl she was when I met her. But I still felt better knowing she was by my side. 

Until she has enough of you. Fucking idiot - always blinded by your feelings. You know she’ll drop you again just like - 

No, she won’t. 

Wiosna belongs to @cybervesna

[bainofjustice]

Kitty's Notes On Episode 2 Of The Payday Web Series

It is really funny to me that they made a “previously on” part for a web show and to recap a episode that clocks in at 6 minutes 

It's funny that Dallas & Houston have time for a very small argument. Also helps set up the insane amount of tension the web show portrays them having

The editing/camrea is so choppy like this isn't a review but omg I had to write that down

Okay it looks like Wolf keeps zip ties on his belt, makes sense both for the game stuff of tying up civis and also is probably helpful for his mechines

Chains and Houston demask INSIDE A FUCKING VAULT post running out of ammo and while they do tell the civis present to not look this is just such a bad idea especially because the vault is basically surrounded by cops 

But also the bromance between Houston & Chains is real, like they're in a bad situation and they plan it out

Also it seems like Dallas and Wolf are the main movers of goods within this heist, I'm not sure they're the best picks but with the limits the gang had at the time I suppose they aren't the worst, it just feels like in general the plan doesn't cater to the real talents of the gang. Which tbh is probably because the web show is meant to be a ad, so they wanted more action which required mostly gun fights and they didn't do fight scenes in a intelligental way 

Also I just realized for some reason Chains is using a damn hand gun meanwhile it's Houston with a assault rifle, which really doesn't seem catered to their skills

I just remembered a little later after writing the above that Chains mentioned being out of ammo for his own assault rifle so not as bad as I thought, still wonder why they didn't switch at any point, like it worked out but yeah

One thing I do like about the action scenes is that the gang uses more than juet guns and use melee attacks as well

Houston is able to flat out flip a guy over and steal his gun, I feel pretty confident in saying Houston has probably taken some hand to hand combat lessons.

Also it appears that both Dallas and Wolf are using assault rifles which makes sense given their roles in the heist.

WE GOT A WILHELM SCREAM!!!

In better lighting it seems Wolf actually has a shotgun which is even better for him actually 

We see the escape driver when Dallas and Wolf are ambushed at the escape van, he appears to be at most middle age, white, brown hair, slightly fatter build and wears a black hoodie with a band or event tee-shirt under the hoodie, grabbing a pic to see if I can locate the shirt later.

We see several of Vlad's men during the ambush including who we later learn seems to be his right hand / personal bodyguard

Vlad's intro is so funny to me, like he holds the gang at gunpoint and stalls their escape and this actually manages to end with him getting the gang to work with him, like I am sure that Bain or Vlad carefully planned this part but it could have easily gone wrong if for example Wolf shoot someone without thinking it through, or if a officer managed to follow them to the van, especially since everyone unmasks!

Houston Vc: Do you know these guys?.    Dallas, who is being held at gunpoint vc: does it look like I know these guys?

1. Vlad decides to shout “Bain” while explaining he is a ally, 2. He calls Bain in this instance “Mr Bain” which I find to be a fun detail of characterization and also to how at the time the only people sorta comfortable enough around Bain to be confident when saying his name and such is the core members of the Payday gan

Ah and then Dallas has to go back uncover which requires faking a injury, which he lets Houston do the honors of punching him, only adding to the family feud they seem to have in the web series. Also this one punch is enough to knock Dallas to the ground.

Also funnily Dallas or should I say, “Nathen Steele” is the one to call in the first world bank heist

Bain vapes! We see him vape, we also hear him in game talk about smoking cigars, so either he does both or in my opinion more likely he lies about the details of his smoking habits even to the gang.

We can see that Bain wears a leather jacket with a design on the back & front when in his lair, the design most looks like fire to me but it's very dark, I would love to someday see some behind the scenes footage or something with the costume.

[schnuffel-danny]

Reminder that I block if you talk about Vlad and Danny in romantic/sexual shipping context when you reblog from me.

I don't go through the blogs of my followers (no energy + it makes me feel like a creep) and I block tags of the ship as I prefer to avoid seeing things I don't want to, and as such the only way for me to see things relating to it is by directly mentioning it in my notes (which I do check as I love reading tags). If you really want to talk about the ship that bad, reblog the post from someone else and not from me, unless I'm OP then just... idk don't say anything?

I'm not interested in arguing about cartoon relationships, I have more positive things to focus on in life, but I would like to set this boundary. Thank you for reading.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT message me about this, regardless of if you're going to be negative about the ship, or if you'd try to convince me to 'see it in a better light'. I don't care. This is not a discussion I want to have. This post is not a call to action, it's a simple PSA.

[bubblegumbeech]

The Losing Move

Day two Ectoberhaunt:  Scream vs Laugh

AO3

It started with a scream. That’s how Clockwork knew it was finally time. 

He hesitated, of course. There was so much to lose, so much still uncertain, paths branching in different directions, moments shrouded imperfectly from his view, strings of fate tangled and misused. But he was the Master of Time. He could hesitate and no one would ever know. 

Not even them. 

Clockwork made a portal, leaving his Clocktower and walking towards a tall grey rock almost as old as time itself, weathered by age and nothing like the statue it had once been standing proud in a garden of overgrown thorns and long dead leaves. Nocturn appeared next to him, a swirl of inky black void scattered with stars and nebulae. 

“Did you hesitate?” he asked. 

It was a valid question. An important one too, if they were to succeed. Clockwork’s hesitation could lead to an uncertain future, to a failure in their plot. And then they would be lost, set back hundreds of thousands of years again. 

“No.”

Nocturn accepted his answer. Perhaps he knew that Clockwork was lying, perhaps he did not. Either way, they both turned to the stone. 

It wasn’t long before the others appeared. 

Misery Vex was the first, then Sojourn, on and on until they all stood, surrounding the stone. 

Misery turned to Clockwork. “Did it take?” she asked, and he flew forward, taking off one of his gloves to run his hand along the smoothed side of the rock. It hummed, an energy unlike any else, unique to here yet everywhere and nowhere at all. Very chaotic indeed. 

“It has.”

She hummed an affirmative, linking her hand in his before reaching out to take Sojourn’s. Clockwork reached for Nocturn and as they all linked together they formed a shield, thick and impenetrable between their varied talents, around the stone. 

“How long will this take,” Vortex said, ever the impatient one. He was jittery, yellow cords of lightning constantly jumping all over him in a nervous jumble, branching in and out of each other like writhing snakes. 

Clockwork sighed. “Not long.”

“You musn’t get too close,” Misery warned.

“I know.”

“You musn’t go too far,” Nocturn reminded him. 

He knew that too. 

“You’ve failed before,” Misery said, her voice steady and calm. She was not wrong, nor accusatory. He had faltered, it had led to a less than ideal outcome. He would not admit this. 

Clockwork didn’t allow any emotion on his face. “The threat is contained. My faults did not lead to the failure of our mission.”

She scoffed. “No, only to ‘inconvenience’. Right?”

As far as she knew. As far as any of them did. They relied on him, to determine if their future would be a success. He was the only one who could see which path to take, what choices would lead to their victory. He was the only one who knew just how thin the chance was, how precarious the choice. It would not benefit them to know. He did not need their doubt.

“Who was it?” Sojourn asked, referring to the scream that had summoned them here. The scream that had echoed hauntingly throughout the entirety of the Infinite Realms. 

Clockwork hadn’t looked. He looked now. 

“A boy, fourteen years old, between child and adult, between living and dead, between here and there.” 

Nocturn smiled, “How fitting.”

The stone shattered. Power and chaos, magic and will swirled around in a tornado, beating against the solid weight of their shield and making what was once so obviously strong seem weak and pitiful in comparison. 

Vortex’s eyes glowed in excitement. It was a sign, they all knew, that things were getting close. 

Eventually the storm faded and all that was left was a weathered pile of ash and rubble where there had once been a stone, where there had once been a statue, where there had once been nothing at all. 

It would come to nothing once more. 

Soon.

  The Infinite Realms had been lifeless for so long. Nothing more than ambient ectoplasm and void. A place. Nothing more and nothing less than it had to be. Many of the denizens had never seen them alive, existing as they once had. The panic was only natural. The frenzy, exciting and new. The heart of it all beating again. 

There was one ghost in particular, of course, who had only known the realms as they existed now. Sure there might also be others, newly made and newly dead, but this one was the important one. He’d been the one to give his life for the life around them now. 

Or at least, he’d given half of it. 

The Observants, of course, were furious. 

They had attempted to hunt down the Ancients, knowing it was they who had done this, who had planned this and then hidden it from the view of those who watch. Vortex had been taken first, as expected, and Undergrowth had fled to the mortal realm. The others also split, the time for them to come together was over; the time to prepare for the end was nearing. 

Clockwork, of course, their ever loyal subservient pet that could not leave his tower without their knowledge, that could not use his power without their permission, he’d never been looked at twice.

“You told us the threat was neutralized.” Nocturn said, sliding up next to one of Clockwork’s monitors. He watched a scene, where Daniel and Pariah fought. It was not a real fight, of course. Pariah had long shed the haze of bloodlust that had driven him mad, and was now attempting to be endearing, to rebuild a trust Clockwork had never actually had in him. 

Clockwork took a sip of his tea. It was made from some of Pariah’s newly grown coraleander leaves and made a thick, murky green tea that Clockwork quite enjoyed the taste and texture of. Unfortunately that was exactly why Pariah had grown them, and while Clockwork had snuck them away like a petty thief, he doubted that the missing leaves had gone even a moment unnoticed. 

It was infuriating and Clockwork sipped at it slowly, savoring it’s warmth.

“He is no longer the King. In fact, there is no King at all, just as I said it would be.”

Nocturn turned to meet his eyes, tilting his head just slightly in suspicion. “Yes, you did. Though I suppose the others thought you meant he would not escape his sleep. Or at least, that he would not escape his sleep until after .”

Clockwork looked away, towards the monitor. Pariah had soundly defeated Daniel and was laughing. Likely at the way the poor boy looked, his hair a mess and covered in the very coraleander leaves Clockwork was drinking. He’d need to wash them off before he transformed back into a human. While they wouldn’t be immediately deadly to a Half-Ghost, they would form a large, hard to explain, rash. 

“That wasn’t what I said though, was it?” Clockwork met Nocturn’s eyes once more. 

The other ghost just snorted and shook his head. “No, no I guess it wasn’t. Clockwork, the tightrope you’re walking, that future you see that you haven’t told us about? I really hope you get it. I do. Because the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows and I can’t imagine what would happen if you missed.”

Clockwork’s tea had gone cold. He continued to sip it. He ignored Nocturn’s words and he watched the screen as Pariah helped Daniel stand, only for Daniel to tackle him when he wasn’t expecting it. 

“I’ll take that under consideration.” 

It was becoming habit, he found, to lie to Nocturn. 

  Daniel was at the Clocktower, eating a plate of cookies and complaining about some of the varied ghosts he had to deal with and fight on a regular basis in his mortal realm. It was a side effect, of course, of Phantom’s new role as the Heart of The Infinite Realms. The smaller, weaker ghosts, especially younger and newly dead ones, had attempted to flee the Realms when they noticed the sudden changes. 

When the Observants had become so busy trying to find the cause of the change, so busy trying to hunt down what was left of Chaos’ children, that they could no longer micro-manage the state of the Realms. Could no longer constantly overstep their authority and keep their tasteless ‘Order’. 

The Realms had become more and more lively and Clockwork had found himself in a perpetual good mood. He took a cookie for himself. Nocturn caught him baking the other day; his expression had been dry as he congratulated Clockwork on his adoption. It was  a pointed accusation. 

He had shoved it to the back of his mind and decided to make some forgoent tea to go with the cookies. He hadn’t offered any to Nocturn. 

Daniel paused in his musings for a moment before speaking again, his voice careful. “I’ve been visiting Pariah.”

Clockwork hummed, not looking away from his screens. “I am aware.”

“Of course you are.” Daniel rolled his eyes. Then he sighed like he didn't know how to bring up what he was going to say next. “Did you… Did you know he was going to get free if you sent me after that key?” 

Ah, so he’d figured it out then. “It was a possibility. Each and every choice you make creates an entirely new future with entirely new consequences.” 

“He doesn’t seem all that bad…” Daniel argued, as if Clockwork was going to disagree with him. Clockwork raised an eyebrow, the one with the scar Pariah had given him, and looked over to him. “I mean, he just. When he first woke up he was really mad right? But like, I’d also be really mad if I finally woke up from a forced coma only to have Vlad there.”

Anyone would really. 

“And even though he sucked Amity Park into the Ghost Zone, no one actually ended up getting hurt. At least, no more than usual in a ghost attack. And I’ve been talking with the other ghosts that have been ‘Challenging’ him and they all say he's a pretty cool teacher… Like, he knows how to fight and he’s good at showing them how they can use their unique powers-”

Clockwork didn’t interrupt Daniel as he rambled. It was rare, at least since he’d been deposed, to hear lists of Pariah’s more positive aspects. It wasn’t uncomfortable so much as mildly frustrating. Was this part of Pariah’s ploy? Get Daniel to fall all over himself to recite poetics about Pariah to Clockwork. He should have learned by now that whatever affection he might hold for him, it would not be enough. Not to stop his plans, and certainly not to stop the others.

“So uh, you know, he seems… chiller. Without the crown and ring and stuff.”

“Yes, it was the Ring of Rage Daniel, what did you think it was used for?” 

There was a small imperceptible shift in Daniel’s expression, as if he’d realized something and made the choice to file the knowledge away for later. He must have learned that from Pariah as well. “So, if there’s things that can change even powerful ghosts like Pariah, are there things that could change, say… one of the Ancients?”

Was Daniel befriending another Ancient? Clockwork smiled, that was good then. He could hold that against them, the weight of his failure to keep an emotional distance wouldn’t be as stark, if another Ancient or two fell just as easily to Daniel’s pleasant company. He could use that, he simply had to find out which of them it was. Perhaps Sojourn? He was always soft for children, but Clockwork hadn’t been aware of him returning to the Barrens lately, and Daniel rarely went any further than the Time Locked Lands or the Far Frozen. 

“It is good to befriend others Daniel,” he says halfheartedly, searching through his mirrors to locate Sojourn, “but remember not to trust too easily. You never know the goals of those around you, if they might be using you towards their own ends.”

“Of course,” Daniel replied, his voice hard. 

Clockwork looked over to him, he was staring at the dregs of his tea, expression dark. 

“Would you like more tea?” Clockwork offered, wondering what had plummeted the boy’s attitude so suddenly. 

Daniel looked up, a small smile on his lips, “Yes Please.”

Clockwork left to make more, his mind still trying to find which Ancient Daniel had befriended. 

  “The Observants are completely ignorant of your machinations,” Pariah said as Clockwork entered his study. “Of course, they don’t know you as well as they think.”

Clockwork should stop visiting him. Should never have started, a fact that Nocturn was only too happy to remind him of. Sometimes Clockwork wondered if Nocturn got his taste of Chaos from Clockwork's mistakes, he seemed so dedicated to reveling in them. 

“I didn’t come here to talk about the Observants. I have my fill without the need to remark upon them when absent from their presence.” Clockwork was scowling. He could hide his irritation, but despite his lies and trickery he was hardly an accomplished actor. 

Pariah chuckled, flipping another page in the thick book he’d been reading. The title was faded, but Clockwork recognized it easily enough. It was a detailed history of the Infinite Realms after King Dark had been sealed away. It was a long history, though not as long as the history that came before his reign entirely. 

It was also the exact kind of thing Pariah would read cover to cover, like the obsessive monster he was. 

“I suppose you came to warn me away from your ward then?” Pariah asked, his voice casual. Clockwork scoffed, allowing a roll of his eyes before floating over to Pariah’s shelves and grabbing one of the books that looked recently used. It was about old soul binding rituals, much like what had happened to Fright Knight. It was amusing, the thought that Pariah’s oldest friend might still be whining about his little curse. 

“Hardly,” Clockwork said, idly flipping through the pages, “if I could control Daniel I never would have let him near you to begin with.”

Pariah smiled, placing his own book down. “Yes, I imagine you wouldn’t have. It would be a mistake to let me get close to him and realize he is the reason the Infinite Realms have started to sing.”

He’d figured it out then. Of course that wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. Unlike the Observants, Pariah was wickedly intelligent and fully capable of coming to the appropriate conclusions. “Sing? An interesting way to describe it.”

Arms encircled his waist and Clockwork was pulled back into a warm chest. Pariah’s chin rested on Clockwork’s shoulder as he spoke softly into his ear. “Is it enough? The realms feel alive, weaker ghosts are fleeing or banding together once more. It resembles the time we once had, between Chaos and Order. Will you stop here?”

“There’s nothing more I can do,” he lied. 

Pariah hummed an agreement and reached out to flip a few pages through the book Clockwork had been holding. There was a beautifully illustrated drawing of a necklace, bewitched and layered in curses. Pariah must have memorized the pages, of course. “Would you wear jewelry if I made it for you? I would see you decked in gold and finery if I could.”

Clockwork slammed the book closed, just missing Pariah’s fingers. He didn’t think about the earrings Pariah had once gifted him, or how he wore them even now, dangling hidden beneath his hood. “You should know better than to ask that.” 

He felt a smile against his neck. “Then I won’t ask.”

  He held the Thermos in his hand. 

The other Daniel was a menace, truly. But he would not be so desperate to ruin Daniel’s life anymore. It had been long enough for him to realize that his existence was no longer predicated on Daniel’s decisions, or on the loss of his family. 

It would change him, of course. The knowledge that he exists in the same time as his once family will either soften his grief, or sharpen its edges. There were so many paths he could take, and Clockwork could not see them all, did not bother to look much further than the distance he needed him for. 

There was something more important than his grief that he and Clockwork had in common. Something Daniel and Pariah likely had in common with them as well: the detestation of the Observants. 

Clockwork opened the thermos, releasing Daniel’s worst nightmare and not thinking about how the young half-ghost had given it to him so easily, had trusted him so quickly when all Clockwork had done was protect his human family one time. 

The other, once possible, Daniel appeared in an explosion of light and matter and immediately attacked, using his claws to scratch at Clockwork’s face. He was prepared for that though, years trapped in a thermos had eroded much of Dan’s more refined aspects. It would work in Clockworks favor of course, he had made sure of that.

For now, Clockwork froze time and moved behind him. That way his wild attack would meet nothing but ambient ectoplasm and Clockwork could speak his piece. Provided his piece took less than a second to speak.

He allowed time to flow and watched as the other Daniel floundered, confused, only to instantly realize just what Clockwork had done and turn around, ready to attack once more. Clockwork smiled as their eyes met and asked, “Would you like to End the Observants and their Order?”

the other Daniel attacked him, but Clockwork could see the consideration in his eyes. The thought had been implanted, now all he had to do was sit back and watch. the other Daniel had always been rather good at ruining things after all. 

“CLOCKWORK!” Daniel yelled, flying frantically into the Clocktower. “Clockwork Dan escaped somehow! He attacked Amity Park!” 

His desperate flight slowed when he saw Clockwork floating casually at his screens as he always had. He was watching a specific screen now, and pulled the image onto the largest one to share with Daniel. “Yes, I know.”

Daniel looked between him and the screen, his expression growing more and more confused. “But, he was here though. Locked up. How did he escape?”

Clockwork didn’t turn to look at him. “I’m sorry Daniel,” he lied. “Your trust in me was misplaced. He escaped while I was distracted with another matter and I was unable to stop him. It’s my fault.”

Daniel’s eyes widened, searching for something in Clockwork’s expression, and then in Clockwork’s screens. The only thing he saw though, was the other Daniel causing havoc and destruction. After visiting Amity Park and re-traumatising Daniel’s sister, the other Daniel had been driven away by Daniel, whose power had become far superior in the time since they had last met. It was only natural of course, Daniel’s existence was unique and far beyond that of Dan’s mangled pieced together form of conflicting obsessions and damaged cores. 

It was possible, Clockwork knew, for the other Daniel to stabilize properly. Perhaps he could become a proper ghost, perhaps he could stop attempting to restrict what humanity he had left. Either way, it did not matter in the end. If anything, his existence was a fun riddle that would play itself out long after Clockwork’s plans came to fruition. 

Clockwork looked over at Daniel, his expression hidden behind the shadows of his hood. The boy was staring emptily at the corner of the Clocktower that led to the inner dungeons where the other Daniel had been hidden away.  After a moment he turned away, hiding his own expression, and began to walk. As if his legs had become too heavy to fly. 

“It’s fine. I’ll get him back. It won’t happen again.” There was a promise in his voice and it softened to be almost inaudible entirely. “I won’t let it.”

After he left, Clockwork turned back to the screen with the other Daniel on it. He was finished terrorizing the ghost from before, and was now floating listlessly in the void of the Infinite Realms. Likely, he was warring with his obsessions- or his emotions- it was hard to tell which. Eventually though, he shook his head, looked up as if to catch Clockwork’s eye, and flew off.

In the direction of the Observants. 

  It’s eyeball was glaring at him, the normally dull yellow of it’s sclera bright with fury. “You were given responsibility over him! You were entrusted to keep him from destroying the Realms!”

Clockwork’s own eye twitched as he fought back an eyeroll. Those who Watch were as predictable as ever, not showing up at the moment of Dan’s release but instead at the moment he began to take his rage out on the Observants. Their responsibilities had always been superfluous though, a vague excuse to do as they pleased in the name of Order. 

“I failed. He escaped. Woe is me.” He floated over to one of his more intricate gadgets and began to tinker with it, pretending to be busy. “Surely an Order such as yours, full of powerful ghosts that command the Realms, did not come to me in fear though? He attacked you directly, does that not make your vow of inaction void?”

“ You-! ”

“Of course, it would be different if you simply couldn’t defeat him. But… he’s only a decade dead. That would be an embarrassment.”

The other Observant that had come to scold (and demand his servitude) floated in front of its companion so as to cut off a likely incensed reaction. “He’s an abomination, and an amalgamation. Surely you can understand why we wanted him dealt with before it came to this.”

Clockwork inclined his head, playing at civility. “Perhaps then, you should seek to work alongside Phantom. I have it on relatively good authority he’s also trying to deal with your resident menace.”

Both of the Observants took his suggestion as an insult, one even growing red with it. “That Abomination? He should be destroyed along with it!”

“Pity,” Clockwork said, turning back to the screens and watching as the other Daniel tore the core out of another Observant’s chest and crushed it in his palm. He wasn’t even absorbing them for their power. It was a waste, but Clockwork was certain it was a waste born of trauma. Dan’s creation had, after all, been due to a botched absorption with a powerful ghost core. “You can leave now.”

“You must deal with this.”

“I will deal with it when the time is right,” he said in lieu of an answer. 

The Observants, disgruntled and unwilling to leave, as if hiding in Clockwork’s lair would somehow protect them, made comment after comment demanding his action and threatening punishment should he fail. He replied with sarcasm and an aloof attitude that soon had them leaving out the door if only to try and do what they could to tighten his bonds. 

He sighed, there was time still. He should make cookies, that always seemed to calm him, help him to exist in the present and not become impatient for what is yet to be. He headed to the kitchen, only to see an unexpected visitor at his table. 

“Nocturn, you’re early.”

The other Ancient nodded. “Yes, your plan seems to have worked flawlessly. The Authority of the Observants has been shaken. Much of the power they had gained through fear and reputation has dwindled, but…”

Clockwork raised an eyebrow as he opened his cabinets. There was egyptian sand flour left over, it would be dryer than using something more modern, but the age would add a good aftertaste. He just needed to add extra Honey-Wasp bits from the outskirts of The Undergrowth and that should balance it. Maybe some purified ectoplasm. Pariah gifted him a jar after he had somehow managed to create a device to filter it from the Infinite Realms. 

He had also made an absolutely unsubtle offer to join him in his new ‘sauna’ that Clockwork had pointedly refused. 

“But?” he prompted, there was little information he could glean from silence. 

Nocturn watched him prepare the batter. He sighed and stood, grabbing a knife and helping to mince the Honey-Wasps before speaking again. “But they still have their numbers, and much of their actual power. And Clockwork, Pariah has made his move.”

“I know,” Clockwork admitted, “but is that not in our favor as well?”

“Not if he takes more power from them, Pariah on his own is not a fight we can accept lightly. Anything more being beholden to him is hardly something I wish to see.” 

Clockwork cracked a Kraken’s egg into the mixture and moved the bowl closer to Nocturn so he could scoop the Honey-Wasp bits into it as well, without losing any of the juice. Mixing it would be troublesome, some of the more experimental batters attempted to gain sentience and would try to escape the bowl. “It will work in our favor either way. the other Daniel caused havoc, their power was broken across the realms. Pariah is merely salting the ground we have burned.” 

He used a dull knife to cut into the batter and stirred, stopping any attempts at formation. Nocturn grabbed the bowl from him, forcing eye contact. “What if he seeks something else?”

“Haven’t I already escaped the chains he bound me in before?” Clockwork laughed. “Do I not have allies that would find short work of cutting chains that I did not allow to bind me?”

The bowl was set back down and Clockwork and Nocturn both made short work of dividing the dough and setting it into the oven. “We could not break the bindings of the Observants,” Nocturn said as Clockwork closed the oven door. 

“That is different, that was part of our plans. They needed to never suspect me, if we were to get this far.” Clockwork waved him off. “Would you like a cookie?”

“We have to wait for them to cook, Clockwork.” Nocturn said, exasperated.

Clockwork simply rolled his eyes and increased the time surrounding the oven. “I don’t wait.”

Daniel hadn’t visited again since Clockwork allowed the other Daniel  to escape. It was possible, he admitted in the back of his mind, that Daniel blamed him for what happened. As well he should. Yet, the thought left a sour taste in his mouth. 

He was watching the screens again. Aiming them in every direction he could to see everything as it played out. Most were occupied by the remnants of the Order he had set about decimating. A few were dedicated to their interconnected Lair, the place where they held their play courts and kept their prisoners. It was where they kept Vortex before he was freed. One screen though, was aimed at Pariah’s Keep. 

It had been a simple thing that Clockwork had neither encouraged nor discouraged, Daniel’s visits with Pariah. But now that Clockwork’s own visits had come to an end, it had become something distinctly bitter, a feeling that was building in his chest, where his core hummed, that Clockwork was ignoring with all the practice of a man dead set on his goals. 

Daniel would visit again, of course. Clockwork could even tell the exact date and time, or at least the most likely ones. He didn’t look at the futures where Daniel never came back, there was no point in uselessly fretting about it. He’d be fine, there were more important things to deal with now. 

He could feel the pressure of his binds loosening as more and more of the Observants were hunted down. Not all of them were ended by Dan, of course. They had made many enemies. Both Vortex and Undergrowth had gone out of their way to visit quite a number themselves, along with a few of the other Ancients. Clockwork was certainly tempted to do so, alas, the restrictions upon him prevented it still. And the only way for those restrictions to end was for those wielding the reins to End. And well, then there wouldn’t be anyone left to take his ire out upon would there? 

Instead he allowed his own part in their demise to be enough for his bruised ego and the millennia of torment he’d undergone beneath them. Then he ate a cookie and kept watch of his screens. 

Pariah was teaching Daniel how to use a sword. Pandora had attempted to teach him swordsmanship but Daniel had been disinclined to it. He wasn’t particularly elegant to be fair, and the finesse and practiced movement of Pandora’s sword was more akin to an art than anything else. Her limbs risked entanglement if she wasn’t careful and had developed a style suited to such. 

Daniel was much more inclined to blunt, ferocious movements. He often thought with his fist before anything else, even as a ghost with a multitude of powers to command. He used speed and strength to win and outmaneuver his opponents and despite his lack of polish, he often won due to those two traits alone. Pariah was a talented teacher, in that he was clearly taking what Daniel had already in ample supply, and taught him how to wield it appropriately to its maximum use. 

He was still only beginning of course, but Daniel was a fast learner and had grown significantly in a short period of time. 

Clockwork had toyed with the idea of taking Daniel on as an official apprentice once or twice before. Teaching him how to exist beyond the means which he had become accustomed to as a human. While he would not have Clockwork’s inclination for time specifically, Daniel’s connection to the Realms would allow him a level of control over his surroundings and the beings that exist in them that simply does not exist in anyone outside of the Ancients. And even then, Clockwork’s Time was different enough from the others’ domains to be unique in and of itself in a similar vein to Daniel’s powers. Even if they’d only just barely begun to show. 

But it was a risk to do so before everything else came to fruition. If Daniel realized his plans, it would be troublesome. He likely would not agree to the lengths Clockwork is willing to reach, and more than that, there is no guarantee that his existence as half human would not have him attempting to side with Order over Chaos. No, it was better to wait and see how it all played out first. There wasn’t much left to do before the end. 

Yes it would lead to anger. Perhaps even to hatred. It would be fitting for Clockwork. He had never known a love that had yet to turn. That had truly been any kind of unconditional. 

But he would be free. 

Finally, finally free. 

Free from this horrid linear existence, free from his servitude, free from his bonds. The root of him, the core, had been born from Chaos, from the mess of all things and no things, and like any child wishing to cradle in the arms of its mother, Clockwork longed once more for it. 

He had been patient, as had the others. There was little left to do. 

  When Daniel finally visited again Clockwork had made cookies. 

They resembled human chocolate chips, if one squinted, and Clockwork had made sure to take them out of the oven just as Daniel arrived so they would be warm.

“There you are Daniel,” he greeted. The cookies were still moving and he had to give the tray he was holding a bit of a shake to get them to stop. He doubted Daniel would eat them if he thought they were alive. 

The boy didn’t look well. He had deep bags under his eyes, and a skittish, weary look about him. 

Clockwork clicked his tongue. “You need to sleep,” he said, not waiting for Daniel to speak. 

“What?” The boy lifted his head, confused. 

“I said, you should sleep.” Clockwork grabbed one of the amulets from the wall and placed it around Daniel’s neck. “I’ll stop time for a few hours, you can sleep here if you want.”

Daniel just blinked. “Oh.”

Nodding, Clockwork turned back to his screens so he could keep watch. Nocturn had warned that Pariah was making his move and Clockwork was determined to keep an eye on him now, when the timing was most crucial. 

He felt a tug on his sleeve. 

“Clockwork…”

He looked down to catch Daniel’s eyes. “Yes?”

“Nothing,” he sighed, “thanks.” He grabbed the amulet in one hand, a torn expression on his face. Then he floated off to the room Clockwork had given him to sleep.

Watching as his ward wandered off, Clockwork waited until he was out of sight to grab hold of time and let it rest for a moment. It was the least he could do. 

It wasn’t long after their fall that the final thread snapped and Clockwork opened his eyes in triumph. Everything was available to him now. There were no hidden futures, no shrouded pasts. His screens multiplied around him as even his Lair was freed from its limits. Like a beast stretching from a long hibernation, Clockwork lost himself to his Obsession, revelled in the freedom he had long gambled away. 

The Infinite Realms felt it as he left the Clocktower for no reason other than because he wanted to and he didn’t have to ask. He didn’t have to come up with some convoluted reason as to why this was perfectly acceptable before his own body allowed him to leave the doors of his own Lair. It felt wonderful, he almost took down his hood to see everything around him with the eyes of a free spirit. 

He didn’t though, it would be too much of a hassle to wrangle his hair back and he didn’t really want someone to see him so freely bared. It was enough in every way, that he was finally free. 

“I almost forgot how powerful you were, Clockwork.” He turned to see Misery Vex, lounging comfortably just outside his lair. “The Eyes Around Us are gone then?”

Clockwork nodded, looking to the future, looking to the past. She had been waiting here for him, but not for long. And she wouldn’t have waited much longer. “Are you ready for what happens next?” he asked. 

“Are you?”

He nodded again. There weren’t any more preparations to make, how could he be anything but ready?

They didn’t meet at the Clocktower this time. 

It was no longer necessary after all. This time they met in the night. The soft evening of eternal sleep and dreams, Nocturn’s lair. It was spacious if nothing else, and creative with its decoration. Should one of them wish to sit, they merely needed to chance sitting and see if the space around them would accommodate. It suited him immensely. 

“Have you found her yet?” Misery asked.

Sojourn nodded, a small enthusiastic smile hidden under his beard. “Yes, Clockwork and I were able to locate her shattered core amongst Pandora’s boxes.”

“ It will not be easy to receive her, and it will only be more difficult to revive her,” Nocturn warned, “especially if we wish to keep this to ourselves. Rather than risk the entirety of the realms turning on us as they did the Observants.”

Clockwork nodded, “we shouldn’t do much in more than pairs. Sojourn and Misery should seek Pandora. Nocturn and I can set the ritual once the pieces are complete.”

“And the rest of us?” Undergrowth scowled, he hated Nocturn’s lair. It was cold and empty, barren of any more physical matters and there was nowhere for him to take root. Clockwork suspected half of the reason it was that way was intended to irritate Undergrowth specifically. 

Sojourn clapped his hands together and smiled, his eagerness truly knew no bounds and his obvious delight was nearly infectious. “You’re our escape plan of course! We’ll need help once we locate the right box, Pandora’s obsession is hardly a good one to be on the wrong side of.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Vortex grinned.

Clockwork couldn’t help but agree, what are they waiting for indeed? 

  “What is Chaos, Clockwork?” Daniel asked. But Clockwork was distracted.

He hadn’t expected Daniel to show up today, he hadn’t paid attention to it. There was so much to do, so much to get ready for. The time was now after all. 

He took care to answer anyways, the changes that were to come would affect the boy. At least a little. He was strong enough that he would thrive in Chaos, and it would help to nurture his Obsession, if the weaker denizens of the Realms needed help. And they would

“Chaos was the first, how it all began. Everything started with Chaos or nothing could have been at all.” 

Daniel frowned, a small furrow in his brow. “That… didn’t really-“

Clockwork paused for a moment. “Is something wrong Daniel?”

He sighed. “So if you were made from Chaos, is she like, your mother?”

“No. Chaos is not sentient so much as conceptual.” Clockwork frowned, “though I suppose she predated concepts as well if she was the first. Chaos was neither one thing nor many things. It’s safe to say Chaos was everything and everything came from her. But that did not make her nurturing” 

Clockwork looked back at Daniel, letting time flow smoothly once more. It wouldn’t do to delay. 

There was a hint of something in Daniel’s eyes, a wariness that Clockwork had never seen before. It must have been due to their conversation, but Clockwork couldn’t place what about it would have Daniel on edge. Chaos would not be any more a threat to him than it would be the other Ancients. 

“Clockwork, if Chaos came back…” he paused, as if the words had been stuck in his throat, “what would happen to the humans? The mortals?” 

What a strange question. “Life would not exist as it does now, utter chaos would not permit it.”

It had been something of a sport, to watch Sojourn and Misery in their attempts to find and excavate the remnants of the Core of Chaos. Clockwork and Nocturn had watched it from the safety and comfort of Clockwork’s lair, on the largest of his screens. 

“They’re having fun aren’t they?” Nocturn mused, taking a sip of his tea. He’d made it himself in Clockwork’s kitchen, had been insistent about it when he’d seen Clockwork start to make his own.

“Pandora is a valiant warrior and a good fighter. Misery has been on the sidelines for some time since the end of Pariah’s court.” Clockwork’s tea was cold. He frowned and set it aside.

“Yes, it’s good to see her stretching her limbs. I hadn’t seen all of them since her last fight.”

Clockwork thought back, the fight Nocturn was referring to played on one of the smaller screens. It was a gladiator based competition, where Pariah had sent her as a member of his court to show his power. She had challenged the Lord of Little Crawlers to a duel and shredded him to pieces before even five minutes had passed. Then she had collected herself, reset her veil, and gone right back to Pariah’s Keep. 

Now she was using every extra limb she could against Pandora, swords clashing with long knitting needles and strings of silk. Watching the fight was mesmerizing to be sure, almost akin to a dance, if not for the frustrated vulgarities being thrown around and Sojourn’s overly eager cheering from the back.

“Do you think they’ll make it?”

“Sojourn will remember what they’re supposed to be doing when he almost drops one of the boxes held in his arms. Upon that realization he will sneak away while Pandora is distracted and meet with the others. From there they will come here with their spoils and it will be our turn to prove our worth.” Clockwork answered, easily detailing the future ahead of them. 

Nocturn nodded and took a sip of his tea.

  It didn’t happen exactly like Clockwork had predicted. But it was close enough. Sojourn had bypassed Vortex and Undergrowth completely and simply flown straight to Clockwork‘s lair on his own. Nocturn spared Clockwork a glance, but he remained unaffected. It was still on track to be an ideal future. 

Once Sojourn entered his lair Clockwork grabbed hold of time with his hand and twisted , forcing it to bend and still under his palm. The trip to the Cave was only a step after that and once there, he let loose and released time to settle amicably around them.

“Amazing,” Sonourn said, “I do think I’d like to travel this way more often. It’s quite convenient.”

Nocturn patted him on the shoulder and grabbed one of the delicately detailed boxes he’d been balancing precariously in his arms. “You’d need to be very careful if you did, there’s no telling what might get caught up in all that twisting and turning.”

“It won’t matter much longer after this,” Clockwork said, taking his own box. 

The entirety of Chaos was not here, her core long since mostly destroyed, but there was enough to recreate something should they use the ritual they had devised. 

It needed to be hidden, so they had found a cave. It was ancient, and once thought to be a reliable doorway into the spiritual and mortal realms, every wall was covered in ancient arts and writings. No rhyme or reason between them, a bit of a mess conceptually, but perfect for their purposes. Once Vortex had destroyed it in the mortal realm, it had been simple enough to recreate, especially using Undergrowth and Misery Vex’s powers. 

Most ghosts dared not travel here, where they placed it. It was a deeper part of the Infinite Realms, where the pressures of the ambient ectoplasm was strong enough to kill even some of the more stable spirits, certainly more than any Watcher could have ever handled. 

Clockwork gathered the ashes in the center of their chosen chamber. Three rights from the first left. Nocturn moved around the edges, the walls solid and firm under his hands as he tested them. And Sojourn, setting his own box aside, lit the flames. 

It began. 

They had known the work would be hard, tedious even. Most mortals, when they picture rituals like this, imagine chanting and holding hands, perhaps some use of indomitable will. But this was far more personal, more hands on.

Clockwork took the broken edge of a shattered piece of core, and began to mold it, shaping and soothing it into a puzzle-like shape. He had spent time looking into human carpentry practices, and had come across the traditional Chinese techniques of Lu Ban. 

It had taken more than a human lifetime to learn it properly and then suit it to his own needs, but he put it into practice now, shaping the shattered pieces anew and slotting them together so that they might fit and stay snug.

Sojourn had weaved together layer after layer of treated ectoplasm into a fine cloth and was now sewing it into a fitted dress, each stitch small and tidy, seamless against the weave. 

The one who stoked the flame, who kept its energy strong and the newly forming core well fed, was Nocturn. He kept a measured gaze upon it, not once turning away or getting distracted. 

This continued for an eternity, the creation, or recreation, of something both ancient and now new was exhaustive work. But eventually, Clockwork felt a hum. A small, weak thing that would have left him breathless had he needed to breathe. 

Chaos was born again, though faint, though weak. Not anything close to what she once was, but still, she was there, feeding on the flames of her own ashes, pieces of her own core held together and finally finding life. 

They needed to keep going. This was delicate work, if they got distracted, if there was even one misstep, it would be over. Chaos would be what she is now, what they made of her, and not what she needed to be. 

The fire went out.

“ Damn ,” Nocturn hissed, quickly turning to look around. He did not bother to relight the flame, it was too late. Clockwork felt hollow, had they truly failed? But how? 

He acted quickly, bundling the newly formed and still fragile core into Sojourn’s half sewn garment and thrusting it fully into the other Ancient’s hands. 

“You are the fastest of us, run, hide her away before we lose her entirely.” Sojourn nodded solemnly, flying quickly through the winding tunnels that led out of the cave. 

Nocturn scowled, “whoever is there should be glad I am merciful. Come out now and I shall forgo eternal torment for a quick End.”

There was only silence. 

Clockwork was growing irritated himself and looked to the future, only to see Nocturn tackled into a wall by a familiar black and white blur. 

“Daniel?!” He said, his thoughts screeching to a halt. But, there was no way. He couldn’t have followed them. He would have had to know about the cave and been lying in wait for the exact moment to-

There was a soft sound, like the clinking of a delicate chain, as Clockwork felt a weight upon his neck. All at once he felt the universe stand still, as if he had been trapped in the moment, the singular moment no longer able to spread himself beyond. It was cloying, claustrophobic. Something he never thought he’d experience again. 

And he knew who was behind it. 

“You’ve always been impatient my dear.” Pariah spoke softly, his lips far too close. 

Clockwork fled, slipping between moments to force space between them almost on instinct alone. Pariah simply let him go, a smug smile on his face. No, he wasn’t supposed to be here. How did he know about this place?

What had he placed on Clockwork’s neck?

He lifted a hand, not taking his eyes off of Pariah in case he decided to get any closer, and felt around his neck. It was a chain, delicate and just long enough to have slid over his head and dangle its pendant at a point on his chest, just above the glass. The shape of it was vaguely familiar, but Clockwork couldn’t place it.

“What have you done to me?” he asked, using anger to hide the tremble in his voice.

Pariah’s expression softened and he took a step forward. “Did I not say I would see you decked in gold?”

No…

The necklace…

It had been a cursed necklace, layered in charms meant for protection that slowly twisted into possession and control. It shouldn’t have been strong enough to cause any trouble at all to Clockwork, if something this simple had worked, Pariah would have used it long ago in the peak of his madness. 

Clockwork grabbed the chain, intending to rip it off, but Pariah spoke, startling him. “I wouldn’t, you’ll only hurt yourself.”

“Then why did you put it on me?” he tugged at the chain in emphasis, without his strength. Pariah never warned for no reason. 

The bastard smiled, like Clockwork had asked a stupid question, one he should know the answer to. Clockwork scowled, and moved further away from him. His back hit a wall. The cave, while earlier it had been comforting, a sign that eternal chaos was close at hand, that all Clockwork had done was paying off in the end, it was now more reminiscent of a stone cage. 

A trap.

He’d walked straight into a trap, one Pariah had been laying since he awoke. And Clockwork had never paid it any heed, had not bothered with his machinations because he assumed Pariah would be too slow, had thought whatever he did would be too weak. He had underestimated him, and now Pariah Dark was walking towards him, a lion stalking its prey.

Clockwork froze time.

He was still moving. Clockwork had frozen time and Pariah was still moving . 

It shouldn’t have been possible, there was nothing restricting Clockwork’s power in that way. He felt the threads of all existence tangled around him, grabbed the ones moving forward and tugged, sharp, desperate, to keep them still. He felt them still. 

Pariah kept moving though. 

“How-?” Everything else had frozen, all around them was silence and the only things that moved were the two of them. It was a strange kind of dance, one stepping closer and the other floating away. 

“I made it myself, the charm. It ties you to me, obviously.” Pariah caught him, gently because he didn’t need to use force, didn’t need to use any of the almost limitless strength behind him. “It’s based off the contract you signed with the Observants, I hadn’t honestly expected it to be so blatantly one sided when I read it. Though I suppose it was on purpose, a miscalculation on your part, in the end.”

Clockwork pulled his hand away, but Pariah simply moved with the action and stepped closer, crowding against him. “It doesn’t work like that,” Clockwork said through clenched teeth. A one-sided contract that gave away so much of himself was necessary. It was also only possible because Clockwork had signed it. Pariah couldn’t mimic that without Clockwork’s consent, that wasn’t how it worked. That wasn’t how any of this was supposed to work. 

Pariah hummed in agreement. “It wouldn’t be, if that was all I did.” He brushed a lock of hair from Clockwork’s eyes. “The Order of the Observants was in chaos. They were desperate. They wanted someone powerful to protect them. They were willing to give anything for the possibility they might find safety.”

Then he pulled out a medallion of his own, a horribly familiar one.

Oh.

So that was all it took…

Pariah was right, it had been a miscalculation indeed. 

“Even if they gave me to you, the contract dissolved with the Order. I felt it break.” 

“It did,” Pariah took hold of one of Clockwork’s hands and held it to his lips in a kiss, “But I had you for long enough. Long enough to bind you to myself instead. All it took was some craftswork.”

He let go of Clockwork’s hand to touch the pendant hanging from his neck instead. It was a gentle, reverent touch, as if thanking the damned thing for its work in keeping Clockwork trapped for him. “Luckily I was up to date on all the most prominent binding curses. I have a friend who suffers from such an affliction after all.”

“Fuck you.” 

Pariah laughed, a genuine surprised chuckle that truly lit him up from the inside. His eyes were so warm, his hands burned like brands, and Clockwork wanted nothing more than to tear out his other eye with his teeth. “Come Clockwork, you’ve failed. Let’s go home.” 

  Pariah led him back to the Clocktower, his lair. His home and prison. Clockwork stormed past him once they were inside. “And what is your plan now? I can’t imagine I’d be much use in subjecuting the Realms, as you can see I’m quite traitorous by nature. All of my previous masters can attest.”

“Then it’s good I’m keeping you for your sense of humor,” Pariah said as he closed the door behind him. 

It was the first time Pariah Dark had ever been inside Clockwork’s lair. Pariah had always been a cautious ghost, it made sense that he wouldn’t allow himself the vulnerability of being inside another powerful ghost’s lair, a place where they quite literally held all of the power and had all of the control. 

The irony of course, was that the moment Pariah had stepped inside, it was Clockwork that felt vulnerable. Exposed like a raw nerve, every part of him standing on end, tightly coiled and ready to flee. 

“How is this exactly how I have always envisioned it?” Pariah says dryly, his eyes roaming freely, invasively over every nook and cranny. Every randomly placed cog and haphazard ticking machine. It was a chaotic mess, naturally, it was Clockwork. 

Clockwork picked up a twentieth century alarm clock and weighed it in his hands before chucking it as hard as he could towards Pariah. The bastard caught it, of course. And Clockwork scowled.

“Did you often picture yourself waltzing into my Lair?”

Pariah set the clock down carefully, as if it would break. As if it were truly a piece of Clockwork himself. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t have. You were certainly at home in mine.”

“Oh please, half the Realms has access to your Lair. We are not the same.” Clockwork scoffed, crossing his arms and floating awkwardly in the middle of the room. He didn’t want to be any closer to Pariah, but neither did he want to risk being backed into a wall again . It seemed a recurring treat for Pariah, to cage him in that way. 

There was a touch of mischief in Pariah’s smile when he replied. “Perhaps we can change that, would you like more visitors?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

Clockwork grabbed another trinket to throw, this one he had pried from the walls. Pariah handled that just as easily, an uncomfortable expression aimed at the destroyed part of Clockwork’s wall. He was truly the most obnoxious perfectionist. If Clockwork’s mangled mess of a lair was going to bother him he shouldn’t have bothered to come inside.

In fact, if he was going to be disappointed so easily he shouldn’t have chained him in the first place. It wasn’t as if the bindings guaranteed something like loyalty. They couldn’t even force him to act should he not wish to. Clockwork wasn’t going to change from how he had been for eons under the damn Eyes. 

“Why did you do this?” Clockwork asked, “And don’t dare say it’s only because you said you would. You may be meticulous but you are not beholden to simple words.”

Pariah had fixed his wall. And was now attempting to reinstate the very same decoration Clockwork had used as ammunition. It was strangely domestic to see and Clockwork felt rage simmer and build. Would he simply make himself at home then? Perhaps he would seek to combine their lairs in a twisted amalgamation so that he might seek order where it damn well did not belong.

“You were going to leave.” 

What a useless excuse. “Did you lose your ability to reason permanently to that crown?”

This time it was Pariah that rolled his eyes. “Obviously not, if I was able to out-fox Clockwork of all ghosts.”

“You had help.” Clockwork said through grit teeth. He wouldn’t ask who, he didn’t think he could handle having it confirmed.

Pariah’s eyes sparkled. “So you knew?”

“I figured it out.”

“Feeling very betrayed, Clockwork?” This time Pariah’s smile was sharp, a vicious little thing that certainly made him more recognizable as the fallen tyrant he actually was. 

Clockwork refused to rise to the bait. He did not regret, it was impossible to feel regret when every single decision he’d ever made had been so thoroughly calculated. “I wasn’t going to leave. Where would I even go, Pariah?”

“You were leaving me.” Pariah walked towards him, quicker than his usual slow prowl. Clockwork had chanced a step back himself but it only served to darken Pariah’s expression further so he stilled instead and allowed himself to be caught and held. Pariah’s hands were heavy, one landing on his hip and the other reaching for his wrist. “You were disappearing to the flows of Time, one minute here and the next somewhere no one could follow you. You speak of chaos and the freedom it would give you, but you lie to yourself when you say that is all that you desire. The freedom you had so desperately sought, how lonely would it have been.”

Pariah had not been able to talk after that, too busy weathering Clockwork’s sudden violent outrage. 

Nocturn was the first to visit him, to see Clockwork’s anger, his desperate lashing out. He had the same expression he’d always had when the topic of Pariah or Daniel had come up. The look of undisguised pity, as if he had known from the start that Clockwork would fail, that he would be chained in this way, the moment his freedom was closer than at any other time. 

“We do not hate you for your failure, Clockwork,” Nocturn said, and Clockwork bared his teeth. It had been sometime since he’d carved out an eye in petty vengeance but he was not above making it a hobby.

Nocturn simply kept his distance, just one step away with one of those damned medallions around his neck, stopping Clockwork from freezing him in place in his own lair. “You’ve always been easily twisted by affection, too willing to be tied down with familiarity.”

His words hurt, like an arrow piercing through Clockwork’s chest. He hadn’t thought it would be so literal, hadn’t taken Pariah’s threats seriously. Had believed, genuinely, that he would be able to escape whatever bonds Pariah had fashioned for him. Had not thought to protect himself thoroughly enough and now all was for naught. Nocturn said he harbored no ill will, but he should . 

And Clockwork was distraught that he did not. 

He deflated and Nocturn floated closer, just within range. But Clockwork’s arms hung heavy, and he was exhausted now, the weight of it all too much. “You should. Chaos is lost to us.” he spoke, his voice barely audible.

“Yes,” Nocturn acquiesced, “but Chaos was lost to us long ago. It was a child’s hope, that we could get it back.”

“You are content then? To rot in containment in an infinite realm of order and stability?”

A laugh escaped Nocturn, perplexing Clockwork and only flaring his temper worse. The other Ancient didn’t even try to hide as he fell into a laughing fit. “I would not be, no. But my oldest friend, I am not the one in containment. I have always known you look too much towards the forest and its tallest trees, very rarely have you ever noticed the grass or the leaves.”

“Speak sense,” Clockwork snapped. It was his job to speak in riddles, he had little patience to hear them now. 

Nocturn did not call him on his hypocrisy though, instead he shook his head and floated closer, relaxing next to Clockwork as if they were two friends taking tea. “It was not, as you believed, an all or nothing gamble.”

“Was it not?”

“No, the realms are back to Anarchy as they should be. The Observants were the last hold in their attempts to tame them, and they have been destroyed. There is no King, not even a sleeping one, and Chaos exists.”

Clockwork listened, the cold weight of failure that had settled in his chest chipped and cracked as Nocturn spoke on. “She does not exist as she had.”

“But perhaps this is a better way,” Nocturn pondered, “last time, Chaos reigned so supreme it seemed all were insistent to seek order. Then order reigned supreme and we sought Chaos. Perhaps now, with the Realms alive once more, and order and Chaos in balance, it will last instead.”

Nocturn placed a hand on the top of Clockwork’s head, petting his hair. “The other Ancients and I shall seek our fun, and find ways to exist in this new existence. It is only you, I am afraid, that will remain trapped.”

Clockwork slapped his hand away, “How comforting, Nocturn. Do you also go to the newly dead and tell them not to weep, at least they were the ones that died and not others?”

Nocturn’s hand returned to pull his hood down over his face and Clockwork had to slap it away again. “It is not in my perogative to comfort the newly dead. I thought only to inform my dearest friend that he had not earned my animosity. A fear he might have had, failing the plan we had painstakingly worked towards for eons.”

“I don’t want to be chained any longer.” Clockwork admitted. It had been so long since he’d had any semblance of freedom. Did he even know what it would feel like anymore?

“We know. Though some, like Misery Vex, believe it karmic, that your attachments, which had led so thoroughly to our defeat, came back in the forms of chains for you alone. But know that if one day it comes to pass that I can free you, unlikely as it may be, I shall make the attempt.” Nocturn stood, leaving Clockwork alone in his tower. 

“Clockwork?” It was Daniel’s voice. It was the first time his young ward had come to visit since the binding. It was not a comfort to hear his voice, to see that he was okay. It was not .

He didn’t acknowledge Daniel when he entered, wouldn’t have let him in the door if he still had complete control of his Lair… But he’d bargained that away long ago in a gamble that had failed him entirely. 

Instead he floated to his screens. Ever since the fall of the Observants, he could see properly at least. Pariah had no interest in obscuring his vision, had even less in controlling what it was he could see. Pariah’s only interest had been binding Clockwork to him so that he might not escape, so that he might not regress, so that he might not lose himself to the chaos of infinity and escape his limited existence.

Clockwork scowled, still ignoring Daniel’s presence, his attempts at conversation. Pariah’s interests should not have mattered. Because Pariah should not have won . Because Pariah had lost before and Clockwork had been so certain that he would again. Because- 

Because Clockwork had made a mistake when he sealed him away. Because Clockwork knew he could not bring himself to end him. Because Clockwork had seen an opportunity to see Pariah again and had known it would be a mistake but had wanted so desperately just to see him again. Wanted to see him free of the haze of anger the ring and crown had obscured him in, but a ghost’s natural state was obsessive. And Pariah had never hid his desire to keep Clockwork as he was, Clockwork had simply brushed it off as words of affection. He should have known better really, Pariah was hardly the type to speak lightly, and had never claimed what he did not mean with his entire core. 

The screen he was watching was boring, most things were now that he had no reason to keep track of the threads, no overarching plan to work towards. It was so simple. A young ghost was trick-or-treating with a watermelon instead of a pumpkin and was turning into a large candy-based monster whenever someone turned them away. 

It was the middle of summer where the ghost was, and Clockwork allowed himself to appreciate the tiny bit of chaos that the ghost was bringing to the small mortal town. Nocturn had told him that not all had been lost, Clockwork may be trapped, but Chaos had been released. 

Just enough. 

He sighed. 

“Why are you here Daniel?” he finally asked.

Daniel straightened up, he’d been rambling, no doubt in an attempt to cajole Clockwork into joining conversation or listening subconsciously. He hadn't been.

He was also carrying a plate of cookies that Clockwork had not seen, because Clockwork had not looked. When would he learn his lesson about that? Why was he always looking too late?

“I wanted to check on you,” Daniel said, setting the plate of cookies down now that he was sure Clockwork had seen them. “Pariah said you were… having a hard time.”

Clockwork scowled, too many things tearing at his chest at once. Damn Pariah, damn him . 

“Having a hard time?” he said with a false calm. “The plans that I made eons ago, plans that had been in work before your mortal realm even knew what time was, were ruined by someone I trusted. Someone I did not think would step so easily between me and my goals. Exactly what kind of time should I be having, chained to my own lair without even the authority to deny entrance to whom I wish?”

There had been a small flinch, Clockwork noticed, when he had mentioned betrayal. But if Daniel felt any guilt he didn’t look it. He raised his head, eyes full of determination. The very same expression Clockwork had seen through his screens so many times, in the fights against the other Ancients. The plans they’d made to make him stronger, to keep him stable, so that when the Chaos had been released he and the Realms with him would survive. 

He had certainly survived. 

“Pariah said this was the only way to save you.” Because of course that was what Pariah had told him. Because Daniel was intelligent, but Daniel was also a child and all too willing to trust any competent adult. A flaw that Clockwork himself had been so quick to take advantage of. A flaw that cursed him now. 

“Do you really believe that Pariah Dark has my best interest at heart?” he would have sneered, if it had been anyone else. If it hadn’t been Daniel, who was practically his own child. Instead, he asked softly, his frustration drowned entirely by exhaustion.

Daniel still answered him though. “You were changing Clockwork,” What? “The same way you told me Pariah had once changed.”

He hadn’t, there was no way it had been so obvious. He hadn’t, it wasn’t as if he had lost himself to his obsession, nor had he gained power that grew out of his control, what was he talking about?

“You were distant, as if you were struggling to stay in any given moment. Sometimes you’d forget everything going on around you, and others you seemed to be somewhere or some-when else entirely. I mean,” Daniel took a breath, “you’ve always been a bit cryptic, but you were losing yourself entirely . Halfway through a conversation you would start talking completely randomly, in languages long dead or unrecognizable. Or you’d start talking about things that had never happened or had happened forever ago.”

He was almost shouting now, his eyes shining with more than just energy and Clockwork felt a sting in his core. He had known that Daniel would disapprove, that he would get angry. But it had not occurred to him that his anger would be pointed towards this rather than his blatant manipulation of Daniel and his friends.

“And your actions! They were reckless, Clockwork!! Releasing Dan? What the hell?! ”

It was Clockwork’s turn to flinch. “Your future self’s release had always been part of the plan. It was why I had you leave him with me to start with. I was not losing myself Daniel, I was revealing who I actually am.”

Daniel made a desperately frustrated noise. “Do you think saying something like that is going to convince me we were wrong, Clockwork? I- I trusted you! I care about you! You’re-”

“So you’d cage me and try to force compliance so that the more unsightly aspects of myself can be filed away? So you can teach me to be better, like some kind of petty human criminal, Daniel?” He let his anger take over instead. It was easier, so much easier. It was what he had always done with Pariah. 

Daniel rolled his eyes. “How dramatic,” he said dryly, “Didn’t you do the same thing to Pariah, wasn’t what you did like way worse? You’re throwing a fit just like he said you would.”

“If you trust Pariah Dark so much, why are you even here? Have him make cookies for you. I'm sure he’s fully capable.” Clockwork wasn’t throwing a fit, he was angry. 

Daniel sighed, grabbing one of the cookies he’d brought. They had long gone cold, but it hardly mattered to Clockwork, he wouldn’t be eating them. “Pariah has a lot of faults, and there’s a bunch of things I don’t really like about him. He’s manipulative, methodical. He never lets me half ass anything and he’s really picky. He doesn’t actually care if a person dies or a ghost gets Ended, and we fight about that kind of stuff a lot. But…” he met Clockwork’s eyes, his expression looked hurt, heartbroken. Clockwork didn’t want to see it. Had never wanted to see Daniel like this.

“He’s never outright lied to me. I’ve been checking, ever since… Well. I don’t just trust anyone at their word anymore. So yeah okay, I know he’s manipulating me just like he was manipulating you, but he never lied to either of us about his intentions. He didn’t do what you did.”

Clockwork couldn’t look at him any more. He’d made so many mistakes. If he was truly destined to fail… He should never have revealed his true nature or intentions to the boy. His disappointment burned almost as much as the chain Pariah had placed around Clockwork’s neck.

It didn’t matter though, that Clockwork could not stand to see him, because Daniel flew towards him and grabbed his face gently, hands on either side of his cheeks. 

“I don’t trust you anymore, Clockwork, but I still love you. So does Pariah. We can fix this, okay?” Daniel said and Clockwork’s eyes widened at the threat. 

He had truly lost, hadn’t he?

[tafaha-means-apple]

This suggests that Arcane is still not up to date with current lore cause many things have yet to occur in it.

That's an ex-post thing they've done now that Arcane is the main canon. There's no deeper thought process behind it and absolutely no lore written prior to 2024 was written with generations in mind. Prior to Arcane every champ was operating as their in-game version in relatively the same time period. That's the point I'm making. Things are now completely up in the air until they reestablish what is actually canon and it won't be a seamless effort because many champs are tied to broader worldbuilding that has now gotten changed. Camille alone has been completely deleted as she cannot exist in the lore in the same capacity she did originally because they completely changed all the circumstances that made her character work.

And we learn with the Rell retcons that Riot is now interested in moving around within the timeline

The Rell retcons were not moving around within the timeline. It was taking an established character and moving her into the past to be a supporting character in another champ's story that has now irrevocably changed her character from what she was intended to be.

There are no Singed Retcons.

There are. Singed never had a daughter before. That was a pure retcon both to his physical story and to his primary motivations as a character. Secondly, he was a well known supplier of chemweapons such that even Swain knew of him, but with Arcane there's no indication he ever worked for Noxus. Silco smuggling shimmer is indicative of nothing in particular given Ambessa's complete lack of knowledge about chemweapons even though she was instrumental in kicking off the invasion in the first place.

Doing so would require them to rewrite the lore for Kayn etc, and also risk messing with the timeline of the second invasion.

They've already done that. They've completely retconned the timeline of the Spirit Blossom event, the lores of multiple champions within Ionia, the ruined king game, and the Sentinels of Light event just by moving the SB festival to the end of the war rather than 7 years afterward.

The Spirit Blossom event shown here is the first after the Invasion.

The one in Perennial, yasuo's lore, and riven's lore was the first festival since the war ended (roughly 7 years). This was first two sentences of the SB festival lore:

So that will need to be edited and retconned however...

Yasuo leaves for Bilgewater during the festival after his reunion with Yone which takes place late 996 but now the festival is taking place close to the end of the war 7 years prior so most of the big events on this timeline gets moved around:

Heck, if Leblanc is to be believed, they are setting up the early stages for the second as is.

Don't know why we would assume that given that it's been one season since the end of the first war, Vlad mentioned that Swain would not do another invasion so soon, and LB said that whispers could get her darkin as opposed to a thousand swords.

You're assuming they're going to make the show about the first Invasion, but we don't know that.

I'm not assuming that but they also cannot show a child killing people so their options are limited with anything about Irelia's backstory. Riot can and has retconned champs for fewer reasons than this. See: Viktor, who was retconned because CL thought that a mage was more interesting than a cyborg.

There are ways to imply violence (even murder) without having characters get killed.

Riot already has a terrible track record when it comes to constantly sanitizing/excusing Noxus, so this would make me suspicious. Having to sacrifice the brutality of the invasion and the resolve of the Ionians to save the writer's fave region from looking too bad is not something I'd look forward to. Riot is in love with "moral ambiguity" but only really when it concerns Noxus seeming too mean.

Even Rell's retcons circled back to confirming her lore (she's a teenager who was experimented on, she's just more connected to Ambessa and set in the past).

Except the changes undermined her lore. They completely changed Rell's entire backstory but then kept the endpoint even though the changes they made go against that endpoint. Rell goes from actively engaging in Noxian imperialism, loving her new warlord mother, nearly being the heir to the house, and being completely deep in the Noxian kool-aid to... hating noxus after the rose kidnpapped and tortured her? The emphasis being the rose because unlike her old lore "Noxus" didn't willingly torture her, the Rose had to kidnap her this time. Before her parents willingly subjected her to these treatments because ideologically Noxus does not see children or people, only weapons.

Her previous lore was about how everything in Noxus completely failed her and failed all the children they turned into weapons. The state (Swain knew about the academy and let the work continue) and even her own family all were a part of the crime of what happened to her and the others. Now it's just the Rose who did it and in fact "Noxus" (Ambessa) tried to save Rell from this fate but just failed. Even if Rell doesn't know this, it's a massive change to her lore that undermines the point that Noxus did this and that everyone of power and consequence over those deemed "weaker" was actively complicit in it.

At best it's a "misunderstanding" and Rell will "learn" that Noxus didn't actually do this to her to set up some paltry Noxus Isn't Irredeemable theme even though that goes completely against her old lore that Noxus *did* in fact do that to her and would do it again in a heartbeat.

I can't really see this NuRell thinking like this snippet from her color story given her new lore where she was a posterchild for Noxian success until a completely random thing happened to get her kidnapped. I just don't see how this Rell squares with the new backstory of NuRell:

We have Confirmation of the timeline re: the Invasion of Ionia as how it pertains to Arcane

So context for my Arcane followers the Invasion of Ionia lasts about a decade. But the Invasion really gets to a Head in the last five years. The tides turn three years prior to the end - when Irelia, 14 years old, leads the Great Stand of the Placidium and unites the Ionian Resistance which in turn makes a concerted effort to ward off Noxus. This happens two years after, at the start of the 5 years I mentioned, she loses her family as Noxus begins really to destroy. Anyways why am I mentioning this?

The implication by this comic is that Xin Zhao arrives at Ionia with the flower he has because it appears as though the Arcane has woken up everywhere. Which likely coincides with what Leblanc tells Mel in s2 that the "Arcane is waking up." So!! We can start aligning what Kennen says her with what happened in the Invasion.

Presumably, if the Spirit Blossoms returned in s2 act 3 or so, or even the end of s2 (since it's all happening in short time anyways), then the Invasion of Ionia happened throughout the latter years of the s1 timeskip and all of post timeskip Arcane s1, and s2 act 1 and maybe some of act 2. Which would make Irelia's age currently about 17-18 at the time in which "Pilgramage" is happening. And she's a teen throughout Arcane. This technically isn't a retcon at all, as she was always around Jinx's age anyways. In other words - Riot really hasn't retconned anything with regards to the timeline (Rell aside).

[xoxo-bunnydumpling]

I had a meltdown over my stomach last night. About my ass, thighs, everything that jiggles. I don't know what possessed me to try to put a pre-pregnancy outfit on only two weeks after the baby was born but it was so bad I locked the bedroom door.

For two hours.

We were supposed to go out and stay gone overnight, my mother in law set to watch the baby and oddly enthusiastic about getting rid of us for the evening.

"Everything okay in there? You all right?"

My husband had given me a full hour before checking on me, he must know something about my clothes that I had to find out the hard way.

"I'm fine." I really tried to sound like I had not been crying but failed miserably.

"Hey...what's that? Why are you crying?"

"I'm not." He jiggles the door handle HARD, aaaaand I should probably stop him before he rips it out completely. "I'm not physically injured in here. I'm not dying."

I hear a soft thud, and a softer Ukrainian curse as the light from under the door disappears. He must have parked. "But are you emotionally injured? I care about that too, you know."

I don't want to say yes because it's stupid. Two weeks postpartum is not a lot of time, and my old clothes aren't supposed to fit yet. I'm having a very roundly unreasonable expectation of myself and I try really hard not to do that.

"Yeah."

"Okay, well...you wanna reason it out or just sit with it for a while?" He's too nice to me, and it makes me cry some more. When will the hormones subside enough for me to stop crying all the time? "Milyy...let me in please. I won't say anything, I won't DO anything." Gotdamn, being around his Mama and her accent is really making his come out and if I didn't feel so ugly right now I'd jump his bones fer shure.

So I let him in and as it turns out, my husband is a filthy liar. The first thing he does is wrap me in his arms and pick me up. The second is ask me how he can fix whatever the hell is wrong with me.

"I just thought I'd bounce back faster."

He sets me down, and takes hold of my hands, his face extremely solemn. "Just bounce back on this dick and we'll figure the rest out later." I have to sit down at the foot of the bed after that one, his face is still very serious. "Why are you laughing? Bounce back faster...you're welcome to go at your own pace as far as Vlad is concerned."

"Stop."

He finally cracks just the tiniest smile possible. "Fine, fine. Pretend you don't know how many atrocities I'd commit just to get into those leggings."

"But..."

"Go on...feign ignorance as much as you want, I like it." He comes to stand in front of me, and lays his hand softly on the side of my face. "My sweet bunny, so silly. Upset over a little outfit when have the power to own my ass for the rest of my life. What's it like to be so silly, baby?"

I'm not really able to speak at the moment, looking up at him as his eyes go slightly dark, his tone so smooth and deep that I feel like I'm being lulled to sleep. I don't say anything until he hums...I guess he actually expects an answer.

"Not great."

"Well..." he bends down to kiss the tickly spot just below my ear. "Then let me make you feel better."

[dear-mrs-otome]

As someone who can’t read Japanese, could you please spoil Faust’s route? I’m really curious!

I can, sorry this took me awhile to get all down!

I’ll give you a summary of Faust’s route below the cut, so for those zooming past BE WARNED. SPOILERS FOLLOW.

SPOILERS AHOY!

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HAVE THE WHOLE ROUTE SPOILED IN DETAIL???

I MEAN IT - A GIANT WALL OF TEXT EXISTS BEHIND THIS CUT, ALL SPOILERS…

Faust’s route begins as all of the ‘Act 2’ routes do - just as MC is attempting to return home after her month vacation in the past, the door to the Louvre appears to malfunction and she’s forced to remain in the 19th century until Comte can figure out what is going on.

Life carries on much as usual for her, as she tries to keep her spirits up, when one day in town she stumbles across a church on the edges, presided over by a kindly priest (Faust) who seems impressed by her generosity towards a poor woman he’s given medicine to whose son is suffering from a mysterious epidemic that’s begun circulating the city. One night she attends a party with Comte when a critter of some sort steals her hair ornament. Chasing after it, she winds up in a graveyard, where to her horror she sees a figure digging up a fresh grave. She tries to run, is caught by said figure (Faust), and bitten until she faints. (First CG)

She wakes up in the church from earlier and the kind priest who claims he was merely a Good Samaritan seems willing to help her get home. Soon though it comes to light that she is the woman staying with Comte, and Faust drops his ‘nice’ mask and reveals himself as a vampire - biting her once more to observe the effects and proclaiming he will abduct her to be his new guinea pig, curious about her as a person both from the future and who has been living with vampires.

Waking up in Vlad’s castle now, she meets the Terrible Trio and struggles to deal with her situation now - Faust feeds on her for the purposes of observation again, and she goes on a hunger strike briefly, defiant and unwilling to accept being captive. Only when Faust threatens the other residents of the mansion does she reluctantly settle down, and they butt heads over their wildly different philosophies on life - Faust’s mission to grant humans eternal life, her proclaiming God gives us only that which we can handle, and Faust’s disagreement.

To prove his point he begins bringing her to the church with him disguised as a nun, where she witnesses firsthand the cruelties of fate in ways her 21st century self had never encountered before - children orphaned senselessly, people coming for confession bearing the crushing weight of guilt over their own poverty and misfortune. She begins to realize how she may have been wrong, but she and Faust continue to disagree over their different viewpoints. MC still believes that hope is real and necessary, whereas Faust is a committed cynic.

She slowly comes to lose her fear of the other residents of the castle as well, as they are nothing but kind and welcoming to her, though she still is unsure of what to make of everything and remains defiant.

The arguments between her and Faust come to a head when the son of the woman MC met that very first day outside the church comes around, seeking Faust’s blessing to send him on to the next life and refusing the medicine and help offered him. Faust reacts harshly to the man’s willingness to quietly acquiesce to his fate, to MC’s horror, and when she asks him if he has nothing of hope left Faust assures her it’s long gone. When she spots Napoleon and Sebastian later, she dithers for a bit but eventually tries to call out to them, only to have Faust intercept. Still unsettled from their argument earlier, he reiterates to her that she belongs to him and bites her on the church altar, as if to prove that bad things happen to good people no matter what.

Things are strained between them after that, not helped by MC’s increasing suspicions that the strange rumors of ‘resurrections’ going on around the city in the wake of the disease are somehow Faust’s work - an accusation that clearly wounds Faust upon hearing. She meets a young university student, Alex, who desperately wants to be Faust’s assistant and is studying the epidemic. Days pass as they continue working at the church and the orphanage, until one day the disease strikes even there - and finding Faust’s medication is running out, over his protests and concerns MC volunteers to help him make more, the two of them working day and night together to develop and manufacture enough to save the children.

They’re successful, save for one girl Lina who is still very sick that they bring back to the castle to finish nursing to health. They succeed, but afterwards MC falls ill with the same sickness and collapses...only marginally coherent of a desperate Faust doing all he can to save her life. (2nd CG)

She has time and evidence to rethink some of her assumptions about Faust, realizing that despite his best efforts to crush whatever heart and kindness he has it remains. There’s more to him than just icy logic. And when she asks him about his past he finally tells her some of it - that he was abandoned as a baby, raised in an orphanage by a kindly nun, and that when she fell ill he sold himself into slavery to provide her with money for medicine. It made no difference in the long run though, the woman still died...and Faust remains the cynic when they discuss hope and happiness and how MC still clings to these things.

Rumors abound about Faust’s miraculous work stopping the epidemic at the orphanage, as things return mostly to ‘normal’ for them both, working at the church and such. They’re each grappling with changing feelings for each other, Faust suffering his first bout of bloodlust, when one morning Faust collapses in agony bleeding from his mouth horrifically, falling unconscious for days.

Everyone at the castle is fretting, Faust growing weaker and weaker, as Vlad explains his theory that Faust has altered the timeline too much by stopping the plague at the orphanage and the universe is attempting to set things to right again by erasing him from existence. He claims the same thing has happened to him before when he tries to change world events too drastically - the difference being that as a pureblood he can’t die. Faust, however, can. 

He proposes traveling back in time and attempting to nudge humans here and there, make tiny alterations to the timeline to achieve the same goal of saving the children without the backlash falling on Faust, and MC insists on going along - realizing now that she’s faced with his death, she can’t bear the thought of losing him.

Going through the door in the castle with Vlad, she ends up first back at the mansion shortly after her own disappearance (where she assures Comte she’s doing well, thereby explaining why the mansion wasn’t losing their minds this entire time) and recruiting Comte’s help fiddling with the timeline. Upon the next passage she’s ripped from Vlad and dumped far in the past - where she witnesses firsthand little Johann’s heart and faith breaking upon the death of his beloved mother-figure nun, and then the natural disaster that crushed a town he frequented as a young man. This was the moment that solidified for Faust his determination to fight against God and Fate with all he had, and kicked off his obsession with discovering eternal life. (3rd CG)

After one more timey-wimey meeting with the Past!Faust at the point when they were nursing little Lina, where she offers him some much-needed words of encouragement, MC finally finds herself in the recent-enough past to travel around Paris with Vlad and encourage people to be more aware of the spreading plague. She even urges Alex to be more wary, prompting him to start developing his own medication from notes he’d taken from Faust.

Back in the ‘proper’ time, their efforts seem to perhaps have paid off...they return to find Faust gone, and after searching frantically around the city they find the orphanage has been set aflame on the strength of rumors that the plague spread from there. (As if the universe has manufactured some new tragedy instead for it, she realizes) Faust had gone into the blaze to save the last child, but comes out horrifically burnt and near death.

They take him to the church, where things appear dire...but Faust admits to finally seeing hope and accepting this outcome, just glad that something good has come of it all. MC refuses to accept his death though, and after Faust nearly dies again she cuts herself and he eventually revives. After he recovers, Faust corners her into confessing her feelings for him and admitting his own in return, before they finally consummate their love.

MC returns to the mansion as she had promised Past!Comte she would, happy to see all her friends again. A few days pass before Faust and Charles come to collect her, setting off an amusing set of interactions between the Mansion Boys and the Dastardly Duo, but it culminates in a scene where Faust thanks Comte humbly for his assistance with the timelines and for his consideration of MC. The couple then has a late-night conversation at the church where they’re both working again about the future of their relationship.

In Faust’s dramatic end, he asks MC to accompany him as he returns back to the place of that town that was destroyed, Faust making peace with his feelings surrounding the situation and reiterating his love for MC and how she’s helped him to see hope - before he asks her to help him with a different sort of ‘eternal life’, AKA having babies with him.

In Faust’s romantic end, he explains a bit about what motivates him to take on the role of a priest, and then he takes MC back to the castle where he intends to make love to her - saying that he can’t ever lose her but can’t stomach the thought of anyone other than himself ever biting her so he will have to work all that much harder to achieve his dream of eternal life so that they can continue to thumb their noses at God and Fate for all time together.

------

Even long as this is I’m clearly glossing over things - it’s a very busy route! And it’s complicated by the time travel stuff, which thankfully doesn’t get TOO complicated. If anyone’s interested in hearing my thoughts on Faust himself I’m happy to share, just let me know...I think he’s a fascinating complex character that definitely won’t be for everyone, but I am happy he exists in the IkeVamp cast and glad for this route.

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Fathering a Phantom ch2

I just wanna Talk, I swear

Here we have the chapter 2 for that fic from earlier! Once again, here ya go @five-rivers @floralflowerpower and @uwuplasmiusuwu

“Cole I’m going to murder someone,” was the first thing that Toby said to his husband upon arriving once more in their temporary sanctuary. Cole paused mid throw of his javelin, electric sparks crackling up the polearm, and turned to look at his husband. Toby’s wings were ablaze, his nails sharpened into claws, and his eyes a colorful storm, as though he couldn’t decide what to turn into for maximum lethality. Cole set down his javelin and wrapped around Toby in a hug.

“Who are you planning to murder, sunshine? And should I join in? I haven’t gotten into a good fight since we got here, which is a shame.” Cole coalesced from a mass of clouds into something a bit closer to his original body when Toby relaxed in his embrace, running his fingers through shimmering feathers made of embers. “You really do look like a star like this, by the way.”

“There was, I think, a war forged around here who fired a bunch of rockets at a child! You know that liminal kid I told you about?”

“Oh right, we’re rare in this realm, huh?” Cole’s face scrunched up in confusion and he arched a brow. “I thought the liminal around here beat up the tyrant ruling the place when he woke up?”

“I didn’t exactly ask about what must’ve sucked when I half blew up the metalhead.” Toby flew over to the couch and flopped face first into it. “Now I gotta track him down.”

“Why only half? Sounds like someone you’d take out in one go if you had the drop on em.”

“Well, do you wanna traumatize a kid of unknown cultural origins? He’s so small, and his friends were clearly still living humans. I dunno if he’s seen someone die before, let alone a ghost getting Ended. If I recall, committing murder is a bad way to start a friendship with a child.”

Cole snorted and gave Toby a pat on the shoulder. “Alright, fair, Sildar didn’t like me much after that rescue. But hey, now you can put that on your to do list! Murder, the answer to most problems.” Toby laughed, phasing through the couch when Cole sat on him. “There he is, my giggly celestial chandelier.”

“Do you even remember what a chandelier is? I know you broke like three of them over someone’s head, but I forget whose head.” Toby put out the flames in his feathers and stretched, satisfied when his spine popped a few times. “It’s nice to still be able to do that.”

“I’ll be honest, being a cloud has made the sound of your joints popping kinda gross to me. It sounds like you’ve still got a flesh and blood body.” Cole sat up, scratching his head. “Do you still have a humanoid body? With like, meat and bones and stuff?”

“Probably, yeah. We’ll see, cause if so that’ll come in handy with helping out this liminal kid. Said his name is Danny Phantom.” Toby paused, the feeling of his feather being torn an odd and upsetting one. “Speaking of whom, I should go meet up with them. Think you can find this ‘Skulker’ guy while I educate some kids?”

Cole kissed Toby on the cheek and gave him a thumbs up. “Will do! I can’t promise there’ll be much left of him afterward though, I’m not a fan of idiots who attack kids.” Toby smiled and in a flash of light and beat of wings, he was gone. Cole nodded to himself and grabbed his maul, crackling with electric arcs, and opened up the door to their temporary Sanctuary. “Now then, who the fuck is Skulker?”

After having a small debate about where they couldn’t go and why, team Phantom finally ended up at the indoor roller rink that was partially destroyed by a giant ghost crab a while ago, and sat down at a table that Danny cleared of debris with an ectoblast or three. “Ok guys, I think this is a good enough place to call him up.”

“Are we sure it’s a good idea to call him at all?” Sam held up the feather she’d kept in her pocket, turning it about to watch the golden flame dance. “He took down Skulker pretty fast and it usually takes you a good half hour to do that, Danny.”

“Skulker specializes in attacking Danny is all, Sam. We’ve got the weapons to handle pretty much any ghost we normally deal with, and Danny took down the king of ghosts. I’m pretty sure he can handle anyone else.”

“Plus, Toby wrecked Skulker pretty bad. If he wanted to fight, I’m pretty sure he would’ve started a fight.” Danny condensed his ectoblasts into one ball of ectoplasma and stretched it out into a pole. “Imagine all the cool stuff he could show us!”

“Alright, if you say so.” Sam snapped the feather in half, surprised by how easy it was to do, and grabbed her ecto-pistol. For a moment, there was silence. Then the sound of wingbeats filled the room and Toby appeared above the rink as though landing from a long flight.

“That’s a spell I’m not used to casting frequently in a day. Heyo kids!” Toby waved, tucking his wings by his sides while walking closer. “Sorry for the delay, I was talking to my husband. So, names again just to be sure: Sam, Tucker, and Danny, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. What do you mean spell, exactly? Do ghosts have magic ontop of the other ghost powers now?” Tucker spun the lipstick laser around in his fingers, remembering Desiree’s magic and Freakshow’s staff.

“Anyone who can do magic keeps the ability in death, usually. I’m not dead though, I’m Deathless.” He spread his wings and spun around, thumbs pointing to his chest. “I was born awesome like this, and so was Cole. But, based on your faces you weren’t born like this?”

“No,” Sam said, gesturing at Danny. “This is a recent thing, it’s been since about…” Sam paused, her gaze landing on the wall behind Toby. “March of last year, so 14 months.”

“Yeah, god, we’ve been doing this for over a year now, haven’t we?” Tucker, who had held up a camera to record everything Toby was saying, slumped a bit in his seat and sighed. “Feels like it’s been like this forever and like it happened yesterday.”

Toby stared at them all like they’d each grown extra limbs in odd places – Danny even checked to make sure he hadn’t done that while feeling both old and young at the same time due to how little time had actually passed – before zipping over to Danny and holding his hands just over the teen’s face. “Oh my gods, you’re a baby.”

“I am a teenager, thank you.” Danny gently pulled Toby’s hands away from his face, a brow raised. “What, is 14 infantile to angels, feather man?”

“You’re only 14 months dead, Danny, that makes you a baby ghost.” Sam snorted and Tucker covered his mouth to try and hide his laughter. A snap of Toby’s fingers and flowers began growing in Tucker’s hat, and seeds appeared above Sam, growing into flowers as they fell all over her. “If you’ve had regular interactions with that metal head, no wonder your aura’s all aggro.”

“Skulker’s not exactly the worst of the ghosts we’ve had to fight over the months,” Danny said.

“Oh yeah, that’d have to be either Walker, Spectra, or Vlad. It’s really a toss up between Spectra and Vlad, if you ask me.”

“Vlad wants to kill Danny’s dad because he sees his mom as a trophy that was stolen from him, while Spectra tried to kill Jazz just to depress an entire school so she could feed on the misery to look young.” Sam brushed away the flowers and weighed two in her hands. “Yeah, those around the same level of grossly evil.”

Toby’s wings ignited at some point while Sam was talking, and the sunlight streaming in from the hole in the roof grew somewhat brighter. He reached into a bag he had strapped to his waist and pulled out a book and a pen, his smile all teeth. “Tell me, please, a list of all the adult ghosts who have attacked you children? I’d like to have a discussion with each of them.”

“If we give you their names,” Danny said before Tucker could answer, “do you promise not to go slaughtering them all? I don’t need to know ghostly body language at all to know that flaming wings come from a place of anger and imminent violence.”

“When did you read a thesaurus, Danny?”

“Sam, I’m insulted: I know tri-syllabic words. I can even say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

“I promise not to slaughter all of the ghosts you inform me hurt you in the past few months, yes. Names?” When Tucker listed off names, Toby wrote them down with an inhuman speed, and Danny exchanged a look with Sam, worried about how exactly that deal might be loopholed around. “Right,” Toby chirped while slamming his book shut, “I’m here to answer some questions of yours, not just ramble about myself and assemble a… list of people to talk to. Got any?”

“So many that I don’t even know where to start.”

[redrobin-detective]

Delayed Mourning

Going Angst Day 5: Death

_________________________________________

It was 3pm when there was a knock on Maddie Fenton’s door. She huffed and set down the meal she’d been working on. Of course the one day she had time to pre-plan a nice meal from her family was the day she’d get interrupted. 

“Yes? May I help you?” Maddie asked, opening the door. She had expected a salesman. Possibly even a neighbor coming to complain, again, about the noise or the smells that came from Fentonworks. Instead she found a small woman who couldn’t have been much taller than 5 ft with dark brown hair tied up in a tight bun. She was wearing a sharp white shirt and suit jacket with a matching white skirt.

“Mrs. Fenton, hello,” the woman gave a polite little head nod. “I’m from the the Government Institute of Interdimensional Warfare though I hear the locals like to call us the Guys in White.” She said with a knowing smiling, “of course, as you know, it’s not only the guys who are interested in ghosts. May I come in?”

“Oh yes, hello,” Maddie blinked, opening the door to let the agent in. The petite woman stepped inside, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. Her small frame, her oversized glasses and soft nature seemed so at odds with the meatheads Maddie usually found in the GIW. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Perhaps,” the agent demurred. “It’s more there was something I wanted to inform you of. If you’re not too busy, may we sit down and talk? Your husband and children are not home.” Maddie thought that last statement was a bit odd, framed as a statement of fact rather than an inquiry but moved on. 

“Yes, Jack’s out of town visiting a relative and my kids won’t be back for a little while,” Maddie said. “Let me just finish putting this roast together, I’m almost done. Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”

“No, thank you,” The woman said quietly. “And please, continue while you’re doing. Let me give you a little bit of background.” The agent adjusted her large glasses with her tiny hands. “Let me introduce myself, you may call me Agent S. I work primarily out of Washington for the Institute but sometimes I am deployed on site for... special cases. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, your town is very special.”

“Now, as you may have noticed, I am not particularly built like the normal Institute agents you have probably come across. That is because I do not work in the field but behind the scene in Investigations. My job is study the history and happenings of hauntings and spectral entities.”

“Oh that sounds fascinating,” Maddie beamed as she finished with her final preps and put the roast in the over. She looked over her shoulder at Agent S while she washed her hands. “Jack and I dabble a bit in history and folklore but we’re more versed in the hard sciences of ghosts.”

“Yes, I’ve read some of your papers, you and your husband truly are the frontrunners in the field,” Agent S nodded. Maddie preened at the praise and sat down, delighted to have a sophisticated conversation with someone in her field who she wasn’t married to. If more of those GIW agents were like Agent S then Maddie would get along a lot better with them. “So, Maddie, may I call you Maddie? What date and time did your portal start working?”

“It was August 28th,” Maddie said proudly. “It didn’t work at first when we first plugged it in. I’m afraid I don’t have an exact time it started up as we weren’t here. Jack was convinced one of the electrical conduction pieces wasn’t fully connected and was preventing ectoplasmic distribution. We ended up driving 4 hours to Springfield and back for some specialty parts only to find the portal working when we returned.”

“I can help you there,” Agent S said with a soft smile reaching into her white briefcase and pulling out several thick folders. She laid them out gently on the table and Maddie was unnerved by some of the information: schematics of Fentonworks, past and present financial records, transcripts of public statements. Her shoulders tensed when she saw Jazz and Danny’s names on some of the files. “Toll camera captured your vehicle on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway at exactly 1:26pm on August 28th. We can confirm you and your husband’s vehicle traveled to Springfield and back via video feeds and credit card statements at 10:45pm that same day and were therefore out of the city all day.”

Maddie suddenly felt very trapped by the woman’s sharp grey eyes as she plucked a piece of paper and pressed it towards Maddie. 

“At 3:18pm, the majority of the residential power in town went out for a period of 2 and a half hours. The cause was determined to be from a massive power surge that blew out the transformer. You may recall being blamed for this outage given your history with previous outages but the news that you were out of town settled that argument. However, I was not convinced.” She pulled out another piece of paper and Maddie bristled to see it was a Casper High attendance sheet.

“Your daughter, Jasmine was at her final summer cram session which ran from 2pm until 5pm. I spoke to her tutors and she never left the whole time and, in fact, stayed late to help a fellow student work through her study materials. But what about your son?” Agent S asked with with a curious smile but her eyes belied the fact that she had her own answers. 

“How dare you spy on my family, on my children,” Maddie hissed, crumpling one of the papers in her fist. “Get out of my house, I will sue the pants off of your organization for this invasion of privacy! Get out!”

“Now Maddie, don’t you want to know how your son started up your Portal?” Agent S asked coyly, that drew Maddie up short. Danny? No, he couldn’t have possibly. He had no interest in their work, in fact, now that she thought about it, Danny had been sick that day. Agent S pulled out a set of blueprints for the Fenton Portal. Some small component inside the Portal was circled.

“You left at approximately 1pm and your daughter presumably left not long after. Phone records indicate Daniel called both Tucker Foley and Samantha Manson. Your neighbor, Mrs. Benson, saw them coming into your house not long after but before the 3pm power outage which I was able to triangulate did in fact originate from your home.” Agent S tapped the circled part of the inner portal mechanisms. “Now did you happen to push the on button in the Portal before plugging it in?”

“On button?” Maddie asked with a dry mouth, overwhelmed by the amount of information being thrown her way. All she could think about was how Danny hadn’t seemed sick when they’d left that afternoon but had looked awful when they returned. Would he have really gone downstairs and messed with the Portal? Had he gotten hurt? Been contaminated down there? Images of Vlad’s sickly visage after his accident flowed through her head. She should have paid more attention but she’d been so excited about the Portal working...

“It’s right here in the blueprints you submitted to the patent office, buried under dozens of other hardware bits. Its small, such a little thing compared to all the moving parts required to open up a dimensional portal. Daniel was a bright boy, his middle school records prove it. A bright mind, friends to impress, no parents around to chastise him... I think you can see where I’m going with this.”

“No, no,” Maddie said, burying her hands in her hair. “No, I’m not. You’re saying -what? - that my teenage son turned on the Portal when we were gone? No, my Danny wouldn’t lie to me about that... Why wouldn’t he say anything?”

“I don’t blame him for not mentioned in because, if my hunch is correct, he was inside the Portal when it turned on, killing him instantly,” Agent S said with a carefully neutral face. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I’m afraid this haunting has gone on long enough.”

“My child is alive!” Maddie screeched, standing up in her chair. “Danny is alive and healthy and he is not a ghost!”

“I will admit the evidence of how he died is circumstantial but the fact that Danny Fenton is deceased is not.” Maddie fell back into her chair as he legs gave out underneath her. 

She watched the agent put paper after paper in front of her and detailed all sorts of data about her son that Maddie, who lived in the same house as him, had missed. Unusually high ectosignatures picked up by GIW (and their own) detectors, Danny being spotted in some form before most ghost attacks, faked signatures of hers getting him out of nurses’ visits. Maddie barely felt alive herself as she stared at a red light camera photo of her baby sitting atop a light post late, late at night. His eyes were a toxic green color.

“I know this must be distressing as a mother but your child never left that basement, never attended high school and will never achieve his dream of working for NASA.” Agent S said with carefully measured sympathy as she gathered up her papers and put them back in her case. “But you are a brilliant scientist, unlike your husband, you should be able to look past your emotions and see that your child is gone and the ghost he left behind is dangerous.”

“My husband?” Maddie asked blankly, running a finger down Danny’s unnatural photograph.

“I approached Jack two days ago, mistakenly believing he would be the most understanding of you both. He refused to believe the evidence and was, in fact, going to warn your son’s ghost that we planned on taking him. He is safe but he presently being held at one of our facilities until the capture is complete.” Maddie should feel outraged at her husband’s kidnapping but all she could think about was the fact that her son was dead, dead, dead, killed by her own invention over a year ago and she never noticed. How could she not have noticed?

“Daniel’s ghost is extraordinary, not only able to pass as human so accurately for so long but immensely powerful. We need to make sure he doesn’t harm anyone else. Think of his friends who are probably being forced to aid him and keep his death quiet. Think of your husband, your daughter, living in the same house as a dangerous ghost.” Agent S dropped some of her professionalism and plucked the photo of Danny out of Maddie’s hands and replaced it with her own tiny hand. 

“I know this is impossible thing to ask but I must do it anyway, will you help me capture what remains of Danny? There is a chance with his charade exposed, he will be able to move on and so will you. You have been wronged, Maddie. You have been denied the right to process and grieve your child by his own ghost. But a delayed mourning is better than none. Danny’s death is a tragedy but please don’t let it become someone else’s.”

“Maybe he’s not-” Maddie’s breath hitched, “he’s never shown any signs of aggression. Jasmine spoke of benevolent spirits... maybe-” Agent S sighed roughly and retracted her hand to grab another photo from her case. Maddie was surprised when she held up a picture of Phantom. 

“Ignore the glow,” Agent S instructed. “Change his white hair to black, his green eyes to blue. Think of how often Phantom is spotted in your neighborhood, around Casper High. Remember how he always has his hands on your technology,” the agent frowned. “Think of how he grins when he sees you, like he knows something you don’t. Like it all just a big joke you’re not a part of.” Maddie felt like she’d been slapped.

“Your son is dead,” Agent S said more forcefully, throwing the picture of Phantom next to the spooky one of Danny. “And his ghost has taken his place, taunting you, stealing energy from your family, from the portal that killed him. Phantom’s power is increasing too rapidly and soon we won’t be able to contain him. It’s why I was brought in to identify his haunt so that he could be stopped before anyone else died.”

“I will state this plainly, I am giving you the chance to participate in putting your child to rest but you are not required for this operation. If you refuse, you will be confined with your husband until Phantom is taken down. Do not let this monster with your son’s face trick you any more. So I ask again, Maddie Fenton, will you help us stop Phantom from making a mockery of your son’s memory?”

XxX

“Mom! Jazz! I’m home!” Danny announced, kicking off his shoes and grabbing a paper out of his backpack as he walked into the kitchen with a grin. “And I have a present! Jazz’s tutoring paid off, look at this A I got on my history test! Well A- but a solid A-!” 

“Oh... that’s great,” Mom muttered quietly. She was sitting at the kitchen table, not cooking or tinkering with some gadget. Just sitting there quietly, twiddling her thumbs and not looking at him.

“Is everyone okay?” Danny asked, dropping his bag on the floor and walking over to his mother. “I saw Jazz at school but is Dad okay?”

“No, everything is not okay,” she said turning and looking at him with tear-filled eyes. “Someone died, someone I love dearly and I’m not ready to let them go,” she sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “But they've been gone for a long time, even if I’m just hearing about it now. I’m upset but it’s better to know and be grieve than to go on in ignorance, living a lie.”

Danny was about to ask who had died when something was jammed into his neck and he was shocked within an inch of his half life. His body spasmed to escape but his mother was gripping his arm to hold him in place. He transformed unconsciously but that only made it worse. He fell to the floor, ectoplasm leaking off his form as he could barely hold himself together.

“Mom,” he croaked, reaching for her despite everything. She stomped on his hand which was practically goo from such a vicious, destabilizing ectoplasmic shock.

“Don’t you ever call me that,” she hissed through angry tears. “I didn’t want to believe it but the proof is right in front of me you horrible, selfish ghost.” She kicked him in the side and half of him ended up on her boot. “How dare you, how dare you impersonate my son! How dare you string me along all this time, make me look like a fool who had to told that her own child was dead! I bet you just laughed and laughed at our stupid, human ignorance of what your were!”

“‘lease,” he begged through the ectoplasm in his mouth. “I’m still your....”

“My son is dead and he has been for a while,” Mom said, throwing the ecto-taser away from her. Danny vaguely heard the door being kicked in and in his rapidly diminishing vision, he saw black boots and white suits. “With you gone, I can finally come to terms with it and not be tormented by an inadequate replacement.” She turned her back to him. “Get that filth out of my house, I never want to see it again.”

“Of course,” a quiet feminine voice said as his goopy arms were restrained with ghost proof cuffs. “I know this is hard, Maddie but you made the right choice for your family and Danny’s memory. Jack will returned to you within the hour. I spoke to my superiors, for your cooperation, the Institute will take care of declaring Danny dead as well as covering costs for your boy to be laid to rest, the first step in moving on.”

“No, the first step will be removing that duplicitous monster from my home. It’s stolen enough of my baby’s life. Now please leave, I have - I have a funeral to plan.”