#danny: does...does this mean im grounded?

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Halloween prompts year 2 day 29

Dont get him wrong, Danny had some big feelings about finding out his mom had cheated on his dad. He had even bigger feeling about the divorce and the whole shipping him off to live with his bio dad.

He wasn't going to lie. The new school was actually really nice and he had made friends quickly, though at first it was tough to weed out the ones who just wanted to get close to the Wayne family name and not him as a person. He didn't get to chat with Tucker and Sam a whole lot due to thier schedules but he and Jazz always made time for eachother.

His life had surprisingly taken a massive upturn. Vlad had been arrested soon after Danny warned the Waynes about him, making Danny believe either his dad it felt wierd calling him that but da-Jack made it perfectly clear he should never call him that was Batmans sugar daddy or somthing or maybe the Waynes got kidnapped so much that the bats bugged the whole place. Danny hoped not, he had done a whole karaoke thing with Jazz during thier video call the other night and he really didn't want anyone to hear thier shared cat screeching.

Jazz was super happy to learn Danny had joined the Volleyball team and Astronomy club. He used to play Volleyball in middle school and played defense a lot. He was even the best on the team but he stopped playing after one too many times of his parents forgetting to show up or causing a ruckus whenever they thought a ghost was nearby.

But it was better now

The portals were shut down by the bats. The GIW where expertly obliterated from existence. His parents are getting court mandated mental help. There are no more ghosts. No more ghost hunters.

And no need for Phantom

Danny doesn't think he's ever felt this free. He could go out to eat with friends with his way too big allowance that his...dad gives him and he didn't have to worry about having to ditch them to go fight a bad guy. He could eat dinner with a family who was a little awkward but surprisingly open to him and the food was delicious and didn't attack him. He could actually sleep at night and feel safe doing it. His siblings liked spending time with him and getting to learn anout him and thier "bonus sister" Jazz.

He had no reason to use his powers.

Until the grandfather clock he was walking past swung open like a door and he locked eyes with Nightwing coming out of it. They just stared at eachother before Danny just said, "I don't want to know which one your dating. Just know I have a bat and im willing to use it in the most ungodly of ways." And walked back to his room.

He wouldn't be a superhero, but he was willing to be a supervillian to protect his new family. Or in this case make sure Nightwing, a rumored playboy, knew better than to go breaking hearts in this household.

[luxaofhesperides]

greener on the other side

Danny makes a habit out of hopping into portals and exploring he places he ends up. It just so happens that this time, he ends up in Gotham right as the Signal begins his patrol. Duke meets the strangest, funniest, cutest guy on the roof of the Gotham City Public Library. He knows Batman would not approve of literally anything he's doing, but sue him, he wants a meta friend and this guy seems to up for it. -- OR: how Duke and Danny got together despite having secret identities and living different dimensions.

chapter one: how it starts - 8.2k

also available on ao3! . . .

Sam would like Gotham is the first thing Danny thinks when he arrives. 

The city is dark and gloomy, the sky overcast and the chill of the wind indicates an oncoming storm. Dark buildings rise out of the ground, all dramatic shapes and ledges and honest-to-God gargoyles. Everything about Gotham is right up Sam’s alley, minus all the crime which Danny can hear from his perch on Gotham City Public Library. 

He never knows where his portals will spit him out, but all things considered, this is one of the nicer places he’s ended up. 

At least he didn’t walk out into the middle of an alley full of gun wielding gang members. Or into another cult hideout. Those are always unpleasant. 

Danny squints up at the sky, wondering what time it is. Usually, he can get a good idea based on the position of the sun, but with all the clouds, he can’t tell. It can’t be night yet; it’s not that dark out and the streets are a rush of activity that only comes about during the day. But it doesn’t seem like the afternoon, either. For a city this big, it would be a lot busier.

Maybe he dropped in during the morning rush? 

And if he did, that means he has an entire day to wander Gotham and scope out places that Sam and Tucker would like. 

im gonna be out all day, he texts to their group chat. It was barely noon when he left, sticking around long enough to eat and double check that his parents were going to be out all day for some biology conference. How they keep getting invited despite their own field of research, he’ll never know, but if it gets them out of the house, he’s certainly not going to complain.

Good or bad? Sam replies immediately.

Danny casts a look around again; dark and dreary city, a drug deal going down directly below him behind the library, distant yells and the occasional gunshot far off in the distance, barely audible unless he strains his hearing. 

good, he texts, gonna check out the rest of this place then bring u both to visit later.

Send pics!

He sends a thumbs up and a smiley face, then pockets his phone and stands up. Tucker’s probably still asleep, having knocked out at some ungodly hour of the night, so there’s no point in waiting for him to respond. He’ll just save all his thoughts about Gotham to share in person.

The library is located solidly in a busy part of the city. Danny could go anywhere from there, but without any knowledge of where anything is, he’s stuck, debating on where to go first and if he should risk outing himself as a tourist by asking random people on the streets questions. He leans forward, looking around the street below him to see what it holds; a few office buildings, two restaurants, three coffee shops and a bakery, and what looks like an occult store. 

Definitely one he’s going to avoid. 

There’s probably nothing in it that’s real, but on the off chance something does react to him…

Better not to try his luck and hope there are no ghost hunters in this dimension. After all, there’s no guarantee that his dimension is the only one with the Guys In White. There could always be another version of them waiting for him on the other side of his portals across the Infinite Realms. 

Just as Danny starts singing eenie-meenie-minie-moe under his breath, trying to choose which street to follow, he hears the soft thud of someone landing on the roof. 

The roof Danny is currently on, that regular people shouldn’t be able to access. 

He whips around immediately, tense and ready for a fight. He’ll have to hold back while he’s in human form, but not as much as he did in Amity Park. Perks of not existing in this dimension: if Danny wants to disappear completely, he can. 

“Hey, you good?” calls the… person? Whoever it is wears yellow armor. Not medieval or ancient armor, but something that resembles what he’d expect to see in a sci-fi action movie. Or maybe Power Rangers. There’s a bat figure spanning across their chest, like an emblem, which probably identifies whoever this is, but Danny is lacks any and all context and knowledge to know who, exactly, is joining him on the roof of the library.

“Yeah?” he responds hesitantly. “I’m good. Why are you asking?”

The yellow armored person walks closer, steps careful and measured. “I saw you all the way up here and got worried. This isn’t a place people usually hang out, you know?”

What? Did he—

Oh. 

The pieces click into place and Danny shakes his head.

“I’m good! Really! Sorry about worrying you, I wasn’t about to jump or anything. I just like being up high.”

“Alright, cool. Good to know.”

“So… who are you?” 

They start, look down at themselves, then look back at Danny. “You don’t know me? Sorry, you wouldn’t ask if you did. I’m the Signal.”

“The Signal? That’s… kinda a weird name. No offense or anything!”

Signal laughs. “Nah, I get it. Comes with the territory though, you know? Though people are pretty used to it these days.”

Danny very much did not know, but wisely chooses not to admit it. “So what’s with the get up?”

“It… keeps me safe? I’m not going to be patrolling in my pajamas, as much as I would like to. Safety first, and all.”

Patrol? Danny looks closer at the Signal, taking in the armor, the bat emblem, the helmet and how his eyes are covered. He’s hiding his identity, not just dressing up for fun. He probably should have figured that out sooner.

“You’re a hero!” Danny says, pointing at him. 

“Yeah, I am,” Signal confirms, bemused smile on his face. “Are you not from around here? I get that I’m not very well known outside of Gotham, but most people are able to clock me as a hero pretty quickly.”

Danny laughs nervously. “Haha, yeah, something like that. Don’t really have heroes back home. So do you have powers or something?”

On the outside, he’s keeping cool. He’s being so chill and normal. 

On the inside? Danny is close to freaking out. A hero! An actual hero! Who came to check up on him because he’s probably saved other people who have tried jumping! Danny is meeting his first legitimate hero who saves people; there are no heroes in Amity Park, and Danny himself barely counts, because the focus there is to fight ghosts more than it is to save people. 

But the Signal is here to help people. As a hero.

That’s so fucking cool. Danny needs a selfie with him immediately to have proof to show once he tells Sam and Tucker about this.

“Oh, this and that,” Signal answers, “I can’t really give out the details for my own safety. Sorry about that.”

“That’s fine dude, I should have thought of that before I asked.”

“I will say that I can see more things than the average person. Comes with being a meta, I guess.”

There’s a word Danny doesn’t know. Asking would probably raise some red flags about him and Danny does not want to ruin his first official meeting with an official hero by asking strange questions. The casualness with which Signal had said meta points to it being common knowledge in this dimension. 

Danny can figure it out with context clues. Probably.

“Oh, cool.”

“Yeah, so can I ask you something?”

He tenses without meaning to. He’s ready to run. Questions are never anything good, not in his experiences, and if he goes now, he can probably avoid Signal for the next few hours while he explores. 

“Sure,” he says, against his better judgment.

“Are you a meta? Because you’ve got this sort of… glow. It’s really bright actually, which is how I found you.”

Danny looks down at himself to check that he isn’t partially ghostly. He is just as human as he was at the start of the conversation. No unusual glowing happening at all. 

“A glow?” he repeats.

Signal nods, looking him over. “Yeah. And it kinda looks like there’s two of you. Like someone took a negative of you and overlaid it on your body. Your hair is white and your eyes keep changing between green and blue. So: meta?”

He can’t answer. His throat is closing up. Panic is beginning to build. 

Danny has gone so long without people discovering his identity as Phantom and Signal can just see it?! 

“Woah, hey, calm down man. I’m not gonna out you or anything,” Signal tries to reassure. “I just wanna make sure you’re alright. Are you running from someone?”

No. Not as long as his parents never find out about him. He forces a shaky smile on his face, taking a step back. “Nah, I’m fine. And, sorry, but I can’t tell you why you’re seeing that. You understand how important secrets are.”

“I do. Okay, one last question: what are you doing in Gotham?”

“Honestly? Sightseeing. I’m looking for good places to bring my friends to when they come visit.”

“I can help with that.”

“Don’t you need to fight crime or something?”

Signal shrugs. “I can multitask.” 

The casual answer startles a laugh out of Danny, and he relaxes. Despite all the questions, despite all the ways things can go wrong by associating with a hero that can see Phantom in him, he can’t help but trust the Signal. He’s been chill so far and isn’t pushing for answers. And Danny could use a guide to show him around Gotham.

“Yeah, alright,” Danny decides, “Lead the way, Signal.” . . .

They cross a good portion of Gotham by grapple. Meaning the Signal is carrying Danny as they swing between buildings, occasionally stopping for the Signal to either help someone on the street or point out a place Danny can take his friends to. 

It’s fun the first few times, then Danny starts getting uncomfortable with how each movement jostles him. Feeling the wind rushing past him while relying entirely on someone else to move is beyond strange and he finds that he doesn't like the feeling much.

I don’t exist here, he thinks to himself, I can just leave before I deal with any serious consequences. 

This is reckless, but Danny wants to be reckless. He wants to go all out and have fun traversing Gotham with the Signal. This isn’t his dimension and he’s spent his entire life since dying trying to stay safe despite everything going wrong, so he can be a little reckless. As a treat.

“Not that this isn’t fun or anything,” Danny says the next time they land on a roof, “But is it cool if I just fly?”

Signal stops from where he had been pointing out a new cat cafe that opened. “You can fly?”

Danny grins and floats up, just a few inches. The rush of weightlessness almost feels like fear, but he refuses to acknowledge it as such and shoves it deep into his chest where he’ll never have to deal with it again. 

“You can fly,” Signal says blankly. “Sure. Why not. People are going to notice and go looking for you, so…”

Danny goes invisible, then pops back into the visible spectrum after a few seconds. “I got it covered. Just lead the way, I’ll be right behind you.”

“This might as well just happen,” Signal mutters, then shakes his head. “Alright. Let’s head to Wayne Tower. If your friends are into STEM, that’s the place to go. They give free tours for the public too.”

Which sounds like the perfect place for Tucker. Danny makes a mental note to visit Wayne Tower first so Tucker can geek out to his heart’s content. 

The Signal jumps off the building, grapple shooting through the air. Danny lets invisibility wash over him then follows after, taking in the sight of the city below him. 

To think the Signal takes care of all of this… Gotham is way larger than Amity Park, and that invites a lot more problems. Ghosts are one thing, but human criminals are another entirely. The Signal’s got to be strong to be a hero in this city.

He’s going to comment on it when someone below them screams, “Signal!”

Immediately, they both change course and drop to the street, where a woman is pulled into a bus by her hair. Other passengers are looking out the windows, terrified and holding themselves carefully still as a group of people with extreme facepaint and guns take control of the bus.

“You ain’t getting us today, Signal!” one of them jeers, and the doors close just as the bus tears off down the street, knocking off side mirrors of parked cars and wearing between traffic dangerously. 

“Shit,” Signal hisses, and aims his grapple gun high. 

He might be a hero with powers, but it’ll be impossible to catch up with a speeding bus with just a grapple. Danny isn’t a hero here, he’s a tourist who should know better than to butt into other people’s business, but seeing people in need of help, people in danger, there really isn’t any other choice he could make.

“Come on,” he says, “I’ll give you a lift.” And he picks up the Signal before he can respond, covering him with invisibility as well to get a drop on the criminals, then takes off. He pushes himself, keeping a tight grip on the Signal’s armor so he doesn’t fall, and closes the distance between them and the bus in no time. 

“You good if I drop out on top of the bus?” he shouts over the wind in his ears and the frantic honking of cars on the road, dodging the bus. 

“Yeah, I can take it from here!”

Danny bites his tongue to keep from protesting. The Signal is clearly intending to stop the bus and save the passengers on his own, and he probably won’t appreciate Danny getting involved. Which is exactly why Danny isn’t asking for permission and is just going to jump into the fray while the Signal is distracted. 

He puts on a final burst of speed and throws the Signal at the bus. He stays in the air just long enough to make sure the Signal lands safely, startling every person in the bus. Two criminals shove open their windows and lean their upper bodies out of the bus, aiming their guns at where the Signal is trying to get onto the side of the bus to force his way in.

Without thinking, Danny moves, yanking the guns out of their hands, then grabbing the backs of their shirts to lift them fully out of the window. He ignores their startled yells and the gasps of the hostages as they watch two of their captors dangle in midair, seemingly held by nothing. He takes a moment to look around, then spots a pile of trash bags that will cushion their fall. 

Then he throws them at it and tosses the guns onto the roof of the building where the Signal can pick them up later. 

Two threats taken care of, Danny flies back to the bus, which is moving even more erratically down the road as the Signal tries to take control of it without getting any of the hostages hurt. 

“Get flashbanged!” Danny hears right before a large flash of light blinds him for a moment. 

Another face painted criminal goes falling out of the bus, rolling onto the street, rubbing their eyes. The bus door remains open; broken, based on how it moves wildly back and forth as the bus continues its chaotic journey down the road. 

The Signal is struggling. He’s holding off well on his own, but he’s one person trying to save a bus full of people. Danny phases in through the back of the bus, landing silently. He sees the Signal lift a hand and has just enough time to turn his face away before there’s another blinding flash of light. 

It distracts the first criminal in front of him, who’s hanging back from the fight. This one has a machete instead of a gun, which is good because a gun would have been way more dangerous in such close quarters. 

Danny knocks them out with a solid punch to the head, then kicks the machete under a seat. 

He makes his way up the bus, quickly taking out anyone in face paint, then grabs the gun of the last one and freezes it into a block of ice. The Signal doesn’t waste any time in shoving the unconscious body of the driver out of the seat and taking control, carefully pulling the bus over to the side of the road, flicking on the hazard lights, then puts on the brakes and cuts the engine. 

“Everyone alright?” he asks, standing to look over the passengers. 

They’re all pale and tense, but far more composed than Danny was expecting from a group of hostages. 

“We’re fine,” a woman says, who Danny recognizes as the one who called out for the Signal. “Thank you for coming for us. I’m so glad the Bats have you active during the day.”

“It’s what I’m here for,” Signal replies. “Go on out. The GCPD will be here soon.”

The passengers begin to file off, most stopping to give the Signal a quick thanks. It’s nice to see, though it leaves a bitter taste in Danny’s mouth.

He rarely ever gets thanks as Phantom. He’s given up his teenage years to keep ghosts from harming people and people from harming ghosts, taking responsibility for the pain his parents’ portal have caused Amity Park, and all he really gets is people insulting him or seeing him as just as bad as the ghosts he fights. Never any thanks, not from the town he saves.

It sucks to see how people can be nice to heroes in this dimension, but in his own they blame him for everything. 

The bus is empty when the Signal look at him. He looks directly at Danny while he’s invisible.

That’s… not great. It’s a good thing the Signal isn’t his enemy, or Danny would be a lot worse off, having to dodge someone he can’t hide from. 

“Thanks for the help man,” Signal says, “You get hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

“Let’s get out of the street. Follow me.”

He walks off the bus and waves to the passengers one last time, then shoots his grapple. Danny hesitates for a moment, considers escaping, then follows the Signal up to the rooftops because he really does want to see Wayne Tower so he can bring Tucker over. 

The Signal is watching him approach when he gets to the roof. It’s unnerving, which is saying something considering the fact that his life is now a sci-fi horror story on bad days. And he’s had a lot of bad days. 

“Can you actually see me?” is the first thing he asks, unable to keep the question to himself.

“Kind of. It’s more like I can see a very blurry light moving around.”

“Huh.”

“Can you go back to being visible, though? I don’t want to be squinting at you while we talk.”

Danny looks at him. “I wouldn’t even be able to tell that you’re squinting, with the helmet and all.”

“Okay, fair, but I’d still feel better if I could see you properly.”

Well, there’s really no reason to refuse the Signal. He’s been nice so far, and he’s not even yelling at Danny for being irresponsible or reckless or anything. It’s already a decent start to the conversation. He owes the Signal this much, at least.

He lets his invisibility fade away, joining the visible spectrum once more.

The Signal looks him over, stepping closer to spin Danny around, checking him over for any injuries. Then he steps back, satisfied, and nods. “Sorry about that, I just had to double check to make sure you’re not hiding any injuries. Do you want to rest up here for a bit?”

Huh. No reprimand at all. 

“I was expecting you to yell at me for getting involved, honestly,” Danny admits.

The Signal laughs. “Oh, buddy, I absolutely do not have a leg to stand on when it comes to that. No yelling rights at all. You clearly had a plan in mind, have good control of your powers, and you never once impeded me. Everything got taken care of easily thanks to you. Besides, I’m not one to turn down help from someone who knows what they’re doing.”

Now that implies a hell of a story that Danny probably won’t ever get to hear. Which is a shame, because honestly? Danny wants to know as much as he can about the Signal. This guy is his new number one hero and Danny is ready to be his biggest fan.

“Glad I could help,” Danny says with a bashful smile. 

“Sorry you had to get caught up in all that, though. Still up for seeing Wayne Tower?”

“Are you sure you have time for this? This place is filled with crime.”

The Signal shrugs. “That’s just Gotham, man. I’ll help were I can, but I also want to play tour guide. It’s nice being able to show someone the good parts of Gotham.”

This place is a disaster, full of smog and smoke and Danny keeps hearing gunshots that he tries very hard to ignore. But it’s clear that the Signal loves his city. It’s nice to see; Danny’s been wanting to escape Amity Park for years now, even before the Accident, and though he gives as much as he can to keep it safe, he doesn’t really love it. 

His parents have made things difficult for him with their reputation, and then with their constant attempts to hunt him down for experimentation. He’s tired of being around the same people, stuck with kids he grew up with and has too much history with. Sam and Tucker are the obvious exceptions, but he knows that one day they’ll all go their separate ways to learn what life is like without ghosts and Amity bogging them down. They’ll find their way to each other again, but they all know leaving is inevitable.

They don’t talk about it much, not out loud, but the itch to run away from Amity Park and experience the rest of the world is obvious. It’s why Sam looks at international volunteering opportunities, making resumes and cover letters for environmental organizations that are cleaning up pollution, or replanting forests, or creating buildings from recycled material. It’s why Tucker takes online class after online class to get certifications in as many things as he can before applying for universities all over the country, looking into scholarships and internships and job opportunities so he can support himself when the time comes.

It’s why Danny spends more and more time hopping through natural portals and exploring the Ghost Zone and stubbornly refusing to go home at all on the weekends. 

“Well,” he says with a shrug, “I’m down if you’re down.”

The Signal grins and claps a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Good to hear. Keep up if you can!” And then he’s throwing himself off the building in such a reckless maneuver than Danny feels his half-dead heart stop before hears the Signal’s laughter and the sound of a grapple line being reeled in.

“Oh, it’s on!” Danny doesn’t waste another second and leaps into the air, his stomach dropping for just a moment before gravity looses its hold on him. Then he’s shooting through the sky after the Signal, eyes fixed on the yellow-clad hero. 

He only just manages to remember to go invisible, most of his focus on watching the Signal swing between buildings, heading towards a large building. From where they are, moving above the rooftops, Danny can see the ocean, the dark waters stretching out past the horizon. 

The Signal glances back to make sure Danny’s still following, and Danny takes the chance to put on a burst of speed so that he’s flying besides the Signal. 

“Are you sure you can keep up with me?” Danny teases, his grin sharp. Without having to worry about anyone seeing him, it’s easy to let go of some of his control and let his fangs sharpen until they’re easily visible. 

“Man, this is not a game you’re going to win,” the Signal replies. A sly smirk crosses his face, one that promises fun and trouble, and then he swings into the shadow of a church spire and disappears.

Danny stops short and blinks a few times, wondering if his eyes glitched out somehow. The Signal was literally right in front of him. Where did he go?

He squints and looks around, floating up idly to try and get a better look at everything around him. 

“Catch me if you can!” 

Danny spins, trying to pinpoint where the Signal’s voice came from. He flies up higher and strains his hearing, listening past the honking cars, the multiple conversations happening beneath him, the train in the distance going to its next stop…

He hears a click and the sound of a body moving quickly through the air. Danny follows it, flying around buildings. He closes his eyes, focusing only on what he hears, and chases after the Signal. The closer he gets, the easier it is to hear the mechanical whir of the grapple gun, his heartbeat, his footsteps against the rooftops and the sides of buildings as he keeps moving. 

It’s fun, this chase. Danny’s never experienced something like this before. There are no stakes, no dangers, no fear or panic. This is just two people dashing through a city for fun, using their abilities to blow off stress instead of fighting for their lives or the lives of others. 

The Signal is close. Danny cracks open his eyes and frowns when he still can’t see the hero. He listens closely and the Signal should be off to his right, just out of reach. 

No one is there when he looks, but who’s to say that Danny’s the only one who can go invisible? The Signal certainly didn’t share his powers, so maybe…

Danny veers to the right suddenly and reaches out to where the Signal’s heartbeat is loudest. He hears the hero yelp in surprise as Danny tackles him out of the air. It’s only his tight grip on the Signal, arms wrapped around his waist, that keep him from falling, but taking on the weight of an entire person—one who’s heavily armored, at that—leaves Danny off balance as he flies. It takes a few moments to correct it, then he’s flying up, heading towards the large building that, now that he’s close enough to see it, has WAYNE written across the side near the very top. 

He picks up speed and flies them up to the roof, circling around it once to make sure no one else is out there. With the coast clear, Danny carefully sets the Signal down and drops his invisibility.

“Got you,” he declares, a little breathless from the chase. He grins at the Signal and only remembers his clearly visible fangs after a long minute where there’s no response. “Oh, sorry. I know it’s kinda freaky.” He brings a hand up to hide his mouth, and the Signal snaps out of his daze to grab Danny’s wrist and pull his hand down.

“No, no, you’re good! Sorry, I was just caught off guard. No one’s ever caught me while I used shadows.”

“Shadows and light? You have some really cool powers.”

The Signal gives him a rueful smile. “You say that because you haven’t seen me struggle to figure out how to use them yet.”

Oh, isn’t that familiar? Danny can relate. He was a disaster after the Accident when his powers first kicked in. “Trust me, I know how hard it can be and I can guarantee that you’ll never do worse that I did.”

“Bet.”

“I can go intangible,” Danny says, leaning closer to the Signal. “I could not control when or where I went intangible for the longest time. I fell through my bed, the floor, my entire house and also once got my arm stuck inside a wall in the middle of a conversation and had to act like nothing was wrong. Man, I was sweating while we were talking. Spent the entire time trying to casually pull my arm out of the wall. Pretty sure they think I have uncontrollable muscle spasms now.”

The Signal bursts out laughing and it’s infectious. He can’t help but laugh with him, remember the disastrous first few weeks with his powers, desperately trying to play it cool and failing miserably while he and his friends panicked. It was awful, don’t get him wrong, but it’s also very funny now that he’s looking back at it.

“Oh man, I don’t think I have one as good as that. I mean, the closest thing I have to that is that I once accidentally blinded myself trying to change a lightbulb and fell off the ladder. My uncle thought it was hilarious that I lost a fight to a single lightbulb.”

“That’s the one thing no one ever tells you about having powers: how ridiculously embarrassing it is 90% of the time.”

“Cheers, bro, I’ll drink to that.”

He feels a little dizzy with how much fun he’s having, still trying to catch his breath from the chase and all the laughter that followed. Danny tilts forward, leaning his weight on the Signal who takes it easily, holding him up like this is normal. 

“Okay, okay,” the Signal says, taking a deep breath to compose himself. “Let’s get back to the tour of Gotham. Welcome to Wayne Tower. You can just go inside and sign up for a free tour, they have one every hour.”

“And the tour has a STEM focus?”

“Oh, yeah. Some of it is just the basic history of what Wayne Enterprises has done, how they’ve grown, what industries they’re involved in, that sort of thing. But they also have a visit to one of the R&D labs to show some of the new tech they’re working on. Right now I think the focus is on prosthetics and wheelchairs and walkers. And there’s also a lab for astronomy and space flight—”

“A lab for WHAT?” Danny yells, looking up so quickly he accidentally slams the top of his head into the Signal’s chin, making them both tumble away from each other, hissing in pain. “Oh, shoot, I’m so sorry. I just love space and I got too excited and I can not be normal about space—”

A hand comes up and two fingers press against his lips, cutting his embarrassed rambling short. Danny really hopes the Signal can’t see the blush growing on his cheeks as an actual, real life hero who is standing with barely two inches between their bodies, puts his fingers on Danny’s lips. 

It’s a good thing Danny’s already had his bi panic two years ago or else he’d be dying for real this time around. 

“Chill, dude,” the Signal says with an easy smile, “It’s all good. I can take a harder hit. And if you like space, well…”

“Well?”

“Pollution in Gotham is really bad, so you can’t see any stars until you leave the city, but the university’s got a pretty good planetarium. They’re recently gotten new holograms to show off 3-D projections of different galaxies.”

Forget Signal and how attractive he is, this planetary is all Danny cares about now. 

Tucker can have the Wayne Tower tour, and he’ll find something good for Sam too, but the planetarium is for Danny specifically. It was made with him in mind. He is going to be so unwell about it once he goes to visit. He might just move in and refuse to leave. 

“No way,” Danny breathes, and distantly notes how the Signal shivers when his lips moves against his gloved fingers. “Signal, dude, we need to go to the planetarium. Please. I will get on my knees and beg if that’s what it takes.”

“Woah, no need! I was going to take you there anyways, and if you come back maybe next week, I can get tickets for you. No need to go on your knees at all.”

The phrasing makes Danny pause. That was incredibly suggestive, but since Signal’s not bringing it up and moving right along, Danny will go with it and pretend he didn’t actually say that.

“Okay, okay. Maybe we can make that our last stop? If we go now, I am not going to leave for like two days. Is there like, a nice park or something to do with plants in Gotham?”

The Signal tilts his head and makes a considering noise. “There is the botanical gardens, but Poison Ivy tends to take it over when she’s not at Robinson park.”

“Poison Ivy?” Danny repeats. That’s a Rogue’s name if he’s ever heard one, but seeing as most of his Rogues are other ghosts he’s fairly friendly with these days or government agents, he’s sure that his expectations for Rogues is pretty skewed. 

“Yeah, she controls plants and used to do a lot of robberies, property destruction, and murder in order to protect the environments. She’s gotten a bit better over the last few years, but she’ll still tear down the buildings of companies who are polluting the river and shit.”

Murder aside, Danny can kind of respect it. Sometimes the best way to fight back against the government and morally corrupt companies is to burn everything down. Sam would definitely approve; he puts the botanical gardens and Robinson Park on his list of spots to visit with her.

“Can we go check it out?”

“You know what? Sure. If Ivy is around, I’m sure we can handle it.” The Signal steps away from Danny and heads to the edge of the roof. “Ready?”

Danny follows him and lets his feet lift up off the roof, hovering just over the edge. “Ready,” he answers, prepared to take off.

The Signal jumps, grapple gun reappearing in his hand from where he placed it before, and then he’s off, moving through the open air easily as if he’s the one with the ability to fly. Danny chases after him, going invisible again as they weave between the buildings, heading away from the absurdly tall buildings that make up what must be the busier downtown area of Gotham. They go over the train tracks and the Signal grapples onto a water tank just to jump off of it again, gaining way more air than a normal person would be capable of. 

It’s beyond fun, flying through the city with the Signal. The clouds block out most of the sky, but every so often a weak stream of sunlight breaks through and illuminates a few sections of the city. It’s nothing at all like Amity Park, far darker and ornate and dangerous, but he can’t help but be fascinated by it, wanting to spend more and more time exploring Gotham. 

The Signal stops his journey a few times to drop down onto the street to stop carjackers and muggers, leaving them bound and awaiting police pick up. The victims, the few who stick around, always thank him and see him off with a wave.

Jealousy is an ugly feeling and Danny’s feeling a little too much of it, watching how the Signal interacts with the citizens of the city he protects. It’s no surprise that Danny’s completely burned out on heroing these days, preferring to use his powers for mundane tasks or just for fun. He was certainly never as good a hero as the Signal is. 

But then the Signal grapples back up into the sky and gives Danny a smile and all his ire fades away. 

It’s better this way; Danny’s been ready to retire from the hero business for a year and a half now, and the Signal deserves all the love he’s shown and more. 

They cross what feels like half of Gotham before the Signal comes to a stop across the street from a building with a large glass dome on the top.

“Here it is,” he announces, “The botanical garden. The inside is where you can pay for entering, and then it goes straight to a display of local plants and insects, with an indoor garden, and then the outside is where the actual gardens are. There’s also a greenhouse in there but it belongs solely to Ivy now. She’s got an agreement with the owner of the garden to keep the place safe so long as she can use the greenhouse as she pleased.”

Danny pulls out his phone to snap a picture and texts it to Sam.

She replies with a string of exclamation marks.

We’ll visit it together next week! he sends, and Sam sends back a thumbs up and a green and black heart. 

“Okay, this is absolutely a place I’m visiting with my friends,” Danny says, sending Jazz a ghost emoji when her check-in let me know you’re okay text comes in, right on the hour. 

“We got places for your friends, so it’s time to show you the planetarium, right? You need a place you want to visit too.”

“Just point it out to me, because I can promise that as soon as I’m inside, I am not coming back out.” Actually, it’s highly probable that Danny will straight up lose all grasp on time and reality and just spend an entire week staring at holographic projections of stars. And seeing how he promised to have dinner with Sam and Tucker so they can all catch up on what they’ve been doing over the summer, he shouldn’t risk disappearing into the depths of the planetarium.

“Actually,” Danny says, “Can we skip the planetarium for today? I don’t want to lose track of time since I am going back home once the sun sets.”

“Sure, if that’s what you want. Any other things you want to see in Gotham?”

“How about best places to eat?”

The Signal goes to reply, and judging by his smile, he’s fully on board with the idea of scoping out Gotham’s hottest food spots, when he falters and turns away slightly. What little Danny can see of his face smooths out into something neutral.

“I’m being called back,” he says after a minute of silence. Danny cocks his head, wondering how he missed hearing someone calling for the Signal. Unless it was like a phone call, but wired through his helmet, which somehow blocked Danny’s hearing…?

Not a rabbit hole he wants to go down. He forcibly puts the thought out of his mind. 

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, the other bats just want to talk to me.”

Bats. Bats?

Danny’s confusion must be visible because the Signal cracks a smile and says, “Man, where the hell are you from that you don’t know about the bats?”

Honestly, hell is a pretty decent description of where he’s from, but Danny’s not about to admit that. 

“Batman, the first vigilante in Gotham,” the Signal continues, “And he’s taken in a lot of others, including me. We’re all Gotham based but a few of us go and help out in other places, or start our own teams.”

“So you’re not the only hero here?”

“Not even close,” the Signal says, “I am the only one on the day shift, though.”

A day shift! Like a job! It’s so far from Danny’s own experience in trying to be a hero that he can be anything but impressed. “You’re the coolest of them,” he says, words tumbling out of his mouth before he’s properly aware of what he’s saying.

“Thanks, man. Even if you’re clearly biased since you’ve only met me.”

“I’ll stand by what I said even after I meet the others. Though I’m not sure I will, since I won’t be here at night.”

“Ah, well,” the Signal shrugs, “That just means I don’t have to share you.”

Danny feels like screaming. He wants to go out into space, scream, and burrow into an asteroid because he doesn’t know how else to process his feelings upon hearing that. Like, holy shit? Is this hero flirting with him? Is he into Danny? 

He needs back up ASAP. He needs Tucker and Sam and look over his interactions with the Signal and give him the verdict. 

“If you like my company so much, would you be up for doing this again tomorrow?” Danny asks, pushing his luck. If he can survive asking Paulina out as his partner to a dance even after his pants fell down in front of her, he can definitely flirt with the Signal. 

He’s got this.

“As if I would say no after how much fun we’ve had today. Come find me tomorrow and I’ll treat you to some of the street food you’ve ever had.”

“Cool! Tomorrow then.” The urge to say it’s a date is strong but Danny is stronger. For now. “You should get going before any of those ‘bats’ come to get you.”

The Signal offers a little two fingered salute, vividly reminding Danny of the fact that those fingers were on his lips, and then he’s swinging away, leaving Danny on the rooftop across from the botanical gardens. 

As soon as the Signal is out of sight and Danny can’t hear his heartbeat, he sinks down to his knees, hiding his face in his hands, and lets out an overwhelmed keen. 

He takes a minute to freak out over 1) meeting a hero 2) helping a hero save people 3) flirting with a hero! 4) securing a not-date with a hero. And then he pulls out his phone and frantically opens up the group chat to yell at Sam and Tucker.

danny: i think i died again bc WHAT THE HELL WAS THAAAAAAT

sam: It’s been two hours danny. What could you have possibly done

sam: Actually hang on you def do way worse in less time

danny: where’s tucker i want to talk to someone who WONT BULLY ME IN MY TIME OF NEED

tucker: can i pls eat lunch in peace

sam: No ♥️

danny: lol no

danny: anyways i met a hero and we flirted? i think?? i am fully prepared to marry this guy and idek his real name

tucker: do i need to give u another lecture on stranger danger

danny: no!!!! 

sam: How old even is this guy? If hes actually like 15 years older than you i Will decapitate him for going after you 🙂

tucker: dude just come back. U can tell us all abt this and let us laugh at u before dinner

danny: and then youll help me?

sam: Ofc danny, as if you’d be able to do anything without us

tucker: 🔼 😀

danny: be there soon!!

. . .

As much as they’ve had their rough patches over the years, Danny can say one thing with certainty: Sam and Tucker always tell him the truth. After everything they’ve gone through together over the past few years, from bullies to family troubles to ghosts and governments, they’ve learned to rely on each other and be as honest as possible. 

Which means that when they laugh at him, he knows they mean it.

“Seriously, guys,” Danny whines, hiding his face in Tucker’s pillow, “I am in distress! Help me!”

“I mean, it seems like you’re doing just fine,” Sam says.

“He had his fingers on your mouth.” Tucker cackles. “It’s so over for you.”

“At least this Signal guy is nicer that Valerie. I’m still not going to let him date you without meeting him first.”

“Sam!” Danny says, “Do not shovel talk a hero from another dimension. Don’t do that to me.”

She casually checks her nails, kept short but still fully capable of digging into flesh deep enough to draw blood. “Please, Danny, you know you can’t stop me.”

“Tuck?” he tries, hopefully.

“Nah, I’m with Sam on this one. We gotta meet him first, make sure he’s good for you, and then we’ll stop hovering and let you date in peace.”

Danny collapses back, bringing up the pillow to cover his face. He briefly considers suffocation as a reasonable way to escape this conversation, then decides that it would take too much time and they could always just take the pillow away from him anyways. “You really think I have a chance?”

He’s said it quietly, and with how the pillow muffles his words, he expects his moment of insecurity to fly by unnoticed.

The pillow is yanked away from him. Sam grabs his wrists and hauls him up to sit, and then Tucker whacks him on the head with his reclaimed pillow. 

“Hey! What the hell?”

“He should be grateful that you’re even giving him the time of day,” Sam says, a fire in her eyes. 

Next to her, Tucker nods so strongly Danny worries his glasses are going to fall off. “Based on what you’ve told us, he is absolutely into you. Neither of you have to do anything about it, since you’re from different dimensions, but he’d been stupid to say no if you ask him out.”

“Besides, you just met today. Give it some time. Crush all you want, but start as friends and see how that goes, okay?”

That’s… sound advice. 

Danny jumped straight to struggling with his very sudden crush on the Signal. But, as Sam said, it’s been one day. He’s got plenty of time to get to know the Signal and see if this crush is any deeper than just hero-worship and admiration. 

He won’t deny that he’s weak to someone strong being gentle with him, but honestly, if he wanted to swoon over buff people, he’d just go to a gym and ask if anyone would be available to help him. It’s worked in the past, it’ll work again. Even if the person who helps him ends up being Dash or someone else on the football team. 

That was a weird day. He’d totally do it again.

He sighs. “You’re right, Sam.”

“I always am.”

“Tucker, if you would.” With a grin, Tucker salutes him then biffs Sam over the head with his pillow.

They both ignore her offended shriek and Danny continues speaking. “I probably shouldn’t even be  thinking of a relationship right now. We’re about to go into senior year and send out college apps and all that. I can figure this whole thing out later. We probably won’t even see each other all that often.”

“But if there’s a chance, and if he makes you happy, promise you’ll go for it.”

“I don’t know…”

“Promise, Danny,” Tucker demands. One of his hands inch closer to Danny’s waist and he watches it with a wary glare. He knows Tucker isn’t above playing dirty via tickling to get Danny to do as he’s told. “Danny. Promise.”

“Okay, okay! I promise!” 

Tucker’s hand pulls away and Danny lets out a sigh of relief. It’s immediately followed by a yelp and his entire body flailing and falling off the bed as Sam, the traitor, jabs him in the side while he’s distracted.

“Just for that, I’m not taking you to the botanical garden in Gotham next week.”

“Wait, wait, wait, I’m sorry. I’ll stop bullying you.” Sam eyes him, consideringly. “For now.”

“I am suffering from feelings and all you two do is laugh at me.”

Shaking her head, Sam reaches down to pat Danny’s shoulder. “There, there. You’ll survive this.”

“Besides,” Tucker adds, “No matter what happens, you’ve got us.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.” He doesn’t bother hiding his smile, knowing they can hear it in his voice anyways. 

Thinking over his time with the Signal doesn’t feel as overwhelming anymore. He’s gotten it off his chest, had his two best friends analyze it to the best of their abilities, found a new rhythm he can work with. His cheeks still flush red when he thinks about the Signal a little too long, but it’s a nice warmth, a promise that there’s something there, that he can see something that makes him happy outside of Amity Park.

He can figure out everything else later. He can get flustered over their not-date to various Gotham food trucks tomorrow, but that’s an issue for later. 

For now, he has a dinner to make with Sam and Tucker. For now, he’s got a quiet day in Amity Park where he can enjoy being with the two people most precious to him, and he can cherish every minute they spend together while the future draws closer with the promise to send them down different paths. 

They have now. They have summer and a visit to Gotham and a certainty that no matter what, they’ll be there for each other. 

And if Sam and Tucker tease him throughout dinner, citing his slow growing skills in making food that’s actually edible for normal humans, well, it’s not like he hasn’t earned it.

It’s not like he’ll need to cook much in Gotham. The Signal will make sure they don’t starve with his knowledge of the best food in the city. 

That’s just what heroes do, after all.

[starry-bi-sky]

ive been hesitating to ask this bc youve been on a roll with the clone^2au (which i am frothing over) but could i poke you for some childhood friend au? bc GOD i wanna see how danny reacts to reuniting w jason or how the rest of the batfam react to learning jason never told danny of his resurrection or wondering if dannys gonna put jokers dead body on a display/offering to jasons grave. i havent been normal about this since i first read it and was wondering. thank you for your writing.

RAAAAHHHH DON'T BE HESITANT I AM JUST AS FERAL OVER MY CHILDHOOD FRIENDS AU AS I AM WITH CLONE^2 I AM DELIGHTED BY THIS. Like.,,,, i literally love them,,, so much. I can't listen to The Crane Wives without thinking of them.

(which is my fault - the ao3 fic of them has literally only crane wives lyrics for each chapter title and summary (posted AND the ones not written) so of course im gonna associate with them.)

(if you wanna listen to some of their songs while thinking of cfau here are my recommendations: "Once & for All", "Here I Am", "Hollow Moon" is a Danny AND Jason song to me, this would be my go-to song for an animatic of CFAU if i had the skills for it. "Tongues and Teeth", "Curses" and "take me to war" is a heavy cfau danny song to me, and of course, "the moon will sing")

Like they're BEST friends dude, they're two sides of the same coin and when they were kids they would do this thing where their 'fingers crossed'/'double-crossed' was them hooking their index fingers in the fingers crossed gesture.

and i'm actually currently rewriting my original post into a more fic-like format, and when I'm done I'll post it on here under the cfau tag - with the original post still in tact. But its,,, gonna be so long dude,,,, the original behemoth was just over 9000 words,,, and I've written 3k words already of the new one and we haven't even reached Jason and Danny reuniting at the gala yet,,, i need to get back to that,,,

and then to answer your questions!! god im almost hesitant to answer because i dont wanna spoil the little fic i had planned for it but also like,, its not like im gonna spoil everything, right? and answering the questions isnt the same as writing the scene down so!!

i love danny and jason's reuniting, like i've thought about it SO much and I've thought about it happening after Danny kills the Joker. I know the reveal could have been before that, and it could have been equally just as dramatic but like??? Thematically, doing it after danny kills the joker is SO good. To me at least.

Because like?? Jason's been in somewhat denial about danny's plan to kill the joker for months. ever since danny told him that he wanted to at the gala. And from Jason's pov its not even technically a plan. He sees his best friend for the first time after five years and his best friend still isn't over his death. He hasn't stepped foot in Gotham since his funeral and now suddenly he's here.

And he's still so full of grief over his death that he tells a masked vigilante that he's going to kill the guy that did it, who lives in said masked vigilante's city. And danny's got that look in his eyes that Jason knows so well that means he's being serious. And yet he still doesn't know if he should believe him or not.

And then he does. Danny kills him. And Jason can't fucking believe it. And when he goes and sees Danny, Danny's hands are still covered in blood. And that reunion? God like a fucking firework show. Danny's so fucking angry, and pissed, and hurt, and so goddamn overjoyed that he's alive and here that he sends them both to the ground, and if he doesn't calm down he's gonna take out the power in a five block radius.

there's just so, so much yelling on Danny's end. And then so much crying, first from Danny and then them both. because god, you're alive. you're here. i've missed you so much. i'm never letting you out of my sights again.

and Joker's death! God I don't want to actually say too much about that, but the way I have it set up thematically makes me actually not want danny to take any part of the joker with him as an offering. and he may actually forego that particular ghost etiquette and offer something else as an offering to Jason in substitute to not bringing him the Joker's heart/head/ritualistic body part.

Because you know what the last thing a man whose been spending the last two decades of his life building himself up to be larger than life would want? A death that's unremarkable. :) and that's all i'll put on the matter for now.

and the batfam!! they technically already know that jason hasn't told danny he was resurrected, and plenty of them have mixed feelings on them. largely bruce and dick i think, considering they saw firsthand how close jason and danny were when they were kids.

Dick was honestly surprised at first when he found out that Jason hadn't told Danny he was alive - and on one hand he understands the reasoning for it, and on the other hand he isn't sure if it was such a good idea. Especially after he sees Danny again after he arrives back in Gotham and sees just how badly Jason's death was still affecting him. But it's not like he's going to try and convince Jason to tell him - he can make his own choices, even if Dick has questions about them.

Bruce has much the same thoughts as Dick, so there's not really much to add here other than he might bring it up once or twice to Jason like, vaguely. And then immediately drops it when Jason shuts him down. He might actually somewhat...?? prefer that Jason hasn't told Danny because that raises a lot of questions and could jeopardize their identities. However, again, Jason can make his own choices and there's not much Bruce can do about it other than disapprove from afar.

Tim who knew of Danny from stalking the Wayne family shares similars sentiments of being surprised that Jason didn't tell Danny, but again, yeah, understands the thought process to some extent. Doesn't bring it up ever.

Everyone else who hadn't seen firsthand how close Danny and Jason are don't really have much opinion on it -- Jason didn't tell his best friend he was alive, great, he also didn't tell them either so it's not like its that much of a surprise. It would've been more of a surprise to them if Jason had told Danny before he told Bruce and co. Damian may make a comment or two about Jason not telling Danny, but its not about how he can't believe he didn't tell him or anything like it.

[aterfish]

Does Containtmeny breach! Danny ever get to go back in the suit? Im sorry i just love How the suit looks-

There are two options:

A) no.

The hazmat isn't a part of Danny being a ghost. It is anti-ghost. Its properties are keeping everything, ehem, contained, and at the same time it is fused to the energy it's keeping at bay. That means it's not a suit he can just take off.

It's not a part of his ghost powers, but the hazmat still became a part of him. And it shows, with it only manifesting when the power is surfacing (I'M GOING GHOST).

You could say he's not a halfa, but like... half human, quarter ghost and quarter anti-ghost...

So. Once the suit is gone, it is gone. Danny is a free half-ghost now. (When Walker is not looking)

B) Yessss.

Sprinkling this one with a headcanon that ghost apperance depends on their subconsciousness. So when Danny is feeling a bit too emotionally exposed and raw? Needs to ground himself? Hide weakness and look strong?

BOY, do I see angst potential and a lot of therapy needed.

Well, the suit is not the same. It maybe looks the same, but it's not actually containing anything.

Does his subconscious simulates how he felt in the real hazmat suit because of his emotional state? Yes.

Does Danny know that? No.

Bonus:

Here's a quick chart how I headcanon the energy flow.

[thebadtimewolf]

give me onscreen fluff no matter the cost

i think rtd2 should kill off dimemsion cannon-toting rose marion tyler. hey. im not saying its not gonna highly anger me if they kill her off doing something ooc because it will if they go down that route. make it make sense based on the material that is given. because this aint early 2000s now. its original and new. and not predictable and yt.

im saying so we can have onscreen scenes of then kissing and holding baby mia because i'll be fucking damned if you gave that to racist joan redfern but NOT TO ROSE????

this is because if meta crisis ten/tentoo does come back, there needs to be a reason why he is there alone. we saw what he does when hes alone and only one person attempts to stop him: he starts blowing shit up. doctordonna AND jackie couldnt stop him from basically being a bomber the whole time.

it'll mull him, not harden him or make him go evil like every predictable fanfic whenever rose dies and hes evil and blah blah. it'll ground him. and i dont want it to be like: oh rose passed away! Any way lets- no.

I want it to where the Doctor doesn't realize something is wrong beyond just tentoo being back. It would be the last thing he would think, the one thing they would never come to the conclusion to. I mean, for us it was decade or so ago but for the doctor, that was essentially billions of years ago. That was just plucked stray eyelash from two years ago in comparison.

And tentoo is keeping up appearences. Even says present tense verbs "she is doing great, she is currently so and so doing whatnot" but then it starts being noticeable. Bit by bit. He used 'did' or 'used to' a few slips. Here and there. Something that can brushed off as parallel world: different rules.

But then, near the climax, a gutpunch - you know rtd love his gutpunches of heartbreak - rose died and tentoo blamed himself for it. [mind you, there is a flashback of rose, teen mia, and tentoo just to establish that a comic or audio isnt now canon.] and its something mundane though not how danny pink initially died. at least mundane enough for it to happen but not too mundane enough to be ANOTHER FRIDGING DEFAULT TROPE.

tentoo and pete was there (yes surprise guest star shaun dingwall) and the look of horror on their face when they both rush out only for it to be too late.

but it gets tentoo to stop being trigger-happy. Yes, he gets hurt, but the reason the reveal happens is him saying something along the lines of 'i can't make my daughter into an orphan'

because if moffat gets a hold of that, he's gonna make stone rose a reality in the most cruellest way of killing off rose. Not send her back in time, just turn her into an irreversible weeping angel with no trace of anything that she used to be except her face and hair. I don't need that NO ONE NEEDS THAT!!! but as far as killing of fan faves go: thats your real motherlode there.

it shows no one is safe. tegan and kate stewart almost proved it to be the case. but killing off rose? rose tyler? dame rose marion tyler of the powell estate? that? that's a huge move. a big move.

but it explains so much in retrospect for 50th in film and novelisation. why the moment expressions are the way they are. why literally 10 and 11 could never see her but war and 13 and superpower companion from brooklyn, ny, gabby gonzalez can. why be a ghost haunting them? why be present yet also not at all to them? why be the yellow wallpaper in a burning room of gold? anyway.

give us what we got in one comic as a wandavision esque for empress rose's perspective but onscreen with the main girl! and we all saw i hate suzie fear ep i cried when her character died. let me repeat myself: i cried when billie's suzie's character in a fictional show within i hate suzie, the zombie show that doesnt exist, died. let her cook! i want my heart feel like regina mills in one of her ✨️always serving evil queen regality✨️came into my house, punched through my chest, crunched my heart like it was a simple wine glass stem and then emotionally tossed my body around like she about to audition for making me a new kind of muppet.

make us fear for EVERY 2005 COMPANION RETURNING (except jack because hes still immortal) make us actually clutch pearls and the fabric covering our stomachs!

[this is the same disney+ that now has uncensored punisher and the last time we had rtd writing in america was miracle day and that was gruesome in itself so 👀😬 the whiplash of heartbreakingly devastating opportunities is right there. especiall since rose is canonically established to be part of pete's world torchwood not unit so. yeah be afraid.]

[meatriarch]

just as a small bit of heads up when it comes to interacting:

your muses can absolutely attempt to or successfully harm my muses. if they are in the middle of a struggle, they are being attacked or mine are grabbing at your muse? your muse can respond in turn how you see fit! i do not mind at all c:

----- luda mae isn't exactly physically strong anymore due to her age; however - she has blood on her hands as well, not nearly as much as charlie or thomas but she is not above using her age and perceived frailty because of it to her advantage. ----- birdie, pepper, maria, ana, danny, nancy etc, all of them your muse is fully okay to go after, grab, maim, throw shit at, lift off the ground, throw them, pull on their hair, you name it - if its something your muse realistically should do during struggles and fights and such, yours can harm my muses. ----- also, technically speaking? for my survivor / victim muses, in terms of one-shot interactions ( ie. responding to an inbox thing from me ) your killer muses are welcome to kill them for those brief interactions. if its easier to imagine: think of it in similar terms to the entity putting survivors through trials only for them to in essence "revive" and be completely fine for the next. c: i usually treat my inbox content as one-off pieces. they aren't necessarily meant to be a part of the muses' overall stories by default. so, if your killer muse wants to kill one of mine in an ask response? go for it! if my muse is being mouthy to your killer and they reasonably get ticked about it and wanna teach them a lesson? go. for. it. ----- otherwise, i dont plan on killing off any of my muses for realsies and anything other than one-shot inbox things? don't just outright kill my muses without warning or talk. :)

you can always shoot me any questions or concerns in regards to this :)

the ONLY muse i would say that high chances are, those things won't quite be as effective would literally be with thomas.

granted i'm not too sure exactly what height / weight that bubba stands at. while he is a pretty stocky guy, he also doesn't look nearly as beefy as thomas does. thomas is portrayed being as physically intimidating as possible. I write thomas as being 6 feet 9 inches tall. he's a bit of a heavy set guy. and he is built quite literally like a brick and cement building. he isn't just strong - he is CONSISTENT HARD LABOUR strong. his muscle tone is functional, not just for show so to speak. while for sure, stabbing at him, knocking things over in front of him to cut his path, etc. will slow him down / break his attention on who he's after? don't mistake his size for incapability to catch up real quick. hes like a rabid dog - poke at him long enough to agitate and he is a bullet train coming right at you. and just because hes often got his hands full by his chainsaw, doesn't mean he's useless without it. i'd wager that being literally pummeled to death by a man his size may be worse than a "quick" death by chainsaw blades to the face.

so what i mean is: your muse ABSOLUTELY CAN attempt to attack thomas as well! :) i would just say that it may not go nearly as well as hoped dsfjksa

( this is NOT to say however that i will disregard any discomfort when it comes to your muses being hurt / attacked btw. when i write any sort of altercation that may result in bodily harm, i auto-default to beginning an action and allowing the response to be either left open-ended for a brief interaction, or for you to decide your muses' next move / how they dodge it / etc. ya'll are always welcome to shoot me an im or make note of it in the tags or ask etc to ask about any of what i've spoken about here c: )

[bitch-i-migth-be]

Chapter 11: Someone Called The Baby Brother Protection Squad?

Fandoms: Danny Phantom, Batman,

Summary: He swore his sister was trying to make him go into cardiac arrest - considering his halfa status that was quite the accomplishment-

But there was no other explanation to his sister’s stubbornness, and if he knew her at all there was just no talking her down from interning at goddam Arkham.

A/N: Im getting dizzy and its all the characters fault. Most of it. Some of it.

THIS IS ON AO3, IF ANYONE WOULD PREFER TO READ THERE. LOVE COMmENTs  so if u have anything to say IwillBeReallyHappyYesThankU

@silvergold-swirl

Notes:

Hi grandma, it’s ME, Anastasia! 💋

Hello guys~ I had to rearrange some things and move some scenes because i hated the timing. We are gonna go with this short one and hopefully danny will cooperate now that I finally gave up and let him scape the torture. I swear to god this boy doesn’t care for anything that isn’t working in his damned survival Notebook ughh

I mean i did give it to him, i guess. So i am the one to blame. Should have seen that one coming. 🤡

CHAPTERS: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,

Danny was.. unsure.

Which wasn't exactly a new occurrence, per se, but C’mon !

He had read the damn pamphlets, — the pamphlets ! Who does that? not counting Jazz, of course, because she didn't count on grounds of her being Jazz — and listened raptly — even if there had been plenty of eye rolling and sighs from his part — while Jazz coached him through the ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts’ and the ‘What ifs’ and whatever else she had thought to throw in there ‘just in case’.

It seemed like it would be for nay because apparently the examiners hadn’t been informed of Jazz’s carefully planned out schedule. He was pretty sure the examiners taking him to a secondary location after the test was already done hadn’t been stated anywhere.

He would like his freedom back. Yes and thank you.

But maybe this was important? Even if jazz or the damn pamphlet hadn’t mentioned  anything about it?

Mulaney would be pretty disappointed but at least Jazz would not try and make him a full ghost if he made a full blown scandal — in the middle of the school he was just about finished making the entrance exams for — as god almighty intended it whenever things started to get shaddy around him.

You can’t make everyone happy these days, but you can choose who you are going to disappoint or potentially piss off. And that was something.

At least the new place was still inside the same building and no one had taken out the scalpels. Yet . On the way here they had walked by something that looked suspiciously like a dissection lab and Danny's hackles had raised and stayed up even after they had walked past and left the damned place behind.

The current company didn’t help much in calming him down, either.

The look one of the ladies kept giving him reminded him — uncomfortably so — of the manic stare Spectra got whenever she got some new poor soul on her clutches. The same sort of look some ghosts shared. The sort of look that had resulted in Danny quickly and effectively developing a pavlovian response. One that resulted in exorbitant amounts of well-placed aggression and some collateral damage to fix later if he was particularly unlucky.

He couldn’t exactly afford the collateral damage right now, though. Which was a shame. But, eh.

Danny had to repeat Jazz words like a mantra, over and over again to calm his nerves down before he managed to convince himself in his paranoia that everyone in this room had somehow gotten possessed, that this was nothing more than an elaborate hoax and he needed to ‘suit up’ and dispatch them before they got the chance to dispatch him first.

Then the examiners-slash-teenappers seemed to finish their impromptu rendezvous and the spectra-wannabe lady turned towards him with yet another smile.

His core trilled, a fake smile took over his face and Danny started to feel his fingers twitch in anticipation. Of what? he didn’t exactly know. But it would get pretty ugly , really fast if the lady came any closer.

When someone knocked on the door- Well, no. The knock itself had not been enough to derail any of them —except for Danny, who had snapped to attention and contemplated the expansion of possibles getaways now that the door was once again open, if slightly obstructed by someone — but one of them finally caught the stare of the redheaded woman on the door and that sure seemed to be enough.

There was no better word to what followed, the woman started to rip them a new one, right in front of their salad and everything, as they say.

So he did the smart thing — because of course he did —, he took the distraction for what it was and hightailed it out of the room.

Jazz would understand, right? right.

And that was the moment when Jazz appeared out of thin air and looped an arm around his shoulders, halting his momentum.

He side eyed her. She side eyed him back.

“Umh, I- I was just-” her eyebrow rose and Danny felt the nervous laughter fall from his lips without authorization. Which, rude. But also understandable. Maybe.

Jazz didn’t stop to acknowledge it. She just brought their foreheads togethers a moment to nuzzle him — long enough for him to get a grip while the both of them took a pair of deep breaths — and Danny finally recognized the look on her face from multiple parent-teachers conferences back in amity when not even one of their parents managed to make it into the school without getting sidetracked or offending someone on the way there.

She was taking over from here.

“Don’t get lost.” Was all she offered in a whisper, and then she let go.

He smiled back at her.

And then made a run for it.

-.-.-.-

Jazz was feeling-

Incredibly validated if slightly murderous.

The validating feeling was new but expected. The murderous one was an old friend, and she had thought it wouldn’t make an appearance today. That had been her mistake. She would learn from the experience and be better prepared in the future.

watching her brother run circles around these people without even noticing had been fun until it wasn’t. The sight of her little brother so strung up had made her want to take some pointers from Vlad but alas.

There was someone better to take pointers from right now.

Two redheads are always better than one, after all.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.-

NOTES

Me, flipping a coin to decide between feral siblings and soft siblings each chapter.

-.-.-.-

Lydia martin is one of my goddesses. I can understand stile because holy fuck that woman is awe inspiring.

-.-.-.-

Also barbara of course. And Gwen tennyson. And giesell. And Anastasia. And the little mermaid. And ranko. And roberta. And-

Have i mentioned I have a thing for redheads?? That seems important. Because oh booooiii

-.-.-.- I'm going to get another coin to flip. It’s either both feral and soft or double the amount of one of those and that sounds real nice~

-.-.-.- as a throw back to the chapter with the ghost council: the ghost kryptonians?? I imagined them keeping taps on clark and rooting for him, like, there are support groups sometimes and everything, like ´-and last but not least: next Tuesday is Lex Luthor Hate Night, guys, so don't you dare forget the popcorn daggers again Ken Al-‘

and i just ahskfsahkgakl I can’t- !!

-.-.-.-

I had a talk with the characters and we all decided Danny and Jazz will be in charge of bulldozing the way for everyone else.

If any of the others want to pop in with a pov then it will happen, if they don’t then they won’t, and we will have to make do with the feral siblings view of this mess. Maybe. Depends on if these fuckers change their mind. Like they do. Ugh. It’s gonna be lovely, I. can. tell.

CHAPTERS: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,

[jdmslut-red]

Alright hear me out… I’ve got this idea for a Loki x Daenerys story that I can’t get out of my brain

Figures… when I actually have time to think I get inspired instead of sleeping or relaxing on my time off 😅 I warned you guys, I’m in Loki world right now

Ok so in the events leading up to and during Ragnorak, Thor and Loki come upon the 7 kingdoms and meet our queen Danny. Im not gonna spoil too much in case I do decide to write this but I’m thinking of different ideas of how this will play out. I just need to explain and write this out cause currently my brain is like this is great… 😅 But basically, Thor and Loki help Danny and the others defeat the white walkers. After the battle is won Thor returns to Asgard to defeat Hela. Loki later joins him against Daenerys wishes. He promised her he would return however. ( by that time Loki and Danerys had already developed feelings and of course expect lots of kinky smut involving… magic 😏) but they never admitted straight out how much they actually cared for each other.

Anyway, after Asgard is destroyed. Thor, Loki and the rest of the survivors come back to the 7 kingdoms. Thor begs Daenerys to take the Asgardian citizens under her protection, which she does. Thor then tells Daenerys and Loki he’s going after thanos. Loki decides to go with him but Danerys pleads him not to. Loki promises her he would return to her again. Before they could speak again thanos appears in the 7 kingdoms as well looking for the tesseract in which Loki had taken.

After a somewhat lengthy battle, in which a lot people die including Daenerys second dragon. (The first one dying in white walker battle) Daenerys is furious and charges at thanos. He easily takes her down of course but before he could kill her Loki saves her, sacrificing him self (much like the painful death scene we all know)

Danerys holds a dying Loki in her arms while they finally confessed their love for each other. Anyways, Thor wants to go to earth to join the avengers. He pleads Danny to go with him but she declines, telling him she still needed to win the throne.

After witnessing her closest friends death, both of her dragons and the love of her life die before her arms, Danny whirlwinds into madness much like in the show. Burning the whole city to the ground. However, in my story jon snow doesn’t actually kill her. Having been taught some magic by Loki, Danny fakes her own death with an illusion before killing jon snow herself.

Ok so I haven’t really decided how she ends up in a different time line, there are possibilities. But basically the TVA finally tracks her down in which she meets present or past Loki I guess. There’s a lot more to it, but I just wanted to explain the important bits and see what you guys think. Cause in my head and typing this out now I’m like oh this sounds epic 😅 but knowing me and how complicated the MCU and Game of thrones universes are (especially since I don’t keep up with anything that Loki is not involved in) it’ll probably be shit 😅

Here’s some screenshots of a little sneak peek of a scene I wrote on my phone where past Loki escapes the TVA with Danny…

Ps: If I do ended up writing this I’ll probably only post on my archive or maybe create another blog idk yet. I mean I can barely keep up with this one with my life being chaos right now 😅

[aenxiome]

Chapter 3: Suck it up Fenton

The rest of the day ended up being lackluster.

In the beginning, things were going well, seating assignments had been changed, and more teachers roamed the halls during and between classes. Unfortunately, the changes aren't going to last. While teachers were punishing students for bad behavior, it wasn't always the ones who did the deed that got punished. It is almost like the trouble makers started rapidly evolving. Many of the A-List target students got detention, with their reflective bully doing a whole 180 when a teacher showed up. Thankfully I managed not to get detention for a second day and a row, but that may be from Dash getting in trouble earlier today.

I may be giving my classmates more credit than they are worth, though. Before today, none of the teachers ever monitored the events in the hallways—giving everyone free rein to do what they wished without any consequences. This isn't anyone evolving. This is their way of getting around the new, hopefully, standards that they are trying to implement. If things continue to go this way, the A-Lists and others are just going to become less subtle in their actions. Not that I expect them to be able to pull it off in the end, but the new arrangement might cause even more issues.

'Great going Fenton, you just screwed everyone, I tell myself. Not everyone can handle themselves as well as you can. This is going to mean so much trouble. But, I try to look on the bright side, thinking about Astronomy. I got some papers back today, full credit on my star chart, though that's pretty much expected of me at this point. So not too surprising. Hopefully, other classes will improve with the seating arrangements being changed, but there is no way of telling if they truly will.

Once classes were over and done with, I met up Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger. The restaurant is just starting to get busy with the constant incoming groups of students coming through the door. Thankfully we can claim our regular booth and put in an order for food. " So, how did your guys' day go?" Tucker asks, fiddling with one of his newer PDAs. He goes through PDAs as Dad goes through fudge, a lot of them and all the time. Sam and I just shrug in response and continue the conversation going through some random small talk.

In the middle of our conversation, Tucker suddenly goes still and stares at the PDA. He shoves the device in front of Sam's face making her read whatever has grabbed his attention. Once she is done looking at whatever it is, she and Tucker make eye contact conveying something to each other that I am unable to make out. Sam starts to say something but is interrupted by our food arriving.

"Danny," Tucker says as I shove fries into my mouth, " what happened last night?" I give him a questioning look. Sam slides over the PDA it is showing a local news article. The headline, "MORE DESTRUCTION IN AMITY," is plastered at the top. Below it shows a picture of a destroyed abandoned lot, the same lot from the fight with Skulker earlier this morning.

MORE DESTRUCTION IN AMITY

by Charisma Lynn

This morning residents of this local neighborhood woke up to the remains of another ghost fight. All around the grounds, traces of the battle can be found. Burn marks cover the ground in many areas showing the intensity of the fight. When officials first got on the scene, they found a couple of abnormalities not commonly seen. In a couple of different places, shattered pieces of ghostly green energy can be found. At first appearance, the pieces look like stained glass, but after the first contact turns into a gooey substance. Residents are being told not to worry as the substance is completely harmless but to still take caution. Along with the glass-like substance is a frozen piece of the ground. Even in the sunlight, the spot has shown no difference and is as hard as a rock. Out of the earth is a broken piece of ice. So far, we are unable to tell where the ice has come from, but our best guess is from some kind of ghostly interference. Many residents of the neighborhood have to ask where Phantom was? Was he part of the destruction, or is there a new ghost in town? Find out more tonight at 6 on APC.

I look up from the article to see Sam and Tucker staring at me. I shove more unsalted fries into my mouth. Did you know salt is a natural ghost repellent I, unfortunately, learned that the hard way. Never again. I finish chewing before reassuring them, " Guys, it's fine it was just a typical ghost fight." Tucker starts on his food apparently satisfied with my answer while Sam looks like she is getting ready to argue, but I interject before she gets the chance.

" It was just Skulker, it wasn't anything too bad" the mixture of "too bad" and Skulker grabs Tucker's attention once again. With him too now giving me a critiquing look over. " Are you sure dude? You aren't hurt anywhere are you?" His voice started to become a little bit frantic as he says, "Because Im not going to the hospital. Sorry but that's where I draw the line."

" Okay, but that doesn't explain what's up with the ice spot and glassy thingy," Sam says, bringing us back to the point of the conversation. " Not now," I tell them. I glance around the crowded room before looking back to them, "not here."

They look as if they are preparing to argue as I whisper, " in private." I get a couple of questioning looks as I continue, " Theres' too many people that could overhear" With the promise to talk about it later, our meal went back to everyday small talk and griping about whatever else is bothering us.

Thankfully they let it go. For now, at least.

We finish up our meal and leave the restaurant, then start on down the road. "So," Sam asks, looking in my direction, " where exactly are we going? Your place?" I start to agree but get cut off by Tucker, " We should go to the lot." I give him a questioning glance. He continues his thought, saying, " The picture in the article doesn't show much, and you never know the media could be over-exaggerating again."

"Why not," Sam says with the tone of excitement in her voice, " sounds like fun." I stop walking as I think it over. Before I can say anything, the two of them rush off ahead in the direction of the lot while a feeling of dread overtakes me. "Guys," I call out to them, trying to catch back up, " I don't think this is a good idea." I tell them in a rush, "I will tell you about it when we get to my place. We don't need to go there." Sam narrows her eyes at me before saying, "you're hiding something."

" No, that's not it," I wring my hands in my shirt, unsure of how to proceed. She doesn't let up with her glare at my words. Sam sighs and comes towards me, grabs my arm, and pulls me along with her. I try to pull myself away without hurting her, but I just can't seem to do it. Finally, I become resigned and hesitantly follow without protest.

Didn't they read the same article that I did? It says authorities looked at the lot. They would have had to call ghost experts. Who is to say that they still aren't there? What are we going to say if the Guys In White stuck around? Or even worse, my parents.

When we arrive, the lot is empty, only showing past signs of anyone having been here. The three of us cautiously walk towards the destruction. Next to me, I hear Tucker gasp before saying, "Oh my…" he stops himself before saying anything else. Sam isn't much better putting her hand around my arm in a vice grip.

Before them stands the evidence of one of my fights. In the daylight, the damage looks worse than it did under the moon, making me feel even worse about our actions than I already do. The ground doesn't look so much burned but scorched. As if a fire had burned away its beauty and left a hot steaming pile of muck in its place.

The few trees that line the property have missing limbs that have either splintered or lie on the ground. Shards of ectoplasm are scattered around in the grass, waiting for an unsuspecting human to fall victim to its goo or a ghost to impale its self on its sharp edges. In the middle of it, all is the spikey ice collum surrounded by the frozen frosty ground.

" So they under exaggerated this time," Tucker said, trying to bring humor to the situation, " who would have guessed." I look away from them, ashamed. " It didn't look this bad at night," I say softly, " It didn't" Unable to meet their eyes, I walk forward towards the Ice. Sam and Tucker tell me not to touch anything that I don't know where it comes from As I get near it. I ignore them and put my hand on the side of the spike. Even in human form, I am still unable to feel any of its coldness. It feels just as warm as the air around us, a little moist but not cold.

Sam and Tucker, at some point, walk towards the spike and join me at my side while I inspect the spike. " What does it feel like to you?" I ask. " Dude, it's Ice, it's cold. What else is it supposed to feel like?" I continue to glide my hand over the ice while telling them to humor me. I watch as they put their hands onto the ice, and as soon as they touch it, their hands go flying away from it. They both hold their hand as if something is attacking them. "Danny, how can you touch that!" Sam exclaims, " that stuff is freezing!"

" It feels warm to me," I tell them nonchalantly as if this is an everyday occurrence. " Danny, this isn't normal," Sam says in a worried tone. I don't say anything in response, knowing that this isn't normal for human beings, not at all. Instead, I stare at the ice, trying to figure out how to fix it, when suddenly, an idea comes to my head. I look towards them and hum to catch their attention, "Hey, do you think you can back up for a second? I have something I want to try."

As soon as they are far away enough, I check and double-check that no one is around. Before going forward on my idea, I yell to Tucker, " Tuck, can you check for cameras and stuff first?" He pulls out his PDA and tells me, " No problem with 'Simone' I'll know if anything is there in a jiffy." I wait a second until I hear him give the okay and start my attempt.

My eyes start to glow an icy ethereal blue as I stand before the spike and tap into my ice core. I can feel the cold rushing through me and out to my surroundings. In my presence, the spike starts to repair itself as I let my core come to the surface. In the middle of the spike, I can feel a connection to myself, its ectoplasmic connection to myself. Instead of pushing the ice out, I pull it in, and before my eyes, the ice starts to melt. Instead of shattering like before, it slowly becomes raw energy becoming a blue-white blob.

I gather as much energy as I can from the earth, defrosting it and adding it to the rest of the blob. I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding when all of the ice finished melting. I look around the lot for the scorched places, instinctively knowing what to do. I melt the icy ectoplasmic blob even more into water and send it around to saturate the ruined earth. When the ecto-water hits the ground, the earth lets out a satisfying hiss. The ground looks as if it has partially recovered, making it look like months have gone by instead of only a few hours since the initial conflict. Slowly I let go of my core, letting my eyes go back to their normal human hue. A smile comes to my face at my accomplishment, and I look over at Sam and Tucker. They are both staring at me with huge eyes with different emotions flashing through them: amazement, surprise, and wonder.

I go to take a step towards them when the world starts to spin. I feel myself stumble forward. " Danny!" I hear my name called out in fear and a rushing of feet coming to me. A wave of nausea hits me hard, and I lose my balance falling forward. Luckily Sam is just close enough for me to fall onto. "Danny," I hear my name called out again, " oh my gosh, are you okay?" Feeling too weak to answer, all I can do is groan.

" What are we going to do?" I hear Tucker ask Sam frantically, " we can make it to his place from here, and both of our houses are on the other side of town." The two of them keep coming up with ideas that won't work to get us out of the lot. I try to interject but just moving my mouth causes me pain.

Finally, I manage to groan out a name, "Jazz," but they don't seem to hear me. I try again, a bit louder this time, "Jazz," Sam stops talking, and when Tucker doesn't, I listen to her hit him in the back of the head. "Hey, what was that for" he complains, "Shush, Danny said something." With the raging quiet for the last time, I groan, "Jazz."

A quick vague phone call later and give or take a few minutes, Jazzs' car pulls up, and they give a sigh of relief. I hear a door slam and a worried Jazz making her way over. When she gets to us, I try to look up at her and grab her attention, but I am unable to reach her eyes. " What happened" She interrogated as she crouches down to take hold of me. I feel fatigued and start to lose track of the conversation. The next thing I know, someone has picked me up, and I'm in the car. I feel at ease with the motion of the car as we race home. It doesn't take long for me to close my eyes and fall asleep.

When I come to, I'm staring at the old stick-on stars that are attached to my bedroom ceiling. I cautiously sit up, feeling the strain of an invisible muscle, my core, in my chest. My sister and friends are spread out in the room, passed out exhausted. I glance at the clock next to my bed and read the time 3:18 AM. I try to get up from the bed, but I tumble down onto the floor. The sound wakes up Jazz, making her spring into action, helping me back up. "Hey," she whispers, "don't move too fast. You are still recovering."

I wince a little at the movement. Once she gets me steady, I whisper, "Can you help me get to the bathroom." She nods and carefully helps me to the bathroom. Once everything is situated, Jazz brings me back to my room and helps me onto the bed. I scoot over, making enough room for her to join me, which she quickly accepts.

"They told me what happened at the lot," she says, motioning towards my friends, " What were you thinking trying something like that?" She admonishes. I snuggle into her, getting comfortable before starting my defense, " I was just trying to clean up the mess we make," With a look, I explain further, " Skulker and I fought there last night. It went a little longer than expected. I didn't realize that we made such a mess."

"What about the ice," she inquires. I give half a shrug, " It was unexpected; I don't know how it happened." I tell her truthfully, " I plan to go visit Frostbite this weekend and see if he knows anything." She starts raking her hand through my hair then continues the conversation, " They said you got rid of the ice and fixed part of the ground? They didn't explain it too well. Care to elaborate?"

"It's weird. I just kind of knew how to do it. It was like…." I trail off, not liking the word I need to use. Jazz, unfortunately, knew where to pick up at, "Instinct?" She questions, with my silence being the only acknowledgment she needs. She sighs before saying, "It's okay, you know, to admit it." We lay there for a while before I decide to respond, " I can't." I react in denial, " If I acknowledge it, then it makes it true." Jazz lets out a breathy laugh at that, " So, what if you don't talk about it? It's going to go away?"

" I wish," I mumble, "It's just if I talk about it, then it becomes more real. I can pretend to be normal." She scoffs at my response, " Normal is overrated anyway." I let out a yawn and looked over at the time 4:03 AM. " Can we talk about this later? It's late." She lets out a yawn of her own, having caught mine before saying accusingly, " You just don't want to talk about it." I don't deny her accusation but put some more distance between the two of us and painfully turn over.

What does she want me to tell her? That I feel drawn to go to Ghost Zone? That I like laying around in my ghost form? I can get away with feeling like me under the stars and use insomnia as an excuse, but there is no way to explain anything else. If I told her some of these things, it would just be more of a confirmation of what I already know: I'm a freak.

" Good night, Jazz."

"Good night, little brother."

[k1ng-for-a-day]

Hello!!! I was wondering if you have any fluffy relationship headcanons for Danny Johnson (Ghostface), plz? Thank you.

OH MY GOD IM SO SORRY THIS IS REALLY LATE ITS JUST I HAD SCHOOL AND STUFF AND A BIT OF BLOCKAGE, BUT DON’T WORRY I GOT YOU COVERED-

Also (F/S) means favorite survivor!

A fluff relationship with Danny.... hmm... I’ll feature survivor since I think that would be fun.

🩸💔When you first encountered Ghostface, you were scared to say the least. From what you heard from your other team members he is known for being very, very stealthy, and will do anything to catch his prey. Nevertheless you had to put on a straight face before entering this hell hole.

🩸💔As you almost complete your Gen, you heard a very strange noise. It was like wind blowing against a bush, but everything was still. Nothing was out of the ordinary; so it seemed. You decided to check the area around you in order to remain ‘stable’. Though you were absolutely terrified of this killer, looking around shouldn’t be a bad idea... right? It would definitely eliminate the chances of sudden death, (and possibly relief your stress), but is it truly worth it?

🩸💔Upon further inspection there was absolutely nothing. Everything was fine, except that your generator was lower than last time. Wait... how is it lower? There was no one around from what you could tell, so how did this even happen? Maybe it was because of hex ruin, but you even checked if that was the case before doing the Gen. it must mean one thing; he’s here. He must be staring at you right now.

🩸💔With this realization in your head, you decided to hide somewhere near that area. What you wanted to do is wait until he lost interest to do it again. Your other teammates had already completed a Gen, but strangely enough none of them were getting hurt. It was immensely strange, unusual, and very intriguing. You decided to go back to your generator, and finally complete it. Two gens were finally completed, but no killer; Or so you thought.

🩸💔Suddenly, there came a noise in the distance. You jumped a bit, and slowly walked away from it. The more you walk away, the louder it got. You ran to the other direction, but it was still getting louder. You kept looking behind you, searching around the area, hiding in lockers, and hell you even screamed a bit, but there was no Ghostface. Nothing at all. At this point you were... confused to say the least. You decided to see if your teammates were doing alright, and your eyes beamed opened. Everyone of them were on a hook besides you. Somehow you were alive throughout this torment, while the others were being chased. It was strange how he kept you alive to begin with.

🩸💔You decided to unhook your teammates, heal them, and attempt to get some gens done before Ghostface would catch up to you. You checked if your teammates were alright, and they seemed to be fine- ‘wait... what is that heart beat? Aren’t I working with someone?’ You thought for a quick minute, and turned around slowly. There was nothing. You check the opposite side of the Gen, and there he was. Ghostface was staring right at you, probably smirking underneath his mask. You screamed.

🩸💔You quickly got off the Gen, and sprinted as fast as you could! You stared behind you, noting how close he was, and attempted to loop him as much as possible! You tried to distract him as much as you can, while noting how well the others were doing, but you were becoming weak! Your legs were becoming tired, and you were running out of breath. For a good 10 minutes you and Ghostface were at each other’s necks! Until you vaulted.

🩸💔At that single vault he picked you up gently. He put you on his shoulders and carried you to presumably a hook. You attempted to wiggle your way out, trying to find a branch or something to help you escape, but to no avail. You were helpless. There was nothing you could do. Fortunately, a teammate of yours were able to shine a flashlight at the killer, causing him to drop you instantly! You quickly ran away from him again, and he stared back at you with a possible frustrated glint.

🩸💔After a while you checked to see how many gens were done and there was one more to be completed. Strangely enough two people had died already, and one of them was about to be hooked. Sadly you were on the opposite side of the map, which made it difficult to save him. It was his last hook anyway. Now it was up to you to live through this nightmare, but why did it have to be you? How were you going to live through this? Questions like these spiraled around your brain for a moment, but you had to do something. You needed to escape quickly before he comes...

🩸💔You slowly removed yourself off the Gen you were working on, and attempted to find the hatch. Unfortunately enough the figure you implored not to see was right there standing on the hatch. He stared at you with a teasing glint, and was about to close it. You quivered, slowly approaching him, and tearing up. You didn’t know what to do at all. Everything you did for this team was for nothing. You put your fucking life into it while the others were doing nothing. But was it even worth it? Was all that hard work worth the punishment? What were you even living for? It certainly wasn’t for Ghostface, nor was it for yourself. You might as well give yourself to him and let him take it.

🩸💔Oddly enough he didn’t kill you. Instead he slashed you to the ground, picked you up, and spun around. It was really strange, but you didn’t mind. It was kinda fun to spin around until you were a bit dizzy.

🩸💔After that fun little moment of his, he finally spoke to you, “I finally caught you! You’re all mine!” He giggled childishly, and you kinda laughed along with him. Mainly you were a bit terrified of being slaughtered, but that wasn’t his intentions currently. He was just happy.

🩸💔”You looked so terrified dear! I kinda feel pity. But don’t worry, I’ll give it to you. You can have the hatch.” He said in a cheerful tone, and took a quick photo of you. It was weird how he quickly pulled it out just for you, but you didn’t mind. You quickly went through the hatch, but would regret it later on.

🩸💔Once you returned to the lobby, you decided to talk to your fellow survivors. Your friend group consisted of Claudette, Steve, Feng, Dwight, Felix, and (F/S). When you told them about what happened, they were all immensely shocked. They even thought you were joking. Usually Ghostface is such a terrifying killer, and him just sparing you like that? Unbelievable. However, one of your friends did believe you, and that was (F/S). They were completely convinced about it, and tried to even convince the others. The only one that was somewhat naive to believe this was Claudette, however Dwight convinced her that this HAD to be false. Steve and Felix were quiet, (and probably overthinking), and Feng was rolling your eyes at you.

🩸💔Later on Claudette, (F/S), and Dwight decided to join a match with you, however it wasn’t that fun. You didn’t see Ghostface and there was an insane Michael Myers after you. How great....

🩸💔In the end, you lost the match. It was really, really awful. When you told Felix and Feng about it, they felt empathy towards you. Hell Feng tried to teach you some new tricks, and Felix decided to give you a flashlight for your effort. He also tried to teach you one of his perks, however that didn’t go so well...

🩸💔You decided to go into another match with Felix, Steve, and Feng in order to find Ghostface. Again you were set with another killer; the pig. She was somewhat annoying, however you got used to it after a while. Her patterns were somewhat repetitive, and overall the match became simple.

🩸💔This repetitive joining matches, being disappointed, and ending up ranting to your teammates kept repeating on and on. It was getting annoying. And finally there was one last match. This had to be the luckiest one.

🩸💔The people with you were Felix, Dwight, and (F/S). Strangely enough (F/S) seemed more nervous than usual. They had some sort of warm blush on them, while the other two were simply talking calmly. You notice their blush and went up to them, trying to see what was going on with them. They stared at you and smiled. You asked, “are you ok? You scared?” but they didn’t say anything. They just smiled and chuckled a bit. Was there something on you? Then they replied, “Y-yeah I’m fine. It’s just somethings on my mi-“ suddenly the match was about to load. You could feel a cold shiver down your spine, and that sudden cliffhanger made you subtly intrigued.

🩸💔Luckily someone must’ve put in shroud of union because you were with (F/S). They slowly went up to you with that cute blushing face of theirs and spoke, “Hey S/O... I wanted to tell you this for a while, and it’s really hard to say this but,” they paused for a bit, “I like you a lot.”

🩸💔You blushed at that sudden confession. Where did this even come from?! How long did they have these feelings for?! Nevertheless you decided to stay quiet, practically stunned, and shook your head.

🩸💔You finally spoke, “well I...um...” you said nervously, but then you heard a slight vault. No, not a slight vault; a rush. The killer was near.

🩸💔”We have to get out of here now!” (F/S screamed, and you two quickly ran. Suddenly you saw Felix and Dwight making out completing a generator and you look behind you. There he was; Ghostface in his full form.

🩸💔As (F/S) ran for there life instead of protecting you, you stared back at Ghostface and decided to loop him for a bit. It lasted for about five minutes until you tripped on something. And he caught you right then and there.

🩸💔”Who was that person you were with? I heard what you two were doing....” he spoke in a very furious tone. It was strange since you only saw him once.

🩸💔”S-stalker,” you said accidentally, “why does it matter? They’re just my friend anyway.” He stared at you again, putting his knife against your throat and chuckling deviantly.

🩸💔”It’s so unfortunate that you’re my obsession, and that I could kill you right here right now,” he warned, “but your lucky I’m nice for today. I’ll let you go if you decline that dumbass love interest of yours.” Within his speech, you could sense a heap of fear lurking on your throat. You didn’t know what to do but oblige.

🩸💔As you tried to find (F/S), you spotted Felix opening a chest. Classic Felix, never change. You went up to him and asked if he saw (F/S) and he replied with a somewhat joyful response, “Actually yeah I did. They’re with Dwight right now working on a generator... I hope...”

🩸💔”Thank you Felix.” You bowed and left to find (F/S). Suddenly you heard talking from both of them, which was... strange. You slowly eavesdropped on them only to find (F/S) and Dwight having some sort of... fun...

🩸💔”(F/S) what the hell?! I thought you liked me!” You screamed out, and they stared at you guiltily. “Well, you didn’t say yes or no so...”

🩸💔”That’s no fucking excuse for your actions. You know what? No. I’m not accepting your confession. Hell Dwight, I thought you were better than this!” You yelled and quickly ran out of the area.

🩸💔Felix saw you running, and so did your biggest enemy...

🩸💔As you ran away, you could hear someone approaching you, but you were afraid of who it was. You took a peak and saw none other than Ghostface. Felix was about to approach you, but saw him in front of you. He was shaking from a distance.

🩸💔”So, you must’ve said no Hmm..? Good child. You deserve a treat.” The masked figure flirted. “Y’know, I think I want (F/S) to be camped. Hell, even moriied.” You told him straight to his face. He seem to smile under the mask and nod along. Hell he was even clapping. “Good good! I’m so glad! I’ll deliver your request in no time-“ you stared at him and spoke, “before you do, what’s your name?”

🩸💔”M-my name?” He asked, and looked around for any survivors. Felix was hiding behind a bush. Luckily Ghostface was smarter than to say his first name. “My name is Danny. Nice to meet you...”

🩸💔You replied, “S/O. Nice to meet you as well.”

🩸💔Felix then slowly walked out of his hiding place, and decided to keep quiet about what he heard. Once Danny was gone, he went up to you.

🩸💔”S-so how was (F/S) and Dwight..?” He asked. “Oh,” you spoke, “they were having some type of “fun” without us.”

🩸💔Felix raised his eyebrow and spoke again, “What do you mean by fun..?”

🩸💔”Well, (F/S) confessed to me, and then Dwight and them did things...”

🩸💔”That is such a bitchy move. I-I’m so sorry.”

🩸💔”Don’t worry. I’ll get my revenge, and maybe you can help my little technician.” You winked and told him the plan.

🩸💔Once you and Felix found the perfect Gen, you lure Dwight and (F/S) to it. As you were doing the generator, Felix ‘accidentally’ messed up, and you two went out of the area. You waited till Ghostface approached them with his stalking abilities and strike! They were both down within seconds!

🩸💔He then hooked them both, slashing them with his weapon one more time for good measure. Throughout the rest of the game, you and Felix completed other generators while the other two slowly died.... Or they disconnected.

🩸💔Back at the lobby, Dwight and (F/S) were mad at both of you. They also told Claudette, Steve, and Feng about the situation. Feng and Claudette sided with you two since they either felt bad, (or thought it was pretty intriguing). Steve, on the other hand, decided to side with Dwight and (F/S). Since then you never really talked with them too much.

🩸💔Ever since then, you tried to join matches to find Danny and chat with him for a bit. Sometimes Felix would join in with you and chat with him too, but he wouldn’t bother you two that much.

🩸💔When you talked to Danny, you started to learn more about him. He was actually really cool and loved to photograph things. His photography was AMAZING, and his overall aesthetic was spectacular. Additionally his writing was also very interesting. He mainly wrote in cursive, but without it was still very impressive.

🩸💔Sometimes, when the entity was resting or in a match, he would bring you to his old “shack”, and show you the articles he wrote. They were all beautifully hand crafted, and yet this seemed something like a story. It was like a fairy tale come to life, but this was a more murderous story. It was... thrilling. Besides that he seemed to show you more at any chance he could get. He should you photographs, articles, stories, scripts, and practically anything he could find that had his signature. Some of them, however, weren’t shown to you for whatever reason. Nevertheless you were patient enough to wait it out until one day...

🩸💔”Hey... Danny,” you spoke, “why won’t you show me some of your articles? Some of them even had this Jed Olsen person on i-“

🩸💔”I-it’s nothing! Absolutely nothing! It’s just a-an interesting name for a guy I know! Yeah! YEAH!” He chuckled nervously, with his obvious lie.

🩸💔You glared at him slightly, and he sighed. “Fine. Jed Olsen is my actual name. Some of the articles actually had my real name on them, and I didn’t want to tell you since I’m afraid you’d snitch. Since I kind of though you were a bitch.”

🩸💔”Whatever Jed,” you spoke, “why couldn’t you just trust me before? Like a week ago or something?”

🩸💔He paused for a bit, but finally explained, “Well I was afraid that you’d tell the other survivors since most of them are like that. Like I could tell Steve that Michael Myers is a man child, and he would tell the whole entire army of you. And then we’d get humiliated, shattered, and be live stock!” He posed dramatically, and you simply laughed at him,

🩸💔”Oh my god Danny- s-stop!” You cried.

🩸💔He giggled shortly after, with a slight smile underneath his mask. “I’m guessing you’re also craving something... else...?” He winked with a hint of flirting.

🩸💔”And what would that be?” You asked flirtatiously, somewhat replying.

🩸💔He chuckled chaotically calm, “you want to see what’s underneath the mask don’t you?”

🩸💔”Sure. If you’re in the mood.”

🩸💔Slowly he took off his mask, and revealed who he truly was. He shook his head a bit, and stared up at you with his dark, hazel eyes. His hair was this dark brown, he was overall a bit of tan. Just a slight hint,

🩸💔”Not what you expected huh?” He giggled. His voice was a bit more higher than what you were use to. It was somewhat cute actually.

🩸💔”Actually I kind of thought you would look like this. But not like... a twink per say.” You chuckled a bit, and Danny simply blushed in response.

🩸💔”S-shut up!” He exclaimed cutely.

🩸💔”Then,” you smirked, “make me, Jed Olsen.”

🩸💔”Bet.” He then slowly approached you, somewhat menacingly, and kissed you on the lips. His lips were soft, but tough in its own way. His kisses were a slight bit skinny, but overall enjoyable. He slowly hold you as you two kissed. His touch was mesmerizing; soft, and rough. He was so warm, cuddly, and just immensely cute! You scored big this time around!

[killerhatcanons]

Baking cake

Ok so don’t ask me how I got here but baking cake was literally the first prompt that came to my mind so have some wholesome Trapper, Legion (Frank), Michael Meyers and Ghostface (Danny Johnson) baking sessions with their S/O

The Trapper (Evan MacMillan)

honestly, assuming Evan would be an old-fashioned kinda guy he probably wouldn’t be into the idea of baking 

he simply doesn’t think a man should do something like that

but don’t you worry you get him convinced in the end

gets very frustrated because this boy is way too big and coarse to work with anything more delicate than metal bear traps

(rip to every egg he tries to crack)

gets very grumpy when you laugh about him knocking over the flour and making a mess for the fifth time

eventually just about to hulk-smash everything into the ground if it wasn’t for you calming him down and showing him carefully how to handle things a little more delicately

still not delicate at all but he’s trying ok

in the end you pull off an edible, if not very pretty cake

keeps grunting that he’ll never do that again and that it’s not a job for a “real man” (ffs Evan it’s just a cake)

you’ll probably get him to do it again anyways (maybe you’ll even get him to wear that cute apron you found)

The Legion (Frank Morrison)

FAR more delicate than Evan

he’s not the best at baking but he’s trying his best for you

sometimes you catch him pushing his tongue between his lips in concentration

will on occasion get confused over the recipe

“Wait did we use this already?”

“Did I put 600g of flour or sugar?”

will boop your nose with flour or sneak a finger into the batter to get a taste

laughs when you lightly slap his hand away and sticks out his tongue before giving you a quick peck on the cheek

enjoys being cute with you sometimes but he’s still not gonna wear your ridiculous apron

the cake is edible (maybe a little too sweet from him putting too much sugar) and looks decent (it’s a little crooked but he tried his best on the frosting)

will proudly present it to the other legion members

The Shape (Michael Meyers)

oh he’s way better than he looks at baking

very quick learner

also goes into concentration mode, but it’s not like that would look any different than his normal demeanor (except that he’s focused on cake batter now)

despite being as big as Evan he’s far more graceful in the kitchen (it’s a mystery how he does it)

the kitchen stays squeaky clean the whole time

prefers to have you watching instead of being in his way 

will even wear the apron for you (he actually doesn’t get why not, better than getting his precious overalls dirty)

very silent process except for the heavy breathing under his mask

the cake turns out beautifully, of course for some reason he’s good at everything he touches

oh he gets to cut it all right, don’t even think about doing it before him he already has his knife in the cake the second it’s done, no time for fancy instagram pictures (he gets to cut so he cuts, easy as that)

will probably bake more often, you do have to ask him to but he’ll be convinced easily (because he secretly enjoys it)

The Ghostface (Danny Johnson)

friend, it’s getting messy

you think you can seriously bake a cake with this one and have a clean kitchen? naahh not with Danny

flour boop on your nose? more like a full hand of flour on your cheeks

hey, at least he’s rocking that apron ok

might turn on the radio (not just the radio i mean what) and dance around the kitchen with you, carelessly knocking over just about anything

you have to force his attention onto his baking task 

too easily distracted, especially with teasing you and trying to get into your pants im sorry Danny seems like a perv to me hhdahsh

will still get the job done though and make a nice looking cake somehow

lots of pictures of everything, the cake, the kitchen, you, you two together, him in his apron striking a pose

don’t expect him to help you clean his mess though, he’s busy eating cake and looking at his new pictures

after you cleaned everything he will eventually be a gentleman

lets you sit down and cuts a piece of cake for you, then either watches you eat or give you a massage

might also take one or two pictures of you eating the cake because he thinks you look so cute with your face stuffed with cake

ah man I love fluffy stuff for them :,)) I hope you enjoyed this too haha they need some cute shit <33

[normal-thoughts-official]

The world keeps spinning (it really shouldn't)

Vance did it. He defeated Josephine, saved his grandpa and Elliot, and saved the town. Everything's fixed.

No. Everything is awful. He failed, and now his friend- now Tom is gone.

And he'd rather fight Josephine all over again, because it'd be easier than what he has to do now- tell Andy about it.

Fandom: It Lives (Visual Novels)

Relationships: Andy Kang/Tom Sato, Danni Asturias/Imogen Wescott, (dannimogen is background and very brief but i couldn't resist), Andy Kang & Ava Cunningham & Lucas Thomas & Lily Ortiz

Additional Tags: tom dies and everything is awful, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Friendship, for basic context im going with the version of ILITW that i got, which is that everyone survived and noah took jane's place, and then for ILB i did the version where tom dies obviously, (which is not the version i got), (everyone survived), (i feel the need to say this for my own ego), but anyway i was like what if tho. andy would be devastated, and then... this happened?, only difference from canon is that ILITW MC told everyone about noah a lot before, also like. imma be real with yall, im physically uncapable of giving my MCs serious names, so ILB MC was named That Bitch and i didnt want to give him a real name, cuz it felt like betrayal, so im just calling him vance for this one, is it his nickname? is he called vance vance? dont worry about it, Anyway that's it, Pining, you know. before the death part. it's mentioned, also we're ignoring the whole richard tries to murder MC thing, cuz i dont have time for that, so pretend ILB ended on chapter 17, Hopeful Ending, considering the theme i mean

Read it on Ao3

The city of Westchester looks exactly the same, but somehow feels a lot less wholesome, now. Vance walks in it and feels like a corpse among the living, like a ghost screaming to everyone that something's wrong. And being ignored.

It shouldn't look the same, without Tom.

But no one knows, yet.

He swallows, running a hand behind the nape of his neck. That's why he's here, anyway - they should know, they deserve to know, and he doesn't want to have the funeral without Tom's friends there.

Which is why he's going to tell Andy. Himself, in person. Because he might not know him very well, but he wants to do the right thing, and that's the least Andy deserves. He knows there's no one Tom loved like he did Andy, and from what he's seen of them together, the feeling was mutual.

He has to do this. But he feels sick, just thinking about that bond, and how it was ruined.

How could he let this happen to them?

He was so cocky, so stupid, so reckless... He thought everything would turn out okay. Assumed it would, even, because it kept getting him through it, to think that everything would turn out fine.

God. What a joke.

He walks into the little diner Andy had recommended. I'm sure you've heard of that place, Tom loves it, he had texted. We always went there to celebrate our wins back in high school. His stomach had churned, but he didn't say anything, because he wasn't going to tell Andy via text. He has to do this right. It's the least he owes him.

So he pretended that everything was fine, and agreed to meet him there. Woke up, and dragged himself to the place, trying to muster up the courage to face the world that seemed to not even care about his mistakes.

When he gets to the diner's door, he takes a deep breath, trying to ground himself for what he's about to do. Face his own mistakes. Face the pain he caused when he failed them both.

He walks in, and to his relief, and despair, Andy is already there. He smiles brightly when he sees Vance, and Vance wants to disappear.

"Vance! Nice to see you, dude. I heard about what went down in Pine Springs, glad you're okay," he says, not giving time for Vance to answer before continuing, this weird sense of calm and sympathy about him. "So, I assume you still need help with that ghost? From what I've seen in the news, it seemed like you handled it pretty well, but it's not like they are giving us supernatural updates or anything, so I figured there were still some loose ends to tie. Are the other guys coming? Where's Tom?" he looks over behind Vance, and Vance wants to die at the question. God, how is he going to tell him? He didn't really think about that, beyond the part where he has to. "I kind of thought you'd come together again. Bad move to come separated, Tom is always late to everything, I swear if it weren't for me he'd have been kicked out of the team for missing practice too many times. And I'm not the most punctual guy in the world, mind you, but I still had to drag his ass there so he'd be on time- is everything okay?"

Vance is a little shocked by the question. It's not, but what is he supposed to answer? "Andy," he says, a little careful, "things… went a little wrong, back there."

"Oh, shoot," he says, "I'm sorry, man, I kinda assumed, when I heard about how the flooding and the animal attacks were in full swing and then just stopped suddenly, that that was when you got rid of the ghost, you know? And seeing you all in one piece… I thought it was over already. Do you need help? I can round up the guys, and we can go-"

"No, Andy," Vance says, "the ghost is gone."

Andy looks at him, confused. "Then what's the problem?"

"Tom," he says, then winces when he sees all the color drain from Andy's face.

Andy waits for barely a second, then breaks into anxious questioning. "Tom? Why? What do you mean? Is he hurt? How bad is it? Did he have to go to the hospital? Where is he?"

Vance wants to cry. God. God. He can't do this. "Andy..."

Andy just looks at him, eyes wild, terrified, and it hasn't even hit him yet. "Vance. Vance. Please. What happened? Does Tom need me? Because if so, we need to go-"

"Tom's gone," he says, and it leaves him in a rush, a whisper, taking with it the last of his energy. He's empty, and somehow, it's still awful. "He's… he's dead, Andy."

Andy looks at him, eyes wide, unfocused, lost. "This isn't funny," he says. "If Tom put you up to this, knock it off right now. Tell him not to ever joke about-"

"Andy," Vance says, then swallows. "Tom wouldn't joke about that. You know that."

"No, he wouldn't, but..." His eyes begin to water, panic settling in, gaze darting across the room as if searching for him, "But… No. No. No, knock it off."

Vance starts crying before Andy does. "I'm sorry, Andy."

--------

Andy is in shock. He freezes in place, mouth hanging open, everything about him completely still except for his eyes, still so damn wide, still searching the place, searching Vance, begging for something, anything. Vance sits him back down on the table, gently, and Andy lets himself be handled back, eyes still not settling on him.

"I'm sorry," Vance says. "I… I promised you that I would take care of him. I tried, but… I'm so sorry."

"How?" he asks, "how could this happen? This isn't… After Redfield, when everyone survived, I just… I didn't think any of us could lose to another monster, I..." He shakes his head, vigorously, desperately. "This was supposed to be over. We were done, we were free, it was supposed to be over, we were all supposed to be safe, it shouldn't..."

"I'm sorry. It all happened so fast, I… If I had been faster, maybe..."

"Well, it's a bit late for that now," Andy snaps, and Vance bites his lip, not recoiling, because he deserves it. Then Andy stops, as if realizing what he had said, and for a second, his eyes seem clear again. He shakes his head. "No. I'm sorry. I… If there's anything I've learnt from everything that happened, it's that we can't point fingers when things get hard." He finally looks up at Vance, shaking, eerily still, nothing like the guy he was just seconds ago. He's wrecked, Vance thinks, and he wants to tear at himself in guilt. "What happened? Did he- did he drown, or… Did the ghost..."

"We were fighting monsters," Vance explains. "There were just… So many of them, and it all happened so fast, I..." he looks away, not daring to look back at the memory, not daring to remember the awful scene. As if he has to. Everytime he closes his eyes, it's back, punishing him. "We got his body," he explains. "Pine Springs is taking the victims to mass graves, but we wanted to give him a proper burial. I thought… You'd want to come."

Andy seems surprised, like that hadn't crossed his mind. "You haven't buried him yet?"

Vance bites his lip. "No. We're doing it tonight. We didn't have the time before, and… Well, I thought you'd want to be there. And I think he'd have wanted his body to be in Westchester, so..." He trails off.

Andy looks at him, hesitant. He bites his lip, looks away, then back at him. "Can I see the body?"

Vance does recoil, this time. He wasn't expecting this question. "I… You won't want to."

"What do you mean, I won't want to? I need to say goodbye to him, I-"

"Andy," he says, as gently as possible, because he deserves Andy's anger, all of it, but he won't let him do that to himself. "You won't want to remember him like that. His body…" He looks at Andy's eyes. He's still furious, livid, shaking, and he's lost, and Vance realizes that he doesn't get it, doesn't understand what Vance is saying, and this might be even worse than having to tell him Tom is dead. "It's torn to pieces, Andy. There's not much for you to see."

Andy freezes, for the second time that day. "Was he- oh, god," he looks at his own shaky hands, somehow even more in shock than before. "Was it… At least, was it quick?"

Vance starts crying again. He opens his mouth to answer. He can't. He chokes on the words, on his guilt, on his uselessness. "I'm so sorry, Andy."

------

Andy throws up. Once, twice. He doesn't insist on looking at the body. Obviously, he can't. Just imagining it- it's too much.

He tries to comfort Vance, because he- he's trying to do better, with his anger, with his impulsiveness, but all he can think about is how much he wants to destroy something, and honestly, the whole conversation is a blur. He punches the wall instead, once he gets home. And throws up. Again and again. Sends his friends a message, letting them know about the funeral. Cries. Punches the wall again. And again, and again, hoping that his hands will start to bleed, that he'll tear himself apart. His mom asks what's got him so angry, and he yells, "Tom is dead!". Her face twists in shock, and he can't look at it. He runs away.

Being back outside is almost worse. Everything- it should be in shambles. The whole town, the whole world should be on fire, fizzling, filled with screams and despair, like Andy is. He's never lived in a world without Tom before, never been away from him his whole life, and it shouldn't look like it's just the same. Everything should be gone, destroyed. And it is, but it doesn't look that way, and Andy wants to tear it all apart until it makes sense, at least.

He hates Westchester now. He hates it. God damn the stupid woods, and the stupid cult, and the fucking Power! God damn Andy for telling Tom about it, for letting him become this sort of- monster hunter, for believing that just because they overcame a ghost once, it would keep happening if they pushed their luck.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Tom can't be dead. It's impossible.

How can Andy still be standing, if Tom isn't here?

---------

He wanders like that the rest of the day, not noticing the hunger that builds up after going a whole day without eating, not noticing the passersby looking at him worriedly, not noticing the thousands of missed calls from his mom, not noticing anything but this awful despair. He knows the feeling of wanting to claw his chest off intimately well, but it's never been like that before. He wants to carve himself hollow. He wants to scream. He wants to run. And he runs from the all-encompassing nothingness, even though he has nowhere to go.

He goes from angry to empty, and then back to angry, all day long, and the day passes in a blur.

--------

Andy meets up with Vance and two girls from their crew. Their group was pretty small, he realizes. A lot smaller than Andy's was, all those years ago. Three years ago. Forever ago. Another lifetime. Just yesterday.

The cemetery is empty, but there's a grave with a black casket they're standing next to. "I thought all the cemetery crew was helping Pine Springs," he says, like he cares. Honestly, he hadn't thought about the logistics of this at all.

"They are," Vance confirms, serious. "You, uh… You know about Noah, right…?"

Andy nods. "Yeah, we, uh, reintroduced ourselves to him a little after you guys left." It was weird, to say the least. All that anger, all that betrayal, bubbling up again right when they had all started to move on from what had happened, to think that it was over… The urge to scream at him, demand answers… And then seeing all the hurt, and the confusion, and remembering that they had loved Noah, once, most of their lives, and that at the end of the day, the only one who had suffered from his actions was himself.

It wasn't easy to forgive. Not to Andy. Or Stacy. Or Ava. But they had been working on it. Maybe they couldn't forgive, much less forget, but at the same time, they couldn't get rid of that bond, either.

Still… "What does this have to do with… With Tom?" If Noah had anything to do with his death, Andy would kill him all over again. He doesn't care about his freaky powers, he'll die if he has to, but Noah will pay.

"He, uh, helped. Dig the grave and, uh, get a casket. That's how we got everything ready."

Oh. "I… I see," he says. "Is he here?"

"No. I told him you guys were coming, and he said it was better if he left."

"Oh," Andy answers. "I guess that's… Yeah. Still..." he raises his voice a little bit, in the direction of the woods. "Thank you, Noah."

He doesn't see or hear anything, not really, but still, somehow, he can tell that Noah is pleased. He can picture Noah's smile and that fragile little "friendsss..."

He sighs, suddenly exhausted.

Vance seems to notice, god bless his soul. "Are the others coming?", he asks, gently.

"Lily, Lucas, and Ava are," Andy replies. "The rest were out of town, and they… They won't make it."

"I'm sorry."

Andy kicks a pebble. "It's fine," he says. It's the kind of lie that's so absurd that it becomes true. Nothing is fine. It'll never be fine. So it doesn't matter at all, and it ends up being fine.

Vance seems to realize what's going through his head, somehow, because he looks unsure of what to say. Finally, he settles on, "uh, Andy. These are Danni, and Imogen," he says, gesturing to each of them, and Andy musters up enough energy to look at their faces while he does that, at least. Then, his eyes widen for a second, finally taking in what they look like.

"Wait, you're Imogen Wescott?" he says, a little dumbfounded. "When I heard that name, I kinda expected you to be, you know..."

"White and insufferable?" Imogen asks, a little smile directed at him, so gentle he can barely handle it. "Yeah. That's why I'd rather go by Genny, usually."

Danni frowns at her, slightly troubled. "You never told me that."

Imogen's smile turns a little brighter. "Oh, no, not for you, Danni. For you, I'd rather go by 'babe'".

Danni also smiles at her, and they squeeze each other's hands, and the edges of grief seem to turn just a little softer for them both. Andy can tell that things get just a little easier for them, just a little less grim, because they have each other. And he needs to look away, wants to run, because he and Tom… They could've… In a way, they were...

He feels like he's ready to run again. God, he fucked up so bad. What was he supposed to do now, how could he get better when the one thing in the world that always made him feel better was Tom? He lost him, he's gone, it's over, and somehow it hadn't hit quite the way it did at that moment, looking at that connection, that love that showed through grief. He averts his eyes, feeling wild and cornered, and turns back right in time to almost run into Lily - who looks devastated, and reaches out to touch his arm. Which feels crazy, because Andy is raw, and his whole body is bleeding, and rotting away, and who would touch him-

"I'm so sorry, Andy." She says, and Andy finds himself hugging her tight, and he feels like she should wither, die at his touch, suffocate, but she just hugs him back and pats him and Andy cries on her shoulder, and he's never cried in front of her before, much less like this. But he can't stop, he can't do anything, he's so heavy and dizzy and lost-

And Lily is stronger than they give her credit for, because she holds him, this endless weight that is him, even when he shakes and stains her sweater with tears, like it's nothing. She feels so solid, right then, the only solid thing in the world. She's got him, Andy knows, and it's like finally he ran into something he can take shelter in. He takes a deep breath, then another, and holds on for dear life.

"I'm sorry," is the first thing he says, maybe the only thing he knows how to say right now. Maybe this is how Jane felt, in the end - this endless spectre of regret, bigger than everything, than everyone, encompassing her and drowning her until it ate her whole and left her empty, with only the Power and its evil inside her.

He's so tired, but he's not empty, not yet.

He almost wants to be.

"Don't apologize," Lily says, so sad and sympathetic, and it takes Andy a moment to realize what she's even talking about. "I'm really sorry, I..."

It's only then that Andy's eyes focus enough to see Ava and Lucas standing a little after her, their faces twisted with sadness and bodies frozen in place. At times like this, it really is obvious that Lily is the bravest out of all of them, by far. Andy doesn't think he's ever cried in front of any of them, and Lucas and Ava look- completely lost.

Lucas is the first to talk, out of them both. His voice is very soft. "Andy, if there's anything you need..."

Ava interrupts, words leaving her way too fast. "We'll be staying with you tonight." She blinks for a second, frowning at Lucas. "Sorry, I, uh, hadn't realized you were talking." She looks like she just came out of a daze. She probably had been running that in her head for a while. Lucas puts his hand on her shoulder, and Ava runs a head on her neck, embarrassed.

"It's okay," Andy answers, even though her apology wasn't directed at him. "You don't have to, you know, watch over me or..." He trails off.

"We're not leaving you alone," Ava says, resolute. "You know the others couldn't come, but we all agreed that we should be… You know..."

Andy chokes on something he can't quite feel. He looks down at his feet, and he hasn't felt this small in years. "I… Okay."

Ava reaches out to him, hesitant, and gives him a little pat on the shoulder. Lucas starts rubbing his back soothingly, and, very awkwardly, they gravitate into a group hug. Andy can see the nervousness in Ava's eyes, the worry that she's doing this wrong somehow, like a hug is the most complex thing in the world, and he tries to muster up a little smile of encouragement to her, but he's forgotten how to do that. He doesn't know how to do anything, anymore.

Slowly, they separate, and all three of them still keep some sort of touch with Andy - even Ava, with her hand close to his shoulder - like they're trying to anchor him, but he drifts away anyway, lost in whatever it is that's left of himself.

Vance looks down at him for a moment, as if waiting for a signal, but Andy doesn't know for what, so he waits for Vance to figure it out. Finally, he says, "should we start?"

Andy frowns. "Wasn't there some other guy with you? Pork something?"

Vance, Imogen, and Danni all look at each other, uncertain, surprised, for a moment. It's Imogen who speaks up. "He… He left us."

Ava swallows. "Did he also..."

"No," she says, shaking her head, sadly. "He, uh, deserted the group."

"He what?" Someone asks, shocked, almost outraged, and when Andy sees the looks in everyone's faces, he realizes that it was him.

"He couldn't take it," Vance says, face twisted with sadness. "All the fighting, the monsters… He left."

Andy is shaking. Falling apart. About to explode. "When?"

Vance doesn't look at him. "Right before the final battle."

"He abandoned you when you were going up against the evil ghost?"

"He..." Vance begins, then finds that he has nothing else to say. "Yeah."

"How…" Andy begins, lost for words, and then it happens. He explodes. "How dare he!" He screams. "Tom was counting on him, he trusted him, he needed him, and he just left? He should have been there! He should have been there, he should," Andy looks at his own hands, in shock, watching them tremble and go out of focus, like there are tears blocking his vision, and he feels sick, on the verge of death, and he realizes that he's not talking about that guy at all. "He should have been there!" He slips from his own control, falling to his knees, covering his face, feeling shame, shame, shame, hatred, disgust. "He should… I should… Oh God, I just let him go alone..."

"Andy..." Someone says. Maybe Lucas. Maybe Lily. Maybe the Imogen girl. It sounds so sympathetic. He wants to claw at his own skin and hide.

"I should have been there, I shouldn't… I had experience, what was I thinking..."

"Tom didn't want you to go," someone else says, gently. "I was there when you talked, remember? You didn't abandon him. You said you were going to come, and he told you not to."

"Tom.. Tom is not my damn boss," Andy answers, still covering his face, feeling the tears stop spilling and start to drown him from the inside, and god damn T, the least Tom deserves is for him to be able to cry properly- "I-I should have… gone," he chokes, shaking.

The next one who speaks is Ava. "He wouldn't have wanted you to be at risk, Andy."

"I don't care. I don't care. I'm selfish like that, I'd rather it was me. I could have helped him, I could have saved him, even if I had to- to take his place..."

"Andy..." is all Ava says, sounding shaken, devastated.

"Fuck!" He screams, punching the ground beneath him as if trying to punish the earth for taking Tom. "He would have never left me like that, I could always count on Tom, I could always..." he feels his chest constrict, or maybe burst, with all the tears and horror inside of him, like he's cracking from the inside. "Always..." he can't form the words, can't find the air, and he falls in on himself, more, more, more, closing in, suffocating, "always..." he can't breathe. He can't breathe. He tries to draw it in, to keep himself steady, but every time he tries to bring it in, the air escapes from him again, further, abandoning him, and he wheezes, again, again, closing in further, suffocating, oh God, he's going to die…

"It's a panic attack!" Someone screams, then kneels beside him, putting their hands on his shoulders. "Andy. Andy. Focus on me. You need to breathe. Deep lungfuls. Come on. I'll count to four. Keep breathing in. 1… 2..."

"Can't," he wheezes. It's too strong, like there's something… Something constricting his chest, inside and outside, and then he realizes… "Binder." He sits down straighter, no longer closing in on himself, and that awful vulnerability gets even worse, but it's easier to breathe. He follows the person's counts… 1, 2, 3, 4… Then up to five, then to six, then to seven, then eight… Until finally he doesn't need help, and he opens his eyes and contemplates the absolute mess that he is, and Imogen's kind, relieved face just inches from him.

"Good, Andy, you did well… I have these sometimes, too, I know how scary they are, you were so brave..." Imogen keeps on saying, painfully understanding, and he nods, a bit exhausted to explain. He didn't take his binder off all day, didn't remember… And if he wears it for too long, he's more prone to hyperventilating, especially if he's stressed. Tom knew that. Tom would have known what was going on. Tom… Fuck.

"I'm sorry," he says, to everyone, and no one in particular.

"Don't apologize. We're all glad you're okay," Lily says, and he realizes that, somehow, she had also kneeled beside him and brought him into another hug. He hides his face on her shoulder, shaking his head, trying to breathe. Breathing. She pets his head, a little bit, and he can feel some more touch, too - little pats on his shoulder and back, all gentle, not crowding him, like he's some sort of wild animal they're trying to calm down.

God, what a mess.

He holds Lily tighter, wanting to hide from the world. She lets him, because it's the kind of person Lily is. He feels himself drift away, for a while, but Lily's still petting his head and he can't lose himself completely. He shakes his head, wanting to fight it, almost wanting to get away from Lily, but he can't escape the gentleness in her embrace. He still can't cry, but he feels his eyes water and burn anyway, and he shakes his head against Lily's shoulder. He just wants this to be over. Please, he's so exhausted.

His breaths even, despite himself, but Andy keeps shaking, and he keeps shaking his head slightly against Lily. He wants this to end, it has- has to be a nightmare…

"Shh, Andy, don't hold it in, it's okay," Lily says, slowly, sadly, and Andy shakes his head more vigorously. No. He can't be weak right now, it's only going to make it last longer. He needs to end it, can't be done with this until Tom has gotten his goodbyes.

It's the least Andy owes him, now that there's nothing else he can do.

So, he speaks up.

"We should go on," he says, suddenly feeling resolute. It's easier to do this if he has something to focus on. He needs to see this through the end, for Tom. If he thinks only about that...

"Are you sure?" Vance asks, hesitant.

Andy nods, forcing his vision to focus. "He needs to rest."

----------

Everyone's speeches go by in a blur. Vance talks about how good Tom's heart was, how he was willing to drop everything to go help a bunch of strangers, how everyone could always count on him. He cries, and he says he's sorry, and the girls put their arms around him, tell him that he did his best. Imogen brings up how kind he was, and Danni talks about his strength. They really loved him, Andy notices, and feels his heart settle just a little bit. He was loved till the end. Of course he was.

Lucas talks about how supportive Tom was, how he was always uplifting everyone around him and would let Lucas babble on about conservation for hours. Lily brings up how much he believed in her and supported her when she was making her videogames. Ava says that Tom was the only one who ever saw her looking up Westchester's history and cults and just… Sat down with her and helped, understanding that she needed this to feel safe, to feel ready, and sharing that burden of getting ready for a disgrace, just a little bit. Andy never knew that Tom had been joining Ava for research. He could've helped with that, too. He could have done a lot of things, if he had paid more attention.

He's left for last, and a part of him wants to be a coward, to stay silent, but that was never his style.

"When Tom had turned into a zombie," he begins, "Redfi- Jane made him hurt me. And I wasn't worried for myself. I was worried for him. I wanted him back, no matter what it took, no matter what happened to me," he begins, not looking at anyone in particular, because he knows most of them already know this story, but he's not going to- he's not going to deny Tom the chance to know how he felt about him, before he rests. It's the least Andy owes him.

So, he takes a deep breath and goes on, pushing himself into saying something that matters.

"Then our friends showed up, and they said that Tom was still there. That I had to reach out to him. So I tried. I talked to him about our childhood. About how much he had been supporting me… How he was my best friend. He was hesitant, but so… Scared. I didn't know what to do. Tom and I always got each other..." He loses himself a little, shaking his head, purging the thoughts that were keeping him from going on, "And then someone said, 'Andy's hurt. H-he needs help'." He loses focus for a second, and that can't happen. He takes a breath, tries to make himself talk. "And just like that… Tom came back.

"He extended his hand to me, and helped me to my feet, and suddenly there was color in his face again, and for a second he wasn't even confused as to what the hell was going on, he just wanted to make sure I was okay. He came back because I needed him. Because he couldn't bear to hurt me. He was always there for me, and I… I don't think I ever needed him more than right now."

He stops a minute, to look at the faces surrounding him. There's a grief in them that looks almost like… Pity.

And Andy isn't even mad about it. He feels pitiful.

"I'm not the best guy with words," he admits, "so I don't know how to express how much this meant to me, or how much Tom meant to me. No one understood me like him. Tom is… Was… No, is a part of me. Maybe the best part of me, because I loved him more than anything else about myself. I'll miss him for the rest of my life." He looks down at Tom's grave, carved out of anything else to say. "I love you, buddy."

It's not the greatest speech that's ever been given, but it's what he can say, and at least he's done it. He'll be able to do better, later. He'll come back to talk to him again. As many times as he can, for as long as he can. He swears on that.

Andy steps back from the grave, and doesn't look as they slowly fill it, covering the closed casket with dirt. He finally allows himself to let the exhaustion catch up with him, and is overcome by that blissful, blissful emptiness.

---------

He's fully expecting himself to drop asleep as soon as they get to Ava's place. They decided to stay there for the night, because Andy still doesn't want to face his mom, to see that same grief in her, for her to want to talk to him, to tell him that everything would be fine. He can't do that, not today. At least Lucas had enough foresight to warn her of where they are, so she should leave him alone for now. Lucas is very reliable in a crisis, Andy thinks, making a note to himself to thank him properly later.

But he can't sleep. He's too exhausted to even rest. And for some reason, even though he doesn't want to talk, that's exactly what he found himself doing for the past few hours. Vomiting up all sorts of memories and thoughts, ranging from funny moments he had with Tom to all of his regrets, and Andy's always been kind of a stress-talker, but it's never been like this. He feels like he's been skinned alive; there's nothing to hold himself together, to hold anything at all in.

He cries all the tears he didn't think he had left in him anymore, and he curses himself, and the guy who left them in the end, and Noah, and the Power, and the cult, and himself again. He scratches his own skin until Lucas gently takes his hands in his, stopping him from doing more of it. And he talks, through all of that. Talks and talks and talks.

The words make him drift through memories, through states of mind, and he knows he's so damn volatile today, it's like he can't anchor himself to a feeling, but his friends put up with him anyway.

Finally, he starts to settle into this sort of… Slowness, like his mind is clear, or maybe blank, even as he keeps on thinking. And he keeps talking through it, letting all the minor regrets have their turn after he's too damn done to keep dealing with the worst parts.

"I never told him I was in love with him," Andy says, staring at the three empty mattresses in front of him, because it's easier than looking at any of his friends, who are currently sitting right beside him, as he babbles on. "I was going to, you know? After R- Jane. I had almost died, so I figured, you know- yolo, and all that. And then I told myself, 'I'll wait until I'm out of the hospital.' And then I started to think… What if he didn't feel the same way? What if things got weird? What if I end up losing him? And I never told him," he looks at his own feet, "and now I lost him anyway."

They all just look at him. They used up all the "I'm sorry, Andy"s left in them a long time ago, he thinks. There's only so many platitudes you can muster up when you know they're worthless, when you're just repeating yourself.

God bless them for trying, though. They're sticking with him through their own- everyone's inadequacy to deal with what's going on. Andy can't thank them enough for that.

"He knew you loved him," Ava says, serious, and Andy frowns at her, doubtful. "He might not have known you were in love with him, but… He knew how much he meant to you. I'm sure of it."

Andy laughs, humorless, "did you finally get those mind reading powers you wanted?" he says. It falls flat, but they pretend it doesn't, for his sake.

Ava rolls her eyes. "Don't be an ass, Kang," she says. "No. I just… I can tell. Anyone can."

Andy bites his lip, looking away.

She presses on, as gently as she can. "Besides, you also know, don't you? Regardless of anything else… Tom loved you, just as much as you loved him."

"I still love him," Andy says, before he can think about it, and a weird kind of shame creeps up on him - for saying it, for not saying it sooner, for realizing that this… It'll probably never go away, even now that it's completely pointless, that it's just proof of his cowardice.

"That's… Normal," Lily says, fiddling a little with her sweater. "You don't forget someone just like that, just because something happened. I mean, look at me and Britney. It took me years to get over her, and even then, I had to have supernatural forces show me exactly who she was, first."

"She didn't deserve you," Ava says.

"Maybe not. It doesn't matter now," Lily says. "The point is… It's okay to still love him."

Andy hugs his knees. "I don't think anything is okay, right now."

"That's okay, too."

They stay in silence for a moment, and then Lucas speaks up. "I know 'it gets better' stories don't really help at times like these," he says, "so I won't tell you that, but… I know what it's like, to feel like nothing will ever be okay, ever be enough. So… At least you're not alone, in that feeling."

Andy's mouth does something. It's not a smile, but it's what it can do right now. "Yeah. At least it's not like last time," he says. "With Jane. We all fell apart, and… It felt really lonely, even though..." He chokes up. "I had Tom."

Lucas rubs at Andy's shoulder sadly, and Andy shakes his head.

"It's just that he didn't get it, you know? And I couldn't tell him, about what happened," he says, instead of thinking about how much worse this is, no matter how many friends he has by his side right now. "So I… Missed you guys." He finishes, ashamed.

"We get it," Ava says, solemn. "And we're sticking with you, this time around."

"Yeah," Lucas agrees.

"Yeah," Lily adds.

"Okay," Andy answers. "I… Thanks."

They hug him tighter. It's all they have to say.

[datawyrms]

Ectober Day 2: Possession

“Soooooo, what’s eating you?”

Sam’s question jerked Tucker out of his roaming thoughts. “Shouldn’t you be asking what I’m eating?”

She rolled her eyes at the joking deflection, edging across the attic floor towards the space Tucker had set up his ‘workstation’, ie his homework that was getting ignored and everything he needed to keep his PDA running. “Fine. What’s bugging you.”

“I’m the one that does that too! No more spy cams for creepy old ghosts.”

“Tucker.”

Her stare was cold and unimpressed, and gnawed at him even as he pretended not to notice, studying the ceiling very intently.

“I can’t help if you keep pretending you’re fine, you know.”

“I’m fine Sam. You’re just wearing so much eyeliner everyone looks depressed.” His grin was short lived, as it didn’t manage to even get an amused snort out of his best friend.

“Whatever.” She leaned back, book in hand as she got back to trying to study. Yet even with her distracted he felt a pang of guilt for continuing to deflect. Of course she was just trying to be a good friend, but it wasn’t like she could do anything about the problem.

Rechecking the same things over and over on his PDA wasn’t getting anything accomplished, and the loss of casual conversation as they worked just made everything feel more awkward. This was meant to be a relaxing time, when they could just chill and not worry about stuff for a bit, but he’d gone and made it all weird by being jumpy. Sam was way better at keeping silent for long sketches of time too, so she’d win this. His fingers itched as he considered. Maybe he could just make something up? Nah. They knew one another too well for that to actually work.

“It’s seriously nothing bui-”

“But what Tucker. Whatever it is, you’ve been weird all week.” You don’t have to pretend it’s not a big deal.”

“Okay, okay! Let me finish, sheesh.” That earned a smirk at least, though he still hesitated. “Well you know the whole...overshadowing thing.”

“Yeah? It’s freaky, but he’s cut it out. Mostly.” she shrugs, then narrows her eyes. “Wait, has he not cut it out? Do I need to give him a lecture about bodily autonomy for three hours? Because I will.”

He chuckled, remembering the time his absent friend had been going on about how you should never anger a Manson. “Did you actually have a slideshow?”

“I had three slideshows, thank you very much.” She seemed a bit more at ease, but wasn’t shaken off poking for an answer. “Seriously Tuck, if he’s just being an unthinking idiot again you gotta say something.”

“No, Danny’s been fine on that. I think he learned his lesson after last ime.” He’d gotten quite the apology from the half ghost after Sam chewed him out about what he was actually doing when he went and overshadowed someone. “I just. I don’t know, hasn’t he seemed a bit…” He waved his hand, unable to find the word he wanted.

“Overprotective? Yeah.”

“Like today? Acting like we might drop dead at a study session because he’s grounded?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Or he was just grumpy about being grounded?”

“I don’t think so. He gets weird whenever we might not be around, even if he isn’t grounded.” A pang of guilt made him lower his voice, even if his friend had no way of overhearing him. “I swear I’ve caught him going all ‘scary eyes’ when mom and dad have plans.”

“You’ve seen that too?” Sam looked uncomfortable, eyes flicking around the room for a ghost that wasn’t there. “Y’know how I’ve been trying to befriend Paulina now that she’s chill out a bit?”

“And you chilled out a bit.”

“Hey, she tried to date Danny just to get at me, I get to be petty.”

“A little. Though you almost squashed her.” he teased, getting a light shove.

“Quiet mister ‘I’m just going to be a fear hulk ghost that steals cars’.”

“Man that sounds messed up.”

“Get used to the dumbest things around here, I guess.” The goth nodded. “Anyway, Paulina. It always starts getting cold if he spots us chatting or whatever. Nothing big, we’re more acquaintances than anything but it’s kinda weird.”

“Does he know he’s doing it?”

“No idea. I’ve hissed at him to cut it out, but I can’t tell if the dumb look is genuine or not.”

“It does always look natural on his face.”

“Oooh, blackmail. I’ll totally tell him you said that.”

“No you won’t, ‘cus you started it.”

“Shoot.” Yet even as the pair’s snickering subsided, the vague sense of unease stayed.

“I get he probably doesn’t mean anything by it, but it’s like the whole overshadowing deal. Doesn’t it kinda feel like he seems a bit…” he trailed off, not really wanting to voice it even if he’d brought it up in the first place.

“Entitled to our attention?”

He shook his head. “No, not that. More like...we belong to him, or something? That we’re his ghost property?”

“Darn it Tuck. I really want to say no, you’re totally off.”

“But you can’t, can ya.”

“Ghosts have possession issues part two?” She groaned, rubbing at her forehead. “This is so not gonna be fun to point out, you know that?”

“Better we do before he tries scaring anyone who comes near us off.”

“Ooooh no, you’re gonna break it to him. Not me. Nuh uh, I had to do it last time.”

[13thdoodle]

So I only found your blog like 5 min ago and I am REALLY curious about your unicorn blood au. Like, I understand why phantom would probably chug some unicorn juice (Pariah asked him, he did it to take him on, etc) but why did Fenton do it? Bc this does not have *quite* the same vibe as going into a non-working "portal" to a realm you don't even believe exists and accidently pushing the on button. You have to very specifically *drink* unicorn blood and it's hard to mistake it for anything else.

aksjdnakjsdnsjadk im

idk how to tell you man this was like a crack-turn-serious au?? it starts off as a dumb idea where these two drink the ✨ sparkly forbidden juice ✨ on their own n now end up sharing a body coz they both half alive (coz.. ya know.. half alive + half alive = kinda alive lmao)

and now that i made it serious i actually have 0 idea why they do that??

like on one hand it would be cool if they have reasons behind it, like what you said there), but on the other hand.... wouldn’t it be fcked up if they drink it out of stupid impulse and turns out it has a long lasting impact on them? Phantom specifically because he got at least few centuries to mull this over n i just happen to like making the boi suffer kansdaks

And i mean.. yeah it doesnt have the same vibe on that ground, but it do have the same “impulse decision now made me half dead” kind of way??

but yeah im, i always kinda think danny walking into the portal is moreless out of a dare with sam n tuck, regardless he believes in ghost zone or not, and that impulse costs him. So maybe sth similar here? got dared to chug the sparkly blood because a sip of it making u immortal?? sounds fake, now go try it

as for phantom tho i still cant think of one so akjnsdkas

[elliebartlets]

TWW REWATCH: What Kind of Day Has It Been? (1.22)

• wow I’m already on the finale that came up quick

• also I completely forgot what the finale was about until a few episode ago lol why is my memory like this

• “where’s toby?”

“why?”

uh because she’s his assistant and needs to know, sam 

• ah i cant remember what “the signal” was for. i think it was for the space shuttle toby’s brother was on being in the clear. i do remember leo saying “looks like a hip hop gesture” lolol

• CJ slapping Danny on the head wouldn’t fly today and i feel bad saying this but it is kinda funny

• lol gina’s like “bartlet watches softball?? really?”

• seriously tho the dude in the crowd who tips off the gunmen just looks so suspicious. i mean he’s just standing there scowling while everyone around him is clapping and chanting. i mean c’mon dude at least try to blend

• the crowd outside is chanting “go jed!” i cannot

• charlie being excited barltet used his material

“You were right.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t go away.”

• it’s funny cause it looks like gina’s just talking into her fist

• what did charlie apologize for now zoey? i feel like every episode its just charlie trying to be a “better boyfriend” to zoey and then apologizing

• wow i typed all this before the theme song...this is gonna be looong

• “you come to the end of a long day. you sit back, you open a beer, you watch a sporting event. that’s what men do.”

“they sit back and watch girls softball?”

“when that’s what’s on, that’s what they watch. it’s that or a cricket match between scotland and bermuda.”

hell i’d take the cricket match

• “have i gotten any of the names right so far?”

“no sir, but you came damn close on a couple of them.”

• the “astronewts” line/joke always makes me laugh 

• i like how bartlet knew toby had a brother but sam (and im assuming the rest of the senior staff) didn’t

• i feel like it’s against policy or some rule to send furniture out of the white house to get fixed and brought back in. like im just thinking along the lines of they could put an explosive or listening device on it 

• “in this age of instant news” oh leo, my sweet summer child

• how the hell is josh running and talking??? i would pass tf out just running

• *gasp* oh no josh just mentioned to hoynes that getting the pilot back would boost their approval ratings and i remember leo rips josh to shreds for it

• “did you take your pills?”

“zoey...”

“fine. go ahead and collapse” lol

• “i’m gonna go see mom.”

 i wish we got a scene or just zoey and abbey together. it would’ve been interesting to see what their dynamic was like.

• the way bartlet looks at sam after he does the signal alsksdhauas

• “what are you doing?”

“it looked like you wanted to hug me.”

“oh, man, did you read that wrong.”

classic

• “leo? I really do apologize.” aww josh

• i love how charlie and zoey just automatically walk into josh’s office to continue arguing (cause sure why not?) and then josh comes in and is like yeah whatever keep arguing i’m just here to get something

• “zoey, i work in a building with the smartest people in the world.”

*josh sits in chair that’s not there and falls to the ground*

• i also love gina poking her head in to make sure nothing happened to zoey and when she sees it’s josh she’s like oh alright *dips back out*

• it’s nice of bartlet to offer to look into the oval office carpet thing for fitz, but he only offered cause he was in a good mood from the news about the pilot. if he received bad news, he would’ve been pissed and that would’ve been the end of it. idk what im trying to get at but i understand where bartlet’s coming from. you’re more likely to be open help others when things are going your way.

• space shuttle in gail’s fishbowl

• “danny I gotta tell you that was - seriously - that was a turn on when you said that though I dont know why you decided to be your most haughty on the dallas morning news in that sentence.”

lmao he really was though. he put some serious emphasis on “the dallas morning news!!!”

• “do you see me walking out the door?”

“no I see you standing and arguing with a senior citizen.”

• aw this is the last time mrs. landingham sees bartlet before he’s shot

• my god richard schiff really just acts with his eyes he’s just 🥺 the whole time he’s talking to Bartlet

• alright now im confused. sam told bartlet earlier the signal would be for the pilot but they just used the signal to indicate the shuttle was ok

• godddd it doesn’t matter how many times i watch this i still tear up and get goosebumps at the last scene, especially the “who’s been hit?! who’s been hit?!”

• i also rewatch it a couple times just to see who pushes who down and who goes where cause it goes so fast

random observations i may or may not have noticed before:

when gina turns to look at the building where the shooters are, charlie also looks in her direction

gina pushes down charlie, i’m assuming to get to zoey cause she has her right after that, but maybe that saved his life

josh is alone behind a gate, his eyes wide with terror as he reaches for the bars and i feel like the shot slightly lingers on him longer than the others (i know sorkin didnt know who was going to be affected by this yet, but i honestly think that should’ve been a clue as to him getting injured)

sam pushes cj down (we already know that), but it looks like cj is pushed by an agent before the scene cuts to sam pushing her

someone has a hand on leo’s back as he’s lying on the ground, but we don’t see who

• anyway the next to episodes are the besttttt and the only reason im showing some restraint in not starting them now is cause its 4am 

[elliethesuperfruitlover]

ellie livewatches the night manager ep. 2

forgot to mention, but this intro is bussin’

drugs? (with a rolled r)

ah shit, we’ve got a bad relationship with a parent

DAMN-

well thats just a bit rude

girlie you need therapy

omg the little boy from wonder...JACK WILL, thats who he played

god she’s tall

ooh, i’ve never made paella before, nor tried it

my brother got to drive a boat once lol. that was the first time i ever saw dolphins

ah yes, rich people shit

thats a nice lil table

you see, i’ve tried veal, (deer) in sausage form and it A. tasted weird and B. was dryas fuck. i’ll have it again, but maybe like with rice, mixed in, like i sometimes do with ground beef. it was very lean lol.

DONT GIVE THE CHILD ALCOHOL-

i mean.....he’s gulping that shit my lord

remember kids, always make sure you’ve got some water on hand, as well as food in your stomach before drinking xx (or so i’ve heard)

hehe, STOP

ooh, i do adore mr. groff’s laugh though

awwwwwww. this is a very cute moment.

w-was she a little kiddie?

like, not 5 years old, but like a MINOR, um..hmm

oh shit

BACK OFF, BITCH YOU HAVE A CHILD IN YOUR ARM WITH A GUN CLOSE TO HIS HEAD, FUCK OFF

RUN GODDAM IT, RUN AFTER THEM

i’ll be damned if i dont run after MY kid, or someone in my family if they’ve been kidnapped.

also, this may not be EVERY KID.

but i’d be looking for weapons left and right to hurt this person, straight up. any type of exits, im looking for them. all of that.

poor baby

oh, we’re going back this time.

some backstory ehhehehehe

ah, attached memories i see

this is worrying, just a bit. my god.

JUST LIKE THAT.

i feel like he could’ve done that a bit better.

cameras???

yo why tf didn’t he day “who is it?” before opening the damn door.

i want a tea n’ biscuit too goddamn

um.........i dont know if i could do this, personally. i really couldnt. maybe im too sensitive for it lol.

jesus christ, another murder

ugh yes, he can ride motorcycles. hells yeah

THE SHADES

well thats a bit of a rude shock

thats even worse goddamn

IM SCARED

HE WAS SO SMOOTH WITH IT

GOTDAMN-

ewwww more roper

look at him go

in case yall didnt know, im VERY anti-capitalist, anti-capitalism, all that shit

this dude is just grossing me out

i miss being on my bike lol

yayyy he can cook

RIP to her at that point

i take it back.

welp.

no, actually, rip to her.

i love watching people’s eyes dilate. one of the things that i really enjoy learning about is genetics, and how different traits come about. it’s one of my favorite things. he’s got such pretty eyes too, it makes this all the better.

DAMN, PUT A PASSWORD ON YOUR PHONE

whomst the fuck was that

AYYY SHE MADE IT

he did a good pitch, if i say so myself.

ooh, a history between the two

OOOH PLOT........IT THICKENS BESTIES

thats a fair reason

i know his ass is scared

that reminded me of the one scene in family guy where stewie beats brian’s ass for not having his money. im talking blood and broken glass fighting, mind you.

UH OH

im scared

W H A T

god i hate this

OOH SHIT

i have never seen this man be this upset dear lord-

im scared of him

oh no-

wheres the body?? who’s body was it?

well fahk me innit

PERIODTTTTTT

STAY STRAPPED BITCHESSSS

damn....das hot

THIS WAS PLANNED

oh, not the pot

NOT THE FACE

..........oh lord

god, how long has he been there, and how long did it take them to get there?

im not a medical professional, but ehhh that blood looks fairly clotted, like...kinda.

idk.

damn he’s in rough shape

GET THE KID AWAY FROM THE SCENE

corky my beloved

bro wtf, this is SO TERRIFYING

woahhhh, he looks fucked up

wonderful hair, even with a fucked up face

this is such a beautiful shot, my lord.

that ambulance cut too close to the curve for me lol

u cant call dead people, ms. jed

danny ur father was right for asking you to thank the person who saved your life, HOWEVER, i do hate your dad.

awwww!! yes, i would love to hear about squids.

giving me captain james conrad vibes with the shirt color

yeah, corky’s cool (for the time being)

i like the name mordecai

speaking of which, i DID, in fact, have a crush on mordecai from regular show

i dont think smoking would be good for the cracked ribs

ah, so corky is figuring shit out

he does have nice ankles.

i dont know if he would be any good at running with CRACKED RIBS.

i would be milking everything i could if i was in his position.

he looks more upset than anything.

um.....ew

mr. frisky, i think you need some therapy for that.

get them pics.

thee river house

okay sir, shut the fuck up before i punch you through the damn screen.

angela burr my beloved.

YAYYYY. he got a lobster!! im proud of him

bruh, sit in the chair, not on this man’s thigh hairs

watch him sleep through all of tomorrow

me pretending to sleep when my mama checks in on me:

THE LOOK-

ONTO EPISODE THREEE-!