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lighthouseshepard · 3 months

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writing idea - john gets considerably injured and doesn't tell arthur cause he thinks arthur would judge him cause "arthurs had so much worse happen and he just got back up" and arthurs like "dude you've had a human body for like two weeks i would expect you to not be used to pain" and its like a stereotypical hiding injury thing you know

HI HI thanks for this!! again i tried to keep it under 1k but. it ended up... 4.3k.....

heres a mostly unedited first draft i might play around with more later!! (: not so much a considerable injury but this is where my brain went anyways!

As John takes the stairs up to their small apartment building, Arthur in tow with one arm wrapped loosely around his just behind him, he stumbles.

It’s a quick, clean slip of his left ankle, rolling outward at an unnatural angle just as he reaches the last step. The movement itself would have been almost unnoticeable if not for the sharp stab of pain which accompanied it, a searing pressure radiating outwards in undulating bursts. He hisses under his breath, hurriedly letting Arthur go so as not to accidentally drag him down too, and tries to casually play off the lurch.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, righting himself. Immediately he bangs it against the cement edge, eliciting another silent wince he’s immensely grateful Arthur isn’t privy to. “Lost my footing, I guess.”

Arthur hums, instinctively reaching out for John’s guidance and huffing when none was received. Cautiously he takes the remaining steps, coming to stand just beside John at the top before the door.

“It’s alright, John,” he replies, head tilted in his direction. “Thanks for not pulling me down with you.”

His smile begins to fade after a moment of silence in which John stares dizzily at his own feet, struggling to control his breathing. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” comes the hasty retort. “I just… hit it on the stone, I think.”

His brow furrows. “Hit what?”

“My ankle,” John growls, blinking away spots of light dancing across his vision. In the dying sunlight they blended in amongst the cloudless sky, shimmering specks deceptively working to trip him up again as they wavered in front of him. As soon as the words leave his lips he regrets them.

“I mean,” he clarifies, “I barely knocked it. Nothing to worry over.”

“Oh.” Arthur frowns, searching for John’s hand in the middle distance between them. “Do you want me to take a - well, not a look, but perhaps we could patch it up? Is it bleeding?”

“No.” John pushes slightly past him, fidgeting for keys in his pocket. Arthur’s arm is left hanging at his side, fingers lightly clenched. “I said it’s fine, Arthur. Can we drop it?”

“Okay,” Arthur mutters exasperatedly under his breath, following him hesitantly inside once the door is unlocked. “Whatever you say.”

John all but limps his way into the front hall. If the shuffle makes a noticeable sound against the faded rug he attempts to ignore it, desperately gritting his teeth. With each shift of his leg the throbbing increased, sending burning jolts of agony up through his foot. Beads of cool sweat were breaking out on his temples. Irritably he wipes them away, squinting into the living room through the haze of pain clouding the forefront of his mind.

“Stupid fucking ankle,” he mumbles.

“What was that?” Arthur calls from behind him. John struggles to turn, one flattened palm braced against the wall. He watches as Arthur unwinds the scarf from around his neck, smoothly kicking off his shoes into the corner. Shoes that he, too, needed to probably remove if bending down didn’t seem like a far impossibility.

But he doesn’t answer. Instead he slowly twists back around, hobbling towards the promise of relief found in the couch awaiting him.

“John? Did you hear me?”

His eyes shut tightly as soon as he sinks into the cushions. The pain refuses to dull despite the lack of pressure once he sits, if anything only growing stronger when he attempts to prop it up on the coffee table, as though gravity were relentlessly trying to tug it down again for his own good. He groans, the noise pulled unbidden from his throat, and hastily covers it up with an aimless cough he feels as a weak imitation of one in his chest.

“John,” he hears a second time. Arthur’s voice is closer now, somewhere directly to his left. Although he turns his head in acknowledgement, his eyelids remain closed, brow furrowed.

“What? I heard you.”

He could practically sense the crossed arms.

“What’s going on?” Arthur asks, his tone firm. “Why are you sitting like someone threw you there and you don’t know how to get up?”

“How do you know that?"

"Lucky guess."

"Nothing’s going on. I’m… comfortable.”

“Really? You don’t sound like it.”

“I said it’s nothing,” John snaps. The wince which pulls his lips taut lessens any blow he’d intended within his retort. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“I thought you hit your ankle on the steps?” Arthur says thinly, stepping closer. “So which is it?”

It never ceased to irritate and amaze, Arthur’s ability to weasel the truth out of him. Back when he’d just been a voice behind those deep amber eyes it was magnificently easier to conceal the truth, hiding himself in falsehoods he had ample time to conjure up while Arthur slept or moved about the world amongst others, unable to talk to him. He hadn’t been bound to a body which would betray him at the slightest inconvenience: all his emotions, he felt, were visible on his face and in the lines of his silhouette all the time. Being given away by the twitch of his mouth or the hesitancy in one look of his eyes was maddening. He couldn’t control it, hadn’t yet mastered the subtle art of physical deception. He had no reason to, he knew, but it continued to bother him regardless, being so visibly and openly seen by everyone around him. Every thought was laid bare, ripe for someone else to pluck.

These visual cues didn’t apply to Arthur, of course, but it didn’t need to. It didn’t matter when it came to him. He could sense each ripple of truths withheld in John’s voice as though they were tangible vibrations running beneath his fingers, plucking incorrect notes from a string of music. Whether this was a skill gained through time or familiarity, he didn’t want to ask. Perhaps he’d just had plenty of practice, before John came along.

“It’s… both,” he says lamely, eyes flicking open to watch as Arthur shifts from one foot to the other impatiently. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” he exclaims, a frustrated scoff behind his words. “I’m not even looking at you. I can’t.”

“Like you know exactly what I’m thinking,” John presses, willing himself not to wither beneath that sightless gaze. Like a parent, he thinks to himself, who’s just caught someone doing something they shouldn’t.

“Maybe I do.” Arthur comes to stand beside him, bumping up against the edge of the couch. “Maybe I’m just trying to help, you donkey. What is going on with you?”

“It’s-” he begins to say, but he’s quickly cut off.

“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. You’ve been like this all day: grumpy, antagonistic, walking… very oddly. Did you not sleep very well?”

“I slept fine,” John mutters. “How could you possibly know I was walking strangely?”

“Ah, so he admits something!” Arthur says with a scoff. “I can feel it along your arm when I’m holding onto you. The movement of your gait is different from anyone else - Noel, Oscar, even Marie. Your footsteps all sound unique, too. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying not to limp.”

The silence stretches. John breathes in shallowly, as if the quieter he became, the more likely he was to become invisible.

“John?” Arthur asks uncertainly. “Have you been limping all day?”

“I… not all day, Arthur.”

He sighs, a ragged exhale. “Jesus fucking Christ, John, I knew it!” he says, throwing his arms up. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

John tries to prop himself farther up on the couch cushions, sliding the dead weight of his leg along the coffee table. “Because it’s not important, Arthur,” he protests angrily. “It’s just a - a sprained ankle or something! Noel says it happens to people all the time.”

“You told Noel?” Arthur’s demeanor shifts, and John can’t quite place where it was going. “Is that who you hung up on over the telephone yesterday, when I walked in?”

“I - yes, I told Noel,” John says, glancing away. “I didn’t want to… I mean, I wouldn’t-”

“But you didn’t tell me,” Arthur states, frowning. “I don’t understand, John.”

“Because I didn’t want to bother you with it, alright? Jesus fuck, Arthur! It’s just a little bit of pain!”

His shout rebounds around the living room, echoing along corners and twisting through the dark. Once it dissipates, all that nervous, fearful energy fading into thin air, John realizes the sun had already set. In the shadow of the singular lamp they’d kept on after they left earlier that day, Arthur looked smaller than John had ever seen him previously - socked feet, soft button down shirt untucked, shoulders slumped while his head was turned away from John’s direction.

Hurt, he understood after a solid minute of nothing spoken. There was hurt on his face.

“Arthur,” he says hastily, backtracking. “I didn’t…”

But Arthur was already interrupting.

“Is it bleeding?” he asks flatly. “From where you knocked it as we were coming in.”

John’s eyes widen. “What? No, no, like I said it’s probably just a sprain.”

“Don’t get up.”

“I wasn’t. Where are you going?”

He watches helplessly as Arthur begins to trod across the living room to the hallway just behind them. His left hand searches for the wall, brushing against it occasionally as he vanishes around the corner, the thin lines of his silhouette blending into the darkness. John waits with gritted teeth, listening to the faint but unmistakable sound of a drawer opening in the bathroom, before he’s rejoined in the living room.

“Give me your foot,” Arthur instructs. He comes around on the opposite side, taking a careful seat on the table in front of the couch. “Which one is it?”

“It’s… it’s this one,” John stutters, glancing at the little white box he’d placed between them. “What is that?”

“First aid kit. Came with the apartment, I think. Never thought I’d have to use it.”

There’s a bite to his tone which causes something in John to cower. Panicking at the unfamiliarity of the uneasy feeling, he thinks immediately to fight back against it. Yet no manipulation tactic in his mental catalog nor no insult he’d ever learned from Arthur was readily able to be wielded. He stares, unsettlingly dispirited, at Arthur’s hands while he begins to search through random items in the kit.

“Arthur.”

“Put your leg on my knees, John,” he says. He’s facing away, still wholly focused on determining which items were what through sensation alone. The subtle surprise when John does as asked without further complaint doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Oh. Thank you. Now tell me where it hurts.”

Stretching over as much as he was able, halfway balanced on the edge of the cushions and held now partially up by Arthur’s own legs, John indicates with one pointed finger.

“Here,” he says, lightly touching the far side of his ankle. “Move your hand just - just there.”

As slender fingers come into contact with the swollen skin, John hisses. Arthur moves as if to draw back, but after some hesitation makes a second attempt with a touch so gentle John hardly senses the wandering examination at all.

“It’s swollen, John,” Arthur says, staring into the middle distance as he feels along the reddened skin. “You’re going to have to take your shoes off.”

“I know it’s swollen,” he grinds out, “I can feel it.”

Immediately he regrets the display of aggravation. Eyes flick worriedly to Arthur’s face, searching for any kind of reaction there, but he may as well have been surveying a blank canvas.

“I think we should try ice,” is all he says. “Before attempting any kind of compression. Wait here.”

“It’s not like I could go anywhere,” he mumbles beneath his breath as Arthur leaves him for the second time. “I’m not running a fucking race on this thing.”

When he returns, grasping a cloth wrapped bundle, John studies him curiously. Nervous muscles stiffen in preparation for another round of sharp throbbing; but as Arthur sits again opposite him, the grip which guides his foot is somehow even kinder than before, cradling the injury into position across his knees.

“Let me take your shoe off,” he murmurs. “I’ll be quick.”

"I’d rather you didn’t,” John protests. “Can’t we just - God, Arthur!”

No apology is forthcoming. It’s palpable in the tension of Arthur’s fingers regardless, the unhappy twist of his mouth. He fumbles the laces undone with one hand and slips the shoe off, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor. One black sock follows. The hem of his trousers is rolled back up to his calf, delicately smoothed along by a soothing touch.

The introduction of cold is almost worse than the prodding he’d just undergone. John jolts as the cloth touches his skin. A pang similar to shattered glass ricochets across his foot and he has to bite his tongue to keep from shouting. Arthur holds him steady, other hand firm on his calf, bent over the injury.

“Easy,” he says quietly. “It’ll hurt for a minute or two, but this will help to numb some of the pain and swelling.”

“Numb?” John gasps, “or worsen? What even is that?”

Arthur readjusts the bundle. “Peas wrapped in a washcloth. You should know, you bought all the groceries last.”

“Why the hell would I buy peas? They’re repulsive.”

“Well I didn’t, and we don’t have ice in right now, so it’ll have to do.”

True to his word, after some uncomfortable minutes of silence, the throbbing begins to lessen. John sinks back in relief, a sweet dullness overtaking pain receptors which had not let up on their constant alarm for what seemed like eons now. Thoughts broken up by the unrelenting ache finally begin to clear. From behind the haze he sighs, tilting his chin up towards the ceiling. Long hair spills over the back of the cushions.

“That’s… much better,” he says weakly. “Thank you.”

“I imagine it is, yes… John?”

“Yes?” he answers, anticipation sitting nauseatingly in his gut. “What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you hurt your ankle?”

In the low light he steals a glance over. His vision was better than most - better than Arthur’s, when he had been able to see out of his eyes. Things came across with astonishing clarity, even when there was little illumination to help refine the world around him. John narrows in on the long pink scar across Arthur’s throat, an indelicate reminder of the Dreamlands, the incomprehensible weight of that last stand reduced to one single, jagged divide. His torn ear hid neatly enough behind reddish gold curls, but the mark across his face where those dangerous sands had scraped away the skin there was not so easy to miss.

In the break between their conversation he rolled up his shirtsleeves and there too John could spot scars, dots and lines of invisible constellations, healed but not forgotten. The wooden pinky finger taps his ankle as he shifts the peas. John’s pinky, he thought. Or, it had been.

Everything about Arthur was a testament to some horror he’d survived, that they had survived together. And John, in this new body, had nothing to show for it.

“John?” Arthur asks. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay,” he argues. “It hurts.”

“Is this helping at all? We can always wrap it afterward. Hopefully it won’t need to be seen by anyone.”

There’s concern in his voice, so genuine despite the way he’d just been treated that something snaps just around John’s lungs, a sharp, bitter pull. Whatever he had been about to say dies under his tongue. Nothing comes out, although his lips part for several seconds.

“John?”

His restraint falters.

“I’m sorry, Arthur.”

“...What?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, yanking the words agonizingly out. “It wasn’t my intention to lie to you from the start, I - I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Tell me what, John?” comes the baffled prompt. “That you injured yourself?”

“Yes,” he emphasizes. “I don’t even remember how I did it, I guess I just… stepped incorrectly? Tripped over something? I don’t fucking know, Arthur, and it’s so goddamned stupid. I can’t even control my own two legs! How am I going to keep existing in this body if I break under the slightest influence? It’s not like you get hung up over a fucking sprain, or don’t bounce back from a coma, or a car crash, or-”

“Hang on, John, wait,” Arthur interrupts. “Is that what this is about? Me?”

“Yes! No. I don’t know, Arthur. A bit of both?”

Frustration boils beneath his skin, hot and shimmering. The corners of his eyes prickle but he doesn’t move up to rub at the sting coiled there, waiting for release.

“You don’t let anything stop you,” he says, the living room blurring. “Gunshot wounds to the chest, electrocution, multiple stabbings, so many falls I’ve lost count-”

“Technically the gunshot would have killed me if not for the wraith, " Arthur offers feebly, but John doesn’t seem to hear him.

“Not even getting gutted through inside those mines in Addison! Not even my shitty job of sewing you back up.” He swallows, breathing heavily. “You’re practically fucking invincible, and meanwhile I take one wrong step and I’m incapacitated for days, can’t even take a stroll with you down the street, can’t carry you up to bed when you’ve fallen asleep on the sofa.”

Tears were flowing now, trickling in trails of shame down flushed cheeks. “It’s ridiculous. I witnessed you wade through literal nightmares, Arthur, and you did it without losing yourself. You still managed to laugh where you could, to have hope, and-”

The thought was running swiftly away from him. He twists sideways as far as he could, facing the other side of the room, held in place only by his ankle. Again wishing to disappear, again wanting to crawl back inside Arthur’s head where it was safe.

It takes Arthur far too long to respond. For some time nothing moves in their midst, save for the rapid rise and fall of John’s chest, the hitched cadence of his breathing. Eventually Arthur shifts. John listens to his clothes rustle and wonders when the floor would swallow him whole.

“John?” Arthur says softly.

His jaw clenches. “What.”

“Look at me.”

Sniffing, he turns. The hand not keeping the frozen vegetables on his foot coaxes his chin up and over. Arthur’s touch doesn’t linger, giving him ample space. John wishes it would. Frustration continues to slip across his face, lines of damp salt.

“I didn’t react that way to all of those things because I wanted to, John,” he says gently. “I did so because I had to. I was surviving, trying to keep us both alive. What would have happened if I gave in and just laid down and let it all overtake me?”

John mulls it over.

“Nothing,” he concludes, wiping angrily at one eye. “We wouldn’t have gotten very far.”

“Exactly. You think I didn’t struggle? You saw me, John, you saw through me!”

He laughs, the first bright sound to filter through the room since they’d come home, tinged by bittersweet memory. “You were there for every second of it. Remember me waking up from the coma? I could hardly drag myself out of the bed, much less walk. And everything else that’s happened to my body, well…”

Briefly he touches his stomach. “Sometimes I wonder how there’s any blood left in me. I feel patchy, like I’m just made up of gaps a person could see straight through. It all still aches, John. I’m aware of it all, every stupid mistake or scar or… whatever else Addison and the Dreamlands, all those monsters did to me; but if I refused to accept in some capacity, where would that get me? Fuck, I’d never leave the bed, and I’d have every right to do so. Why do you think I still sleep in some mornings?”

“You’re saying you’re hiding things too, then,” John says slowly. A flutter of remorse crosses Arthur’s smile, curving it downward.

“Yes,” he nods. “A little bit. I didn’t want you to worry, John.”

“This is the same thing, then!” John exclaims. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry!”

“It’s not the same, but… it is similar, sure. I’m still figuring this all out, what to do now afterwards. I know we both are. I suppose we’re each guilty of something here, aren’t we?”

A mutter answers him, unintelligible. Arthur sighs, rubbing John’s leg placatingly.

“I have experience with this kind of thing, John. You, frankly, do not. We don’t know how this body is going to react to the smallest of injuries, so when you’ve hurt yourself, or tripped, whatever, you need to tell me. I can’t help you if you’re so determined to be… stoically adamant that you can handle it.”

He winces. “No, poor choice of words. You’re more than capable of handling anything. The point here is that you don’t need to do it alone. I didn’t do it all by myself, either, even if it was our body at the time. I still had you there with me.”

“Okay,” John mumbles. The tears had stopped, drying in faintly gleaming tracks. Unable to help himself, he reaches over and directs Arthur’s free hand to his face. Arthur catches on quickly enough. One gentle thumb brushes the dampness away beneath both eyes.

“You said I didn’t lose myself in the midst of all that,” Arthur adds contemplatively, “but I did. You brought me back over and over. I won’t let you drown here, either. I guess we need to be more honest with each other in general.”

He flashes a small smile. “Works in progress, hmm?”

“Sure,” John says, wavering under that look. It was impossible not to. “Okay, Arthur. Thank you. I guess I…”

“Hmm?”

“I know it wasn’t easy, but you made it seem so effortless. I guess I wanted to be able to react the same way.”

“Nothing about being human is effortless, John. If it were easy, you’d be something else altogether.”

Neither are sure what else to say, so they choose to say nothing at all. Arthur removes the cloth, saturated with condensation. The swelling had gone down somewhat. Beneath the inflamed skin a dull ache persisted, but it was milder, simpler to deal with. Darkness shot through with distant city lights and a sliver of the rising moon sits just behind the glass window panes of the front room, enticing and comforting with its allure of endless promise. In the lamp’s glow, John watches Arthur start to slide off the table, cradling his foot until he’s able to place it down atop its surface.

“I think you should sit here for a while,” he advises, frowning. “I can help you down the hall later. If you want, that is. It’s doubtful you’ll be able to keep much weight on this over the next few days if you want it to heal properly.”

“Great,” John mutters. “Wait, where are you going?”

“To change out of these clothes? Why?”

“Can’t you,” he stutters, “stay here? I can’t reach the washcloth. What if I need it again?”

“I can place it next to you,” Arthur says wryly, catching on. “It’s only a foot away.”

“What if I have to get up?”

“You shouldn’t be moving at all.”

“Arthur, please.”

“Christ, alright,” he agrees, fondly. “Just for a while. I’m exhausted too, you know.”

He slips next to him. They fit together seamlessly after some adjusting, John avoiding old wounds, Arthur working around this new one. It’s a recently acquired habit, this circling of one another, quietly curling up until they were consoled enough in their own selves and each other. John’s head ends up across Arthur’s thighs, his foot propped up on the armrest of the other end. He was so tall his leg stretched past the edge of the sofa, halfway dangling in mid air.

“John, darling?” Arthur asks absently, untangling dark curls spread out across his lap.

“Yes?”

“You’ve… carried me up to bed before?”

John blinks. “Of course. I couldn’t leave you on the sofa like that, shivering.”

“I wasn’t shivering,” he retorts with mock affront. “Was I?”

“It was kind of pitiful. To give you credit, you had kicked off the blanket I put over you earlier.”

“I was wondering where that had come from,” Arthur mumbles. “Thanks, John.”

“You’re welcome. You sleep like you’re the prize boxer in a dream ring.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You kick,” John says meaningfully, eyes already beginning to close. “Hard.”

“Oh. Sorry. At least I don’t hog the blankets all the time,” Arthur retorts sheepishly.

“I do not hog anything. I’m much taller than you now! I need more of it.”

“Not all of it.”

“Buy a second blanket, then, if you’re so concerned.”

They bicker until John falls asleep. Sentences drop to single word responses, and soon enough he’s out, trying to get one last quip through the heavy pull of slumber. Arthur sighs as he feels his breathing even out, one palm flat on his chest. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to change clothes.

“John?” he whispers. “John?”

He doesn’t answer. Arthur lets loose another weary exhale. There was no way he could move now.

“I think you did this on purpose,” he says softly, yawning. “You just want me to play with your hair, don’t you? Unfortunately for you, I’m probably going to fall asleep right here beneath you.”

He brushes stray strands off John’s forehead. It continued to puzzle him how someone who had once spent thousands of years inflicting agony on others now flinched beneath the prospect of bothering those closest to him with pain of his own.

Arthur drifts into unconsciousness soon after the thought dissipates like smoke, head dipping to rest sideways on one shoulder. John, clinging to the last dredges of wakefulness, peers up through heavy lidded eyes just in time to catch a glimpse of Arthur’s silent goodnight, John, on his lips.

#caspost #malevolent #malevolent fic #ANYWAY HOPE IT ISNT BAD CJNEJV #like i said first draft and all #might put this up on ao3 later!#god i need to sleep now im so tired #long post #also the other 2 prompts!! still working on those! (: the dress one and the baking one!!#also this could be read romantically or queer platonically ig!!

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brother-emperors · 1 year

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spartacus and crassus :)

this is actually a rejected panel from a much longer comic I’ve been fucking around with on and off for awhile- I had plans to do a long form spartacus comic for a long time, I just keep missing the last book on my research list in second hand stores 😔 I always have money when the last copy sells out aughhh

anyway! I might call crassus my girl in the group chat, but I’ve actually spent more years wishing that spartacus got to run crassus through on his sword and then read the fate of rome out of his entrails. ALAS. on that note, isn’t it kind of interesting how spartacus’ funeral games for crixus turn roman order upside down and feel like both a foundational sacrifice and a curse? isn’t it kind of fun how crassus will not die in rome, and neither will pompey, who came in like a vulture to take credit for crassus’ work? (it’s VERY fun)

Plutarch, Crassus

#Spartacus and Crassus have a very specific kind of narrative foil dynamic with each other that I find extremely compelling #Team spartacus bc I love to see rome eat itself like the horrible machine of violence that it is #and then cower in the face of what it created #That one doc that dramatized the starting spark was spartacus not being able to turn away from a Roman soldier #raping another gladiator. That’s what it all comes down to. Christ #Team crassus when the cast is just Romans because oh you are weird. Crassus you are so fucking weird. What is happening there.#BLAH anyway. panel rejected bc the scene needed to be bigger. grander. more bodies on the ground #Spartacus still get to call him a dog tho. Tahol Crassus! Tahol!!!#usually I have more to cite. Like. Most of my gladiator stuff is backed up on a flash drive! but guess what is not compatible with #An iPad. My flash drives. Bc I literally only use this for drawing work 🥲 also reading/researching on a screen like this is hell #spartacus #marcus licinius crassus #spartacus tag

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introspectivememories · 5 months

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tim and bernard who break up and it's nothing big, no one cheated or anything. it's just their lifestyles didn't work out well together. tim cannot give up vigilantism currently and bear cannot handle the level of danger tim puts himself in. and on the other hand, tim cannot handle the fact that bear chooses to run into danger as an emt bc he already worries about everything but now he has to worry if he'll find his boyfriend convulsing from fear gas in a random alley but also bear who felt the life drain out of darla cannot stand the thought of not helping people and runs headfirst into dangerous situation after dangerous situation hoping that every person he saves can somehow make up for the fact that he could not save darla.

(he very pointedly does not think about the fact that there was nothing he could do because if he thinks about that, he'll spiral until they have to lock him in arkham too)

and so they break up but they were tim & bernard in high school and when they started dating they balanced out the worst of each other and they became tim&bernard. and everyone who knows them, knows that they're better together but they cant be together, they refuse actually because they cannot lose another person to the violence of gotham and by the time they figure out that they cant work together as long as the other is an emt or vigilante, it's too late for both them. they've already left too many pieces of themselves in each other.

tim still knows what bear means when he says "tim" in that exasperated voice. tim still goes boneless when he hears bear say "baby" in that firm tone. bear can still read tim like a book. he still knows the right way to massage tim's neck so that tim can go to sleep. everyone at the first responders gala knows not to bother ceo drake-wayne and senior emt dowd when they're talking.

(and if they're standing a little too close to each other than what is normal, who are they to judge? everyone knows that dowd and drake-wayne have history)

and if everyone on the night shift has caught red robin with his head tucked into the crook of emt dowd's neck as emt dowd runs a soothing hand up and down the vigilante's back, well then, they just quietly back away.

(after all, dowd's one of like, five, emts that can get the bats to receive medical treatment so if turning a blind eye to whatever the fuck they have going on is what allows them to give back to their heroes, then the night shift will do it every time)

and of course, tim and bear are practical people. they loved (love) each other sure, but when your lives are fundamentally incompatible, well, you cant get too stuck on the what-ifs, that's for sure. and so they do find love with other people and yeah, maybe it's not what they expected love to be when they first fell in love with each other. it's not the bubbly, stomach-swoopy, cant stop grinning, feeling that permeated tim&bernard's early days or the i Know you/you Know me that was their middle or the quiet despair that was their end but it is contentment. and in a life with as many losses as theirs, contentment is something they hold dearly

and they're happy! truly! but sometimes, at galas when they're making each other snort champagne out their noses or in darkened alleyways when their clothes are both stained with blood or at rallies for stricter gun regulations in gotham where they both sit too close to each other, fingers enclosed around each other in a death grip, when the presenters inevitably bring up grieves

(worst school shooting in gotham in decades, there's blood on their hands and blood in their mouths and darla is dead in between both of them and there is a chasm so wide that they are screaming to get their voices across and she will always be dead and maybe this had always been the problem that she is dead and there is no coming back from that and that there is blood on their hands and blood in their mouth and blood on their han-)

but sometimes, most especially on opposite sides of the street, as life pulls them in different directions, just sometimes, they see each other and just for a second, nothing too long, the flap of a hummingbird's wings, the time it takes to blink, an electron's orbital, they look at each other and for the briefest moment, blue on brown, a barely noticeable stutter in their steps, the space between heartbeats, because this is all they will give themselves because they do not dwell on what-ifs or what-could-have-beens, or what-should-have-beens, or delusions of a softer world, their eyes meet and they think to themselves, god, in another life, i would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with him.

#what the fuck is this #the theme was wistfulness. hopefully that came across right. and like i wanted this to be all 1 text block so you feel how it all collapses #into that 1 thought they have at they end but fuckass tumblr has a 4096??? text limit for a single paragraph???? so here's multiple paragra #anyway here is my middle of the road sad timbern hc. do i think this will happen? no? is this still a fun world to play in? yeah absolutely #also super huge fan of darla haunting the narrative. darla as this chasm they cannot cross. darla as smth they shelter each other from #but also smth like a 2 way blade. it cuts them both. it will never stop cutting them. smth smth the wound will always bleed #also i cannot stress how important it is that they are happy with other people!!! they are both satisfied with other people. it's just that #they have a very specific history and they are the only two people who really know and understand that history #and also it's not that theyre unhappy with their partners but just that smtimes they look at each other and... wonder. in a softer world #maybe i could've been a chef and you could've still been a superhero and we could've still worked out. maybe we would've gotten a boat #together and maybe we could've come home to each other. maybe i could've trusted you to come home to me. maybe you could've #understood my need to help people. maybe we could've held our love as something precious.#maybe in a softer world our love wasn't something that hurt us both.#i need to lay down. im going crazy #as always i do love reading yalls thoughts in the reblogs and replies!!!#bernard dowd #dc #tim drake #timbern #timber

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hydrachea · 3 months

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I think if Blade ever does send a text directly it should be a single sentence of the most basic kind, and then it never happens again.

#honkai star rail #hsr #hsr blade #hsr stelle #stelle seems pretty casual blowing up the stellaron hunters' phones by now #though she seems to text silver wolf the most casually #can't get an answer to that funny meme she found? time to try all the other phones #i do think blade never texting is a pretty fun thing so i don't want to create too many texts from him #but since boothill showed that speech to text exists as a function #i want to hope this could happen #exactly once #just to show that he knows how to do it #and then never again #because he's an old man and why would he bother when everyone else already answers all the texts he gets for him anyway #silver wolf a few hours later still from blade's phone: nobody will ever believe you #stelle who already took five screenshots and saved them in three separate cloud storages: bet #ray's records #this is the other one i made #i don't think i'll make blade ones after this or it'll be rare ones and with the other stellaron hunters only #but i really think he doesn't really text #speech to text if he really needs to get a message out #but otherwise he just reads what other people send him #or he calls #texting with those hands is too hard #speech to text is a hassle he doesn't usually bother with #grandpa and the plain black case of his work phone

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sluckythewizard · 2 months

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'I wont cry for you, I wont crucify the things you do. I wont cry for you, see, when you're gone, I'll still be BLOODY MARY'

#cw blood #SUUUPER SCUFFED LIL WIP THATS BEEN RRRROTTING IN MY FOLDER. OUT!! GET OUT!!!#its almos 2 am and imm gettin high as hrothgar. spruced this up within an hour so i could be shared n eaten #its SUPPOsed to be part ofa bigger doodly page so ofc theres the chance this changes between now n then #fuuuuck shoulda made her dress sparkly. fuckit ill fix it laterrrrr. i havnt posted art in YWEARRS i needed to post something #also i uh. well you see i started losing followers on twitter bc im sooo inactive and i KNOW that shouldnt matter like it should be whateve #but. you see. i lkike when number go up and when it go down i get MMMADDD.we all get our dopamine from somewhere #ANYWAY so i actually havnt touched the suckening in so long. been workin on oc stuff.BUT WELL. ARTHUR AND MARY. STILL MAKE ME WEEP #THEYRE SO CUTE N TRAGIC...whadda fuck is it with grizzly n charlie characters being so in love and so doomed #kian and becky then arthur and his various exes like CMAHn.stop doing this to me #from what i remember of the episode.she seemed so.tired.disconnected.like she had been wandering a dream #and yet she seemed so positive.reasonably concerned and yet.content.she warmed up to arthur as soon as she recognized him #she speaks so gently and so sweetly and she keeps the conversation so light.even though shes dead and shes gone and she #is doomed to wander an odd limbo for the rest of time.and yet she seemed so at peace.i can see why arthur liked her.what happened?#what caused them to separate?arthur seems so jaded and so tired.marys company seems like such a gentle place to rest.#how did he squander such a blessing?was it a blessing?OHH what i would give to crack open their minds and peer inside.#yknow wat im runnign out of room i think so ill add a last thought here at the bottom of my tags. I AM MORE CORRECT ABT ARHTURS UGLY LOOK #I WANT THAT MAN TO BE BEASTLY AND GROSS AND STRANGE AND SCARY AND EEWWW I SEE THINGS SQUIRMING IN THE DARK.ther are bugs #LETTING HIM HAVE HOT HOT ABBS AND STUFF WAS A COP OUUTTTT LET HIS WHOLE FORM BE DISTORTED OR UR NOT A FUCKING 0 APPEARANCE BITCH #THE BONES SHIFTED BENEATH AS IF TRYING TO HATCH. MANY OTHER THINGS HATCHED ASWELL. THE DEAD IMMORTAL FLESH SOURED #TOO GRAND TO ROT BUT TOO CORRUPTED TO KEEP CLASSIC FORM. MMMONSTER MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER #oka y im not going to bed but im gonna go. uh. do miore drugs or something. maybe ill work on more jrwi stuff. or oc stuff.#i hope ur day goes swimmingly thankyou for reading my tags i love you so so so so so much

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tvckerwash · 3 months

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I like to think that during pfl (using his s9 characterization, not s10) wash is the guy you go to when you want to know something (ah la a line in the fall of reach novel I believe where chief says the enlisted personnel always seem to know stuff bc wash is clearly enlisted).

he's in a position where he's privy to information from the higher-ups, and he's friendly enough with the lower rungs that he knows the gossip going around. as a bonus though, wash ain't no narc, so if you want that information you need to offer him something of equivalent exchange (consequently fueling the 'guy who knows things' thing). for example, north had to tell him about using equipment in the field in order to get him to tell him what his meeting with internals was about.

wash isn't the only guy who knows things, of course, but he's the guy who has the widest base of general knowledge. ct is also someone who knows things, but she's a lot more specific, and what she lacks in scale she more than makes up for with how in-depth her knowledge is. wash is where you learn about something from, ct is where you get all the juicy details (to the point of it almost being tmi). she also has an equivalent exchange policy, but people tend to be a bit more reluctant to get information from her because of what her knowledge is (and the borderline 'insane conspiracy theorist' energy doesn't help either).

florida? well...you don't wanna know what he knows. the cost is simply too high.

#rvb #red vs blue #agent washington #agent connecticut #agent florida #butch flowers #mine #not t/oaru #carolina technically has better higher-up info than wash but nobody is dumb enough to try and get ms hyper serious to talk #except york. he's generally not successful though but sometimes he gets enough for wash and ct to have a starting point to work from #wash and ct are a troublemaking duo but whenever they get in trouble they just so happen to not be around like some magicians #or if they are around theres nothing they can truly get in trouble for bc wash makes sure ct’s mouth doesn’t bite them in the ass #girl doesn't know how to be discreet but it's fine bc wash can gaslight gatekeep girlboss them out of most situations #and yet people STILL don't read him as the manipulative bastard he is. it drives ct insane tbh #they have a love/hate relationship with that aspect of each other. wash wishes he could boldly jump into things like ct and ct wishes she #could step back and wait like wash. but they're not very good at executing those attitudes bc wash needs to know everything he can b4 actin #but ct is comfortable diving in mostly blind so long as she's confident she'll learn what she needs to along the way #tumblr user eli tvckerwash once again yaps about wash and ct #yall wait. what if i tried rewriting the few s10 pfl wash scenes so they're more accurate to his r1-s9 characterization #hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm #also omg florida jumpscare

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ganondoodle · 14 days

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(idk if anyone wants to keep hearing my opinions on totk book stuff but-)

apparently it says that rauru DID have kids, multiple even, which yeah... is kinda necessary for zelda to even be connected to them so much so that sonia can SENSE a blood connection (which, even with all the excuses with magic, is just a little too far for me to suspend my disbelief bc its over, OVER, ten thousand years worth of generations that seperate her from them that one lil touch of the hand can sense that (feels more like an attempt to make you care about them or .. see them as zeldas "better" parents just bc they exchange a few nice words, i never got the feeling they were 'better' parents and its also kinda disrespectful to her actual parents, like sure rhoam wasnt the best but i wouldnt call rauru better just bc he was polite)- i could see maybe the light power of hylia or sth but since its the coolest dude that ever lived rauru now that had it which still doesnt make sense and makes me unreasonably annoyed and she can sense BOTH of their powers in her? nah) the fact theres NOTHING about them in the game itself is just so ... no way they planned any of this

i dont think theres anything they can do or say that wont make be believe they either

are making it up alla 'fix it in post' mentality trying to hastily explain stuff the game never bothers to do to try and appease fans or let it appear as if they thought about it at all

something went really REALLY wrong during development, which kinda seems likely given how the game turned out (im sorry i cannot let go, its not just the writing, the game design too and how little was changed in the map while being so damn expensive, i dont know how people dont feel scammed q_q)

given that they (allegedly) spent the last entire year of development on polish (where??? where????? huh??? like it would make it more understandable (EXCEPT for the price) if there was alot of trouble, which was also bc it got delayed and ... turned out like this, but they dont want to say it, especially given their reputation, with that quote i have heard way too many times 'a delayed game blah blah') i just??

are they just gonna go and do it like they did with kashiwa (kass)? "they uuuh where flying around the whole time ony cool sonau tech maschines, you just dont see or hear from them ooooorrr they were uuuuh out of the country at the time" (sending invitations to other continents to join their glorious kingdom ;) )

(bet they are also gonna say they did all the stuff like ... moving the shrines around (lol?) and lifting the islands up into the sky- which is still weird bc ... didnt they also say they were living in the sky before coming to the surface?? so where?? did they park all their islands on the surface and the mystery kids had the keys so they had to repark them back into the sky after they returned off camera?? xD also why are the islands so different as an environment if they where from the surface? like even the STONE up there is different- and if they were first in the sky then on the surface and the nback in the sky .. why is there not a single yellow tree or grass in the past- you cant really argue that it changed bc they were up there so long bc .. nothing else changed, the suddendly and totally always there sonau buildings are largely in prime condition, only some slightly moldy, and what we see of the glorious past looks barely any different from the present, aside from like ... some standard trees shuffled, no castle yet and that glowy uwu filter DESPITE that stupidly long time frame between it)

#ganondoodles talks #zelda #ganondoodles rants #idk if others feel like that too but i cant shake the feeling there was something that either went horribly wrong during development-#-or the entire thing was neglected the whole time which is why its so .. i hesitate to even call it bare bones #...which is WILD given that its the supposed sequel to their best seeling zela game #like wtf where you doing #i get that the pressure can be immense but imo it wasnt that hard to make a sequel to thats better than totk #like i think it was harder to make totk like it is NOW bc it scraps and throws away so many things you could have easily used-#-as sequel material #its all so weird to me #my tin foil hat theory is still that they saw the success of the mario movie and immediately shifted everything to make more movies #bc it made so much money #and a movie is easier to make than a good game #so totk or botw2 at the time got the short end of the stick #which is why everything feels like .. so ... bare bones .. untested .. unfinished .. non sensical...#like an alpha build that got enough visual polish to look like a full game when its still an alpha build at its core #some main ideas like the abilities implemented and the basic map layers #mechanics functioning but untested on how it feels to play #like the sage controls and arrow fusing and ... contradictory game mechanics that dont work together #like the bulding WORKS but its clunky and underused- everything can be cheated so easily you dont even feel good cheating-#-bc it feels like the teacher just allowed you to mark your test with a green circle and you still got an A (or however USA grades work)#despite not even reading the questions- why attempt to solve a puzzle if you can just skip it #and how they tell you to be creative with it yet creativity gets punished and only efficiency is rewarded #which completely undermines the entire thing #...theres so much more you know i have ranted about it all before #ALSO rauru and sonia seemed like a rather newly wed couple to me- not one that had multiple kids that never appear-#since it only mentions rauru ..... if its only his then ... that doesnt explain anything bc zelda needs both sonia and rauru dna #................do sonau leave eggs to incubate somewhere heavenly or sth #watch out the springs where built to hatch rauru eggs bc they need the gods holy blessing bc they are oh so holy to hatch

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