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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 2 days

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 24

MEGA WARNING FOR VLAD BEING A CREEP, HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION, NEEDLES, NUDITY, MORE CREEPINESS AND DANNY GETTING SHOT

big thanks to @impyssadobsessions as well as @faerplay for their help with the first scene owo

MASTAPOST

Hazy fog closes around his mind. Danny turns in fits in his sleeping position. The water is cold, the ocean is eerily quiet. His mind is dragged back to a cold room at the bottom of the ocean, even as he claws the ground, unable to remain in the present.

Danny struggles, but his hands are stuck. His legs are tied together. He screams. Nothing comes out. He begs for help. Nobody hears. He cries for his parents to come save him. Nobody comes. Danny is trapped there for a thousand years and will never see the light of day again.

Nobody comes to save him when kind eyes and tender hands enter the room. The voice is sweet, and light, like a fairy god-uncle come to save him. Nobody comes to save him when the hands burned his skin with their touch. Danny’s fins rattle, shooting up straight like goosebumps.

Nobody protects him. Nothing protects him. His bare skin shivers in the cold air of the lab. His skin burns hot. Hot from shame, from disgust and violation. The kind eyes are not kind at all – they stare in hunger as bare and uncovered as his own body. It burns when needles plunge into his skin. It burns when the sigils are carved into his back, only to heal and then be carved again. It burns when the hands caress his cheek and the voice tells him it will be alright.

The voice is lying. It will always be lying.

Danny begs for the scene to go away. He has seen this all before. The room shifts. Red hair sways in the wind. Gunshots fire. Danny runs, but he cannot. He has no legs. He crawls back underneath glaring hatred. The eyes zeroed in on his heart grow. They grow and multiply and there are hundreds now. Hundreds of faces. Some in white suits. Some in brilliant Amani. Some in jumpsuits. Some in child-sized hoodies and jeans.

Danny’s vision shifts between the waking and the dreaming world. Details blend into each other like melting portraits. His lateral line senses Damian a million miles away and also right behind him and inside his guts with a sword. His ears register fictional water rushing, and very real vitriolic words spat out by fifty voices overlapping.

Danny’s eyes were thick with pearlescent slime when the real became fake again and the fake was revealed as the truth. The voices faded away into the background. The quiet of the ocean came back. Nothing like the clinical silence that drove him to tears in…

Danny jumped back. His scales shivered like rats under a microscope. He rubbed his body all over, the brushed it, then ground against his scales. Anything to get rid of the phantom fingers on his body, to get rid of the ghost touches that lingered even months later.

‘You need to ground yourself. Something to anchor your mind to the here and now. Let’s try a grounding exercise together, ok?’ Jazz said, once, when she caught him stumbling around the house at three am, skin matted in cold sweat and eyes wild like a cornered rat.

He saw himself. He saw his white scales and the bones underneath and the millions of nerves and blood vessels that you could only see if you squinted just close enough. And he saw Sam, smiling as she told him it was the most beautiful sight she’d seen in her entire life.

The supplies that he and Damian plundered from the Atlanteans, a chaotic and exciting fight that left him smiling on the inside even as he questioned the kid’s sanity.

He saw Damian inside his makeshift sleeping bag, the boy who had gone through so much pain, and will be forever changed, like Danny. He would not be able to shift like Danny’s half-human body could, nor talk or hide his siren traits perfectly and blend in plain sight. And the tears started again, so Danny forced himself to move on.

He couldn’t say if the grounding technique solved anything. Jazz told him as much. At least he felt alone again. Better than feeling the company of the evillest man he’d ever met.

Danny wiped away the last of the tears. The pearls that beaded up on the floor were swept away into the open ocean, never to be seen again. Better that Damian didn’t have more things to worry about than his failed rescuer failing even further.

The younger siren woke up soon after, shivering violently. He hoped Damian had better dreams. Danny passed another satchel for warmth, but Damian refused to even look at him, or take the thing. They had breakfast together in silence, as Damian rubbed his scales to stave off the cold.

They departed without a hitch. Danny’s cheeks continued to burn white hot, this time with guilt.

Jazz Fenton chanted in her head. ‘Go faster little brother. Please. Don’t stop.’

But it was futile. The radar showed him going too slow. The SAV would catch up to him today. Then they would capture him, and then-

Jazz pulled out all the stops. Every coping technique she could apply, she applied. She clutched Bearbert to her chest like a lifeline, like he was Danny’s lifeline. She took deep breaths and counted to them. She counted things she could see, hear, touch, smell and taste.

There had to be a way out of this.

Jazz turned around only to bump into the massive body of Bruce Wayne. If she didn’t know better she would’ve thought that she’d run into a brick wall.

A hand grabbed hers just as she lost her balance. “Steady there, Jasmine!” Bruce Wayne said.

Shit. The one person she didn’t want to talk to right now.

Jazz schooled her features into polite embarrassment. “Oh, s-sorry Mr Wayne! I didn’t realise you were there!”

For such a large guy, Bruce Wayne was stupidly stealthy. The man waved off her concerns. “There’s no trouble, Jasmine. You look worried. Is something wrong?”

Everything was wrong. Jazz went for a half-truth, something that can misdirect him away from her true feelings. “We’re so close to catching up to Phantom. I just… I want my brother back.”

She did not avert her eyes, but she did maintain eye contact up until the last word, upon which she turned away, and looked out into the window. Excessive eye contact was a tell for liars. Avoidance would make her suspicious. She had to maintain a balance.

Bruce Wayne leaned out the window beside her, and she almost screamed. Goddammit! Take a hint and fuck off already!

He took a deep long sigh. “So do I.”

Jazz counted the seconds until it was polite enough to leave. However, part of her was curious. “What was your disagreement with mom and dad about last night?” She said carefully.

Bruce Wayne rubbed the back of his neck. She had a gut feeling it was fake, but couldn’t prove it. “Well, as your mother said, we were just having a… discussion about Phantom’s fate.”

Jazz tightly grasped her tone and timbre, not letting her voice betray anything. “And what do you think we should do with him?”

The man sighed. “In all honesty, I don’t know. He needs to face justice for his actions, but how that will be conducted, I don’t know.”

Jazz’s chest heaved. For all his talk, Bruce Wayne was only less blood thirsty than her parents. That he was sympathetic to the sirens had no evidence. She was foolish to even think so last night.

But maybe he can be swayed, just as he swayed her parents?

“It’s not like you can put him in jail.” Jazz muttered.

“There are plenty of metahumans and other supernatural species in prisons. I should know. I helped fund their rehab programs.” Bruce Wayne’s tone was also even, like he was testing her.

“The GiW doesn’t have jurisdiction over metahumans and other supernatural creatures.”

“You’re afraid for him.”

Jazz’s heart rate spiked. No, no, she had to keep a handle on the situation. Do not catastrophise. Do not catastrophise. “You believe in rehabilitation, don’t you?”

“It’s all I ever dream of, for my city.”

“Is vivisection included in your plans for bringing criminals back into society?”

Bruce Wayne’s expression hardened by a fraction, something she only noticed from intensely studying his face as she spoke. “It isn’t.”

“What do us normal people do when the bodies trusted to dispense justice misuse their powers?” Jazz’s voice sharpened. “After capturing Phantom, and getting Danny and Damian back, what kind of justice can be dispensed that doesn’t involve humans performing the most inhuman punishments imaginable?”

Bruce Wayne’s eyes narrowed. Jazz felt seen through. Shit. She spoke too much.

“You don’t agree with your parents on sirens, do you?”

Jazz straightened her back, using her father’s genes to stand only a head shorter than the towering man. She stared straight up at his eyes, unwavering. “That was always clear. The real question is: do you?”

Bruce Wayne said nothing.

The day passed by without Danny even noticing. The sun began to sink into the horizon. It was probably about four pm or something now. Thankfully, the ocean’s surface wasn’t as populated with obstacles as your average road, or else Danny would’ve crashed many times already. He fought to keep his eyes open. After all that had happened, he felt so, so tired.

He looked to the moon for guidance. Apparently lots of more isolated tribes worshipped the moon. He could see why. It was vital for its role in creating the tides.

He always dreamed of walking on the moon. Fat chance of that happening now. Would it even listen to him if he prayed?

Danny nudged Damian with his shoulder. “You know, I’ve been told there are lots of sirens that worship the moon. Ain’t that neat?”

Damian buried his face into the crook of his green-scaled arm.

“Maybe we should say a prayer. I’m not a very religious guy, but maybe someone will listen?”

Danny tried a few more times to get a response out of Damian, but he was stone-walled out each time.

“D-Damian. Please. I know what’s happening to you is horrible, and I’m sorry I haven’t been helping as much as I should. But I genuinely didn’t know about your voice. You have to believe me. I-I-I was raised alone. I’ve barely known any other sirens in my life.”

Damian sniffed. Was he crying?

“Damian?”

Engines sounded in the distance. Danny’s blood went coat.

He turned around, and his worst fears were confirmed. His heart rate spiked. On the horizon, two jets skis closed in. Their speed and power blasted water into the air in their wake. He could recognise his mother’s red hair anywhere, but his heart spiked when he spotted Bruce Wayne on the other speeder.

“Father.” Damian whispered.

Danny went full throttle. He pulled Damian to his chest, ignoring the boy writhing to get out of his grasp. No. He couldn’t let his parents get their hands on Damian. How could he have been so careless?! Of course Bruce Wayne would talk to the ‘siren experts’ in town.

Hydroplasm rays pierced the surface of the water. Danny swerved to the side as one sailed where his head had just been. He jumped out of the water as another two almost hit their mark. Shit. All this dodging was slowing him down, and his pursuers got ever closer.

“What are you doing?! My father is right there!” Damian shouted, the loudest he’d been in over 24 hours. “Release me right this moment!”

“He’s with the Fentons!” Danny yelled back. A shot struck him in the back. Danny screamed. Tears formed in his eyes. “He won’t recognise you!”

“I must try! I can communicate with him in writing!” Damian redoubled his efforts to escape Danny’s hold.

“Are you insane!? The Fentons will put you on a dissection table before you can try such a thing.”

“Father would never allow it!”

“They’ll kill you!”

“Phantom!” Came Bruce Wayne’s voice booming through a megaphone. “Stand down now, and we can do this the easy way!”

“See?! My father is not a violent man!”

“It’s not your father I’m worried about!” It just came slipping out.

His mom’s voice came next. “You get back here Phantom and you will tell me what you did to my baby boy Danny or I will rip you apart. Molecule by fucking molecule!”

Danny’s blood froze again. Damian ripped himself out of Danny’s arms. The boy emerged from the water, arms raised in a sign of surrender. “Damian!” He shouted. Shit. Shit shit shit. His mother aimed a gun right at Damian’s heart. Damian’s eyes widened. He turned around in an instant. Danny never swam faster in his life.

Seconds dragged into minutes. His mom pulled the trigger. Bruce Wayne yelled. “Maddie! Stop!”

Danny snatched Damian away. A weighted net launched at dizzying speeds. Danny just barely avoided its trajectory. One of the weights slammed into his tailfin and pain shot up.

The distraction rewarded him with a shot to the arm. With one arm clutching Damian and the other in pain, he could barely swim. The speedboats surrounded them. Danny’s breath hitched. He tried to flip himself and descend, but he only managed half a meter before another net ensnared his body.

He felt a prick on his neck, and Danny’s vision went dark. The last thing he saw was his beloved mother’s cold, calculating eyes.

His skin burnt. He felt naked again.

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section-chief-prentiss · 2 days

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Midnights: Frozen

CHAPTER TWO: Frozen

Summary: A collection of one-shots of sleepless nights between you and Emily.

Chapter Summary: You experience sleep paralysis and Emily comforts you.

Pairing: Emily Prentiss/Reader

Word Count: 1837

TWs: nightmares, sleep paralysis, comfort

Ao3

The first time you experienced sleep paralysis was just over a year ago.

Your girlfriend, Emily, had just been killed in the line of duty by a criminal from her past, Ian Doyle—or so you thought.

Seven months later, it was revealed that she’d gone into hiding for her own safety, but she was alive. You felt every emotion possible—relief, pain, anger, joy—but after the initial shock, you picked up right where you’d left off, and Emily had been living with you ever since. You were sure that now that she was back and at your side every night, the sleep paralysis would go away.

Only it hadn’t.

You didn’t tell Emily at first. You didn’t want her to worry or feel more guilty than she already did. So when you opened your eyes and found yourself paralyzed, every atom in your body feeling impossibly heavy, and the man from your nightmares lingering in the corner, raising your heart rate, until he started moving forward to kill you, you fought to keep silent.

The third time it happened, you couldn’t contain the whimpering sound you made, and Emily woke up to find you paralyzed. She tried asking how she could help, but you couldn’t answer. What Emily claimed was only minutes later, but felt like hours to you, you regained control of your body and confessed that this wasn’t the first time.

Emily was horrified and asked if you’d talked to a doctor about it. You had, but the medications he’d prescribed made your symptoms worse, so you’d stopped taking them.

The next morning, Emily was searching for anything she could find about how to help someone with sleep paralysis. That night, when you got into bed, she was ready.

“Do you know why sleep paralysis happens?” Emily asked.

You shook your head. You’d worried that looking into it would make it worse.

“When we sleep, our body undergoes partial paralysis so we don’t act out our dreams; it keeps us from getting up and walking around or talking in our sleep. Sleep paralysis happens when we’re between sleep stages, so your brain is awake, but your body is still in REM sleep, which is why you can’t move.”

You smiled. “You sound like Reid.”

Emily playfully rolled her eyes. “I may have consulted with him. For some people, if a partner talks to them, taps their shoulder, or even shakes them, it can wake them from sleep paralysis. So the next time it happens, try to make whatever noise you can, and when I wake up, I can wake you up.”

You sighed. “I don’t want to wake you up every time this happens. I can handle it.”

Emily took your hand. “This started happening to you after I left. When this wakes you up, I want you to wake me up. You don’t have to do this by yourself.”

Your throat tightened, and you nodded.

“If you can’t make noise, I read that you should try to move your fingers or toes—anything you can. And it helps to focus on your breathing. The faster you can slow your heart rate, the sooner you’ll come out of it.”

You committed that information to memory—you could manage that, you thought.

“I love you,” you said, leaning forward to kiss your girlfriend.

“I love you,” she said between kisses.

You both lay down, trying to find a comfortable position. You rolled away from Emily, but moments later, she had an arm wrapped around you and was snuggled up behind you. You nestled into her, feeling perfectly content.

You drifted off to sleep not long after.

***

You woke up on your back, suffocated by an all-too-familiar feeling.

At some point in the night, Emily had rolled to the other side of the bed, and you’d ended up on your back. As soon as you opened your eyes, you knew you shouldn’t have.

Your bedroom was cloaked in darkness; as far as you could tell, there was no light peeking through the edges of the blackout curtains over the windows, so it must have been pretty early in the morning. You could make out the faint snoring of Emily to your left, but no matter how hard you willed your head to turn, it wouldn’t.

Your arms lay straight against your sides, palms facing down and resting on top of your duvet. Your racing heart sped up even more when you caught a presence in the corner of your eye.

You thought of Emily’s advice—move your fingers or toes, steady your breathing—and tried to do so. You put all of your focus into moving your big toe or pointer finger, but neither budged. And in front of you, the figure was coming into focus.

A tall, white man with graying, shaggy hair and an unkempt beard. He was dressed in all black, as he had been the last time you’d seen him. His blue eyes were piercing even through the darkness.

Ian Doyle.

He’s dead, you reminded yourself. You saw it happen. He couldn’t hurt Emily anymore. This was just a hallucination from the sleep paralysis.

But, God, it felt so real.

Now at the edge of your bed, Ian stared down at you with a cryptic smile. “Hello, love,” he said, before turning to sleeping Emily. “Lauren.”

You wished you could cringe away, close your eyes again, do something to protect yourself, but every muscle in your body was frozen.

The only thing left for you to try was to make any sort of noise. Fortunately, that was easy when you were afraid. A whimper bubbled out of your mouth, and you hoped it would be enough to wake Emily.

Next to you, your girlfriend stirred but didn’t wake, so you made the noise again. In an instant, Emily lurched awake and turned her attention to you.

“Y/N?” she said, grogginess thick in her voice. “Can you move?”

Your lack of response was answer enough.

“I’m gonna touch you, okay?” she asked.

At the foot of the bed, Ian’s smile widened.

Even in death, you’re a creep, you thought.

You felt faint pressure on your arms, but it wasn’t enough to pull you from this episode. When Emily saw it wasn’t working, she resorted to taking your shoulders in her hands and shaking you, but that didn’t free you, either.

“Okay,” Emily said, sitting up next to you. “The research said that might not work. But it also said this will only last a few minutes, so I’m just going to talk until you come out of it.”

Your heart ached with how much you loved this woman.

“Oh, please, Lauren,” Ian said, walking toward her side of the bed. You could just make out his movements from the corner of your eye. “I’d love to hear what you have to say.”

The calming effect Emily had on you vanished in an instant, and your heart thumped with fear all over again. The closer he got to Emily, the more you wanted to scream.

“I would love to finish what I started,” he whispered, leaning toward the woman you loved.

You whimpered again, and Emily took your hand in hers.

“Whatever you’re seeing right now isn’t real, I promise,” she said. “I know it looks real, maybe even sounds real. But we’re the only two people in this room. I won’t let anyone or anything touch you.”

It wasn’t you that you were worried about, but you had no way of telling her that.

“On second thought,” Ian said, making his way back toward you. “It would be far more satisfying to watch Emily,” he spit out her name like it was dirt on his tongue. “Watch you suffer before I ended her.”

“I love you,” Emily said, reaching up to stroke your hair. “This will be over soon, I promise.”

The double entendre that she didn’t know she was speaking sent a chill down your spine.

Ian stood directly above you now, somehow holding the wooden stake he’d impaled Emily with all those months ago.

“I’ll be quick,” he taunted. “Though I can’t say I’ll give your girlfriend the same treatment.”

He leaned down to whisper in your ear. “Not that you’ll be around to watch.”

He plunged the wooden stake toward your heart, and you sat straight up with a gasp. You blinked furiously and saw that, sure enough, you were the only two in the room.

You closed your eyes as hard as you could. Ian is gone, you repeated like a mantra. Ian is dead.

“Love?” Emily said, reaching for you.

You opened your eyes and pulled your knees into your chest, grateful for the ability to move at all, and rested your chin on your legs.

“Breathe, honey,” Emily said, demonstrating slow, deep breaths. You hadn’t realized how shallow your breathing had become until you joined her and felt your lungs fill with air.

Once your breathing settled, you stretched out your legs but remained sitting up; you weren’t ready to risk falling back asleep yet.

“You never told me what it is you see,” Emily said, rubbing circles on your back. “If you want to talk about it, you can tell me.”

You swallowed. “It’s not easy to talk about,” you whispered.

She nodded. “I understand. The offer stands, if you change your mind.”

Silence cloaked the room for a few moments, and you felt her watching you, waiting to see if you would fall apart. But you felt stable, now that you were alert and in control again.

So you sighed and nodded. “It’s Ian. It’s always Ian.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“When you were gone, I saw him killing you over and over again. And once you came back…” you shuddered. “Sometimes I’d hallucinate him coming for you all over again. This time, he came for me.”

Emily wrapped her arms around you, and you fell into her embrace, breathing in her soft scent.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, not for the first time since she’d returned, and you were sure it wouldn’t be the last.

You shook your head. “I don’t want you to apologize. I don’t blame you; I blame Ian. And he’s dead and can’t hurt anyone anymore. I just need to work through that a little more, I think.”

Emily hesitated. “You know… Hotch has had me seeing a counselor since I came back. I could get some recommendations from her for you, if you’d like.”

You’d talked to your primary doctor about your sleeping problems, but you hadn’t considered the idea of therapy before.

“Think about it,” Emily said quickly. “No pressure. I just want you to know your options.”

You nuzzled against her and hummed. “I think it’s a good idea.”

“Good,” Emily said, and you could hear her smiling. “I’ll call her in the morning. Do you want to stay up a little longer or go back to sleep?”

You closed your eyes, feeling perfectly content. “I’m good right here for a while.”

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