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petite-phthora · 2 months ago

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I can be the Edward to your Bella

[DP x DC fic]

[Love at first… murder? - part 22]

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Part 1

Ao3

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They separate after a moment. Once again, two pairs of glowing green eyes meet. They let silence wash over them once again as they gaze at one another, locked in embrace.

After a while, Danny breaks the silence with a small sigh.

“I guess I might as well explain some more, if you still have some questions? I haven’t quite explained everything you should know yet, I suppose,” He offers.

Jason gives a small nod.

“Yeah, I… I’d like to know more, if you don’t mind…” At Danny’s nod he continues. “You keep mentioning ectoplasm, which I think is what I have previously always known as Lazarus water. Could you tell me more about it?”

Danny smiles at him.

“This is ectoplasm,” Danny says, putting his open palm between them and letting ectoplasm pool on top of it.

Jason flinches and leans back a bit, eyeing the ectoplasm apprehensively.

“Yeah, looks like Lazarus water to me, apart from the lack of bubbling” He replies stiffly. “And you’re – we’re—made of this stuff?”

“Essentially? Yes. Though we are only partially. But that doesn't matter right now”

“It sounds like something that should matter right now”

“Nah, right now the important part is that your ecto,” Danny emphasizes by pointing at Jason, letting the ecto disappear in the meantime, “is not healthy.”

“Something's wrong with the Pit? Pfft, I could’ve told ya that” Jason huffs sarcastically.

“Well, this Pit you keep referring to seems to be some kind of corrupted or contaminated version of the standard ectoplasm. And this Lazarus water you mentioned? Well, ectoplasm is not supposed to be bubbling, so…”

Danny lets out a small hum as he thinks.

“Like I’ve said before, from what I can guess, this corruption might be partially responsible for the madness you’ve referred to. And it’s probably the thing that has stunted your core growth.”

“My what growth?”

“Your core. Each ghost has a core. It’s the entire culmination of their being. Their vital organs, heart, brain, soul, etc. No matter how damaged a ghost’s physical body gets as long as their core doesn’t get damaged they can recover.

“You can think of it a little like the gems in Steven Universe,” Danny adds on, slightly unhelpfully for Jason as he has never heard of Steven Universe before, but he just nods along.

“If the core gets damaged, or even worse, destroyed, then the ghost is ended. They fade away, their entire existence getting erased in the process. It’s a fate worse than death…” Danny trails off before shaking his head a bit to clear it.

“Anyway, each ghost core also has an element or theme it is inclined to. We call it a core-type. For example, I have an ice core, making it so that I don’t get cold easily, and it gives me some ice powers as well.

“But I also know someone with a shadow core, someone with an electrical core, a fire core, etc., etc. Baby ghosts haven’t quite grown into the core-type yet, so you have nothing to worry about for now.” Danny says reassuringly.

Jason pulls a face at being referred to as a ‘baby ghost.’

“Right, and I’m supposed to have one of these cores but, what, the ‘contamination’ in the Pit stopped it from appearing?”

Danny shrugs. “Yeah, pretty much.”

He then gives Jason a contemplative look.

“I might be able to get rid of the corruption myself, as ghosts have a built-in filter so shit like the Pit madness doesn’t happen.

“But seeing as I’m not a full ghost and I haven’t really seen contamination like this before, I’m not entirely sure it’s healthy for me…” He trails off before giving a small shake of his head. “And I’m no doctor, either. So, you’d probably have to see Frostbite for an official diagnosis and treatment plan.”

“Frostbite?” Jason inquires.

“He’s my ghost doctor” Danny explains. “I can talk to him about it beforehand, see if he knows more about this corrupted ecto situation. Though he might ask you to come by for a checkup either way.” He shrugs.

Jason agrees before bringing up another question. “So, whenever someone dies, they just,” he makes a vague gesture, “Go to the Ghost Zone and become a ghost? Why haven’t we really come across any ghosts like that before?”

“Not everyone that dies becomes a ghost,” Danny shakes his head slightly, “And not even every ectoplasmic entity, or ecto-being, is someone that has died.

“Ecto-beings can be people who died, if they died a traumatic enough death with enough raw emotion and enough ambient ectoplasm in the area for them to form a core.

“But that certainly doesn’t happen often. And not every ecto-being is like us either. Yes, you have those with a physical body, but then there’s also shades.

“Shades are formed when there’s enough ambient ectoplasm in the area they died to kickstart their core formation, but not enough to sustain the entire process.

“They have a core, but due to the lack of ecto during its formation they can’t use a lot of ecto at once and it takes longer for them to replenish. This also makes them unable to be tangible or visible for long periods of time.

“Besides the consciousness of dead people being ghosts, there’s also the neverborn. True to their name, the neverborn were never actually born in the traditional sense.

“They could be sentience given shape by enough raw emotion occurring in an area saturated with ambient ectoplasm, like most blob ghosts.

“Or then there’s also the ones who are more forces of nature and/or abstract concepts taken physical form. These are the Ancients, and they embody concepts like Time, Space, Weather, or Dreams, for example.” Danny explains.

“There’s the personifications of places or beliefs taken shape, and then there are also the neverborn formed through ghost procreation.”

Jason raises an eyebrow.

“Ghosts can give birth?”

Danny makes a so-so gesture with his hand.

“Yes and no? It’s not exactly comparable to human conception, but two ghosts can come together and combine parts of their core to create? spawn? form? a child together?” He shrugs “I don’t know the exact workings or details, you’d have to ask Frostbite for more information.”

“Huh..” Is all Jason can say in response.

“Then you have the liminals, zombies, demons, and other dead-adjacent beings that I won’t get into right now.” Danny dismisses before pausing thoughtfully. “Though, I’ll clarify revenants a bit as that was what you were initially.”

He continues at Jason’s nod.

“A revenant is, in simplest terms, someone who died in an area without much ambient ecto, and with an immense need for revenge. A need so strong in fact that, despite the lack of ecto necessary to form a core in order to become a shade or full ghost, their potent emotions remain after death.

“And these emotions are what tie the remains of the person’s soul to their body, which together are able to take control of the corpse in order to enact that revenge, despite the mind of the person being long gone.

“Now, as soon as they have been avenged, they usually go back to their grave, if they have one, and well, die again, I suppose... The emotions fading and letting go of their hold on the soul…” Danny rubs the back of his neck before moving on.

“Well, last but not least, there’s us, the halfas. There’s only about four—well, five—of us in existence currently.

“Like I’ve said before, halfas are half-dead and half-alive. We have a living human body, and a ghost form we can transform into that is completely made out of ectoplasm, like the average physical-bodied ghost.

“We also have all the basic ghost powers, like flight, invisibility, intangibility, overshadowing, ecto-rays,” as Danny starts listing the basic ghost powers, he ignores Jason’s interjection of “I’m supposed to have ghost powers?!”

“But each ghost, depending on their power level, can also have some powers exclusive to only them. I know of a ghost with musical mind controlling powers, a ghost with wish granting powers, there’s my ghostly wail, and more.”

“So… If I get cleansed of this uh, corrupted ectoplasm, I’m gonna have ghost powers?” Jason asks again, a strange and thoughtful expression on his face.

“Yeah, probably. Though we won’t know which individual powers you’ll get till you get them.” Danny shrugs. “I’m also not quite sure how fast your core development will be and how fast your powers will appear once the corrupted stuff is gone.” He admits.

“While the stunted growth could have slowed the entire process down permanently, there’s also the chance that, once your proto-core has the freedom to grow, with some healthy ecto as a boost, your core might grow instantaneously because it’ll finally have the space to do so after being repressed for so long.” He looks at Jason’s chest, deep in thought, before shrugging again.

“But like I mentioned before, I’m no doctor. So, we’d need to consult with Frostbite first to be sure. And as for not being aware of ghosts before and not having met any, that’s just mainly due to the lack of reliable portals around.” He explains.

“There are only two semi-permanent portals that I know of, both of those artificial, and one of those is in my parents’ basement. Natural portals do occur, but ghosts rarely use them if they happen to come across one.

“It’s because the locations and duration the portals stay open are random. Besides, whatever time period they open in is also unpredictable. If you’re not careful, you could end up in ancient Rome.” Danny pulls a face before shaking his head a bit to clear his mind.

“Lastly there’s ghosts who have the power to open temporary portals themselves, but it’s quite rare amongst ghosts, so most just rely on the artificial ones to enter this dimension.”

Jason throws him a questioning glance. “Why do ghosts wanna enter this dimension anyway, if their home is in this Ghost Zone, I’m assuming? Is unfinished business like an actual thing, or?”

Danny pauses, thinking over his answer.

“Well, each ghost has their reasons for coming to this dimension. Some wanna view this dimension like tourists, others might come through the portal to visit for a quick brawl—”

“They come here just to fight?”

Danny nods.

“It’s very socially stimulating and healthy for ghosts to throw down every once in a while. It’s basically the ghost equivalent of puppies playfighting or friends checking in on each other and asking how you’ve been, you know?

“It helps them feel more, well, alive. We, as halfas, don’t really have the urge to fight other ghosts as much due to still being half alive, obviously. But some still visit me sometimes just for a quick fight.

“Though I do have to remind them sometimes that I’m more squishy than them, as the attacks they use sometimes would be fine for a full ghost, but for a human...” Danny winces before quickly moving on.

“But anyways, another reason for them leaving the Zone could be cause it’s just easier to manage their Obsession in this dimension than in the Ghost Zone.”

At Jason’s interjecting question of “What’s an obsession?” Danny elaborates. “Each ghost has an Obsession, capital O, and it’s what keeps them mostly sane and keeps them from fading.”

“For example, my Obsession is space, though we thought it was something else at first. But then you have other ghosts, who might be Obsessed about things like boxes, being remembered, technology, etc.

“Ghosts can also have multiple Obsessions, but it depends. It all varies from ghost to ghost, but that’s the basic gist of it. And for a lot of ghosts, it could be more difficult to fulfil these Obsessions in the Ghost Zone, instead of here, where they might have more access to their Obsession.

“Though, either way, for us halfas it’s a bit different. Because we’re still partly human and alive, we’re not as bound by our Obsessions as other ghosts might be.”

Jason nods a little, taking it all in. At the small lull in conversation, Jason brings up a slight change of topic, having enough information he still needs to digest for now.

“So, ghosts, huh?” He starts. ”And here I thought you were some kind of vampire meta”

Danny sputters after hearing Jason’s admission.

“A vampire meta?! What gave you that idea?”

Danny looks at Jason incredulously. Jason gives him a considering look before starting to list his ‘evidence.’

“Well, let's start with the fangs and pointed ears—”

“That doesn't have to mean anything!”

“—Next off, you’re cold to the touch, impossibly strong, impossibly fast, as you appeared in no time after I texted you about your sister— “

“But I have an ice core! And that was— “

“Not to mention the fact that when I asked how you got there onto the roof that fast, you told me you flew, which, you could do if you were, oh, I don’t know, a bat—”

“I wasn’t a bat though! I’m not that good at shapeshifting yet—”

“And besides all of that, I’m around 90% sure your sister drank some of my blood when biting me. And family members with the meta gene having similar powers isn’t uncommon—”

“That’s just how Ellie is! I think she got that from Vlad more than anything,” Danny protests.

Jason raises an eyebrow before putting on a fake serious tone of voice.

“I know what you are…”

Danny blinks and pauses before pushing him gently with a laugh. “Jason—”

“So, you’re telling me you don’t sparkle in the sun?” Jason asks with a grin.

“Dude, you’ve seen me outside during the day before!” He smiles.

“It’s Gotham! The sun doesn’t shine here, which is obviously why you moved here. So, you wouldn’t easily be found out by going outside,” Jason argues teasingly.

Danny falls still for a moment, giving Jason a pondering look before grinning.

“You wanted to be like Bella Swan, with your own dramatic romance novel moment, didn’t you?”

Danny’s grin widens as Jason stills.

“That’s it, isn’t it?!”

“No. No, no, no—” Jason starts vehemently denying it as Danny pushes on.

“You want to be a main character in a YA romance novel—”

“I do not—”

“It’s alright, Jason. For you, I’ll be the Edward Cullen to your Bella Swan” Danny tells him reassuringly, patting his back lightly as Jason just sighs and hides his face in his hands.

“You’re gonna be the death of me” He groans.

“Well, fortunately for you, ‘till death do us part’ doesn’t really apply to us, Ghost Boy.” Danny jokes.

It does the job, and Jason gains a small smile on his face as he shakes his head at Danny with a huff. He then moves his gaze from Danny back to the side, onto Gotham. Danny follows his gaze.

They stay seated in each other's hold, enjoying the other’s company and presence. It was getting quite late.

“Shall we go back?”

They gaze out over the city from their spot, city lights reflected in their eyes.

“Yeah… let’s…”

---

Taglist:

@i-always-say-yea @uraniumwizard @why-must-i-be-like-this @griffinthing @i23432i @imsotiredfanficlovertm @jaguarthecat @arkita-shadow @noideawhatshappeninghelp @jaitwin5 @apple-juice16 @mossy-bonez @harvestandhearth

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dc x dp #dcxdp #dp x dc crossover #dead on main #dead on main ship #dp x dc fic #basically a lot of ghosts fight socially and some seek out danny for that #halfas dont have that urge to fight as much #ghosts often forget halfas dont have those same insticts and dont know that their fights are meant as friendly playfighting #so they need to be reminded and make this clear to the halfa #or get their asses genuinely kicked by them with the halfas then holding grudges against them #ghost punching danny too hard in the shoulder in a friendly way: :D #danny: ouch that hurt! >:( you wanna fight?!#ghost: :o i mean if youre up for it sure! ^-^#ghost after being souped for a week due to a grudge: ohh wait--

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luxaofhesperides · 1 year ago

Note

Ghostlight prompt: Danny and Duke being childhood friends, but Danny tells Duke the moment the accident happens and such cause he trusts him, only for Danny to go radio silent when giw decide to block the town communications in senior year.

So Duke-does he tell Danny he's Signal or not? Up to you-gets worried the longer no contact goes by.

Maybe the away game thing seen in other posts where the sports team still does away games and Danny gets enough good will with star or dash maybe and they send a message to Duke that's some coded phrase and Duke knows shits going down?

(yourlocalcorviddad, it's a side blog so didn't want to send from main sorry)

Danny is not someone who is on his mind a lot, these days. It’s to be expected, considering how distance and their double lives eat up all the time they have to talk. Really, it’s a miracle that they were able to speak enough to learn about their own individual vigilante work, especially with Duke bouncing around foster homes for a good portion of that time.

They haven’t spoke in months but that’s normal for them.

Duke thinks he can be forgiven for not knowing something was wrong. He still won’t forgive himself for it.

“Danny’s gone?” he repeats, feeling numb. There’s static ringing in his ears, his entire world hollowing out.

The guy in front of him looks grim, unable to meet Duke’s eyes. Did he introduce himself? Duke can’t remember, can’t keep his spiraling thoughts straight in his head. “He’s gone. His entire family is gone and we haven’t been able to call for help because… well…”

“It’s those guys, right? The ones in white?”

“You know about them?”

“Danny told me. Danny told me a lot about what he did in Amity Park.”

The guy lets out a slow, relieved breath. “Good, then I don’t have to explain. Sorry, it’s just that it’s not something we talk about, especially out in the open. After the last few months, things got really bad. We know the GIW took the Fentons, but we can’t find out how or why and they’ve got us on a tight lockdown.”

“Then how did you get out?” Duke asks. Another arguably more important question pops into his mind a second later. “Actually, how do you know about Danny and… you know. The other things.”

The grimness on the guy’s expression fades away some beneath the sudden shame and embarrassment. “Oh, that. Well, I dunno how much he told you about his, like, daily life, but, um. I’m Dash. Baxter. I bullied him?”

Dash.

Dash. That’s a name he recognizes.

Danny’s complained about Dash a lot in the past. Since they were in middle school, really. Duke would always get mad on Danny’s behalf about how terribly he’s being treated, how no one would stop such obvious bullying. And every time, Danny would laugh it off and say in that soft voice of his, It’s alright, Duke, really. Having you care is more than enough for me.

It never stopped the bullying, though, but the way Danny talked about Dash changed when they both entered high school. He was still annoyed about everything Dash did, but there were less insults about him, less venting about every little thing that pissed Danny off about him, as if he just didn’t care anymore.

And there is, of course, the most memorable time Danny called Duke about Dash over the summer.

Hey, Danny, Duke had began, only to be cut off by Danny yelling, I kissed Dash?! Or he kissed me?! What am I supposed to do now!

And Duke, despite the jealousy he felt at hearing that Danny and Dash kissed, laughed so hard he cried while Danny yelled at him to be helpful.

There wasn’t any discussion on Dash since, beyond a comment here and there about a funny fanboying thing Dash had said about Phantom. The focus of their conversations shifted towards how hard it was to be heroes or vigilantes, quiet reassurances that they’re both doing the best they can, tips traded about best ways to patch themselves up and get through the night. Sometimes, it felt like Danny was the only person in the world to really know Duke; all his pain and promises, his dreams, everything he was Before and who he became in the After.

He’s missed Danny, but the last message Danny sent him told him that things were getting rough in Amity Park, and to not call or contact him until he reached out first.

So Duke trusted in Danny and focused his attention in Gotham, putting his all into becoming a better hero, someone people can rely on.

He thinks that maybe he should have fallen into the Bats’ bad habits of invading privacy to make sure Danny’s okay.

Too late for that now, though.

“I know you,” Duke says after a long moment. “He talked about you sometimes. Come with me, we have a lot to discuss.”

Dash looks appropriately nervous, but he doesn’t argue.

It’s a tense, quiet walk to the library where Barbara works. She’s stationed at the front desk when he arrives and greets him with a smile, eyes flicking towards Dash in question.

“Hey, Babs, got a private study room open?”

Her gaze sharpens and Duke can’t help the feeling of relief that flows through him, knowing that Oracle is ready to look out for him. “Let me check,” she says, turning towards the computer to click around a few pages. “Study room 8 is open.”

That’s the study room with a working lock and soundproofing. It also has cameras and a mic inside, but all the other study rooms have one too, just for safety purposes. Things could always go terribly wrong when people are locked together in a small room, and having video and audio evidence of what happened has assisted in more than a few cases.

He leads them up to the second floor, past the students studying and the group of young children in the back corner of the library listening intently to a read aloud.

The only occupied study rooms are those up front, closer to the stairs. The back rooms are empty and quiet, the perfect place for a little impromptu interrogation.

“So,” Duke says as he closes the door to study room 8 behind them. Dash sits down as if this is just a casual conversation, but the way his foot taps against the floor betrays his nerves. “Danny’s gone. And somehow, that lead you to me.”

Dash glance around, then leans closer to drop his voice into a harsh whisper. “The Guys In White got some insane upgrades a few months ago and forced every citizen of Amity Park into a surveillance state. The entire Fenton family is gone, but we all know it’s really because they want Danny.”

“Explain the situation in Amity Park some more.”

“Well. It’s like this: we didn’t take them seriously, so they upped their moves and got us trapped. No one goes in or out of Amity Park without good, verifiable reason. We have a curfew and we can be randomly stopped and searched for ectoplasm or exposure to ghosts. Most of the ghosts have left, but a few of the stronger ones hang around to cause trouble to get the GIW off our backs for a bit.”

“So how did you end up in Gotham?”

“I was invited to tour the college. And since outsiders were expecting me, the GIW let me go. But there’s definitely some that tailed me to Gotham, but I can’t find them at all. Even talking to you now is a huge risk for me.”

Which means they don’t have much time to talk before someone comes looking for Dash. His words, paired with everything Duke’s heard from Danny, paint a deeply unpleasant picture in his mind. “Are you going to be in trouble?”

“Nah, I’ll be fine. It’s Danny we’re all worried about. He told me before he got caught that if anything happened to him, I should find you. Tucker helped us narrow down where exactly you are and sent you that text to get you to where we met.”

“What do you think I can do?”

“I don’t know,” Dash admits. “But Danny trusts you, and he needs your help.”

Duke was never going to say no to this request to begin with, but damn if those words don’t make him want to run to Amity Park without waiting for anyone else.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. I’ll help rescue him and bring down the GIW. You should go now, before they get too suspicious.”

“What are you planning?”

“I got a couple of friends who are good at destroying government property. Trust me, you’ll see what we’re up, we’re pretty noticeable if we’re pissed off enough.”

“Don’t take too long then,” Dash says, standing up, “I expect a good show from you. See you around, man.”

And with that, Dash pats Duke’s shoulder and leaves the study room. Duke doesn’t follow after him. He’s got a rescue to start planning, and the less time he wastes, the better.

In the end, it’s pretty simple. It’s not a hard mission at all when the time comes for them to act, but the amount of data they gather and have to shift through is daunting. But that’s more Tim and Barbara’s forte, so he trusts them to handle it.

Together with Red Robin, Spoiler, and Black Bat, they hit Amity Park hard and fast.

One night was spent learning the lay of the land and every station and lab set up by the GIW. The second night was spent burning it all down and tossing open cages full of green blob ghosts and a few transparent, weakly glowing human ghosts. Stronger ghosts, glowing brightly, joined them in a few places with battle cries and maniacal laughter.

They split up and took down all the bases and patrol stations on their own, sweeping through the city like vengeful shadows.

By dawn, the GIW were in shambles, without any bases or equipment, and rounded up for arrest.

Cass was the one to find Danny and his family; his parents were forced to create weapons for the GIW under threat of Danny and Jazz’s torture. Danny was locked up like an animal and studied. Jazz had restraints on, including a muzzle, and a bloodthirsty rage in her eyes. Apparently, she had put up the most fight and, while being studied for repeated exposure to ectoplasm and radiation, started biting people.

The Fentons are big names in this conflict. Tim makes the executive decision to burn one of his out-of-state safehouses so they can hide and recover in peace, then promptly moves them into it as soon as the EMTs give them the all clear. They’re gone by the time the sun is rising over the horizon, and the curious Amity Parkers that have gathered behind the blockade of police cars have to be reassured that the Fentons have been taken away for their protection, not for further abuses. Even then, tensions are high and the locals are clearly prepared to start rioting now that they have a chance to fight back.

As vigilantes, they’re not meant to interact with cops much. Perhaps it’s simply their experiences in Gotham that keep them at a distance, disappearing into the neighborhood the moment attention shifts off of them. Either way, Duke is hurrying out of Amity Park with the rest of the team on his heels, eager to return to Gotham and follow up on their own leads to make sure the GIW is properly gutted and dismantled.

Duke heads off for the Hatch as soon as they reach Gotham, hoping to shed the suit and finally be able to call Danny. The guilt of not noticing how bad things had gotten rolls through his stomach, and more than that, he’s missed hearing Danny’s voice.

The first few calls go straight to voicemail. Duke leaves a quick message asking Danny to let him know how he’s doing as soon as he can talk.

Then he goes for a shower and to change into civilian clothes, prepared to make his way to Wayne Manor to let Bruce know how everything went. And hopefully distract him from his Disappointed Father/Leader Lecture about taking on missions behind his back, as if Duke can’t handle himself. And also because Bruce has no leg to stand on when it comes to this. He’s fully prepared to throw that entire lecture back into his face at a moment’s notice.

The post-mission exhaustion is hitting him hard and fast. Duke has to brace himself against the wall once he’s out of the shower, resisting the urge to just lie on the floor and sleep there until he starts feeling more human.

Somehow, he gets himself into some sweatpants and a plain shirt, pulls on a pair of mismatched socks, and begins gathering his things so he can get to the Batcave.

He’s in no state to be driving. Maybe someone would be willing to take him there?

Just as he reaches for his phone to thumb through his contacts and see who he can bother, it buzzes in his hand. Duke blames the way he jumps on his exhaustion, then blinks his tired eyes to squint at the name that pops up onto the screen.

Danny.

All at once, his exhaustion fades away. A rush of adrenaline runs through him as he scrambles to accept the call, already pacing around the room so he doesn’t fall asleep.

“Hello?”

There’s a moment of silence, then the exhale of a breath that turns to static over the call. “Duke,” Danny’s tired voice says. “Duke…”

“You doing okay? I couldn’t get to you before you and your family had to leave and go into hiding, but I’ve been worried about you, man.”

“I’m good. We’re all fine, now. Fentons are strong, you know? We’ll bounce back in no time.”

From what he’s heard about Danny’s family, that’s most definitely true. He’s seen the pictures of walls Jack Fenton has burst through with his body. It’ still hard to believe that no one in the family is a meta, outside of Danny.

“You need anything? I can get it to you, just say the word. Anything at all.”

Danny hums, then asks with a playful note in his voice, “Anything?”

“Anything.”

“I need you. How fast can you come meet me? I’ll even pay for express delivery.”

Duke laughs, so relieved at hearing the lightness return to Danny’s voice that he feels weak in the knees. “It’ll be at least two days. I gotta sleep and debrief with Batman before I can see you. It’s gonna take some time to get out of Gotham again.”

“Maybe I can go to you, instead,” Danny suggests. “Fly over and be there is less than an hour.”

“Are you in any shape to be flying right now?”

“I’m fine! Already healing and everything,” Danny insists.

“It might be dangerous if any rogue GIW agents go after you.”

“Well,” Danny says, “That’s why I need to get to my knight in shining armor sooner rather than later, right?”

Duke bites his lip to fight back a smile, blinking his eyes forcefully to keep them from closing under the heavy weight of exhaustion. “Does that make you a damsel in distress?”

“I mean, I did need rescuing, so I guess? I’m not much of a damsel, but I could put on a pretty dress for you. It’ll be like playing pretend when we were kids.”

“Oh, man, I kinda miss those poofy dresses. I think I could still rock on, put it on top of the armor when I go out for patrol.”

Danny snickers. “Signal: the most well dressed vigilante in Gotham.”

“That’s me, baby!”

The last of the agonizing fear that’s choked him since he first talked to Dash finally melts away. Danny’s fine now. Everything’s okay; the GIW are done for and there’s plenty of people willing to look out for the Fentons. This will never happen again.

“Hey,” Danny says, voice suddenly turing more serious. “Send me your location. I wasn’t joking when I said I could fly over to you. And before you say anything! I do need it; Jazz and my parents are smothering me and I just need to get away from everything and pretend all of this never happened.”

The admission softens Duke, makes him shove away everything that tells him this is a bad idea, that Danny needs more rest first, that having Danny fly over alone and without warning any of the Bats fills Duke with anxiety.

He does miss Danny. More than he can put into words.

“Yeah, okay,” he says at last. “Come meet me, Danny.”

He texts Danny the location of the Hatch before common sense tells him to be more careful with his base of operations. Not that it matters, anyways; if there’s anyone in the world he trusts with everything, it’s Danny.

Then he sends the Bats a quick text saying he’s crashing in the Hatch and to not bother him until the sun is fully up two days from now. Oracle gives him a thumbs up emoji, which is a good guarantee that she will personally see to it that no non-emergency messages interrupt his rest and recovery time.

Duke has no idea how long it will take Danny to get to the Hatch, so he putters around, cleaning up the space and straightening it out in an attempt to keep busy enough that he doesn’t crash. Travel really takes it out of him. It’s one of the cons of being born and raised in Gotham: he doesn’t have the stamina to travel outside of it, especially when they were there and back in less than three days.

Thank god for Tim’s many motorcycles and his tendency to see the speed limit as a weak suggestion that can be ignored while on a mission.

Ultimately, the call of sleep is too strong to resist.

One moment, Duke is sorting through files on the Hatch’s computer, and the next moment, he’s face down on a bed with his face shoved into a pillow.

Blearly, he manages to pull his phone out of his pocket and send Danny a typo-ridden text that hopefully gets across the message of might be asleep so just come in, don’t wait for me to answer the door.

He’s out like a light as soon as it sends. The last thing Duke registers is his phone dropping out of his hand and falling against the mattress with a little bounce.

When he begins to wake up, something’s changed. As much as he wants to go back to sleep, awareness comes back to him slowly and Duke forces himself to claw his way out of unconsciousness to figure out what, exactly, is bothering him so much. Until he figures out what’s changed in the room, he won’t be able to sleep because he’ll be worried about someone breaking in.

His mind comes back online long before his body does. It’s only when he tries to move that Duke realizes he’s no longer alone on the bed; there’s someone wrapped up in his arms, body temperature a little too cool to be a normal human.

Blinking open his eyes, Duke looks down at the head of messy black hair and feels Danny’s soft breath ghost across his chest.

“Danny?” he manages to say, voice rough with sleep.

Danny hums and doesn’t move.

“Hey, look up. Let me see if you’re really alright.”

“Mmm, no,” Danny mumbles, burrowing his face into Duke’s chest some more. “‘m sleepy.”

A good argument. Duke is also sleepy.

“Fine,” he says, “Check in the morning, then. G’night, Danny.”

“Night, Duke. Thanks for saving me.”

He tightens his grip on Danny, contentment burning warm in his chest. “Always, Danny. I’ll always save you.”

That’s why he’s a hero, after all. To save others, to reach a hand out to everyone the way he needed when he was younger. To keep the people he loves safe. To make sure Danny always finds a way back to him.

This is what makes all the pain of this lifestyle worth it.

Danny makes everything worth it.

(@yourlocalcorviddad tagging to make sure you see this!)

#ghostlights #dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp #dp x dc #prompt fill #my writing #i thought up a whole backstory to the duke/dash kiss (accidental. embarrassing for both parties) but it didnt fit w the rest of the fic so #its not included. i can include it in a rb if u want tho!!#my sleepy boys..... they go thru so much but at the end of the day they always feel at home with each other #childhood friends duke/danny is so important to me #also couldnt think of a coded phrase sorry. now we just have dash walking up to duke like HEY. HELP DANNY. and duke went with it #thanks for the prompt!!

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disillusioneddanny · 1 year ago

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DPxDC Negativity

Hey this is just a friendly reminder that I'm going to put in the plainest terms that I can.

If you are telling people how they should and should not participate in fandom you are GATEKEEPING

If you are telling people that they need to read more comics before writing fanfic you are GATEKEEPING

If you are telling people that they need to do more research into canon in any form, whether that be reading wikis, reading comics, watching shows, whatever you are GATEKEEPING

If you are telling people that what they are writing is not canon compliant and therefore not a valid way to participate in fandom you are GATEKEEPING

Fandom is supposed to be fun

Fanfiction is supposed to be fun

We are not writing these stories for anyone but ourselves. And to tell someone that they are participating in fandom wrong is GATEKEEPING

There are plenty of fanfics in the DC only sphere and the DP sphere that are so far away from canon it's unreal and that's totally okay!

People are allowed to enjoy fandom in however the hell they please. If that means they are writing a crap ton of Batfam/Danny Phantom content and not very much Justice League/DP content, that's totally okay.

If someone read the Wayne Family Adventures Webtoon and decided that they want to write Danny being adopted into a loving and crazy Batfamily that is totally one hundred percent fine.

If someone wants to write Danny with abusive and neglectful parents guess what? they can.

If they want to write Vlad as being a nurturing and loving godfather to Danny, they can.

What I'm trying to explain to you all is that it's okay to write things that are not canon compliant. It's okay to write things that are so far away from canon it's not even recognizable--I mean have you even read a fantasy au or a no capes au? That's basically just slapping a characters name and face to an OC. And guess what? THAT'S OKAY.

It's also okay to want to see more people interact with the canon lore, to want to share resources and tell people about your special interests. But the moment you start doing it and it makes people feel bad-- even if that is not your intention you are GATEKEEPING.

Gatekeeping is defined as the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.

By you telling others what they should and should not write, you are being a gatekeeper.

I get it, you want to share lore, you want to show that you know all these cool things about DC. You want more than just batfam and DP content. That's totally valid and really cool.

Do it yourself.

Don't take someone else's joy away simply because it's not what you want to see. They aren't writing it for you, they're writing it for themselves. You're just a lucky person who gets to see the beautiful works that they are putting time and effort into.

When I joined DPxDC I knew absolute shit about DC. Over the last year, I've read over 400 issues of the Batman comics, read all of the Red Robin series, and a smattering of random other comics with plans to read others. But when I started writing? I knew jackshit. My knowledge came from the Teen Titans cartoon, the Batman animated series, and vague memories of watching the Justice League animated series as a kid.

And if Dis from a year ago saw this gatekeeping shit, they would have never started writing for the fandom because they would have been too scared to be told they were doing it wrong.

Now? I'm writing DC only fics based off of what I learned in the comics and it's a lot of fun.

But I did that because I wanted to, I was starting to get more and more interested in DC and I wanted to know more. And I had access to pay for DC Infinite so that I could get access to the comics. Not everyone has that luxury.

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to read them from free sites either. Maybe they have to use a public computer that doesn't have ad blockers. Maybe their local libraries don't have access to the comics. You don't know what their situation is.

Maybe you're being well intentioned. Maybe you're just wanting to share your wealth of knowledge with the fandom. But remember, if just one person is getting hurt by your statements, that means you're no longer being helpful. You're being harmful. You're scaring off a new fan who was super insanely excited to start sharing their headcanons.

You're making people feel unwelcome. And that's not fucking cool.

Fandom is supposed to be a welcoming space for everyone, it's supposed to uplift and bring joy. Not make people feel bad for not knowing enough, or for feeling too anxious to even begin figuring out where in the 75 year history of DC they should start reading.

I know that's what kept me from reading the comics for a long time. it was just too overwhelming. It still is overwhelming for me and thats with having friends telling me where to start and what comics are best to read.

Before I end this super hella long rant I want to remind you of one last thing.

You don't know what someone has read or researched before writing their fic. You don't know just how much they know about that character or universe. For all you know, they may have read, watched, consumed every single piece of DC media in existence. But they may still interpret it different than you did and that does not mean that their Bruce Wayne is OOC because it doesn't align with how you interpret Bruce Wayne. it just means that they view his character differently than you do.

And that's such a beautiful fucking thing don't you think? That a single character, a single universe, a single fucking line can be interpreted hundreds of different ways by hundreds of different people and it's still valid.

It's what makes fandom so freaking cool in the first place.

Like one day someone woke up and they were watching Danny Phantom and they thought hm, what if I had Danny Fenton go to Gotham one day and hang out with the bats? And next thing you know, now we have thousands upon thousands of different fanfics, fan art and HCs, all because of it. All because someone had that one idea and shared it and others saw it, interpreted it their own way, and decided to create even more.

And now we're here! And this fandom is beautiful and thriving. There are so many amazing and lovely people in this fandom. There are so many discords to talk about fandom, there's so many events, a DPxDC Bang is the works, a DPxDC fanzine is in the works.

That's so fucking cool and we should be celebrating that! Not making others feel bad for not knowing as much as others.

#dpxdc #dis has opinions #dis writes #dpxdc crossover #negativity

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theglamorousferal · 1 year ago

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Some Uzushiogakure/Danny Phantom shit for y'all

What if Kushina felt when the barriers fell at Uzushio?

What if it sent her sprinting as fast as she could towards her first home?

What if she made it, but after the city had fallen?

What if in her grief and rage as she sat amongst the blood of her people, her family, she activated a long forgotten seal buried beneath the city?

The blood seeping through crevices to channels, flowing down the intricate seal and finally dripping down into a tomb.

Drip.

Drop.

Her chakra, her rage, the power of the Nine Tails as he relishes in her anger shines like a beacon from the center of the village.

It too seeps through the cracks.

All the way to the tomb.

Bright green bursts through the cracks beneath the lid.

______________________________________________

Kushina's rage whipped a storm about her.

The rain hid her tears as it pelted her small form, knees scrapped from when she landed hard on them.

She screamed, bending forward until her bare forehead-

The threw it so hard it lodged itself in the column of the Gates of Konoha when they tried to make her stay.

was pressed to the ruined mosaic of the village center, pounding her fists against the ground.

A sudden chill, the heaviness in the air of someone holding carefully leashed power, and a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Child, what happened here?"

She jumps into a ready stance, a kunai in each hand.

"Who are you?"

Green. That's the first thing she notices, brighter than the leaves of any tree in Konoha.

White, then black. His hair floats as if in water and his armor appears ancient, older than the Warring Clans era. He wears no headband, but a circlet that appears made of ice. He is also floating about a foot above the ground and the rain seems to pass over him as though his mere aura kept the downpour away.

"I have many names, but of all I prefer Danny."

Kushina blinked. "What are you?"

The being, Danny, seemed to ponder for a moment. "I suppose the closest thing you would have here is a god."

That would explain the power and the fact my hair is all on end.

She licked her lips for a moment. "What are you the god of?"

"Protection, longevity," he pauses for a moment, uncertain, "Death."

"A shinigami?!" she hissed "I should have expected one to be here."

"Again I'll ask, what happened here?"

Kushina's face went entirely blank as she set her arms by her sides, hands still clenching the kunai in a white-knuckled grip. She looked out over the ruins of her birthplace, her home.

"Uzushio fell. I don't know yet who did it, I just felt the barriers fall and by the time I got here, it was deserted."

The being watched her, bright, bright, almost too bright, green, flickered across her, eyes settled on bright red hair.

"You are an Uzumaki, are you not?"

She jumped and turned back to the being. "Y-yes."

Danny grinned and began to float towards the Kage's office. "Well, not all is lost. It may have been a long time since I was sealed, but I should be able to find everything necessary. First I'll have to find the cardinal points seals to set the foundations back together, and then we'll get about the resurrection seals."

"R-resurrection seals?!" Kushina stumbled after him, entirely out of her element for once.

"Oh, yes, I forgot to mention, one of my many names."

"And what's that?"

A smile with too much teeth and vengeance behind his eyes turned back to her.

"Uzushio."

#narutoxdp #dpxnaruto #dpxnaruto prompt #uzushiogakure #uzushio #up to you if they come back as human because danny's a death god #or if the come back as ghosts #fanfic #this is what happens when someone else posts about both my hyperfixations

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lass-us-slay · 8 months ago

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Alr so I was watching edits and came across Arlecchino and an idea popped into my head!

Danny Phantom as Arlecchino in DC also know as: Phantom the Knave Sovereign

(Still working on the name- Before we start I wanna say, I’m just trouble shooting rn and seeing what new ideas I could add with your guys input too. But so far this is what I have)

———

Ok so plot points:

Somehow Pariah Dark gets free of the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, either because of Vlad or the Observants

Pariah seeing potential in Danny (and cause he was already dubbed to take Pariahs place after he was old enough) starts trying to become Danny’s parental model (much like Vlad. But Worse.)

It was annoying at first, but slowly over time, Pariah started taking his role as Danny’s “Father” too far and twisted. Wanting to make Danny strong, stronger than he ever will be.

Then one thing leads to another and an identity reveal happens. Except the Fentons now pretend Danny Fenton no longer exists, and it’s just Danny Phantom that is an after image of their boy. Which pains them so they keep their distance, but still help what they think is left of their boy.

Danny is sad about that- but he has his sister Jazz and his two best friends! He can live with his parents pretending he doesn’t exist, atleast not as Danny Fenton no he can’t- he really can’t-

Then shit hits the fan, resulting in Danny’s home dimension into imploding into itself. (Which may or may not be the fault of Pariah Dark)

Luckily Danny is able to get out with Jazz!

But he’s too angry to rationalize himself after the death of his Haunt and almost all his fraid dying. He attacks and attacks Pariah and observers and whoever that threatens his last family at every turn.

More shit hits the fan, resulting in Danny getting cursed, which really hurts Danny. Enough to do weird ghost shenanigans to his biology, (via curse), and Jazz gets caught up.

Pariah sees a golden opportunity to use this to get Danny stronger to become the next king.

But Clockwork has had enough and steps in. Only to be promptly sealed away by the still acting king; Pariah Dark. Which Danny not even knowing as he’s out for the count thanks to the curse. (Jazz is the only witness. But Pariah can’t kill her because of Danny.)

More stuff happens and now Pariah is the acting Father of Danny and Jazz (with amnesia) who are in a ghost normal(?) orphanage with other kids.

Basically Arlecchino’s childhood happens to Danny and Jazz. Just that Pariah has decided to false make Jazz his “bio” kid to mentally fuck with Danny (smol child, and poor Jazz).

Danny still sees Jazz as his sis even if he doesn’t remember

After Jazz sadly doesn’t make it, Danny faces off Pariah once more for the first time. And consumes Pariahs Core into his, eating him alive so no more Pariah for the rest or eternity.

Then remembers- holy shit his names Danny! Not Peruere, which ew- (kidding I love the name-)

Anyways Danny gets mad at Clockwork only to find him sealed and the timelines fucked- and with Clockwork being so weak since the seal-ment, it’s up to Danny to fix the mess (and the one that was caused by the Observants once more with no one on the throne)

And so now Danny travels around timelines, picking up strays and adopting them (much like Batman, but better)

That there is the rough outline of the story!! I probably will make more but I just need to organize my thoughts before going into finer things (and art!)

Also I’d like to mention- while in the orphanage, Danny’s human side takes on more physical characteristics of his ghost form. Sorta merging the two forms into one? Not sure about it.

But Danny’s human form has definitely changed, and the curse is the same as Arlecchinos from Genshin (although would be nice if someone actually explained the curse to me fully- cause I don’t get it at all 😭)

Anyways that’s it- im thinking about interactions with the kids Danny Adopts and such but that’s for another time 💀

Aight peace ✌️

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robinsegghead · 10 months ago

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Danny's Daycare Part 10

[Master List]

The coffee shop was one he’d been to before, though Jason wasn’t much of a coffee drinker. It had grown a lot in popularity recently and Jason vaguely remembered Tim saying something about coming here regularly. Putting in his order (a redeye- which was a normal amount of caffeine to drink Tim), Jason found a booth in the corner and sat down.

He was a bit early so he’d have to wait for Danny. He’d been surprised when he hadn’t gotten a text canceling their meeting after the night Danny and Miguel had had. Jason had almost texted Danny with an excuse to cancel just to make sure the man wasn’t pushing himself too hard but that felt a bit ridiculous.

Danny was a grown man, he could take care of himself just fine. If he didn’t want to cancel, he didn’t have to cancel.

Jason sipped his coffee and watched the entrance out of the corner of his eye. Danny arrived a couple of minutes late, his hair was sticking up in multiple directions like he’d just rolled out of bed, his shirt was inside out, and his jeans were wrinkled. Had he just woken up?

Eyes landing on Jason, the man made his way to the table with a smile. “Sorry I’m late, I’m gonna grab a coffee and then I’ll join you.”

The barista at the front counter greeted him by name and they started chatting. Did they know each other? Was Danny a regular here as well? He waited for the man’s drink to be made (holy shit how many shots of espresso did they just put into his drink? That had to be a mistake) and thought about what he knew about the man.

He was somehow incredibly strong for his small build and short stature, probably a meta with super strength given his accidental murder of the Joker and easy take down of almost twenty-five men the night before- which. Jesus christ. Jason had learned some things about himself recently. Namely that he liked twinks who could easily pin him down or throw him around.

Shaking his head, he dismissed those thoughts. Now was so not the time or place.

Danny ran a daycare and seemed to genuinely care about the kids he took care of, he’d taken in two street kids and was helping get them into school again, when Jason insinuated the kids weren’t worth the effort Danny almost snapped his head off, and the man went berserk when someone threatened ‘his’ kid last night.

He and his sister, Jazz Nightingale, had no other known family and their history was locked down behind an encrypted wall neither Tim nor Barbie were able to get through. Which was suspicious but… Jason hadn’t really cared much. He only knew Tim was looking into Danny because of last night.

Tim had blown up a bit when he realized Red Hood and Danny had met on a few occasions. Jason couldn’t exactly explain how they’d met and had instead dodged all of his questions before ditching him and the rest of the bats to go home and implode.

Why implode? Because Danny taking down a bunch of goons that had hurt his kid without holding back (once he’d learned they were child traffickers) was probably the hottest thing he’d seen since the very same guy killed Jason’s murderer. So. Yeah. He’d gone home and had a bit of a crisis thinking about how in under twelve hours he was supposed to meet with the guy to discuss tutoring ‘his kids’.

“Sorry about that.” Danny said, taking the seat across from Jason and startling him out of his thoughts. “Long night. Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

Jason shrugged. “I like to be early if I can help it so it’s not really your fault I waited.”

He grinned and Jason decided he was a big fan of Danny’s smile. “So you’re good at English?”

Snorting, Jason nodded. “It was one of the only things I was good at in school.”

“It was my worst subject. My high school English teacher had it out for me- though,” Danny blushed and Jason forced himself to continue eye contact instead of noting how pink his cheeks had grown. “I did fall asleep in his class most days.”

“Looks like not getting enough sleep didn’t stop after high school.” Jason noted. The man had bags under his eyes that rivaled Tim’s. And ever since Tim and Conner got together he’d been sleeping a bit more- mostly because Connor made him, but still.

Danny groaned and took a swig of his coffee. “There’s a reason my drink has seven shots in it. You know how much time running a daycare, taking care of two teenage boys, and helping my sister get her GED takes up? Talk about burning the candle at both ends. I might as well have thrown the candle into the fire.” He chuckled as if what he’d just said wasn’t insanely worrying.

Also, Jason was pretty sure Danny’s sister was already attending college- why would he be helping her get her GED if that were the case?

“So what I’m hearing is, you’re desperate for someone to help?” Danny nodded reluctantly. “Well, I thrived in English throughout high school and still read regularly, but you should know, I never finished high school or got my GED. So, technically, I don’t have any qualifications.”

Why the hell did he say that? He could have forged qualifications if he needed to! What if Danny didn’t want somebody who’d never even graduated to teach his kids! What was he thinking-

“That doesn’t really matter to me. I almost didn’t graduate high school.” Oh? “And like I said, my younger sister is working on her GED at the moment. We’re both plenty smart, a degree doesn’t determine someone’s intelligence, just their situation.” Younger sister? Wasn’t Jazz older than him?

“That’s… good to hear.” Jason admitted.

Danny finished his drink- what the fuck was with this guy? “Do you mind me asking why you didn’t finish school? You don’t have to answer, just curious honestly.”

Make up a lie- “I died.”

What the ever-loving fuck Jason Todd? Aren’t you supposed to be good at keeping secrets? Fucking fuck- not only will Danny not believe him, but he’ll probably rescind his offer of hiring Jason- which- well, he didn’t need the money. He just wanted the opportunity to get to know the guy. But with a mouth as big as his it’s a shock he’s hidden his secret identity as long as he has-

“Oh.” Danny furrowed his brows and stared at Jason seriously. “Okay, yeah, same.”

Wait- What? Did Danny think he was making a joke? But he seemed serious still, something about the way he was looking at Jason was different from before, like he understood, like he meant it when he said ‘same’. “...Same..?” Jason asked, cautiously.

Clearing his throat, Danny looked away. “Yeah. Although, dying wasn’t what almost stopped me from graduating,” he chuckled. “That was more…. Everything else going on. But, uh, yeah- weird conversation to have with someone I don’t really know but-”

“You’re saying you died? Like actually died?” Jason cut in, still not believing what he was hearing. There was literally nothing about Daniel Nightingale online, no records he’d been able to find since he’d first found him a month ago- shouldn’t there be hospital records if he died?

“Yeah, look, I don’t like to talk about it much but yes. I understand. I,” He hesitated, nervously picking at the skin around his fingernails while speaking. “I died. Fully dead, came back… wrong. Different. So I’m not too worried about whether you graduated or not, as long as you can teach the subject.”

Right. The reason they were both here. Not whatever the hell else that was just now (which Jason was one thousand percent looking into when he got home today). “What are you thinking?”

“I suck at everything English except speaking it. The boys need to learn about grammar, how to read and analyze something, how to write papers, essays, etc.” Danny stopped picking at his fingers. “They’ve been out of school for three years now so they have a lot to catch up on. Not only that, Miguel will be going into his senior year and Santiago will be starting freshman year.”

Jason nodded along. “Yeah I can teach all of that. I’ve helped a few of my younger siblings throughout the years, none of them are really great at the subject.”

“I’d obviously pay you. There’s two of them and I’m asking a lot, so name a price and I’ll make it happen.”

“Name a price?” Jason repeated. “You sure about that, doll?” He smirked at Danny’s surprised look. “I could be some schmuck down on his luck trying to take advantage of you right now and you say ‘name a price’?”

Shrugging, Danny rubbed his temple. Did he have a headache? “I mean, you probably couldn’t name a price I couldn’t meet but I guess, hows $150 an hour sound? Wait- should I double it because there’s two of them?” He looked at the ceiling contemplatively while Jason stared in shock. “Okay yeah, $300 an hour good?”

“That’s… way more than necessary.” Jason managed, taken completely off guard.

Danny, who seemed to get some confidence from Jason’s shocked state, leaned forward and smirked. “I can go higher if you’d like, darling. $500 an hour? $750?” He’d lowered his voice and raised an eyebrow. “Ah hell, might as well make it a solid $1,000, I am asking a lot of you, huh sweetheart?”

Where. Had. That. Come. From?

All Jason could think about was how incredibly sexy that confidence was. Jason swallowed, Danny’s eyes followed the action, slowly trailing back up his face and- had Jason imagined the way the man’s eyes paused over his lips? Had the cafe always been this warm? “$150 is plenty.” Jason finally managed.

Leaning back and returning to his former air of laid back and slightly frazzled, Danny smiled. “Sounds good! We usually work in the evenings and weekends, what days and times work for you?”

“Any time on Saturdays is fine, any time after twelve on Sunday’s is fine,” Alfred always gave him the disappointed look when Jason missed a brunch these days. “And week nights… I could probably do seven to nine? Not sure how often you need me to work with them though.”

Danny nodded, thoughtfully. “Two or three times a week would be good. The boys don’t have a lot to entertain them at the moment so they’re trying to get a bunch of the school stuff out of the way. The latest entrance exam for Gotham Academy is the first week of August so they have almost two months but well- that’s not much time. We’re trying to expedite it as much as possible.”

“What if they don’t get in?” Jason asked.

“Then I’ll homeschool them.” Danny shrugged. “I want them to get into Gotham Academy for the social aspects and-” he paused, looking at Jason seriously. “And because I want them to prove to themselves that they’re capable of it. They don’t think they can get in, but I know they can.”

Jason wondered what it would have been like, to have someone believe in him that much when he was younger. Bruce had… he’d done his best, and sometimes Jason thought if there had never been Batman, never been Robin, things would have probably been completely different. If even a fraction of Gotham cared about others the way Danny did, it would change completely.

“They’ll get into Gotham Academy, we’ll make sure of it.”

~~~

Who. The Fuck. Was Dani Nightingale?

Tim had been looking into Danny Nightingale for months- learning everything he could about the man and his past which was, admittedly, not a lot, but he knew a few things. Daniel Nightingale had a bachelor’s in bio chemistry, he was super wealthy, he liked helping people, and he had one sister. ONE. Jasmine (Jazz) Nightingale, a student at Gotham U and intern at Arkham Asylum.

So why was there suddenly evidence of a second sister, one younger than Danny, whose name was ALSO Danny but with an ‘i’? Where did she come from? Who was she? Why did she look so much like Danny but neither looked like Jazz?

And another thing? Why was the only thing proving her existence, a social security number, birth certificate, and driver’s license? Where were the social media posts? The email accounts? Literally anything?! She hadn’t existed yesterday, and today- BAM! She’s a whole real person!

“Tim, I think it’s time for bed.” Connor suggested.

Shaking his head, Tim continued to stare at the exact same information he’d spent the last forty minutes staring at. “I don’t need sleep, I need answers.”

“I will drag you to bed.”

“Kon-”

“Nope, too slow.” Connor grabbed him around the waist and dragged him out of the cave to get his first proper night of sleep in almost a week.

~~~

The meeting with Jason had gone well and they’d settled on him coming over to tutor the boys on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Saturdays every week. The boys had asked him how it’d gone when he got home and he tried not to remember the way Jason had called him ‘doll’ or how Danny had snapped back, calling him ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’ and checking him out the entire time- what the fuck Danny? The man was looking for a job and Danny had openly checked him out and clearly made him uncomfortable- Jason probably called lots of people doll- it wasn’t flirtatious.

So no. He hadn’t told the boys much about the meeting. Just that Jason would be helping with English from here on out. They’d also talked about Miguel’s outburst. The boy had tried to apologize but Danny wasn’t having it. Everything the boys were doing was hard, and he knew that; they didn’t deserve to feel guilt over getting emotional through the hard days.

The difficult stuff was for Danny to shoulder.

They had pancakes for dinner and the boys spent the night in his place again. Miguel was clearly quite shaken by what had happened but wasn’t ready to discuss it. Life had gotten in the way recently, but he’d promised Miguel a cat, and he thought the kid might need it now more than ever.

Nightingale: Hey, would you be willing to teach a friend of mine about cats?

Nightingale: … You changed my name again.

Dami: It is your name.

Dami: …You changed my name again.

‘Nightingale’ has changed ‘Nightingale’s’ name to ‘Danny’

‘Dami’ has changed ‘Dami’s’ name to ‘Damian’

Danny: Anyways- will you? I can pay you if you want

Damian: I do not need financial compensation. When were you hoping I could teach your friend?

Danny: As soon as possible? He’s had a rough couple of days and I think the cat will help him. He’s already shown a lot of responsibility towards them.

Damian: This is acceptable. Tomorrow after noon I am free.

Danny: You can come by anytime after noon! Thanks Dami!

Damian: I did not give you permission to call me that, Nightingale.

Danny: I didn’t give you permission to call me that, Dami.

Damian: Touche.

It seemed they were at a stalemate. The boy didn’t text him back after that which was fine, he’d be coming over tomorrow and Danny could tease him then. Shooting a text to Damian with his home address, Danny paused. Had he ever texted Tim?

Shit. He was such a bad friend. How long ago had that been anyways? A month? Ancients fuck- Putting in the number he’d hastily typed into an empty memo on his phone, Danny shot out a text.

Danny: Hey Tim, it’s Danny. Sorry it took so long to message, things have been crazy.

He hadn’t seen Tim at the coffee shop since the last time- he didn’t really have the time to go anymore- and wasn’t even sure if Tim really wanted to be his friend or had given Danny his number out of boredom or something. Although, didn’t he say he didn’t get much free time? Plus, it was kind of rude to have waited so long to text.

Collapsing into the couch with a sigh, Danny decided to stop overthinking things (easier said than done) and go to sleep intentionally for once. He’d just closed his eyes when he heard the sound of a window sliding open. Whoever thought it was a good idea to break into the ghost king’s apartment especially after one of his kids was kidnapped was crazy. Before he could get too angry he was met by the sight of Red Hood squeezing through the window with a plastic bag in one hand.

“Wh- you know what, I’m not gonna ask.” Danny rubbed a hand across his eyes.

Red Hood looked startled when he realized Danny was there. It’s his apartment, why wouldn’t Danny be there? “Uh, sorry, you’re usually not here when I bring food.”

“Usually not where? In my own apartment? In the apartment building that I own?” Danny snarked. “Sorry, that was rude.” He stood up feeling the blood rush to his head quickly. “To what do I owe the-”

He wasn’t quite sure what had happened. One second he was looking at Hood while approaching him, he blinked, and then he was looking up at Hood. They were also much closer than they’d ever been aside from the time the vigilante had taken him home via grappling hook.

Blinking hard, Danny pulled away. “What just happened?”

“You blacked out. Are you okay?”

Danny rubbed the back of his head which usually hurt after his power naps but felt completely fine at the moment. “Yeah,” he sighed, pushing himself to stand up despite Hood’s attempted protest. “Just my body trying to take a power nap. Anyways, thanks for the food- you really don’t have to keep doing that.”

“I want to.” Hood said almost automatically. “What the hell do you mean by power nap? That was a fainting spell if I’ve ever seen one- and believe me, I have.”

Finding a place for the food in the fridge was easy considering Danny hadn’t exactly had time to go to the grocery store in the last few days. “You know- a power nap? When your body tries to overpower you into napping? Happens a lot.”

“Danny- what the- that is NOT normal- you should see a doctor or-”

“Awwww.” Danny chuckled. “The Red Hood is worried for me?” He teased.

The vigilante went silent for a moment, staring at Danny like he was an idiot. “Yes! Jesus fucking Christ man, passing out is not normal and you should most certainly see a doctor about it!”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

Red Hood put his hands on his hips and tilted his head. It was kind of adorable how put-off he seemed. “It’s not fine. How long has this been going on?”

Danny pretended to think about it. He didn’t have to. He knew the exact date he’d started having this issue. He wasn’t keen on telling the Red Hood that he was a baby who couldn’t handle a little murder. “I dunno- a while.”

“Give me an estimate.” Hood countered.

“How long’s it been since we met?” Danny asked (as if he didn’t have the date memorized or hadn’t recounted the events that led to him being casually acquainted with his favorite vigilante). “About that long. You know- after I killed someone?”

Hood froze, his body tense in a way Danny hadn’t personally seen before. “Oh.”

“Yeah oh.” Danny scoffed, closing the fridge and leaning against the counter for support. “Look, the Joker deserved to die and I don’t regret killing him. I couldn’t sleep for a couple of days because of it, but I didn’t regret it. And then… life got crazy. Vigilantes were breaking into my apartment, the daycare was getting busier, the Red Hood was leaving me meals,” he gave the vigilante a pointed look. “Suddenly I’d taken in a couple of teenage boys and also my younger sister all of whom need an education I’m not qualified to provide but am somehow the only one able to do it- it’s a lot, man.”

Hood nodded in understanding. “That is a lot. You don’t have any… friends or family who could help you? Parents?”

Danny’s face darkened. “No. Look, this isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with this. Basically all of high school I got zero sleep and was expected to keep up grades and protect the town- I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, about that. You wanna tell me how you were a teenage vigilante?”

Shaking his hand, Danny huffed. “You want my origin story? Man, I’m retired. And you’ve probably never even heard of me.”

Hood didn’t budge.

“I’ll tell you what- you take off the helmet, and I’ll tell you my origin story.”

“Not gonna happen.” Hood responded quickly.

With a smug look, Danny crossed his arms. “That’s what I thought. Thanks for the food, the boys always appreciate it, but I think we’re done here.” He moved to show Hood out (through the window) but the man didn’t move, staring at Danny intently. “What?” He sighed.

Hood lifted his arms and though Danny’s danger sense didn’t go off, he worried he’d offended the man. Although he thought very highly of the vigilante, he didn’t really know much about him. But instead of losing his temper or pushing Danny for more, Hood unlatched his helmet.

Danny gasped slightly as the man pulled it away and revealed- a domino.

“Oh you sneaky motherfucker!” He barked out, laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. When he was done laughing, he took in the man’s face. His black hair was messy, probably from the helmet, some of his hair looked… white? But what he noticed the most was the scar on the side of his face. It was a J. Although Danny wasn’t always the best at putting things together, he could extrapolate who’d left that there without needing to ask.

He sucked in a breath. “Okay, I take it back, I think I’m actually going to start sleeping better now that that fucker’s dead.”

Hood pursed his lips. Danny tried not to look too closely at his lips but Ancients damn he was failing miserably. The man was hot. Danny liked men. He liked men so much.

The vigilante cleared his throat and Danny snapped out of it. “Sorry. I guess a deal is a deal. You want tea? Coffee? Something to eat? It’s kind of a long story.”

It seemed that Hood was going to refuse his offer but thought better of it. Maybe he noticed the way Danny’s voice shook a bit when he spoke or the haunted look he tried to cover up with a smile. “Tea would be great. Anything black.”

Nodding, Danny set to making them each a cup of tea immediately. He had a simple decaf black tea that he liked in the evenings and set to making them each a cup. “Milk? Sugar?”

“A little of each.” Came the vigilantes' response. He sounded farther away than he had a moment ago and when Danny looked over to see why he found the man looking at pictures of him with his fraid.

When the tea was ready he brought it to the couch and set the cups down. “Those are my friends.” He said, startling Hood out of his apparently deep thoughts. Even with the domino covering his eyes, Danny could tell the man was thinking deeply about something.

Instead of asking whatever questions he had, the man picked up the mug meant for him and took a sip. “Thank you.”

Danny grabbed his own mug and sat on one side of the couch, Hood followed suit and sat on the other end. There was a lot of room between them.

“Anyway,” Danny took a sip of his tea to put off telling the story a bit more. “My… parents, Jack and Maddie, are what you might call mad scientists.” He noted the way Hood tensed. “They had a fascination with ghosts and proving their existence and studying them. When I was a kid Jack and Maddie began constructing a portal to what they called ‘the Ghost Zone’. It took years. When they were done- it didn’t work.

“They were pissed, but my friends and I thought it looked pretty cool. So they dared me to go inside and take a picture. And- well- I wanted to look cool for my friends. So I went inside.” He paused, taking a sip. “Jack and Mddie are idiots and put a switch on the inside of the portal, and as a certified klutz, I tripped into it.”

Hood scrunched his brows together clearly tempted to interrupt but aware that he shouldn’t. It was cute.

“I’d say the amount of electricity that went through my body was a few thousand volts. I died. ” He let that sink in for a moment, Hood’s lips had parted in shock. Danny held up his hand and showed Hood his lichtenberg scars. “I died but Jack and Maddie weren’t completely crazy. They were right about the ghost zone- although it’s called the Infinite Realms to those who actually inhabit it and while the portal opened through my body it was flooded with something called ectoplasm.

“Ectoplasm is part of ghosts. They need it to exist, they produce it, it’s like blood… kind of. So the electricity killed me but the ectoplasm tried to keep me alive and I ended up half dead… half alive. You with me so far?”

Hood ran a hand through his hair. “There’s... more?”

Danny laughed. “So much. But we won’t get into all of that.” Hood didn’t need to know about every rogue he’d fought, the fact that he’d become king of the Infinite Realms at fifteen, or what happened after high school…

“How old were you?” Hood asked like it was important.

He guessed it was. “Fourteen.” He managed.

Hood cursed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“With the portal open, ghosts thought it was fair game for them to come through. Ghosts- and keep in mind, ‘ghost’ is a really generalized term, there are different kinds. Anyways, ghosts socialize through fighting and sparring so when they showed up and started attacking… I felt responsible.

“So I kicked their butts and threw them back into the Infinite Realms. They kept coming back and I kept dealing with them. Jack and Maddie, ever intent on catching a ghost to study, chased me for years not knowing I was their son. At one point the government got involved, it was a whole thing, eventually I was able to prevent the ghosts from coming back without permission and retired. Ta-da.”

Hood licked his lips and Danny knew- he knew Hood was trying to understand what Danny had just said but holy fuck why did he have to lick his lips? “So… You… died? And you… came back… wrong?”

Something about the way he asked it struck Danny as strange. It sounded like a phrase he’d said before, something maybe he’d… heard others say? It wasn’t offensive, just… strange. “I guess you could look at it that way. I don’t know if ‘wrong’ is the best way to put it, just… different. Despite what Jack and Maddie will tell you- I’m still the same guy I was before I died. Well- as much the same as you can be after experiencing something like that.”

“This is…” Danny nodded encouragingly as the man tried to digest what he’d learned. “Okay. So- sure. Ghosts. Why not? How did you… deal with them?”

Danny had pointedly ignored telling Hood about his ghost form- it felt… too personal. But he did feel a need to explain a bit to the man- the Avenger of the Dead. “When I came back I had… powers. Like ghosts. I mean, I’m half ghost so… I can do the things they can do plus some other stuff.”

“And that’s how you accidentally killed the clown? Super strength?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

Hood stood up and began pacing- something he’d clearly been itching to do for a while but had held off for Danny’s sake. “So… when you died and came back- did you- were there like… side effects?”

“Like what?” Danny tilted his head.

“Uncontrollable rage.”

It was a strange question. The same way Hood asking if he ‘came back wrong’ was strange. Like he was drawing from personal experience rather than asking about Danny specifically. “Hood.” Danny stood slowly, no need for another fainting spell at such a fragile moment. “Why do you ask?”

There was only a moment of hesitation before the vigilante answered. “Because I died and came back wrong too.”

Oh. Okay. Danny had never had this conversation before. He had to admit, something felt a bit off about Hood when they first met- but everyone felt a bit off in Gotham. It was in the air, buried under the streets built atop graveyards, it was embedded in every building and plant and person. The city reeked of that different feeling. So he’d brushed it off and learned to tune it out.

“Danny?”

Right, he was in the middle of an important conversation. “Sorry, I’ve just never… uh… There aren’t many people like me. Can you… tell me more about how you came back?”

Hood tensed.

“Or not!” Danny shouted. “Sorry! Ancients, Danny.” He sighed. “Look, I never had uncontrollable rage- although… Well…” Did he really want to go there? But the look on Hood’s face- even covered by a domino- told him the man needed answers. And Danny might have them. “There’s a… different version of me that has some pretty bad anger issues.”

“A different version of you?”

“An evil future me. He’s still around… somewhere.” Danny feigned nonchalance. Truth be told he didn’t know exactly where Dan was- he’d left that to Clockwork to handle, but last he heard his future self was getting therapy which- that was hilarious actually. Danny hadn’t worked up the courage to ask Clockwork about him. Not once.

Hood shook his head. “This is… crazy. You’re telling me-” He cut off, his head turned to the side slightly as if listening to something. “Fuck. Okay. I have to go- Spoiler needs backup- we are not done talking. This is crazy and I have a million questions, Jesus Christ- ghosts!” He rambled, looking for his helmet and taking his leave without so much as a goodbye.

Well.

That went…

It went. That’s for sure.

Prev. Next

#fanfiction #danny phantom #danny phantom/jason todd #danny's daycare #dp x dc #dead on main #timkon #tim drake #kon kent #two dead guys talking bout death cause they're gay for each other

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ew-selfish-art · 2 years ago

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DPxDC AU: Tim receives an interesting email from DalvCo explaining why the CEO is not to be trusted- It's an internal email and suddenly Tim is experiencing supernatural phenomena. He knows that the two events are absolutely related, but he's going to let the cutie stumble his way through data points and vague threats anyway.

(Sorry this got long lmao)

Tim is exhausted after a long night of staking out a new drug cartel with Hood (which in itself took a lot of energy from both of them to have the patience for the other- things are good, not great)... so right now he's logging into his WE email on the train to his office because he's incredibly late. And while he scrolls and contemplates the failsafes he has to make sure Tam doesn't murder him outright- he sees an unexpected email from Vladimir Masters.

Tim's curiosity is piqued, he'd thought that Vlad would have gotten the hint after Tim dismissed him at that Christmas gala a few years ago. Most people took Tim's snubbing as a fatality in the Gotham socialite scene- Most knew him to be 'an agreeable young man', and Tim's reputation had paid a small price for making Vlad's failed vibe check known to the room. The tabloids blamed it on the champagne glass he had in his hand- Has he mentioned how much he hates Vicky Vale lately??

Tim has a few stops to go and he's pretty sure that he's going to delete the email, but in sleep deprived inspiration, he decides it might as well entertain him while he waits. The letter isn't at all what he expected.

"Hello Wayne Enterprise's CEO Tim Drake, I'm sending you this letter on behalf of the entire Midwest to advise that you, under no circumstances, come into contact with or speak to the CEO of DalvCo Vlad Masters. He is underhanded and utilizes untraceable tactics to procure deals. We have reason to believe you may be targeted in the next few days and hope that you are able to take steps for your own safety to avoid Vlad Masters at all costs.

Sincerely, 👑"

Tim feels bewildered for a moment and then... Like a cat with a new toy mouse. A game was afoot! He needed to track down these hackers, he needed to be their best fucking friend (find out their secrets & Vlads) and he needed to apprehend Vlad ASAP! Untraceable tactics? Tim scoffs, but the challenge excites him.

Arriving at WE, Tam looks ready to throw a knife his way (he reminds her that Pru does it better) and states that if Vlad Masters tries to make an appointment- accept it but give him the run around. Make an appointment and continue to contest it, change it, delay it until Tim is actually ready for him. The lights start to flicker, both of them notice it.

Everytime Tim gets a second to investigate Vlad in his office, the room's temperature drops. Tim notices it, and having experienced a number of supernatural phenomena, he knows it has to be related.

Tim decides not to beat around the bush. He comes back to the office that night equipped with a Ouija board, candles and a bag of other occult accessories. He quickly finds, upon setting up, that there is now a groaning Teenager in front of him- lambasting his efforts and chastizing him for taking a meeting with Vlad. Did he not get the fuckin memo??

Tim quickly begins to ask his questions, grateful to not have to deal with the party game board, and takes diligent notes.

"Right, so, you're just a concerned citizen ghost who knows what kind of nefarious deeds Vlad gets up to, how?" ---

Danny is losing his shit. Here he is, having done all the ground work to tell this guy not to meet with Vlad and he's already got him on the schedule! Danny took a page from Technus' book and transported himself alongside the short email. He didn't get this guy at all! Tim was like, basically the same age and clearly super fucking smart, why was he acting like this was a fucking birthday gift? Scratch that, the dude has a Ouija Board- it's like a lame ass birthday party in here!

Danny cannot help himself but return to the visible spectrum and give this guy a talking to- Which, the atmosphere of a birthday party still doesn't change, for ancient's sake this guy is taking notes with a megawatt smile! He's smiling! Danny just described Vlad taking down like, three American dynasties and the dude is nodding his head along gleefully.

Then suddenly, Danny realizes that he might be on the chopping block. Tim asks his first question and it's not about Vlad at all.

"Er, yeah. Just a concerned ghost citizen." Danny cringes.

"Right, and that's why you hacked into the Mayor of your town's email... Right Tucker?"

Danny blanches, not because the guy knew about Amity Park, but because apparently Tucker's online persona had been compromised. SHIT.

"Uh, I'm not Tucker." Danny attempts to lie- why was he so bad at lying again?!

"Of course you aren't, he's currently playing doomed, but it would have been smart to take the out I offered you. Do you want to tell me your name or do you want me to throw out another random guess? You should know that I've done my homework."

"...It's Danny."

"Certainly not Danny Fenton? Who is, sorry to say it, heir to DalvCo? The same one who totally doesn't have a school record of absences equivalent to well documented town hauntings?"

"Yep." Danny cringes, and giving up the goat, transforms back into his human self, "But seriously dude, you can't meet with Vlad. He'll just... take it all."

Tim blinks at him a few times, and his cheeks flush. Danny desperately tries to ignore that response as well as his own (he knows his ears are red, sue him).

"Right. Well, how would you like an internship? First order of business would be meeting with me and my PA Tam and helping us play ball." The guy has a feral grin. The grin kind of scares Danny, it definitely annoys him and a small part of him is curiously charmed.

"Dude you're not hearing me-" Danny tries before being cut off.

"Yeah yeah, supernatural bullshit is involved, Got that." Tim waves him off. Okay never mind, not charmed at all, Danny is completely annoyed.

"I swear to all the ancients-" Danny has to stop himself to calm down, "Dude consider yourself fucking haunted. I'm not helping you with a suicide mission to talk to the creep and I will be making your ass miserable for deciding to go down this path."

"Is that a promise?" Tim is basically batting his eyelashes at Danny and Danny is desperately trying to ignore that.

"Bet." And then he goes invisible.

"That's cute, pretending to leave me." Tim smirks and Danny can't help but let out an exasperated groan.

As it turns out, Tim is incredibly difficult to spook and his normal haunting methods are not fucking working. Has this guy just, like, seen every single horror movie?

----

Tim knows this is going to be fun, even if it means not going out as Red Robin for a while... Maybe he should get back into his night photography and give the guy a chance to enhance the creepiness of Gotham? Maybe start going to restaurants alone and get the guy to join him at a secluded two person table? Tim has plans on plans on plans.

#dcxdp #dp x dc #dc crossover #dp crossover #danny phantom #tim drake #is it a haunting if the guy being haunted dupes you into dating him?#braindead ship #timxdanny #lmao please take this somewhere. I beg.#tim who has been fear gased too many times and dealt with ras: ur haunting is so fkn cute omg #danny: please take my haunting seriously and reconsider meeting with vlad #vlad: stupid fucking teenagers overbooking their schedule #dc x dp #dpxdc

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starry-bi-sky · 1 year ago

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honestly your dpxdc clone au gives me life, its adorable as all hell and im a sucker for found family but with that being said, its so freaking hysterical to me that Danny is going full feral liminal menace at Wes any time hes near and Wes himself is still 100% into it the freak (affectionate) and thats not even pointing out the paralles it could possible create since danny and dames gives massive parallels to dick and damian and dick does have a thing for redheads.

yeesSSSSS! I was planning on hoarding this to myself but i can't not reply. and i'll be able to find this again with the clone^2 tag so win WIN. i'm so glad you are as delighted by this as me. It's so hilarious to me that Danny just becomes a complete freak whenever he spots Wes, and I'm the one who wrote it into existence. Like- like i don't know how to explain my vision in words but like, its like Danny sees Wes and immediately goes 'what can I do to make his day worse'. And then he goes and does it.

(honorary read more because i talk a lot)

He's relatively normal around his friends too, which makes him going full-fledged unhinged around Wes even funnier to me. Like, Danny will spout weird shit sometimes to Sam and Tucker, but usually its prefaced with him talking about patrol or there would be context before he said anything. With Wes? Though?? he will just. say anything, completely unprompted. Slings an arm around his shoulder like they've been buddies since primary school and then spits out a weird new fun fact he learned about the bodily anatomy while researching his latest cold case. All vaguely-threatening but utterly insane things to say as way to start a conversation.

And sometimes its not even that, he'll walk up to Wes and ask him if he saw the latest daytime fight between Phantom and Skulker. And then he'll say "yeah i missed it myself but I saw clips of it being posted online" and then watch Wes mentally explode him with his mind. or he'll disparage Phantom for having such a young partner with him, "Can you believe he'd let a kid fight ghosts with him? I'd never let my brother ghosthunt with me if I was Phantom."

All of this with such a deceptive look on his face but the most delighted, shit-eating gleam in his eyes. Wes is chewing glass and he wants to yell that he does let his brother fight ghosts with him. Also you told him yourself that nothing would've stopped your demonic (Wes' words) little brother from joining you.

Damian gets in on the fuckery occasionally, but since he's not around often with Wes about, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it does between Wes and Danny. Sam and Tucker know he's screwing with him too, and both of them are a little wary about him being careless with his secret id. But he's been doing this since he was 14-ish and it hasn't backfired yet. So. They're not actively stopping him.

Danny walks back to his lunch table after terrorizing Wes and Tucker just asks him what he said, because Wes was about as red as a tomato when he walked away. Danny offhandedly sighs and innocently says he tried to have a conversation about Phantom with him. Wes didn't seem to like it all that much. Weird.

And yes, yes. Wes is totally into it and is slightly enraged about this fact, because not even he knows why he's into it. The freak (affectionate). Danny gives him this troublemaker smirk, and i did say smirk, and Wes doesn't know whether or not if he wants to smack him or kiss him. Or both. Like, yeah, pine, white boy, pine.

(And this is a dramatized image but I'm also highly entertained by the idea that Wes keeps getting routine dirty looks from various peers because they, too, have a crush on Fenton. Except Fenton doesn't talk to anyone else unless its his friends and sometimes Valerie, and Weston, the guy who keeps accusing him of being the local vigilante, is somehow routinely having conversations with him?? And BLOWING IT?? Like everyone else thinks he's fumbling so bad, and yet fenton keeps tALKING to him.)

And yes!! i'm always so pleased whenever someone brings up the parallels D+D have to Dick and Damian, because that was lowkey my intention when I was making the solo clone damian au. Although it was supposed to be more implied since I don't really know much about Damian and Dick other than they're very close and Dick was Damian's Batman for a year. And then of course the very smaller parallel (??) 'what if' between Bruce and Damian and D+D in clone^2 considering who they are both clones of.

And man this just makes me want to talk about when batfam meet D+D because I just want them to see D+D be so brotherly towards each other. Like I want them to see Bby Dames wearing his goofy fun fact shirts and stealing Danny's hoodies/flannels/etc and blatantly lying about it when Danny asks. Only for Danny to then throw him over his shoulder like Tadashi from BH3 and jump around.

And also. I do not know what Damian Wayne's (DW as I'll call him) stance on being called "Dami" is - the general consensus I've seen is that its usually used as a playful nickname in order to get a rise out of him, and he doesn't really like it.

But baby Dames being called that freely, and often, and its sometimes used to get a rise out of him but thats typically what nicknames do. Its used as easily as his full name is with the same amount of affection. And its like his main go-to nickname. "Dami" and "Dames" with the occasional "Bud/Buddy", "Squirt", "Little man", etc. Not once is he ever called 'demon-spawn'

(which i know is a fanon nickname but its a relatively popular nickname)

but yeah, uhhh. i think thats all of my thoughts on the matter. for now lmAO

#danny fenton is not the ghost king #clone^2 #i use 'like' so much its not even funny jhdf but it just puts an emphasis on the sentence #honorary read more tag bc damn i talk a lot #i should make a post about danny's relationship with red huntress in the clone^2 au because i like to imagine that's different too #anyways danny and wes' dynamic in clone^2 brings me a lot of joy. they get stuck in a room together and danny gets the biggest grin ever #and wes stares at him before going completely deadpan 'im in hell'. he's being dramatic and only slightly for real.#also im not sure WHAT damian does - honestly the most extreme thing i can think of is him breaking into wes' house and threatening him #but wes has called him danny's 'demonic little brother' ever since. sOMEbody has to give him his 'demon' nickname its just not gonna be #danny or jazz who do it. anyways damian fully supports messing with wes and anyone else who has a crush on danny

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allwormdiet · 8 months ago

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Tangle 6.9

I don't wanna deal with this parrrrrrrrrt

Taylor. Taylor. I know you're getting desperate but come on. You can't write an email to the hero you and your friends publicly bodied on the same night that you did the bodying.

Nobody's checking her on her shit. Nobody who she should theoretically be able to go to for advice is equipped for this, or even inclined to help her. Danny would try, I'm certain, but he'd be out of his depth. Emma might have been a grounding influence for Taylor once upon a time but, haha, that is no longer an option. School is worthless to her, and her new (only) friends are the ones who are doing the crimes she's involving herself in, not to mention that she became their friend with the intent to backstab them.

...I wish she'd just talk to her dad about this shit. Her refusal to even try and explain it to him feels like it's tangled up in something she can't even name or describe. He's the closest confidant she has at this point, and that's not saying much, but for fuck's sake it should be saying something.

Fuck.

Fucky fucker fucking fuck.

You can't lie to someone you live with for that long about something that can be so easily fact-checked and expect to never get caught out. It's just not feasible.

God this is so hard. She's trying to spare his feelings, she's trying to not pin any of this on him, and it's not working. The fact that she feels like she can't trust him means that he failed to be trustworthy to her, somewhere along the way, and she won't even acknowledge that. She won't even sit across the table from him to talk about this.

Here's where Danny scuffs it, honestly. I'm not going to say he was even wrong to anticipate Taylor's avoidance, but hemming her in like this is only going to rile her up worse. I don't know what the right answer is. Breaks my heart.

I don't think it's fair of Taylor to lump her dad in with the others who've hurt her, in no small part because. This hurt that Danny's feeling, the pain that makes her twist with guilt and frustration, was damage she caused by lying to him, by pushing him away. She's been so lonely for so long and the one person who could've been an ally, even an ineffectual one, is the one she's kept at arm's length throughout all of it.

Even the violence, even the kicking and the breaking, is just a way to avoid telling him anything.

Just pull the bandage off, Taylor, please. Maybe the worst-case scenario happens but then you don't have to keep that poisonous cold lump inside of you. There's other reactions he could have, better ones. I don't think his love for you is conditional. I don't think

Okay so this is almost the right decision she's making, here

Yes! Be with your friends, make bonds that last, admit to yourself what you actually want

God fucking dammit

Straight up crying in the club rn

Tell him! Oh my god please just tell him. Taylor for the love of god please just tell him

Fuck

Lisa's just a kid, too. As much as she pretends otherwise, as much as Danny wants to believe her.

So. Fucking sad.

Current Thoughts

The Heberts break my goddamn heart.

Danny tried, but he pushed too hard when Taylor was already raw and accidentally put her in a defensive mindset, made her feel cornered, unsafe. And then when it came down to it, he still let her walk away. He let Lisa take her from him.

And Taylor. God. I wish she'd just let Danny support her. Even if he doesn't solve her problems, if she could just lean on him during the low times that could make such a difference. I think he could understand, maybe given time. He'd side with her before he'd side against her, no matter who was on the other side.

Another point of proof, I guess. Taylor's fate wasn't sealed from the beginning. It doesn't have to go the way that it goes. There were options, much as she can't see them.

And the roads not taken just make it hurt that much more.

Interlude next.

*sigh*

#wormblr #parahumans #worm liveblogging #liveblog #worm tangle

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ghoulishautism · 1 year ago

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"Clockwork is a bitch, which is why Frostbite should be Danny's father figure"

Ok listen I see your criticisms and I understand them, they are valid and narratively sound. But Clockwork being a weird out of touch time god bitch is the best part about him, ok? Hear me out for a second.

Dont get me wrong I love Frostbite. Hes the wise leader who happily takes Danny under his wing and teaches him how to get his ice powers (which he has always had since season one COUGH)- and is overall a very nice dude, even after a brief misunderstanding with the icicle thorn thing.

But i feel like hes...too nice? I don't know how to explain it, but he feels too yes-man ish. That isn't to say Danny doesn't deserve some positive treatment after everything hes been through, but I also believe someone as young as Danny needs someone to be able to tell him when hes wrong or over his head.

Clockwork is the dude who honest to god doesn't want to deal with the stupid 14 year old who keeps screwing with the timeline. He is a literal time god and is, by definition, too old for this shit.

Clockwork does have elements of a wise mentor, so I don't know why people always act like hes some mean dude who hates Danny? I just think his handling of Danny's situation in both the episodes hes in (TUE and Masters of Time) paints a guy whos kinda out of touch, but also represents a kind of tough-love guidance someone Danny's age needs. Like he was willing to give Danny the benefit of the doubt in TUE ("He'll make the right choice"), but then steps in once Danny has proven otherwise.

Why there are people acting like Clockwork was the only cruel one (besides the obvious villain) when that whole damn episode was written around a kid's loved ones dying at a McDonalds explosion because he cheated on a standardized test is beyond me. Like honey thats just Butch Hartman writing- hes kinda known for having this bitter air to his work (even on episodes he hasn't directly written for).

You could still argue that Clockwork's handling of Danny is a bit much, and I would agree to an extent, which is why I propose this to settle the debate:

Danny can have more than one father figure in his life. Mind blowing concept, I know. In fact I think him having both Frostbite AND Clockwork (and Jack, remember him guys? He exists) would be a good balancing act between the two approaches.

I'm not saying Clockwork and Frostbite should make out, but if you wanna see things that way-

#long post #SORRY...I had this in my mind for a bit #clockwork #frostbite

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shippingmyworld · 9 months ago

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Do you think the others would have questions about Manny's anatomy, specifically with his hands. I mean like whenever he's El Tigre his hands become retractable and there have been times when they've been cut. Will he be missing his hand when he's not transformed or is it only when he's El Tigre? I don't think Danny would question it too much since his anatomy is also weird.

I'd like to imagine with their setting, they wouldn't question it at first cus they're already a little desensitized. Especially with half the team already having weird anatomy like Jenny and SpongeBob. They're already more prone of losing limbs, given that Jenny can easily repair/replace them and SpongeBob just regenerates them (I know Danny's been shown being able to be stretchy/modify his ghost form but I hc that he hasn't done that since the Unite gang teamed up because he doesn't like being reminded that he's not strictly human anymore).

Then the first time one of Manny's gauntlets chains get's severed, he hisses in pain or something and it just clicks for everyone. "WAIT, MANNY'S HUMAN." They'd all be freaking out so much that even the villain of the week that they're fighting would have to pause and reassess the situation (SpongeBob would retrieve Manny's severed gauntlet and rush to his side, blubbering and freaking out about how to reattach it). Despite Manny assuring them he's actually okay, nobody believes him until he transforms back and shows them his arm is still fine.

Jimmy would absolutely want to know how the hell Manny's powers work after that (especially since Manny would be one of those characters that's shit at explaining things and just describe it all as a feeling using works like "Ba-bam!" or "Whoooos!"). Jimmy doesn't understand at all how it works, especially since he's seen the costume get damaged or even just partial transformations if Manny's belt buckle spin is interrupted. He wants to say that the costume and Manny's real body switch places, but that doesn't make sense so clearly testing is needed. At which point Timmy and Danny have to step in and reel Jimmy back in.

#Danny would lowkey also freak out the first time it happened but he would totally be overshadowed by SpongeBob's reaction #nicktoons #nicktoons unite #danny phantom #el tigre #mlaatr #jimmy neutron #fairly oddparents #fop #spongebon squarepants #anon

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ofthecaravel · 1 year ago

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Heaven In Time

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Bleeding Hearts, Angel Voices

Danny Wagner x Sam Kiszka

Summary: The last supper. Or is it?

Tags: Religious trauma, hella guilt tripping/mentions of religious upbringing, internalized homophobia, sliiiiiight slut shaming, sibling fighting, slight sauciness

Words: 10k

A/N: As promised, here's the playlist, as well as the last chapter of this little series. Thank you all so much for being so sweet about it and I'm so happy you liked it!! Tell me all your thoughts!!! OH also, I'm aware that only Catholic priests really wear clerical collars, but I decided to include it because Josh is dramatic and would think it looks cute. Okay enjoy

“This is it?”

“Yup.”

“Wow. Somewhere along the way you failed to mention that it’s absolutely gorgeous.”

“It’s practically sinking into the lake, Dan.”

Already crabby, Sam really wanted to be able to trash the house looming in front of them. But for all its ghosts and lonely corners, Sam couldn’t write off the fact that his childhood home (and Jake’s new permanent place of residence, apparently) was and had always been a sight to behold. It wasn’t particularly flashy with its modest white paneling having been frayed by weather and stained with mildew, and it certainly wasn’t modern by any means. However, with the silver maples conspiring around it and a lakeside view from the bottom of the hill it rested on, the house with all its flaws and farmhouse style charm was enough to make Danny’s eyes widen.

“I didn’t know my parents had moved,” Sam noted softly, heart racing as he observed his brothers’ cars in the driveway and wondered where his dad’s station wagon was parked now.

“I’m sure Jake will fill you in on everything,” Danny assured Sam as he parked next to Jake’s crappy Volvo. He cut the engine and studied Sam’s apprehensive expression out of the corner of his eye, selfishly hoping that Sam would call the whole thing off and they could drive off towards the loving embrace of Danny’s own childhood home just beyond the state border. He knew his parents and sister would absolutely adore Sam, but he wasn’t sure that Sam’s brothers would welcome him as readily.

“Okay,” Sam blurted, smacking his hands against his thighs and letting out a fast exhale. “Quick overview before we go in.”

“Right,” Danny nodded. Honestly, he could use a refresher. It was always a struggle to get Sam to talk about his family like this.

“Josh is the oldest,” Sam started, beginning his list of points by marking them on his fingers. “Technically. He’s older than Jake by, like, I don’t remember, a couple of minutes. Super friendly, loud as fuck, took up my dad’s pastoral duties after he got deep into the televangelist bullshit that I’m sure he’s still doing now. He was a natural, of course, given that there’s nothing he loves more than the sound of his own voice.”

“Harsh.”

“Dude, trust me. You’ll get what I mean. Anyways, you’ve met Jake. Sort of. He’s very…passionate, which you’ve seen. Kind of hot headed, very one track minded. He basically runs the whole ministry from the shadows, even when Dad was still pastor. Josh gives the go ahead, but Jake’s the organizer. He’s busy 24/7 and has been since they were, like, 12.”

“Doesn’t sound very sustainable,” Danny commented. Sam let out a laugh and shook his head.

“It is not,” Sam agreed bitterly. “But he likes barking orders and playing puppet master, so I guess it works for him. And, I mean, school and youth group pretty much taught us that there was no other way for us to live other than doing church shit all day every day, so I can’t say I’m surprised he turned out this way.”

“Pretty relentless, huh?”

“Yup. Especially when your dad’s running aforementioned church and giving you shit for doing anything, I don’t know, childlike? Or for just enjoying stuff?”

“Definitely explains why Jake was such a dick about your cute ‘fit,” Danny said. “Those values trickle down if you let them, I guess. I still don’t think you had to change, by the way.”

“I definitely did,” Sam muttered, looking down at the plain jeans he’d pulled from his suitcase and the thin flannel he’d buttoned over his chest after their backseat tryst. “Josh would’ve lost his shit. No way he’d go full ‘Ooh, look at me, I’m a man of God and that means I get to preach with corporal punishment’ route, but he’d sure as hell think about it if I showed up in those shorts.”

“Baby,” Danny lamented, heart sinking as he watched Sam fiddle with a button while wearing a sullen expression. “We don’t have to do this.”

“I want to,” Sam insisted, reaching for Danny’s hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “For, you know, closure.”

“Okay,” Danny relented, still hesitant but trusting in Sam to know when enough is enough.

“Okay,” Sam echoed. “Okay. Okay, let’s do this.”

Sam pulled Danny in for a quick kiss of courage, bounced once in his seat, let out a nervous sound and then threw open the door and climbed out. Danny chuckled and got out, locking up the truck and watching with adoration as Sam shuffled towards the peeling front steps.

“One second!”

The voice came booming through the rattling front door after Sam had given it a timid knock to the beat of three. Almost instantly, Sam’s nerves flared with electrifying panic and he spun to face Danny.

“Actually,” Sam declared in a rushed, reedy tone. “Fuck this, let’s go.”

“What?”

Before Sam could drag Danny down the stairs and bail harder than anyone has ever bailed before, the door swung open with a melodramatic bang and then there was Josh. Danny could immediately see the startling resemblance between him and Jake, but there was something particularly unique about Josh that immediately set him apart. Danny assessed his tidy curls and the clerical collar nestled snugly at the base of his neck and knew it must be these physical differences, but he stood there puzzling nonetheless. Josh’s face was lit up with a plasticine cheer that seemed to be his resting expression, but at the sight of his deserter younger brother turning to him like a deer in the headlights, his face morphed into uncharacteristic shock. Once again, Danny stood in awkward silence as the useless mediator. This time around he had the good sense to step to the side before the situation devolved.

“Oh,” Josh said simply, his graceful hands rising to cup at the sides of Sam’s face with practiced theatrics. “Oh, praise be to God. Sammy. You’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” Sam repeated, already faltering under Josh’s fiery gaze. “Hi.”

“I can’t believe it,” Josh breathed, tears glittering in his eyes as he shook his head with wonder. “I just can’t even believe it’s really you. It is, right? Or are you some agent of the Lord sent to test my faith in His protection of you?”

“Pretty sure He’s not worried about your faith, Josh,” Sam muttered, grasping Josh’s wrists and lowering them. “I’ve been protected just fine. It’s me, I swear.”

“Thank God,” Josh blubbered, throwing his arms around Sam and pulling him into a crushing hug. Despite it all, Sam accepted it gratefully, crossing his arms behind Josh’s back and holding him just as hard. This was the reunion he’d been dreading the most, but his shame was temporarily assuaged in the comfort of his brother’s embrace.

Danny kept his silence as they hugged, but eventually Josh caught his eye and appeared to register that there was someone on the porch other than Sam for the first time.

“I’m sorry, I’m being rude,” Josh began after he let Sam go, wiping a tear with the heel of his palm and presenting his other hand to Danny. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Danny,” Danny introduced himself, giving Josh a firm handshake and smiling nervously. Even though so few words had been exchanged, Danny had to admit that it was enough to feel that Josh’s presence could quickly become overwhelming.

“Daniel,” Josh grinned, pleased. “I assure you our home tonight will be no den of lions.”

“Of course,” Danny smiled, completely disbelieving of Josh’s sentiment. “Pretty sure that was revealed to me in one of my many visions. …That is what Daniel did in the Bible, right?”

Josh’s laugh erupted out of his chest and he clapped Danny on the arm with an approving grip. Sam shared a look of surprised amusement with Danny, whose shoulders flickered with a shrug as Josh came down from his laughing fit.

“Good man,” Josh wheezed. “Ah, that’s funny. Am I right in assuming you’re Sammy’s companion in the travels I’m sure he’s had? The travels I simply cannot wait to hear about?”

“Correct.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” Josh beamed, flashing his wide smile back on Sam. “I knew this would happen, you know. That He’d send you a guardian angel to watch over you. I prayed for it.”

“I’m truly blessed,” Sam agreed, giving Danny a private, bashful smile while Josh became temporarily distracted by propping open the door.

“That you are,” Josh professed, gesturing into the house as he crossed the threshold again. “All of us are, really. Now I don’t want to keep you waiting on this drafty old porch, please, come in, come in.”

Josh went in first, flying ahead of Danny and Sam as the door closed behind them and the house swallowed them whole.

“Here we go,” Sam whispered, nearly inaudible. Josh guided them, humming and singing under his breath as he reached to graze his fingers against the walls of the hallway lined with crosses of all sizes and finish.

“It’s going good so far,” Danny whispered back. “He likes me.”

“Wait ‘til he finds out what kind of guardian angel you are,” Sam murmured. Danny flushed and snaked his arm behind Sam and gave him a pinch on his side, only inches away from the situationally appropriate angel wings messily inked on Sam’s lower back.

Sam bit back a muffled squeak and smacked Danny in the arm. He was ready to send another flirty whisper his way, but when they emerged in the kitchen, Sam froze up once again at the sight of Jake stationed at the stove. Jake’s hair had been relieved of its outdated ponytail and skirted over his shoulders in messy waves, swaying with motion as he tended to a pan.

“When you said surprise guests, I was certainly not expecting a surprise like this!” Josh cried, shaking Jake by the shoulder. “You drive me nuts.”

“You drive me nuts, it seemed only fair,” Jake smiled. “I’m surprised you saw me come home acting the way I was and didn’t immediately know Sam had something to do with it.”

Sam let out an offended little exhale from his nose and Jake finally regarded him and Danny, renewed tension stretching between them all as he gave them a curt, impersonal nod.

“You really came,” Jake noted plainly, gaze lingering on Sam before turning back to the stovetop, pushing sizzling green tomatoes around the skillet.

“You invited us,” Sam reminded him, cautiously approaching and watching him work. “Enthusiastically, actually. Is this Grandma’s recipe?”

“Yup,” Jake answered flatly, still refusing eye contact as the oil snapped and leaped when he flipped the tomatoes.

“It smells divine,” Danny piped up. Jake gave him a side eye that Danny honored with a nervous, polite smile, but Jake ultimately shut him down with empty air.

“It’s all divine in this house,” Josh followed up dreamily.

“Well, hopefully it doesn’t taste like ‘disappointment’,” Jake muttered pettily, bringing up Sam’s words from the gas station. Sam sighed and took a step back from Jake, who filled his space by moving from the pan to open the oven, poking noisily at a covered tray.

“Come on, Jake,” Sam groaned. “We come in peace. I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”

“And I don’t want this catfish to char,” Jake countered. “Scoot.”

“I’ve scooted, thanks,” Sam frowned, taking another step back. “Why are you acting like we’re showing up uninvited? You literally asked us to come.”

“Hey, what has gotten into you two?” Josh interjected, finally absorbing his twin’s clipped tone. “We should be celebrating. And we have company, so if you could save us all the trouble of picking apart your rude semantics, that would be lovely. I mean, honestly.”

Jake let out a huff and continued working to pull dinner together, plunging the kitchen into icy silence as Sam sneered at the floor to prevent any tears from creeping up on him. Danny wanted nothing more than to hoist him up and carry him out of the house, but he watched helplessly as Josh came over to Sam and gently pulled him out of the room.

“You two can hash it out later, okay?” Josh whispered, and Sam nodded as they crossed the threshold into the wood paneled dining room. The dining table was set with four crisp placemats, all of them centered in the middle of the table under the flowering hands of the chandelier. It was odd for Sam to see, considering he’d never known the table to be set without a placemat at the head of the table for his father.

“Sorry,” Sam apologized, falling into old habits. “We ran into Jake at a gas station and it ended…weird. You know he can be kind of-”

“Snippy?” Josh finished for him, pulling out a bundle of cutlery from a drawer. “Righteous? Yes, he can be. Lord knows I know. He’s working on it. Been working on a lot since you left, actually. Some days I swear he out prays me.”

“When did Mom and Dad move?” Sam asked, changing the conversation while robotically accepting and laying down silverware as Josh handed it to him.

“Two months ago,” Josh replied nonchalantly. “Turns out Dad’s broadcast made its way to Nebraska and amassed a following there, so they picked up to be closer to his flock.”

“Nebraska?” Sam exclaimed, nearly dropping the bundle of forks in his hand. He swallowed the revelation with a shiver of relief and an equally strong wave of grief, no doubt felt by the lonely little boy he carried inside him. Sam realized with blank shock that there was a very good chance he would never see his parents again.

“So, what, they just up and left?”

“Yeah…”

“For Nebraska?”

Danny walked in then, unable to withstand Jake’s angry clanging for another minute.

“What’s in Nebraska?” Danny asked innocently.

“Our parents,” Josh explained with a weak smile. “I trust Sam’s told you about our Dad’s post preaching venture?”

“A little,” Danny lied. He’d heard plenty about what the Kiszka patriarch had been up to since retiring and passing on the torch of preacher to his oldest son: good ol’ American televangelism, complete with the incensed ramblings and an addiction to being on screen. From what he heard from Sam, this came at the cost of quality time with his family. Sam had assured him the blow was softened significantly considering they’d all been fruitlessly clamoring for his affection for their entire lives and were long accustomed to the scraps they’d been dealt.

“I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised,” Sam laughed flatly, shooting Josh a knowing look. “Lord knows Dad has the means to afford it.”

“Oh, here we go. I don’t want to hear your conspiracy theories, Sammy,” Josh replied sternly. “I have faith that every drop of his viewer’s donations go right to the Convention.”

“Right,” Sam muttered. “Just like the college fund did.”

Josh stiffened, bright eyes suddenly cast in shadow as he set a glass down on the table. Danny’s eyebrows silently rose in curiosity. He’d never heard mention of college.

“Always the firecracker, Sammy,” Josh said with a brusque laugh, recovering with shocking speed and slipping his cheerful mask back on with ease. Sam rolled his eyes and carried on doling out glasses and napkins, but Danny found Josh’s abrupt mirth disturbing and studied him from where he leaned in the doorway. Danny had felt quite certain in his assessment of Jake when they’d met, but with Josh, he couldn’t quite pin what it was about him that kept Danny’s attention.

Dinner had gone off without a hitch, much to the surprise of everyone at the table. There was a bit of a rough start when a chilly direction from Jake had Danny positioned at the seat farthest from Sam, one that also conveniently faced the portrait of Jesus on the wall. But after they’d all sat down, Josh had led them in a tearful round of grace praising Sam’s safe return and then insisted on hearing every single detail of their cross country journey. Knowing that “every single detail” would send both his siblings into cardiac arrest, Sam had regaled them with only the most entertaining stories. Danny felt his heart swelling in his chest watching Sam settle into his natural element, rolling his wrists in the air and grinning like a madman as he detailed engine mishaps and eccentric motel squatters. The biggest surprise of all was Jake slowly warming up as the conversation rolled along, never contributing more than a few words at a time but eventually offering up the smallest of smiles and persistent eye contact as his little brother rambled away.

“I just can’t believe it,” Josh noted brightly at the tail end of one of Sam’s stories. “You’re so bold now, Sams. I remember when you were such a little scaredy cat too scared to get the communion wafers from the back room by yourself. Now you’re out there roughing the wilderness and pushing cows off the road.”

“Trying to push cows off the road,” Daniel corrected with a smile, remembering how hard he’d laughed watching Sam push with all his might against a cow where its herd had blocked the road somewhere in Texas. “Emphasis on trying.”

“I pushed that big one with the brown spot!” Sam argued. “You saw! He went running!”

“He felt bad for you, Sammy.”

Jake let out a snort that set them all off into their own fits of laughter, save for Sam who open mouth scoffed and mouthed threats to Danny across the table. Despite his faint indignation at Danny poking fun at him, Sam felt a great rush at the light hearted mood that had settled over the room. For a split second, he thought of a world where they could eat dinner like this on a regular basis, but he held himself back from indulging in that hope and laid it to rest in a far corner of his mind as quickly as it had risen.

Sam found it to be a wise choice when the laughter died down and Josh, completely unknowingly, killed the mood.

“Is it a hassle to find churches near motels?” Josh asked with sincere interest. “Or is it nice to settle for one day a week when you’re always driving around all willy-nilly?”

Jake let out another snort and Sam and Danny made awkward eye contact across the table.

“They don’t go to church, Josh,” Jake answered for his brother. Josh blinked and Sam bowed his head, suddenly very interested in tearing at the seedy heart of the tomato at the end of his fork.

“I suppose we can be few and far between,” Josh nodded. “I don’t think it’d hurt to peek in on a general Christian service, though. It’d do the job if the Baptist radio stations don’t reach wherever you end up.”

“They don’t want to go to church, Josh,” Jake continued. Sam kicked him under the table and Jake shot him a snotty look, raising his eyebrows haughtily as Josh turned to Sam.

“Is that true?” Josh asked, sounding a little hurt.

“Did nobody here read the note I left?” Sam mumbled childishly, keeping his eyes down as Josh sputtered and looked between him and Danny. Danny couldn’t muster anything more than an embarrassed cough, also looking down but keeping his eyes firmly glued to Sam.

“I did, about a thousand times,” Josh insisted, shifting his entire chair to face Sam. “But I figured you’d, you know…well, maybe I don’t know.”

“I bet there’s a lot we don’t know,” Jake added, kicking back when Sam kicked him again.

“What are you, 12? Stop it,” Josh snapped, adding his own kicking leg to the fray. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“You should’ve seen what he was wearing when I saw him,” Jake said conspiratorially.

“Jake, shut up!” Sam hissed. “You’re so fucking prissy.”

“Woah, language!” Josh scolded, throwing his hands up. “Everybody take a brea-”

“He was practically naked. From where I was, I actually thought he was a girl.”

“Okay, Jake, give it a rest,” Danny snapped, anger finally giving him the courage to speak up.

“I’ll “give it a rest” when you stop necking my brother in broad daylight, how about that, Florida?” Jake snarled, tossing his fork on the table with a furious clatter and crossing his arms. Danny’s mouth clamped shut at the same time Josh’s fell open. Sam let out a strained howl, staring daggers through his brother’s skull as Jake sent them right back.

“God, Jake, you’re so, so,” Sam stammered, insults piling in his mouth. “You’re so fucking jealous!”

Jake didn’t reply, but his eyes fluttered from the sting of Sam’s words. Sam had hit a nerve with sharp precision and they both knew it.

“What on God’s green earth is Jake talking about?” Josh asked, eyes glued to Danny where he wilted in his chair. Danny drew in a breath like he was about to answer, but they all found that the silence he gave instead was just as clear as if he’d spoken.

“Sam?” Josh asked, a little desperate. For some reason, he didn’t sound as deeply disappointed as Sam had imagined, and certainly not as mad as he’d feared.

“I hate you,” Sam whispered across the table to Jake, ignoring his other brother searching his face for something he’d missed entirely. “I said I didn’t want to fight.”

“Are we fighting, or am I just saying things that are objectively true?” Jake countered with eerie calm. “You don’t go to church. You dress like a girl. You’re screwing a total stranger. Anything else you’d like to add? Is he paying you, perhaps?”

Sam’s chair scraped loudly as he got to his feet and sent it banging against the wall. He crumpled up his napkin and threw it in Jake’s face before storming out of the dining room, leaving behind another frustrated cry that was cut off by the metallic clang of the front door. Josh turned to Jake with his own expression of genuine anger.

“Do you want him to leave again?” Josh growled, glaring him down before casting his eyes on Danny. “Daniel, I am so sorry. Please, forgive us.”

Jake’s face grew cloudy and sullen at Josh’s fury, clueing Danny into whose opinion he must value most in this world. He sank further in his chair when Josh breezed past him and followed Sam’s warpath out of the home, leaving Jake and Danny to sit side by side in their private rages after the door had slammed for a second time.

They sat there for a very long time. Danny wanted to run to Sam (he was always running to Sam, and he thought maybe he always had been) but knew that Sam needed Josh more than him. As much as he was not enjoying this trend of being left alone with Jake, he sat with the storm cloud beside him and did his best to steal glances and collect information without Jake’s knowledge. When they’d first encountered him, Jake had seemed so eager to fly Sam back home to the nest. He’d seemed almost understanding, or as understanding as someone like him could be, but it’d spun out within seconds. Danny was trying to figure out the exact moment that had turned him into a cold shouldered teenager so desperate to cut Sam down.

When slyly sliding his eyes to try and gauge Jake’s expression, Danny startled slightly to find that Jake’s focus had shifted from the wall to him. When he followed the low trajectory of his tired gaze, Danny saw that Jake was staring at…Danny’s scuffed cowboy boots. From the looks of it, he was tracing the stitchings in the brown leather. Lost in a daydream, maybe? Danny considered with a note of private amusement that Jake might be looking at his boots and tucking himself into a fantasy of cowboys and fast horses. Maybe that was something he and Danny both did; escaping into an idealized reality when the one at hand was too much.

Then, with a jolt, it clicked. The way Jake had grown cruel when Sam had defended his new look and new life, no doubt shattering Jake’s pre established perception of his baby brother. Inviting him to dinner and cooking what Danny knew were some of Sam’s favorite foods, only to spoil it all with appetite stealing jabs. How he had shrank under Josh’s disappointment. How he sat now, staring at Danny’s boots like he wished they were his.

Like he wished he could run.

“I’m sorry, Jake,” Danny blurted. Jake jerked at the sudden sound and regarded Danny with wide, confused eyes. He blinked once before his face crumpled, perplexed.

“For what?” Jake asked, all bite gone from his voice. He sounded almost friendly. He sounded a little like Sam, actually. Danny used that familiarity to gather his confidence.

“I’m sorry Sam didn’t invite you to go with him. That must’ve really hurt.”

Jake’s expression held its dumbfounded composure but Danny could see the emotion shift from confusion to something akin to being completely crushed. He barely blinked and Danny watched his eyes fill with tears.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jake hissed, his voice wobbling slightly as his lip curled in feigned disgust. “You two are going to die out there, one way or another.”

“You must be a masochist, then,” Danny accused, continuing to find his nerve. “Because I’m willing to bet that Sam wasn’t too far off when he said you were jealous. I’m really not trying to be rude, I’m just trying to understand.”

“Understand what? Why I hate your guts?”

“You don’t hate my guts, Jake. And I sure as shit don’t hate yours.”

“Could’ve fooled me. You didn’t even give me a chance.”

Ah. There was another puzzle piece clicking in place for Danny.

“That’s another thing I’m sorry about,” Danny said honestly. “I shouldn’t have shut you down like that. It’s just - and this isn’t an excuse, it’s just an explanation- it’s just that I’ve spent the past year trying to get Sam as far away from what he was running from. And, well, you’re a part of all that in one way or another. But I should’ve understood your circumstances the same way I do Sam.”

Jake was quiet for another beat, swallowing and sniffling before letting out a sigh.

“I guess I shouldn’t have shut you down like that either,” Jake admitted. “And I guess I should thank you for keeping him safe and, well, alive. It’s just so weird to see Sam like this. He’s so…”

Jake’s lip trembled in a particularly Sam fashion and his eyes drifted off into space as tears began to roll down his ruddy cheeks.

“He’s so happy,” Jake breathed, in awe. “He was right, he was never happy here. I pushed him too hard. Josh was too wrapped up in his own crises. Our parents never gave him a second glance. And now he’s so free. He got out. You two have done so much and gone so far that it just makes everything at home feel even smaller. I guess I didn’t realize until I saw him again that there was something to ‘get out’ of.”

“It’s okay,” Danny whispered, reaching out and putting a hand on Jake’s arm. “Hey, breathe, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Jake wailed, fully swept up in his hysteria now. “It’s not okay. This is supposed to be a place people flock to, not run from. And, shit, if it was so bad that he had to run, you’d think he’d have the decency to at least tell me and Josh. You’d think he’d ask if...”

Danny thought he’d be more distressed watching Jake completely spin out, but he was actually pretty calm. He supposed this was par for the course in a place like this. Another holy man laid to waste by a betrayal. Another brother struck down by his brother, laying still while the other wandered. In some twisted way, there was something divine here, but not in the way that any of them wanted. Danny suddenly felt even closer to Sam, and he shivered a little with the understanding and satisfaction of it despite the gaunt atmosphere over the entire estate. He kept a steady hand on Jake’s arm when he crossed his arms on the table and buried his face shamefully, the lean crest of his back shivering with an unruly sob.

“You should go, Jake,” Danny whispered. “I mean, you should leave, too. You can’t be happy here.”

“That’s not an option for me,” Jake laughed, his face still hidden by his periwinkle sleeves. “There’s too much here for me to leave behind.”

“Josh?”

“Josh,” Jake repeated, voice wobbling. “Always gonna be Josh. As much as I’d love to have a week to myself without having to set up a million church activities or food drives or buying a trunkful of candles, I know he can’t handle the responsibility all on his own. It’s just easier if I do it so he can focus on writing sermons and doing confessions.”

“What happened to having faith in each other?”

“He doesn’t want to handle the responsibility on his own,” Jake corrected. “That’s another thing. In all honesty, I always thought if any of us were going to make it out of here, it’d be him.”

“Really?” Danny asked. From what he’d heard, Josh was more than happy with a microphone in his hand and adoring congregants standing at the ready to harmonize with his gospels.

Jake calmed slightly, resurfacing from his arms to rest his chin and catch his breath. His round face was still flushed with emotion and Danny resisted a very genuine urge to brush his hair back from where it lay lingering on his cheeks, kept there by stray tears.

“Josh…” Jake trailed off, his gaze finding comfort counting the slats in the blinds. “Josh struggles. I mean, we all do, but he…I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me much. I just know something keeps him convinced that he’s not worthy of being the pastor. Which is ridiculous, in my opinion.”

“Really,” Danny repeated, slightly more somber as he thought back to his first impressions of Josh and the immediate recognition whose source alluded him. It came to him in a wave, then, along with the fond ache of understanding.

“No one is more deserving,” Jake continued. “There’s no one as kind or as devoted as him. I think it’s just the church, well, the Convention, really, that has certain ideas that make him feel…unworthy, maybe. There’s an expectation he thinks he doesn’t live up to.”

“He’s..?” Danny trailed off, testing the waters cautiously in case the conclusion he’d jumped to was entirely wrong.

“He’s my brother,” Jake said firmly, finally looking Danny head on. “And my best friend. That’s all that matters to me.”

Danny sat back in his chair, a long held breath (of relief?) escaping his chest as his understanding of Jake finally crystallized. He wasn’t really a sharp tongued, verse slinging Bible thumper with a million little hills to die on. Jake was a man who was first and foremost devoted to his family, and he was willing to forego all of his wants for their needs. He was a brother, and he feared for how the world would treat his brothers, both inside and outside his little world. And at the end of it, he’d withstand feeling forgotten if it meant they felt seen. He had never been angry, not really. Just hurt.

“You’re a good brother, Jake,” Danny insisted, flashing Jake a smile. “You and Sam should have a chat before the night is through. And I still believe you should think about leaving. Both you and Josh, actually. There’s a lot of world you’d really like to see. Obviously it’s not my place to tell you what to do, but I do think it’d help.”

“You’re probably right,” Jake agreed. “And thank you. Sorry for, you know, everything.”

“It’s no problem,” Danny said genuinely. “I’m happy to help.”

“You are, aren’t you?” Jake laughed. “I’m surprised you’ve stuck around this long, honestly. Especially since you’re not religious. But I guess if you’ve put up with Sam for a year and not jumped overboard, you must be accustomed to some nonsense.”

“I don’t ‘put up’ with him,” Danny asserted. “It’s a privilege to get to spend so much time with him.”

Jake watched him with an arched, amused eyebrow, finally straightening in his chair to smooth his hair back and settle with his arms crossed.

“So, what, I’m gonna wind up being your brother, too?”

“I mean…in a way,” Danny laughed, heart racing. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Jake answered, shaking his head slightly. “I figured. I mean, after he hit 21 and had no dating prospects or interest in dating at all, I assumed he was gonna forgo it completely. I just guessed he was more interested in his commitment to the church, like Josh.”

“Seems they both had their reasons to stay away from girls,” Danny noted.

“I suppose they did,” Jake said with a light laugh. “And still do. But, wow, Sam really does light up around you. I’ve never seen that with him.”

Danny smiled, blushing with warmth again as he tried to recall Sam’s expression when he was around. He’d always been smiley and wide eyed when looking at Danny, complete with pupils blown wide and overtaking the honey brown of his iris while he mapped Danny’s face. Wasn’t that how he’d been before they met? Apparently not.

“You’ve got good intentions?” Jake interrogated, nudging Danny’s knee with his own. “You treat him right?”

“I do, I do,” Danny insisted, crossing his own arms and grinning. “I sure try. He’s easy to love.”

“You love him?”

“I…yeah, I do,” Danny affirmed, certain of his answer. “I didn’t even mean to say it like that, but, yeah. Is that alright?”

“Yeah, it’s alright,” Jake smiled, yet slightly subdued. “Just…be careful, okay? At least as long as you’re in Alabama. Especially in Shady Grove.”

“I know,” Danny said softly, a little more morose. “Sam warned me about that. Another reason he left.”

“Another reason we should go,” Jake replied reluctantly. “Right?”

“Right. Believe me, nowhere is going to be perfect, but I think you’ll like the version of Josh you’ll meet when he can be himself. I’ve loved watching Sam come out of his shell.”

“I wish I could’ve been there for that,” Jake whispered, choking up again. “He’s probably out there right now telling Josh how much he hates me.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I fucking hate him.”

“Sam.”

Sam had bolted the second he was out the front door, but Josh had known where to find him. Ever since Sam had been young enough to start throwing the tantrums that had made him so intolerable to their parents, he always fled to the dock at the bottom of the hill. Ever the mediator, Josh had spent his fair share of time on the rotting wood planks listening to Sam vent his frustrations as they plunged sticks and rocks into the murky water, eventually advising him with echoes of affirmations he’d heard from the mouths of older congregants. But they were adults now, and as Josh sat on the dock with Sam curled into his side, he realized with a faint panic that there were no more words to borrow but his own.

“I do,” Sam insisted, his head resting on Josh’s shoulder as he glared out over the blurred surface of the small lake. “I really do. I’m done with him.”

“No, you’re not,” Josh sighed, throwing an arm around Sam’s shoulder and rubbing his arm.

“Whatever,” Sam grumbled. “I want to be.”

“You don’t have any kind of hate in your soul, Sam,” Josh told him. “God takes it from you and leaves you even more kind and enduring.”

“Josh, stop,” Sam whispered, sending an embarrassed thorn right into Josh’s side.

“Stop what?”

“The God stuff. Please. Just, not now, at least.”

“The ‘God stuff’ used to make you feel better.”

“No, it didn’t. I just didn’t say anything.”

They sat without speaking for a minute. Without their voices, the rushing rain sounds of the mayflies and the hush of the surrounding trees filled the void between them.

“You could’ve said something,” Josh murmured. “Especially if it would’ve stopped you leaving.”

“It wouldn’t have,” Sam answered. “I’ve thought about it a lot. I think I would’ve left no matter what happened.”

“Oh,” Josh said, sounding small. “Did you know that before you left?”

“To some degree.”

“...I would’ve liked to know that, too, Sammy.”

Sam swallowed a guilty lump in his throat and sulked further against his brother.

“Sorry,” Sam whispered. “It was selfish. It’s just…I was scared if I told you, you’d tell Jake, and then he’d tell Dad, and then you’d all hatch some master plan to keep me here.”

“I suppose that’s not an unfounded fear,” Josh admitted. “Remember when Jake had his little Sunday school girlfriend? I didn’t see him for, like, three days after Dad got wind of it.”

“Exactly. And then you would’ve written up some elaborate, guilt trippy sermon and sat me down in the kitchen and made me talk about my feelings for 2 hours minimum.”

Josh laughed a little, drawing a knee to his chest against a cool breeze that rolled off the lake.

“I’m pretty predictable, huh? Goodness.”

“And that wouldn’t have worked because if I talked about my feelings…”

“What?”

“...”

“What, you wouldn’t want to hear my feelings about the whole thing?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s too late for that now. And that’s not-”

“I haven’t even told you how I felt,” Josh pointed out.

“I know how you felt,” Sam murmured, tears searing his waterline again. “Maybe it’s you and Jake with your creepy twin telepathy, but I felt you both the whole time, even all the way out in California. It’s horrible. Some days I couldn’t even enjoy myself because I could feel the disappointment two thousand miles away.”

Josh felt tears of his own threatening to spill over hearing that. It had never occurred to him that a lifetime of observing at the sidelines would��ve made Sam so accurately attuned to his family’s emotional patterns.

“Sammy,” Josh exhaled. “It pains me to listen to this. You don’t have to feel so guilty about everything.”

“Neither do you.”

Josh bristled slightly, lifting his cheek from Sam’s hair and looking down at him.

“What do you mean?” Josh asked gently.

“I know you didn’t want to be pastor.”

“Well, I love it now.”

Sam pulled away from Josh and crossed his legs under him, staring out over the water before staring Josh in the eye with a look so sincere and cutting that it made Josh lean back slightly.

“It’s okay if you don’t, you know,” Sam said evenly. “It’s okay if you’re upset.”

“What do I have to be upset about?” Josh teased, pushing Sam’s bony shoulder. “I live in this beautiful little town and get to spend my days with its beautiful little people talking about what I love. Plus I just got my baby brother back. I’d be a fool to complain.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Josh, cut it out,” Sam snapped, grief fizzling into frustration. “You sound like Dad at his worst. Why can’t you just drop the act for 2 seconds and admit you hate it here?”

Josh’s eyebrows flew up and he let out a reflexive laugh, anxiety coloring his tone as it fluttered cautiously out of him. Sam looked at him pleadingly, grabbing his brother's hand and gripping it tight.

“I know you didn’t want to be pastor,” Sam repeated firmly. “I know you wanted to go to college. And I…I know you’re gay.”

Josh immediately froze, falling silent as Sam stared into his eyes and what felt like his soul.

“And that’s great,” Sam continued on, a tear escaping his eye and rolling down his cheek. “It can feel amazing if you’d just let yourself feel anything. Trust me, I know. You’re not trapped here, dude. You can still go to school and be yourself and be happy. You just have to put yourself first for the first time in your fucking life.”

Josh, struck dumb, couldn’t do anything but breathe as his heart burned in his chest and pushed up hot tears that blurred his vision of his brother. His brother, who was undressing his façade with effortless impatience that made Josh begin to wonder just how transparent he truly was. Or was it only Sam, who was part of him in so many ways, that could see how blind Josh was? When he spoke in dizzying circles of hell and damnation, were his congregants shaking their heads in pity with the knowledge that all Josh was really doing was scaring himself back into submission?

“If you’re really okay with how your life is turning out, tell me now and we can never talk about it again,” Sam promised. “I swear to God. I will leave it alone.”

Josh hesitated further, pulling his hand from Sam’s and letting out a slow breath. Looking down at the cloudy water swaying underneath them, he wondered how big of an inhale of it would take for him to sink right to the bottom.

“You’re right,” Josh confessed, his voice as soft and as uncertain as Sam had ever heard him. “I didn’t want any of this. It’s too much pressure. And the more I read the Bible and listen to the sermons from out in Texas and Georgia…the more I lose faith in what I’m supposed to be telling people.”

“Yeah,” Sam whispered, finding respite in Josh’s honesty. “I never really believed we were all born sinners.”

“I still kind of do,” Josh admitted. “But now I’m thinking there’s no amount of trying that’ll change that. I do all of this praying and writing and confession but I’m still…”

“It’s not sin, Josh. How you feel, how we both feel. There’s nothing to be saved from when it comes to that,” Sam insisted with quiet urging. “Seriously.”

“Maybe,” Josh whispered, picking at the skin around his nails as a dark coil of shame slithered in his stomach. “It just isn’t natur-”

“It’s like this,” Sam started, trying to put something into terms that would get through to him. “God is everyone and everything. Maybe that’s something I still agree with. And when you stop dedicating yourself to trying to get him to pay attention to you, you start to see Him or whatever “He” really is everywhere. You realize that you’re honoring Him by honoring yourself and doing what feels right to you. I don’t know if that’s something we’ll get rewarded for in heaven, but the reward of it on Earth is enough for me.”

“‘Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it’,” Josh recited with a nod. “Hebrews.”

“Sure. Yeah, actually, yeah. What I’m trying to say is you should live for yourself, Josh, not God or Dad or anyone. And if you still want God, you’ll find that without even trying.”

“Did you find Him with Danny?” Josh asked quietly. “In Texas?”

Sam blinked in surprise. He’d never thought about it like that, but…

“I guess I did,” Sam breathed, a smile drifting onto his face as he thought fondly of Danny. “At the start, at least. Now it’s all just him, no capital H.”

Everything was Danny to him, in complete honesty. Even though Sam only half believed the whole speech he was giving to Josh, he couldn’t deny the divinity he felt in the presence of his boyfriend. His best friend.

“I want that,” Josh murmured. His throat closed with emotion as he forced the words out, but it felt good to say. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d expressed wanting out loud, and based on the look on Sam’s face, he realized it may have never happened before.

“Go get it,” Sam said fiercely, his grin growing wildly when Josh’s eyes lit up a little at his encouragement. “You wanna come to Florida with us? We can find you a nice, alligator hunting boy.”

“Slow down, slow down,” Josh laughed, holding up his palms in surrender. “One step at a time.”

“Just Florida, then. We’ll ask Danny.”

As if summoned, there grew the sound of hushed voices and the sound of shoes on the wooden steps down to the deck, bodies hidden by the trees and the dark. Eventually they emerged, Jake hopping down from the last step that had been laid too high, bending at the knee from the impact as long legged Danny casually stepped down beside him. Sam and Josh turned to face them, leaning back on their hands and giving little waves. Without any words, they all knew the night’s battle had blown over, and Sam reached for Jake as he sat down between him and Josh. Jake received him with a hug, both of them bent into each other awkwardly as they murmured brief apologies to the other. Josh, unable to stay out of anything ever, leaned into their embrace and struggled to wrap his arms around both of them. Danny laughed as he settled next to Sam, their knees bumping as Sam attempted to wiggle out from the hold Josh had joyfully trapped them in.

“I’m just so grateful,” Josh wailed with phony passion. “I love my family!”

“You’d hug Mom and Dad like this?” Jake asked incredulously.

“...I love my brothers!”

All 4 of them laughed again as Josh finally released them, immediately proceeding to chastise Jake in a low voice as he fiddled with the frizz his hair had accumulated. Sam teetered backwards and landed with his back to Danny’s chest. Danny took advantage of the twins getting distracted and planted a kiss on top of Sam’s hair, letting his eyes flutter shut for a moment at the consolation of Sam back in his arms after the whirlwind day they’d had.

“All good?” Danny whispered in Sam’s ear, smiling when Sam nodded and tilted his head to grin up at him.

“You?” Sam asked, humming when Danny mimicked his own nod back to him.

“Jake said we can stay the night in your old bedroom,” Danny informed him, repeating what Jake had said in the conversation on their way out of the house. “But he won’t make us breakfast.”

“Fuckin’ liar, he will,” Sam laughed, reaching a hand up and lovingly stroking Danny’s cheek as he utilized his other hand to smack Jake’s thigh. “What’s this about no breakfast? You want me to burn the place down trying to make toast?”

“I’m just not babying you anymore is all,” Jake announced, smacking Sam right back. “Danny agrees it’ll be good for our relationship.”

“Traitor,” Sam complained, smacking Danny on the cheek and squealing when Danny scoffed and smacked him back. Jake let out a brash cackle and Josh a defeated groan.

“You’re like the Three Stooges,” Josh whined. “Also, coming from you, Sam? That’s a bold accusation.”

“Wow!”

“Look who’s finally growing some balls,” Jake continued to cackle, hooking his elbow around Josh’s neck and pulling him into a side hug.

“The state of my balls are none of your concern,” Josh muttered, which made Sam and Jake let out identical barks of laughter. The three of them got whipped up into a frenzy of bickering and Danny watched with a grin and a bloom of warmth flowering in his chest at the sight. There was something being healed here, he thought, and he could almost see the misguided little boys they’d once been as they tussled and giggled on the groaning dock.

It was strange to think how differently he had felt just a few hours ago. With Sam in Danny’s life, it seemed like things changing at the drop of a hat was something that Danny was going to grow well accustomed to as long as he was around. After that night, even with Sam squirming out of his grasp to try and push his brothers into the lake, Danny knew with complete certainty that he wanted Sam to stick around forever. It was time he told him that.

“How was your shower?”

“Arctic.”

Danny laughed and opened up the wing of the sheets and comforters to welcome in Sam, who came rolling in with his hair still wet. He was clad in linen pajamas from his teenage years that fell slightly too short on his wrists and ankles, while Danny lay under the blankets in only his boxers and socks. Even though Sam’s skin and hair was freezing cold from the shower and dampened his own skin, Danny pulled Sam against him and struggled with the blankets to bundle them together as best as he could.

“There, now we’re a proper burrito,” Danny smiled, kissing the tip of Sam’s nose.

“I’ve never had a burrito,” Sam whispered in a hushed, secretive voice. Danny gasped.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not!”

“Well, that's okay, we'll remedy that. Plus, they’re not half as good as this,” Danny mumbled, using his grip on Sam’s back to pull him further into his bare chest and tuck Sam’s head into the crook of his neck. “Was the water really that cold?”

“Sub-zero,” Sam promised with a shiver. “Those assholes hogged all the hot water, I bet. Typical.”

“I’ll warm you up plenty,” Danny purred, sliding his hand up Sam’s shirt and tracing his fingers along his cool skin with featherlight touch. Sam shivered again and giggled, nuzzling deeper into Danny’s neck.

“Not in my childhood bed you won’t, pervert,” Sam murmured against Danny’s skin, which seemed to be radiating great waves of heat like he were a human furnace.

Said childhood bed had been a source of poorly hidden smiles from Danny, who finally admitted through a smothered laugh that the entire room looked like his grandma’s room back in Florida. No doubt done up and never redecorated for the daughter his mother had been expecting and never received, the wallpaper was pale, flowery and hung with silver crosses. Picture frames held stitched psalms that sat cheerfully on the vanity facing the bed. The double bed barely fit the both of them and, as Sam admitted through laughs of his own, the sheets and comforters that surrounded them now did, at one time, belong to his granny. When they’d first walked in, Sam had felt the loving ache of being remembered upon finding that the bed had been made and the room had been tidied for his return.

“How about some sleep, then?” Danny offered. “We’ve had a long day.”

“No kidding,” Sam quietly agreed. “I’m glad what happened did happen, shockingly enough. I really thought it was going to be a trainwreck. I should’ve had more faith in them, I guess.”

“You’ve got just the right amount of faith,” Danny hummed, eyes drifting open and shut as he grew sleepy from the perfume of Sam’s shampoo and his natural sweetness. “I’m really proud of you, baby. I know that was a lot for you. You’re a tough cookie.”

“I’m your tough cookie,” Sam murmured, tickling Danny’s neck with his nose and planting a lingering kiss on the pulse thrumming violently under his lips. Danny let out a breathy groan and gently dug his fingers into Sam’s back as Sam mapped a sleepy path of kisses along Danny’s neck.

“Easy, cookie,” Danny raggedly chuckled, smoothing his palm up and down Sam’s back as he fought in vain to stave off the growing pressure in his boxers. “I thought being in this bed was a no go.”

“It is,” Sam doubled down, lips dragging against Danny’s skin as he whispered. “Just saying thank you real quick.”

“You and your fuckin’ ‘thank you’’s,” Danny smiled, eyelids fluttering fully shut as he tilted his head back and gave Sam more area to cover. “This is like that first night all over again.”

“I was so embarrassed,” Sam giggled, his breath fanning out in warm bursts over the thin layer of saliva cooling on Danny’s skin. “I thought I’d gone and fucked up the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Sweetheart,” Danny cooed, butterflies fluttering in his stomach. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“No, I’m not,” Sam refused, pressing his cheek into the hollow of Danny’s collarbone.

“Yes, you absolutely are, my little California love.”

“Even after today?” Sam asked, sounding more uncertain than he wanted to. “I can’t think of a single other person on Earth who could’ve sat through all of that bullshit and still liked me at the end of it. Like, I really can’t apologize enough. Especially for Jake’s crazy ass.”

“Especially after today,” Danny insisted. Sam lifted his head from Danny’s chest and looked up at him with an unconvinced sneer, their noses brushing as Danny raked his fingers through Sam’s damp waves and searched for the fortitude to say what he felt. These were the moments where Danny felt it the strongest; Sam burrowed into him with his eyes as wide and wondering as the day they’d met. This was what love was to him.

“Sam,” Danny whispered sincerely, voice low and breathless. “If it meant I got to keep you by my side for 10 extra minutes, I’d live today over and over again. Do you understand? There is nothing you could put me through that I wouldn’t stick around for. Not when I’m this ridiculously in love with you.”

Sam’s already wide eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets at that, pupils expanding slowly as a nervous smile wound its way onto his flushed face. Danny smiled at him, feeling a flush of his own beginning to heat his body from his heart outwards.

“You’re what?” Sam asked, leaning back slightly to look at Danny properly.

“You heard me,” Danny teased, pinching the rosy apple of Sam’s cheek. “What do you think about that?”

“I think you’re crazy,” Sam laughed, shimmying in their cocoon of blankets and limbs to readjust his arms to wrap around Danny’s neck. “And may have been dropped on your head as a baby.”

“How did you know that?”

“It’s the only rational explanation as to why you’d go and say that,” Sam flouted breezily.

“Is it really so hard to believe?” Danny asked, making a pitiful face that made Sam’s heart flutter. “You make it very easy to be in love with you, as a matter of fact. I don’t have to try at all.”

“I love you,” Sam murmured, in awe. It’s not like he was stupid, he knew Danny had to have loved him for them to have gotten as far as they had, but it still felt entirely unexpected to actually hear it. After a year of being startled awake by Sam’s sleep talking, patiently listening to stories of the worst of Sam’s childhood punishments, even sleeping sitting up in a jail cell in New Mexico when Sam’s newfound chutzpah found purchase with a rowdy biker, there was Danny at the end of it all. Patiently awaiting what fresh hell Sam would drag him into next.

“I love you, too,” Danny assured him. “But are you in love with me?”

“Fucking obviously,” Sam blurted. “I'm so in love with you, Danny, fuck. I didn’t realize I even had to clarify that.”

“Of course you did! How else would I know?” Danny laughed, eyes glittering with glee and relief at Sam’s confirmation.

“I thought I had made myself plenty clear when I followed you across the country with zero hesitation. Twice.”

“I guess that’s fair.”

“Also, I mean, you popped my cherry, so.”

“You weren’t gonna give that up for just anyone, huh?” Danny laughed, his freckled nose crinkling.

“Nope,” Sam smiled flirtatiously. “I was saving it for truuue looove.”

“Is that what this is?” Danny asked softly, his smile paling with uncertainty as he searched Sam’s dark eyes.

“I hope so,” Sam breathed, his heart racing just as fast as it did when he was still learning to look at Danny without feeling faint. “Do you think it is?”

“I do,” Danny said sincerely, cupping Sam’s jaw. “Let’s say it is and go from there.”

“Works for me,” Sam agreed, nervously tilting his chin forward and melting from the inside out when Danny met him with a fiery kiss.

Sam was no stranger to the possessive pressure Danny preferred to apply when kissing, but there was something fierce behind this kiss that left Sam feeling utterly and completely loved. Lying in the same bed just over a year ago, Sam recalled how he’d bundle the blankets into a wall to press his back against as he slept, pretending it was someone to keep him steady and wake him in the morning. He thought of how that was something he didn’t need to dream about anymore. He thought of how lucky he was. How blessed.

“I’m starting to think Josh may have been right,” Sam sighed against Danny’s mouth, now tucked under him with Danny’s loose curls tickling his cheeks. “I think you’re my guardian angel.”

“You’re the angel here,” Danny insisted, thinking of Sam’s tattoo and feeling his thighs tighten unconsciously on either side of Sam’s hips. “Never gonna let anyone clip your wings ever again.”

“I’m serious,” Sam whined, twining his fingers in Danny’s hair and pulling him closer. “You’re the real deal.”

“Maybe Josh did get one thing right tonight.”

“Speaking of Josh…how do you feel about another passenger on our way to Florida?”

“He’s going to have to share the backseat with Jake if that’s the new plan, ‘cause I’m pretty sure I convinced Jake to pack up too.”

“Family road trip,” Sam sang. “I hope your parents don’t mind.”

“No, they’ll love a full house,” Danny answered. “And my sister will love peer pressuring them into doing stupid shit.”

“I can’t wait to see them drunk for the first time,” Sam confessed with a laugh. “They’ll be fucking ridiculous.”

“I don’t know if you’ll want to see them like that if they’re anything like you were the first time you got drunk,” Danny teased, nipping at Sam’s earlobe. “I’ve still never heard you talk like you did that night.”

“Stop that,” Sam giggled, muffling a squeak when Danny kissed the sensitive skin under his ear. “I don’t even remember half of that night.”

“Your brain is protecting your dignity,” Danny joked, his voice low and warm against the shell of Sam’s ear. “You were kind of a slut.”

“Yeah?” Sam asked weakly, panting slightly from so little. Danny tended to do that to him.

“Oh, yeah. Big time. You cried when I wouldn’t put it in.”

Sam immediately slapped a hand over Danny’s mouth and shushed him theatrically, attempting to smother him when Danny laughed hysterically and tried to lick and bite at his fingers.

“What if they heard you!” Sam hissed, his wrists now pinned beside him as Danny held him down with visible triumph.

“Then I’ll apologize!” Danny laughed, jostling as Sam tried to wrench himself out from under him. “You’re the one making the mattress squeak all suspiciously. This is a Christian household, Sam, I mean really.”

“Shut up!”

“You shut up!”

“I hate you,” Sam declared quietly, sharp eyes trained up at Danny with a glimmer of mischief dancing at his waterline. Danny smiled fondly and lowered himself so their chests were pressed together. He cocked his head, looking Sam over with his hazel eyes lush with emotion.

“And I will love you ‘til the day I die, Sam Kiszka,” Danny announced, pressing his lips to Sam’s with careful appreciation and keeping them there for the hours that followed.

In the morning, they’d clamor and argue and shed tears before pulling out of Shady Grove with a body in every seat of Danny’s beat up little truck. They’d follow the fate line to Florida to settle and heal and wander from the path like they always did. But that night, they had nothing to do but lay under the blanket of the whistling Alabama sky and love each other.

They’d find in the years and decades that followed, it never got much more complicated than that.

Taglist: @holdingup-fallingsky @milojames16 @spark-my-nature @bladenotblaze @currentlyfangirling10

#i struggled so hard to finish this BUT im proud!!!!#theyre so fucking cute #gvf #greta van fleet #danny wagner #sam kiszka #sanny gvf #greta van fleet fanfiction #greta van art #karoufiction

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