#shattered nerves

[starry-bi-sky]

Unpleasant Revelations - DPxDC Ficlet Idea for the Stillborn Au

"Have you met my youngest, Damian, Mr. Masters?"

Its only from twenty years of long, hard experience and practice that Vlad doesn't increase the room temperature from 'borderline uncomfortably cool' to 'unbearably hot' the moment Bruce Wayne pulls his youngest and "only" biological son out in front of him.

He puts only in quotations because twelve year old Damian Wayne looks scarily, uncannily like one Daniel Brown. Jack and Maddie's foster son, second victim of their foolishness, and only other halfa in existence. Second only to him.

It's nauseating how similar they look. From the scowl and terrible glare on the young boy's face, to his brown skin -- which was only a few shades lighter than Daniel's, the shape of his nose, and even the strange winged edge of his eyebrow. Something that Vlad has long since come to find endearing on the child he considered a son of his own. The only difference was that Damian had dark, sharp green eyes.

Daniel's eyes were blue. The same glacier shade as his father's, who stood behind Damian with a proud, oafish smile on his visage.

It was infuriating how similar they look. Vlad might not have rapidly swung the room temperature from one extreme to the other, but he can't stop himself from letting the fury burning within his core from slipping out and raising the temperature up a few degrees.

Because it really only meant one thing.

Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were related.

Damian Wayne and Daniel Brown were brothers.

Standing in front of him, it was clear as day. He can already picture a phantom image of Daniel standing beside Damian, the same scowl written on his face, the same glare carved into his eyes. The only difference being the dark, exhausted circles beneath them that seemed to be permanently painted onto his skin. The only thing missing being the permanent loneliness and vigilance permeating his being like a scar.

This, if revealed, would be enough to ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation. Or, at the very least, darken it quite a bit. The great philanthropist Bruce Wayne with another secret blood child? One related to his youngest? One that had been put into foster care? Seemingly thrown away?

It would be a firestorm.

One that Vlad is not keen on starting.

It would ruin Bruce Wayne's reputation, yes. But it would hurt Daniel in the process -- the harassment he would face alone might just be enough to break that fragile child completely. That was just not something he could allow. Or, even worse, bring him into his biological father's care and custody -- something Vlad was even less willing to allow.

It's not out of kindness to Wayne that Vlad will keep mum about this.

His grip on his champagne flute tightens, just a bit. He's still aware enough of the world around him to not let it shatter in his hands. His plastered, pleasant smile tightens around the corners, and he forces his focus to slide from Damian to Wayne.

"The resemblance is uncanny, Mister Wayne." He says, slanting his smile to the side slyly. Although he's not talking about the resemblance between Wayne and his son. Rage simmers beneath his skin, burning coal and embers in the core of his chest, nestled between his lungs, as he meets the man's eyes.

Wayne swaggles his head proudly, his ditzy smile widening as he squeezes his son's shoulder affectionately. Bastard, Vlad wants to spit.

He breathes in through his nose, and exhales out through his mouth. The champagne in his hand cools, and stops its unusual bubbling.

The Damian boy scoffs under his breath, his mouth still coiled upward into a scowl. With the revelation of his blood relation to Daniel evident, Vlad's not sure if he should find it endearing or not.

He is not Daniel, so he decides that it's just simply irritating. He decides to ignore it.

"And you said he was your only biological son?" He asks, voice lilting and head tilting. He knows its a suspicious question at worst, insulting at best. But considering Wayne's past proclivities, he can hardly call it an unexpected question.

Damian puffs in great offense, face twisting angrily. It reminds him of Daniel when Vlad insisted that he was wrong about something or other, and for a moment his heart swells, fond.

But this is not his child, and so the feeling quickly crashes and burns, simmering back into rage. This was not Daniel -- this was his replacement. A replacement that Wayne was free to keep.

Wayne chuckles, idiotically, as if he'd said some funny joke. Vlad's other hand, the one gripping his cane -- something he's required ever since he was dispatched from the hospital all those lonely years ago -- tightens instead. He grinds his teeth -- him and Jack Fenton would get along like a house on fire, he hates it.

"I can understand why you'd ask that, Mister Masters," Wayne says, squeezing Damian's shoulder again, "but yes, Damian is my only biological son. Although that doesn't mean I don't love my other children any less."

Bastard.

For all his posturing and flouncing about caring for his city and his children, Vlad never would have thought the Prince of Gotham capable of abandoning one of them.

But, well.

They all have their dark secrets.

And what one man throws away, another man picks up. If Bruce Wayne didn't want the treasure child that was Daniel Brown, then Vlad Masters was more than happy to take him instead.

"I see."

[thinwhitedoc]

SHERLOCK | Martin Freeman as John Watson

[trainingdummyrabbit]

anyway the real reason angela never gets a hug is because it would shatter her resolve nigh instantaneously and would leave the story without a driving conflict

[quietwingsinthesky]

thinking about lucifer post-cage, in pieces from it because nothing could come out of that isolation whole, begging sam to let him in. and it doesn’t sound like a voice, obviously, it’s a whine of tv static and the creak of a window opening and crunching glass spilled on the floor and a knock on something hollow and the last echo in a cave before it’s all silent again. but sam hears him, and he hears him saying, help me help me help me. you spend a couple million years in a locked basement and remember more words than that, and then you can talk. day in, day out, everything sam hears is lucifer, all the rumbling, hissing, coughing, crackling noises of the world, lucifer’s in them. no vessel means that all he can do is surround sam (is it suffocating? yes. lucifer would like to be suffocated. he would like something, anything, to press itself so close to him that he can’t breathe, but nothing does, so he does it to sam instead.)

a wounded animal. and sam is so, so human. he can’t just leave lucifer like that, in pain, not after weeks trying to block him out. weeks where lucifer just got more desperate, louder, screaming at sam because he couldn’t tell if sam heard him at first (if sam was even real, if he was even free at all.)

he’s got to let him in. if he can’t do anything else right, maybe he can stop one being from suffering. just one.

[lazulisong]

shang qinghua but he's an arctic fox jumping around a snow leopard

[dutybcrne]

Kaeya most definitely tried to rehearse the first thing he would say to Diluc when he'd heard the man was back in Monstadt. Only to have spat out the most silver-tongued, sickly saccharine yet bitingly snarky little remark bc he happened to panic upon seeing the man and immediately knew just how bad he fucked that up by the utter look on Diluc's face.

[elegyofthemoon]

life stuff

just (shaky hands) idk im kinda excited and a little scared because the first step into my new life is kinda starting today?

i have a job interview in a few hours that i'm trying to prep for and i'm really hoping it goes okay that i can get it and then be set for at least the 6 months (and more as i hope)

i mean, i have all these other ideas as well if this one doesn't work. one door closes, another one opens, i repeat to myself over and over again.

but it feels so weird now. like being trapped in a room for too long that the world beyond feels so vast and overwhelming.

but i have to prove that i can handle myself. that i'll always find a way somehow.

it's not exactly a job i'll be enjoying, but it's at least something that can propel myself forward with whatever else i decide to do.

i'm taking a step into a life for myself. it feels strange to make my own decisions. maybe last summer was just a trial of what these next months would be like bc if it feels much the same. but if i found myself enjoying last summer, then maybe these next few months will be a blessing

i hope so anyways.

[clementineskesh]

anyone else crushed by the knowledge that the world is ending/has ended for many people and that its only going to keep getting worse and there's nothing you can do about it and also you need to make money

[amygdalae]

i never take the teabag out of my black tea because thats good caffeine in there

[kudzucataclysm]

[muslimintp-1999-girl]

Tbh Warner and Juliette would have been hotter as just/only enemies. They kind of ruined their dynamic by making them lovers. The tension between enemies who remain enemies is superior sometimes and this series should've definitely gone that way coz it would've fitted like a glove.

[neekrobite]

thinking about how im pretty sure theres just been glass in my finger for the pass like 8 years, nothing happened about, and im pretty sure its just in there doing nothing 

[alwaysspeakshermind]

bots in the pride & prejudice tag? really?

is it not enough that I must already dodge posts from every fandom that thinks its ship parallels Lizzy/Darcy? now I also have to wade through posts promising scantily clad ladies/nights of passion in the most common language?

my esteemed patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, would disapprove most strongly of this.

[shittygothbitch]

Vent in the tags

[jinchuls]

just spent 8 hrs undoing what people that do t know how to do my job have done only for them to change it right back afterwards

[thecherrygod]

I can't sleep