#past major character death

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

down and out and out of luck (we're spinning, but the needle's stuck)

Stephanie Brown is not the first former Robin to find out about her successor’s fate from the news. The experience is as brutal as it ever was.

_____

@amonthofwhump‘s 12 Days of Whumpmas Prompt: Too Late

Titles taken from the song Sinners by Barns Courtney.

You can find resources related to the current Roe crisis on my sideblog here.

(tw vomiting, canon-typical violence, no happy ending, major character death, past child abuse)

See also on Ao3

_________________________________

So, here's the thing:

Steph's walking down the street, back to her safehouse, fresh from an undercover op. Not the nightmare that St. Hadrian's was, thankfully, but still a bit of a rough business. She's got blood drying on her knuckles and a bit of ash in her hair, but she's breathing easy, satisfied that another branch of Leviathan has been snapped off for good.

It was really more her own op than anyone else's, self-contained in a way that reminded her of the early Spoiler days. The people she was working "with" didn't know a hell lot about Talia al Ghul's plan beyond the broader outline, so there wasn't a whole lot she could pass back to Bruce there, but she got some work done. Did some good.

She's powering up her phone as she walks, her real phone, not the burner that Talia's people used to keep track of her when they thought she was theirs, the one she spoke into when she wanted to channel Arthur Brown's most villainous drawl. She feels a bit of relief as she does it, like she's coming up for air, coming back to her world.

Then she sees the first item in her news alerts, and she stops breathing.

And Stephanie, okay, she has stopped breathing in this line of work. Not just having the wind knocked out of her, no, she's talking about the place between life and death where you find yourself standing when you least expect it. She has closed her eyes and teetered on the edge and it's a feeling, a memory, that never really leaves you.

She's standing there while people flow around her, standing like a lump in a strange city with no one who gives a second glance to the girl gaping at her phone. She's standing there and she can't breathe in a way that makes her feel dead all over again, except the dead aren't meant to hurt like this.

Steph looks down at the headline for a minute or an hour or an eternity and then she realizes it's buzzing in her hand, blasting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme. She chose it to be funny; she can't quite remember the joke.

Brown, do something about that inane music.

The phone is so cold against her ear. When did it get so cold?

"Steph?" Her Batman--not the Batman, her Batman--sounds exhausted, wrung out. He sounds like he'd been crying, raw and burned out. "Steph, I need to--"

"Is it true?" she asks. It hurts to speak, like forcing out words on a hospital bed.

Dick lets out a choked, frantic sound. "You--no. No, I was supposed to get to you in time. You weren't supposed to see it on, on the fucking, on the fucking news, not like, like..."

"Shut up." The words feel like spitting blood. "Shut up, this is, this is bullshit. This is another stupid fucking plan like faking his death or naming him after Tim's car. This is Bruce being an asshole, this is another test."

He lets out a sob and Steph's knees start to buckle. "It's not, Steph. I'm so sorry."

"You don't know--"

"I was there. I saw, saw the light leave his, his eyes."

Eyes. Big eyes, suspicious eyes, bruised eyes, lost eyes. Sometimes they flashed green, sometimes they looked bluer, sometimes they were a dark and thoughtful brown. She never could figure out the deal with her Robin's eyes.

"I held him, Steph."

“No, you didn’t,” Her voice is building to a scream. "You didn’t, you stupid fucking partner, put him on the phone--”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry--”

“Shut up, shut up.” Her words tangle with his, like that time they tried to out-sing-scream each other on patrol and Damian called them disgraces. “Shut up--”

"Hey, lady," someone says. "Calm down--"

"Steph," Dick whispers, like a prayer. Batman reaching for his Batgirl across the miles, hands joined over a spreading pool of blood. Calling her Steph and not Brown, and she never thought that something like that would hurt so much.

A body jostles hers. The phone slips from nerveless fingers and this time she lets it fall, watches it smash to a million pieces in the street. Steph doubles over and vomits on the remains.

Then she's running, sprinting past red lights and swirling crowds, feet smacking against the ground like bullets. She runs like she can escape the tears stinging in her eyes or the scream caught in her throat, like she can escape the words ROBIN DEAD IN GOTHAM smeared across cyberspace.

Damian, she thinks.

She misses the funeral.

It's rushed, fuck knows why; maybe Bruce was trying to get ahead of the Leagues, keeping them from stealing Damian back again. Maybe he just couldn't stand the idea of Damian cooling above ground for so long. Maybe he wanted to punish her and Cass and everyone who wasn't in the immediate area, personally. She will never know with that man.

To be honest, she does seriously consider digging up Damian's corpse and hauling him back to Nanda Parbat--homicidal rages be damned, Steph's dealt with the little shit over sugar-highs and violence-happy lows, she can deal with this. But there's no way she's getting out of that situation alive and the thought of leaving Damian, confused and hurt and alone with the people responsible for this mess in the first place, makes her a little sick.

Besides, she has more immediate concerns. Steph knows what she's going to do long before she walks into the Batcave, eyes red from more than jet lag, buzzed on shitty airport coffee, shaking all over.

Her hair is a mess and every time she has to brush a lock out of her eyes, she remembers Damian braiding it, his fingers more delicate and careful than she had ever expected. I used to do this with Mother, he'd said.

Jason's memorial glints at her and she remembers sitting in the cave with Dick back in his Batman days, Damian sleeping beneath a tangle of wires between them after one fucked-up mission or another. Dick's voice, soft and weary, telling her a story about dead Robins and missed funerals and truths you weren't meant to learn from the news, Dick telling her about leaving his own home with an aching, bloodied face.

"Bruce," she says, dead calm, and he turns to look at her. Or rather, at her fist.

It's a harder blow than the time she slapped him, back when he fucked with her day while pretending to be dead. Back then, she hadn't none that he'd been hiding from Dick and Damian, that he'd left them alone with fucking Elliot for as long as he could before getting off his ass and coming home.

He staggers backward, reaching out to brace himself on a nearby table. If he was more himself, he probably would have either ducked or not flinched at all. As it is, he just stares at her, one hand pressed to his cheek, face perfectly blank.  

"Hi," Steph says. She doesn't mention that the second time she'd called Dick, he'd been given sedatives and loopy enough to tell her that Bruce had almost given Damian up to the League, a tidbit that had left Steph throwing up again as Arthur Brown's face melted into Talia al Ghul's behind her eyes. She doesn't talk about Tim's text, saying about how they'd spotted Bruce kissing Talia like an idiot on the Batcave's security footage, for whatever fucking reason.

She doesn't scream like she wants to, yell I left him in your hands, I trusted you to figure it out, I thought you knew what you were doing. You broke me on the altar of Robin, you burned Jason, you fractured Dick and Tim in ways I'll probably never fully see, but Damian was supposed to survive. He was supposed to fly.

None of that, because if Steph opened her mouth wide enough to let it out, she'd rip open a black hole buried inside her, the one where Arthur Brown and her baby and No Man's Land and Roman's laughter and the sharp claws of her nightmares all wait. She'd suck in the cave around them, and it wouldn't be enough, it wouldn't be enough, it'd just break her in two and she can't have that. She can’t remember Damian if she goes mad today.

So, Steph just shrugs and says, "Good to see you." Then she turns and walks away.

"By the way, if you hang his suit up like a taxidermied head in here, I'll tell the entire world who Batman is," she calls over her shoulder.

She thinks she hears him call out for her as she climbs the stairs. She doesn't look back.

The house is quiet around her, still and dark, sheets hanging limply over furniture. Tim is passed out at his desk, surrounded by piles of papers. Titus is sprawled in front of the cold fireplace, breathing gently, while Alfred-the-cat's eyes gleam suspiciously from the shadows. Alfred-the human is sitting in the same chair he was in when she arrived, sipping from the same methodical cup of tea.  

"I believe Master Grayson is out visiting the young master's grave," he says, dead calm, when she asks, like Steph can't see the dull look in his eye or the slight rattle of his teacup. It makes her feel just a little bad about kind of wanting to punch him, too, for letting Damian go that night.

She nods and slinks away; she doesn't have the courage to deal with Dick's face or Damian's grave right now, but she can't quite bring herself to leave, either. Her feet drag her upstairs, down the gently creaking hallway, towards the room she's only really visited once or twice.

The door gives easily, and that feels so wrong. Damian was the kind of kid that always kept his door locked, always wanting to be in control of his exits. The thought makes her hesitate, wondering if this is somehow a violation of his privacy, but the thought of his room being left cold and empty feels wrong, too.

So, she steels her resolve and makes her way inside, blinking as her eyes adjust to the dark. She can make out the glint of swords on the walls, the outline of his books on their shelves, the flicker of moonlight in the window, Alfred and Titus's beds lined up neatly on the floor. And she--she can see the body of a small boy, slumped across the bed.

It says far, far too much that her first thought is horror, outrage. Did one of them really dig the body up and leave it like that, prop it up like Jason's uniform in another hideous dimply? It takes a few seconds for her to think maybe, maybe...

But no, hope is crushed before it even has a chance to form when the boy shifts slightly and she sees the flicker of red hair, the curve of a shoulder covered by a flannel jacket. He's sprawled across the bed awkwardly, without getting under the neatly folded sheets; clearly, he didn't intend to fall asleep at all.

Steph hovers there, not sure if she should slip back out or not, but the door decides for her by slipping close with a thump. Shit. Colin Wilkes jolts awake, automatically fumbling for the light at one hand as he rubs at his face with the other.

"Dames...?" He sees her and stiffens, reddened eyes going wide. "I--I'm so sorry, Ms. Batgirl, I didn't mean--"

"It's okay, sweetie," Steph says, keeping her voice gentle. She crosses the room, letting him see her hands (Colin's background is murky, but something about the way he acts and his history in the system has always reminded her too much of home), and plops down in Damian's old chair. "I don't mind, really. And call me Steph."

Damian would fill her with holes if she ever dared to call him "sweetie," and laugh at the idea of using her nickname, but Colin has always been different. Better at being a kid, in his own way, even if he fights crime in the body of a gigantic man. And to be honest, she's always had a soft spot for the boy; call her sentimental, thinking of her old days as a self-starter who wanted to do good.

"Did you go to the funeral?" she asks. It sounds better than Did he let you go? She's not sure how Bruce feels about Colin, to be honest--sure, he managed not to be a dick about Colin attacking him under Scarecrow's fear gas, but he's still spewing that "no metas in Gotham" nonsense, and well...his headspace as a whole is a mystery to her right now.

She really hopes he doesn’t act like an asshole here, because then she’d be really mad. It's not like Colin asked for this shit to happen to him anymore than Damian did; they both just choose what to do about it afterward. The thought makes it a little hard to breathe when she thinks about it for too long.

"I...yeah." He shrugs. "It was pretty down-low cause nobody's supposed to know Dami's, um, y'know...." Colin swallows hard. "I didn't stick around for long, but I think the cops came and arrested Mr. Wayne."

"Seriously?" Even if she's pissed at Bruce, that sounds like a brutal turn of events.

"I dunno what happened," Colin shrugs. "I mean, they let him go. I don't think he's gonna go to prison like that thing with the Lynd lady."

Right. Steph had almost forgotten about that--first Vesper in the bedroom and Talia in the Batcave, like a goddamn game of Clue. They're sitting in a house full of corpses, aren't they?

She tries to focus on the living boy in front of her. "How're you holding up, huh?"

Colin looks down at his hands, rubbing one hand over another. There's a faint scar on his right palm and she wonders where it came from. If Damian knew that story.

"I was runnin' around, trying to help some of the kids Leviathan fucked up," he says softly. "Then I looked up and...it was on the billboard, you know, where they show the heroes and stuff sometimes? It was all over the news. He looked so..." A low, guttural sigh. "I know Dames was small, real small, but he never felt small. Does that make sense?"

Steph nods. "Yeah, he was larger than life. And he always wanted you to know it, didn't he?" She tries to smile, but it feels flat and dull.

Colin cracks a wan, short-lived attempt at a smile. "Mr. Ni--Dick, he came to the orphanage. Said how sorry he was, got me to the funeral. He just kept crying. I mean, I, I was, too...I..." He rubs his eyes again, harder this time.

"Dami, he--he told me his mom was the most beautiful lady in the world, that she was the best fighter he'd ever known, that she was smart and wise and brave. Then he told me I had to stay away from her, 'cause she wasn’t always herself, and there was a part of her might kill me. And then she....and I know that parents do things like that to their kids sometimes, but I don't know why."

"I don't know, either." And she’s been asking herself that question for a very long time.

"Were you, were you there, Ms--Steph?" Colin's voice is small, smaller than a body on a screen. He's not asking about the funeral. "Did you see him when..."

"No." Her mouth feels dry. "I wasn't there." Too late, too late.

"I shoulda been there," Colin whispers, like he's plucking the words straight out of her head. "I should--should have--" He slumps over, head in his hands, sobbing. "I'm sorry..."

"No," Steph whispers, and to her horror she finds her voice starting to rattle and break, too. She forces herself to stand and make her over to the bed, to Damian's bed.

"Colin, can I hug you?" She knows it's cruel to keep comparing the two boys like this, but she can't help remembering...

Damian, can I hug you? Just this once, I'm cold. (He'd had a bruise on his small cheek, and he'd been staring at the river for far too long, but making it about herself seemed to make things easier)

Tt. If you insist.

"Okay, Ms. Batgirl," Colin whispers, and she doesn't bother correcting him as she drops onto the bed and throws her arms around his skinny shoulders, tugging him close. He sobs into her chest and Steph lets herself sob back, because apparently, she still has some tears to shed.

"It wasn't your fault," she whispers, to him and to herself--to him because he needs it, and herself because if she can't believe it, she'll go crazy, or worse, turn into Bruce. "It wasn't your fault, you hear me?"

"It feels like it," Colin forces out. "And it hurts so much. I miss him so much."

"I know," Steph whispers, because that's all she can give him, that and the tears that drop onto his hair as they weep together in a dead boy's room. "I know, kiddo. I know."

[samtheacesheep]

Chapter 2 Description: 

Zack tries again to befriend Milo.

[glxyqst]

I Hold Your Hand in Mine

Summary: Connor and Gavin left the DPD two years ago, though Nines still works there as a Detective. Their polyamorous relationship is jeopardized when Nines starts disappearing for lengths at a time, and Connor and Gavin uncover a dark secret from the past.

[mellowthorn]

the fact that fitz more or less stops aging after tawny man. like. everyone else gets to grow old and move on, but fitz remains literally, physically stuck in the past. he tries to hide it with a beard and lets himself go out of shape a bit, but ultimately he does not really age or change during that time. just like despite pretending to be all fine and happy, he can not truly bring himself to move on from the fool.

[v1model]

you'd fit perfectly to me and we'd end our loneliness; melt this curse away / though i'll never know your name, i'll cry for you the same.

snowless version under the cut

[reijuism]

Do you ever think about how he was smiling like he didn't have a care in the world, so sincere and genuine, even while having an internal panic attack? Do you ever think about how he kept his composure, despite the past wounds he so tenderly bandaged before roughly covering them up to never look at them again being ripped open, even with everything going to complete shit, Do you ever think about how he made sure his crewmates would think he's okay, while his insides are clawing at him?

[puppyeared]

Atla live action 😐

[lexosaurus]

Not to be a boomer-energy hater ass bitch on main but I’m begging you guys to think critically about the content warning tags you’re using. ESPECIALLY in the context of this media.

If you tag a warning for death and your art/fic is just the “danny dies in the portal accident”…babe that’s literally just canon. We see that in the opening segments of the show. It’s in the title card. It’s approved for CHILDREN to watch by Viacom, the place that blocks literally everything.

Like you don’t need to give a content warning for death about a character that’s canonically half-dead. If you’re gonna tag for Danny’s death, I want him DEAD. Like, FULLY dead. Not coming back as a ghost dead. He g o n e.

That’s what the death tag means. It means someone died, not Danny’s canon portal accident that the entire show is based around.

I get that you’re tryna be nice to your followers but I promise giving a cw for something that is canonically shown multiple times in the show is not how you should be using tags. It’s just further sanitizing an already extremely sanitized piece of media, and it’s also misusing the death tag.

[ink-beneath-her-fingernails]

these walls have eyes and ears (they kind of look like yours)

read it on ao3   |   primary masterlist   |   Critical Role masterlist

Fandom: Critical Role (Mighty Nein)

TWs: haunting, referenced past canonical major character death. please let me know if there are any other warnings that should be added.

1 of Inks’ 2023 WIP Bingo [card here]; 18 of Mighty Nein Drabble Spree

Wordcount: 1,241

Originally Published: January 22, 2023

Summary: "We're calling it the M.T. Home now!"

Essek freezes.

"The... Empty Home?"

(Or: The Xhorhouse isn't the Xhorhouse, and what none of the Mighty Nein seem to realize is that they're not exactly the only ones living there.)

Notes: I kept agonizing over this for ages before i remembered that half the reason I started this series in the first place was to learn to not be a perfectionist with my writing. this didn't turn out really how i wanted it to but i like it anyway so,,,

cad isn't given an exact age, apparently he was stated to be 80-100 and then 85-120 so i just met in the middle and said he's definitely a lot older than the rest of the gang and essek's age or younger. might revisit the original concept of this to try to do it a little better some day, but probably not tbh. basically this was supposed to be either "the xhorhouse gains some level of sentience and a personality resembling molly's at least a little bit bc of all the latent magic + blood spilled + magical artifacts laying around & their effects mixing unpredictably from being in close proximity for extended lengths of time + THE TREE + the power of the m9's sheer love and belief they don't even realize they're pouring into it" or "molly's spirit somehow attaches itself to the xhorhouse"

Transfer Notes: won’t be posting for six sentence sunday bc I finally got this up!

Here is the thing about people: they have a spark.

Every person, of every kind (and, it can be argued, and indeed proven, perhaps every animal, and plant, and rock, and inanimate object and non-person as well—but that is for another day), regardless of heritage, upbringing, or apparent learned or innate magical ability, has within them potential. Of what exactly, the answer varies.

But the thing about potential is that it's powerful.

And the thing about people—especially people who don't know that they are in control of powerful things—is that they often are prone to a few different things: sentiment, stupidity, and belief, among others.

More often than not, these tendencies happen to go together.

And when a lot of people, of a lot of different potentials, with a lot of power and sentiment and not a small bit of stupidity between them come together, and believe, just for a moment, even quietly, in one single idea—

Well.

A lot of things can happen.

  "The M.T. Home."

"M.T.? What's—?"

"M.T., for Mollymauk Tealeaf."

"...Oh."

"Meet in the middle, maybe? M.T. Home, with the Xhorhouse Spa?"

"I think I like that."

This is just the one step of many in this long, strange journey, but it's an important one—not that any of them will be aware of that for a long while.

  "We're calling it the M.T. Home now!"

Essek freezes.

"The... Empty Home?"

The tiefling just smiles brightly at him.

"Yep! Caleb came up with it!"

"And we have a hot tub, now," the monk pitches in.

"Right! The Xhorhouse Spa," the tiefling—Jester, was it? He should really make an effort to remember their names, unfortunately—announces, waving her hands through the air like she's envisioning it painted on a sign or a wall somewhere.

Dear gods, he hopes they don't decide to make a sign.

Well. The Empty Home, then. (He is not going to acknowledge the other half of the title given if it means giving merit to that atrocious pun.)

He glances at each of the group before him, all looking either a little sheepish, incredibly proud of themselves, or fondly amused at their fellows' antics.

None of them seem to think that the name they've just given him is in any way unsettling, or might have any political implications.

Essek breathes deeply through his nose, and takes a moment to remind himself that Heroes of the Dynasty though they may be, loose ends, returners of gods, potential threat to everything he's been doing and all, the oldest among them by decades is—at most—Essek's age. And that one's not exactly the sharpest of the bunch, either, when it comes to these things.

Alright, Essek decides. The Mighty Nein now live in the Empty Home, then, and there's no reason that needs to get back to anyone else with political weight. Maybe he can save these fools from themselves for a little while longer. (They may yet have use.)

Essek forces a polite smile, shuffles them on to other topics of more import, and tries not to think about all the other empty homes he's known.

  It's almost kind of funny, Essek thinks, because for all that they call it the Empty Home, every time he enters, it feels more and more full of life in a way he's never quite experienced before.

There are wind chimes behind the front door, murals on the walls, stray weapons and baubles littered on shelves and floors, incense coming from some room or another, the smell of something divine cooking coming from another, new wall-hangings or tshotskes or pieces of furniture everywhere he looks, often one or more animals dashing about and making themselves at home in various nooks and crannies, fires burning in every hearth, yelling and singing and laughter in so many languages from every corner, the faint taste and blur of colors left from lingering magic, one more shelf in the library full to the brim with new books and one more overstuffed throw-pillow on the floor, the tree—no, he couldn't possibly forget the tree.

So full of life—he almost doesn't think to question it when there's just a little more.

Almost. But Essek didn't get this far this young by writing off important details.

Details like how whatever book Caleb's looking for always seems to be pressed just a little further out than all the others, easy for him to find and grab quickly, always when he's so wrapped up in talking theory with Essek that he doesn't even notice it.

Details like how unlocked doors always seem to open just before anyone puts their hand on the knob, how a loose tile flicks up beneath feet anytime someone tries to eavesdrop on anything, sending them sprawling, like the way a floorboard will somehow manage to get itself playfully caught in Fjord's cloak to allow Jester or Nott or Beau a head-start in running after pulling some sort of prank on him, or how none of the blood that's inevitably spilt ever stains the tile or the wood or the wall before someone thinks to clean it.

Details like how when the group gathers for a meal as he leaves, Essek can just catch that none of them really have to pull out their chairs, or indeed, push them in again, and none of them think much of it; or how if you watch very closely, the dimensions of the whole building will shift ever-so-slightly, rounding corners and opening up entrances a bit more, doming ceilings, anytime one of them sings or plays an instrument, until it can be heard through the whole house.

Details like how the house is being helpful. Details like the house caring for its occupants, or, dare he say, even doting on them. Details like how, for how incredible they are at so many things, the Mighty Nein are still the dumbest people he knows in that none of them seem to realize that any of it is happening.

One week of rare consistent good weather for Rosohna, Caduceus, Jester, Nott, and Yasha (with occasional assistance from Fjord) systematically take out every single window and replace them all with new, hand-made stained glass windows. Some of them make pictures or patterns, and some do not, but all of them are obviously from random shards of glass they'd collected from who-knows-where, cleaned, and re-purposed, not made for this use.

When they're done, they let all the windows open to test them, show them off, let in the fresh air, and enjoy the nice day. When they do, Essek takes notice of how they each nudge just a bit more this way or a little more that way as soon as they aren't looking, until they're all in just the right positions to catch the light being given off by that gods-forsaken tree.

It almost seems—and he hates to make the comparison, but Essek can't help but think that—it almost looks like it's preening.

An Empty Home indeed, it had been empty for so long, before these terribly good assholes moved in—he can't even remember the last thing his Den must've used it for before this.

How very long it was empty.

How very long it had, to wait for something else to move in.

Essek wonders if it was always like this... or if something finally did.

[whumpshaped]

Epilogue – Dusk

there u go :) last chappy...

Dollhouse Masterlist

tw major character death, funeral, aftermath of trauma, paranoia, anxiety, police mention, hospital stay, murder mention, alcohol mention, implied past alcohol problems, implied past noncon, lady whump, implied eye gore, aftermath of surgery, past captivity, divorce, estranged family, again it's a lot i tried to get everything i'm sorry if i didn't

They weren’t supposed to be there that day. “It would be a small ceremony,” they’d told them, “it wouldn’t be appropriate. Or good for you.”

Dusk– no, he wasn’t Dusk anymore. He would never be called Dusk ever again. Diell wasted absolutely no time finding a way to be able to get out of the ward in time and take Ginger with him. They both agreed that just spoken accounts of the funeral wouldn’t be enough. They had to see the body be lowered into the goddamn hole and immediately deface the tombstone. 

He was fairly sure that Grace and Jonathan’s father played a role in them being able to sneak off as easily as they did. He would never thank the guy, not even in some weird, abstract way, but he was definitely pleased to know that he knew that any doll had more of a right to attend the ceremony than even family members.

They had to leave Pepper in the hospital, to all of their dismay. They were more hurt than the two of them, plus they wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyway. They asked for the most gruesomely detailed retelling of the funeral later, which both Diell and Ginger agreed to provide.

“I hope she’s cremated,” Ginger muttered on their way to the cemetery. “No, actually, I hope she’s not. I want to see that it’s her. If she was cremated, they could totally just put whatever in the urn, and no one would ever know.”

“Don’t even say that, holy shit.” The thought of Grace being alive in the world somewhere was a terrifying one. He had managed to kill her one time, and only because she was unconscious, but maybe that luck wouldn’t last a second round. “I’m sure they’ll bury the whole body. Like, intact. I bet it’ll be open-casket as well, with corpse make-up and all that shit.”

“Oh, she would never go six feet under without proper make-up. Never.”

Diell was the first to begin laughing, and Ginger followed soon after. The sounds of their joy felt wildly out of place at the enormous gates of the cemetery, but neither of them could find it in their soul to care. They saw people running around in pink instead of black, pink suits, pink dresses, pink ties to match. It was something out of an absurdist horror movie.

They ducked behind some gravestones when they caught a glimpse of the witch mother herself, their excitement suddenly giving way to fear. If Grace was that unhinged, that could only mean two things: either she had surpassed her mother in unhingedness, going on to become the supreme unhinged demon, or she’d learned everything from the even more unhinged woman who came before her. Diell held his breath, hoping with all his heart that it was the former. 

When he looked at Ginger’s face, he could tell that the same thoughts and fears were playing on her mind. Maybe this had been a bad idea, and maybe the hospital staff had been correct, and maybe it was embarrassing and weird to be hiding behind the markers of others’ final resting places. Diell glanced at the tombstone that was a couple inches away from his face, squinting to be able to read the name through all that moss. 

Sorry, Thomas and Esther Taylor. This is kind of an emergency.

“You think she even knows what we look like?” Ginger whispered.

“No idea. Maybe Grace showed her photos.”

“We should’ve planned further than two sweatshirts with hoods.”

“I’m happy that I even managed to snatch these up. Imagine if we had to come here in dresses or hospital gowns.”

Ginger shivered. “Yeah. Fuck that.”

They spent the entire ceremony huddled behind the headstones, listening to the priest go on about what a loving daughter and sister Grace was, occasionally peeking out to try and get a look at the body. Thankfully, not many people were attending, and Ginger turned to him with a triumphant smile soon enough.

“It’s her. It’s really her!”

“Fucking good. I hope the end to this whole shit isn’t some weird, Jesus-type resurrection.”

“Now you’re just being stupid,” she teased, but placed a dirty hand on top of his, her expression turning deathly serious. “If she moves a muscle, I’ll choke her right back to hell. Yeah?”

She meant it, Diell could tell. There was no condescension in her voice. She wasn’t telling him that he was too paranoid. She sounded exactly like someone who had thought about this before, in excruciating detail, and came to the conclusion that she was willing to risk her own life in exchange for the peace of mind that’d come with feeling Grace’s pulse disappear under her own hands. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly, giving her hand a squeeze.

They watched as the crowd started swarming towards the actual grave, and they followed them from a safe distance, pretending to be taking a leisurely walk or something. Diell didn’t even know what their cover story was, honestly. But no one ended up paying them any mind, instead focusing on the wailing mother. 

From what Diell could tell, there were no other people from Grace’s close family. Maybe her grandmother? It was hard to tell. It didn’t really matter. He was happy to know that her father decided to spend time with Jonathan in the hospital instead of coming to attend this pretentious display of wealth and ridiculousness. 

The casket was slowly lowered into the hole, and both Diell and Ginger were watching it like hawks. No tricks. No ghosts. No vampires, no zombies, no nothing. Grace’s body was dropped down and buried, so deep that there wasn’t a single chance that she could’ve crawled out. Her mother knelt on her grave, weeping like someone out of a tragedy, grabbing handfuls of dirt without a care in whether it’d ruin her expensive-looking, pink gloves.

Diell turned to his friend, briefly pretending he was gonna retch. Ginger had to hide a smile. 

They lingered until after everyone else had already left, only competing with Grace’s mother by that point. She had to eventually be escorted out by the police while she kicked and screamed, claiming that they were disrespecting a mother’s right to stay with her beloved, deceased daughter. Ginger rolled her eyes at the argument, finally sauntering over to the grave with Diell in tow. 

“So… that’s that,” he said. “She’s gone.”

“I really want to grab a hammer and fuck up the headstone.” Ginger looked up at him, tears shining in her eyes. “One of those big sledgehammers. I want to just… go at it. I want to fucking destroy it.”

“I know.” He carefully pulled her closer, slow enough to give her plenty of chances to push him away if she didn’t want to be touched. But instead of pushing him away, she wrapped her arms around him, sobbing into his chest.

“It’s so unfair. It’s so unfair. We were there for years, and she just gets to go out like this? And– and then she gets a fucking funeral? And some disgusting, liar priest kissing her ass? What did any of her victims get? The ones who didn’t make it? What did Belle get? Or Sunny? What did the ones I didn’t even know get? What– what the fuck is wrong with people?” 

He rubbed circles into her back as he listened, survivor’s guilt, sorrow, and the anguish of injustice eating away at him too. Ginger was right, and it was a horrible feeling to know that neither of them could do a thing to right Grace’s wrongs. They especially couldn’t force her to right them herself, now. She was out, just like that, enjoying her vacation in Barbie hell somewhere. 

Ginger took a while to calm down. When she did, Diell gently pushed her away by the shoulders, looking into her puffy, red eyes. “It’s over, Maya,” he whispered, a part of him still scared that he might’ve uttered the magic words too soon.

She couldn’t get a word out before she had to cover her mouth with both hands, attempting to muffle her whimpers. “You fucking asshole,” she choked out, and Diell was worried he might’ve genuinely messed up. “You waited ‘till I was somewhat okay, and then you spring that shit on me? Why are you even bringing up the weird shit I told you during– what’s wrong with you?” She half-heartedly punched his arm, then wiped at her face with the sleeve of her sweater. 

“I– I’m sorry, I–”

She hugged him again, with even more momentum this time, her frail body slamming into his with the power of a three-tonne truck. “I can’t believe you actually remembered something so stupid. You really– you safekept it for me… You really did…”

Diell hesitantly put his arms around her again, waiting for her to change her stance on this again. But she didn’t. The two of them just stood there, right on top of Grace’s grave, in an embrace so tight it probably cracked some ribs. 

They didn’t leave the cemetery until the next morning. They didn’t even sleep, – or at least never at the same time, – they just sat on a nearby bench, watching the pile of dirt for any anomalies or paranormal activity. Hell, they wouldn’t have been surprised if Grace’s mother showed up again with candles and chicken blood. When nothing like that happened, they crawled back to the hospital, allowing themselves to be yelled at and sent for an immediate shower and check-ups. 

-

Messed up. It was entirely messed up that it had already been a year. While Diell had been with Grace each day seemed too long, but they also just blurred together. On the day of his escape, he’d been informed that he’d spent fifteen months in that hellhole. He later counted; exactly 477 days. More than a year. He both thought it had been shorter and longer than that, and honestly, he had no idea what to feel about the actual number.

He knew he was the newest acquisition at the time. No other doll had been added to the collection after his kidnapping, which made him the… luckiest? His one year was absolutely nothing compared to what he’d heard the twins say. Eight years… More than eight, even.

Maya had a more difficult time counting, both mentally and from a memory standpoint. At first, she didn’t want to do anything with the data. Her first order of business was to make an appointment with a hairdresser and get rid of her naturally ginger hair, demanding a deep blue to forest green gradient. She’d come home that day to see Diell on the computer, obsessively counting and recounting his days spent in captivity, and she flipped her hair and told him to enjoy being out.

Later that day, Diell saw her checking the calendar app against old newspaper clippings. “I can’t remember when I was taken. Can’t remember the day. I… I even got the year wrong.” 

Diell couldn’t even imagine. She had counted and counted, eventually coming up with the final numbers: 5 years and seven months, or 67 months, or 2039 days. They had both stared at the numbers for a very long time.

“I’m so much older now,” she’d whispered. “I’m twenty-six now. I… I was celebrating my twentieth that year.”

That wasn’t the only thing she had to reconcile with. Her disappearance had turned out to be the last nail in the coffin of her parents’ crumbling marriage. After she’d been presumed dead, her mother filed for a divorce. Her childhood home had been sold, and her parents were both in another relationship now, ones she wanted nothing to do with. She didn’t even tell them she had come back, dismissing their calls and slamming the door in her mother's face when she tried to visit.

She was living with Diell instead, in an apartment the two of them had bought with the compensation money they’d been awarded. He was now sitting on the couch, bouncing his leg and trying not to think about tomorrow.

“I invited Tai,” Maya said as she entered the living room. “They said yes, like, immediately. They didn’t even give me the whole ‘Oh, I don’t know, do I wanna hang out with losers?’ talk. I think they're stressed out too.”

Pepper had thought long and hard about the name change situation. They wanted something absolutely deadly and dangerous, but also something that sounded cool. They had browsed a long list of venomous snakes for days, finally settling on Taipan. “If I’d had venom back then, aside from just… insults, then I would’ve been fine. Manifesting or whatever.”

“It's weird,” Diell muttered. “Like, the whole anniversary thing. Just weird. I don’t like it.”

Maya sat down next to him, sighing heavily. “You think the others are also this fucked up from it?”

Diell shrugged. “You think it’s fucked that I don’t even text them anymore?” he asked quietly, the ever-present guilt in his heart throbbing a little more as he said the words. This time, it was Maya who shrugged.

“I don’t either. So either we’re both fucked, or neither of us is.”

They sat there in silence, listening to the clock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Each second brought them closer to the dreaded day, increasing their anxiety tenfold. 

“Do you also have these… weird fears about it?” Maya whispered. “Like she’ll bust down the front door at midnight?”

“Yeah. Like, ‘haha, time’s up, you got to be free for a year, but now let’s get back to the–’ you know. Back to all that shit.”

Maya nodded without a word. She looked absolutely haunted, and if Diell had to guess, he probably looked similar. “It’s so stupid. I saw her be buried. It’s not like many people come back from the dead.”

“I know. I can’t logic it away either, though. So we’re just stuck with our weird paranoia.” He put his arm around her shoulders, gently pulling her closer. He’d learned early on that Maya would never ask to be comforted like that, but more often than not, she was very appreciative if someone made the decision for her. “But we have each other, right?”

“Yeah, Captain Cheesy.”

Taipan barged in with such force that both others jumped, flinching away from each other as if they’d been caught red-handed. “Stop doing that!” Diell snapped.

“Absolutely not!” They pointed in his vague direction with their cane. “How else would I prove that I’m still a menace?”

Their doll eyes were taken out almost immediately upon arriving at the hospital. Grace had done the sort of job on them that was expected of an amateur with no surgical knowledge or training, and the doctors worked tirelessly to reverse as much of the damage as possible. But before the operation even started, Taipan had been offered two routes they could go with their new prosthetics. Diell naively thought they’d jump on the opportunity to make it as natural as possible; he’d seen some absolutely amazing work on the wall of the private hospital’s ocularist.

Well… They were now rocking two pitch black orbs with realistic stars painted on them, looking like they held all the secrets of the universe behind them.

Maya laughed, jumping up to go and hug them. Diell watched the two of them with a smile, his fear-based irritation melting away. “I’m so glad you came, I need someone to back me up with the music choices.”

“I would never live with someone who refused to acknowledge that his taste is inferior and I should be the only one with party-music privileges.”

“I’m not gonna be bullied in my own home!” 

Maya stuck her tongue out at him; as did Tai, without even seeing that she was doing it too. Diell couldn’t stifle a grin. 

“Are we ordering pizza?” they asked as they walked over to the couch, plopping down right next to Diell. “There’s this new place that’s just opened, and I’m telling you, neither of you have ever seen cheese with a better pull quality. It’s glorious.”

“I mean, if they have Hawaiian–”

“You’re absolutely disgusting, Diell. I am stealing Maya away.”

Before more insults could’ve been thrown his way, Diell’s phone went off with a notification. Valerie’s name flashed on the screen, and he quickly checked the texts to see if it was something urgent. She probably wasn’t in the best headspace either.

By evening time, all four of them were sitting on the living room floor, eating pepperoni pizza off the coffee table. It was a weird little sleepover, with plenty of laughter and tears both. Sometimes they almost completely forgot about why they had even gathered together like this, and sometimes all they could talk about was Grace and their time spent in her pink little prison.

“When you can actually see, when you can actually get out and see the outside world, and know you’re not there– I imagine that’s different. I’m sure it was so different for Bora.” 

Maya was saying the words out loud, so Tai could also know what the conversation was about. Valerie had an easier time talking to them one on one; when a little group of them were together like this, it was easier to have someone translate as she signed. 

“But for me, all I had for the past years were sounds and scents. And touch. And Bora felt the same out here as he did back there. I just couldn’t stand it. He kept making me feel like I was still there.”

“Are you okay now, though? With us?” Diell asked, and Val nodded.

“Yeah.” She paused a little. “It’s different with everyone else. I don’t even understand how Bora could put aside his trauma to try and help me. It must’ve taken so much. Me leaving was the best decision for both of us, even if he was upset at the time.”

Diell glanced at Maya, wondering whether she felt the same way. Their ‘relationship’ at Grace’s place didn’t last more than maybe a couple months, and never went further than a kiss on the cheek or a peck on the lips. It wasn’t really comparable to what Val had talked about at the hospital. Still, he couldn’t help but hope he wasn’t going to lose his best friend.

“I fully get that. And you gotta put yourself first, right? That’s just how it is.” Tai felt around for another slice, and Diell quickly put one on their plate for them. “I’m sure he has plenty of people’s support from within Jonathan’s little group. And outside of that, too.”

“I’m sure as well.” Maya put a gentle hand on Val’s knee. “It’s not your responsibility to nurse others back to health when you’re still working on yourself. We’ve all been through a lot. You get out, you do the best you can– it’s all you can do.”

The conversations  fizzled out as they inched closer and closer to midnight. They were all either deathly still or fidgeting constantly, no inbetween. Diell and Maya were staring at the clock, giving quiet reminders of time’s passage. It was like the most fucked up New Year’s Eve party. 

“One minute.”

“Thirty seconds.”

“Twenty.”

“Ten.”

“Five.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

Diell held his breath, and with how quiet the room had gotten, he assumed everyone else did too. He thought about that day from exactly a year ago; stabbing Grace, the feeling of blood sticking to his hands, the sun’s blinding light outside, the sirens of the ambulance and police cars, the bumpy road leading to the hospital. The funeral. Jonathan taking in some of his friends, giving them all a second chance at life, the first of which his sister had taken away beforehand.

“Happy anniversary?” Tai tried, half-jokingly, breaking the spell.

“Well, I’m fucking happy,” Maya said confidently, and Diell knew he was the only one who saw the tears shining in her eyes as she did so. He pretended not to. 

Through the open windows, they could hear all the street noise; cars coming and going, groups of intoxicated teenagers having a fun time, dogs barking at nothing. The world didn’t end at midnight. Grace didn’t show up to take them all back. 

“Maybe we should go to sleep,” Diell suggested. “I’m– Okay, I know it’s not very popular with you two to admit to having a shit time, but I’m honestly exhausted from all that stupid anxiety.”

“Maybe we’ll start admitting to it in this new year.” Maya playfully shoved him a little. “Go to sleep, grandpa. We’ll keep it down.”

Diell smiled, then went to take a long, very hot shower after saying his good nights. It was comforting to be able to do it alone, even if he sometimes still felt Grace’s hands on his naked body, scrubbing him down without a care, like he wasn’t even human. He avoided looking in the mirror when he got out, knowing that all he would see in it this late at night were blonde strands of hair and soulless blue eyes. 

He didn’t fall asleep for a long time, still just lying there by the time Maya came to crawl into bed with him. He turned towards her, noting the distinct scent of alcohol. “Maya?”

She hummed. “What?” 

“You didn’t drink too much, did you?”

“No such thing as too much. Not on the anniversary of your kidnapper’s death.” 

He scooted a little closer, pulling her into a hug. “Yeah, there is. And I’m so happy you didn’t overshoot this time.”

A whole year had passed. Instead of Ginger, Maya was now crying in his arms. They had different problems, even if none of them felt less serious than the ones from before. She wasn’t passed out on the floor, only slurring her words a little.

It would be okay. It would all be okay, in the end.

~

taglist: @whumpsday @lonesome--hunter @reblogging-whump @panic-and-chaos @kim-poce @uwu-scraptrappy @mikaelaix @whumpinggrounds @hidden-dreamland @the-scrapegoat @whumplr-reader @dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night @whumpinthepot @devourerofcheesecake

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Illyana Rasputin/Magik is such a mainstay of X-Men now you wouldn't think she was practically gone from the comics for like 20 years. 1988-2008 was a depressing time to be an Illyana fan with 1993 being just the absolute fucking worst.

[detective-piplup]

Luke lays in a bed that is empty It is a pain worse than death.

Iwent too long without talking about grief and mourning so I had to take matters into my own hands <3 sorry void Luke honey <3

[realitybitesyouknowit]

Chapters: 96/96 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Harry Potter & Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Harry Potter, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, Sirius Black/Stephen Strange Characters: Harry Potter, Tony Stark, Happy Hogan, Sirius Black, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Pepper Potts, Peter Parker, James "Bucky" Barnes, Gwen Stacy (The Amazing Spider-Man), Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Pietro Maximoff Additional Tags: Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Post-Avengers (2012), Parent Tony Stark, Abused Harry Potter, Family Shenanigans, Good Parent Tony Stark, Harry Potter is a Little Shit, Harry Potter is Bad at Feelings, Protective Tony Stark, Sirius Black is a good godfather, Fluff, Angst and Feels, Slow Burn, Harry Potter is Tony Stark's Child, Peter Parker Played By Andrew Garfield, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Creator chose not to use archive warnings - Freeform, which is a warning in itself, Complete Summary:

With Voldemort back, Harry returned to the Dursley house, and Sirius imprisoned ‘living’ at Grimmauld Place, Sirius decides to go check on his godson.

And when he doesn’t like what he finds at Number Four Privet Drive, Sirius decides to do something else- tell Harry a fifteen year old secret and send him off the the United States to meet his biological father.

[montanamp3]

why have i been having the most unhinged dreams lately

[whumpacabra]

Birds of a Feather

Nightmares, angst, past kidnapping, past trauma, past character death

[Follows Relapse]

Tierney almost screamed when he saw East, hovering at the side of his bed like a parody of his personal sleep paralysis demon. He sat up with a groan, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hands.

“What time is it?”

“23:00.”

“Fuck me…” Tierney grimaced, shaking off the remnants of the nightmare and groping for the nightstand lamp. It didn’t look like East had been sleeping any easier, eyes bloodshot and skin clammy. “Dreamed we were still in that fucking barn. Gonna be smelling horse shit in my nightmares for the rest of my life.”

East hummed an affirmative sound, sitting on the floor with his back to the bed. Tierney slowly copied him, embarrassment trickling into his waking brain. Having heard what East survived before, even a clearly abridged and sanitized version…he felt foolish having bad dreams about a mere kidnapping.

“What happened? In your dream.” East asked, not looking away from the moonlight filtering through the window. Tierney felt tension gather in his brow; East had certainly woken from his own nightmare, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

“I don’t even fuckin’ know. We were just still strung up and that prick - fuck.” Why was his voice pitchy like he hit puberty again? Why did he feel nauseous at the thought of a little blood? Pull it together, O’Hare. One minute Wes was alive and an asshole and the next he was dead. Get over it. “Guess I’ve just never seen a guy…die…before.”

East nodded, whisper hoarse but soft.

“It was a clean headshot. He probably didn’t even feel it.” For half a second his shoulders hunched forward, but then he straightened his back, wincing as bruised ribs shifted. “Worse ways to go.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you would know.” Tierney physically recoiled after the thoughtless words tumbled past his lips, eyes wide as East shuddered with a huff.

“Yeah.” There was a crackle of hysteria in the single syllable, but the silence that followed was thick with regrets. Eventually, East shifted, hugging his legs to his chest and laying his head on top of his knees to turn his bright, dark eyes to Tierney. “Whose room am I staying in?”

“I guess…I think it’s Liza’s old room.” Tierney shrugged, thankful for the abrupt change of topic. Though something in his gut soured are the memory. (O’Hares don’t pay ransoms. She knew that better than most.) “She hasn’t lived here since I was a kid…haven’t even seen her in years.”

“Liza…” East’s eyes were distant, face scrunched in thought. If Tierney wasn’t wallowing in his own misplaced guilt, he might have noticed the hopeful confusion crossing his friend’s face. “What happened to her?”

“O’Hares don’t pay ransoms.” Tierney almost regretted the snap on his mocking echo, but East didn’t flinch, so he continued. “She fucked up one time as - as a dumb teenager and Da never forgave her. She didn’t forgive him either. Shows up for funerals or marriages and that’s it. She and Da can’t stand each other.”

Tierney didn’t know all the details, but he knew enough. He knew Sean didn’t talk to Da for two years, using Eoghan as a middleman for anything important. He knew Liza had been hurt, badly, in more ways than one, when their father made the call to refuse the ransom. He knew no betrayal was worth that hurt - how could a man abandon his daughter to those bastards over something as petty as pride?

(He knew, even 8 years old and having never wanted for anything in his short life, that he couldn’t make the same mistakes Liza made. Whatever those mistakes supposedly were.)

“I’m glad your brothers came for us.” East said, eyes distant with thought. Tierney’s eyes flicked to him, drawn to the pearlescent scars around his neck and tally marks half hidden by the short sleeve of his nightshirt, catching the moonlight.

“Me too.” Tierney replied, swallowing back the black sickly terror that had gripped him in his nightmare. (The helplessness. The hopelessness. The loneliness - )

East suddenly flinched, an arm protectively shielding Tierney as his eyes widened and his head swiveled back and forth.

“Did you hear that?”

Tierney, still half choked in panic, made an alarmed but negative sound, trying to hold his breath to hear whatever it was East could. For a split second, he thought he heard a woman’s voice, but that was smothered by the soft, incremental shuffle of movement above. There was someone on the roof, right above the window.

[Before Flight]

(Part of my Freelancers: Changing Tides series)

Taglist: @stargeode @sacredwrath @genuineformality

[lonelone-ly]

I totally didn’t write an abo vashwood angst fic where Vash lies to Wolfwood about being on bc and regrets it’s but then Ww dies and he has to raise the kid without him and suffers tremendously as the child reminds him so much of wolfwood.

Not at all.

And it’s totally not titled after a Hozier song… absolutely not.

Anyway here’s the real description:

Vash wished he could call it a subconscious decision or something that just happened in the heat of the moment but It wasn’t. It had been lingering like a phantom in his mind for all the years that he’d been in love with him. His alpha, his mate, Nico.

Just thinking about how upset Wolfwood might be…He wanted to undo it all, but he didn’t. Wolfwood had unknowingly convinced him. With his jovial smile as he played with the kids of Hopeland Orphanage...By how he smiled at the picture of him and Livio as kids.

It was a shame Wolfwood never saw the outcome of it all. The outcome of their love.