#still not sure if i wanna share a link to it here once i put it on ao3. ill think about it

[jonny-b-meowborn]

I think I'm done with the Jonny/Tim cannibalism fanfic? I'm still gonna like, read though it a few times and edit it, and I still wanna do some drawings for it before I share it, but overall I'm pretty satisfied with it. Big win for the me community

[k-hotchoisan]

just wanna pop in here to say…

(nsfw link) https://x.com/joincosmic/status/1738333868724572356?s=46&t=svHKAvopx9tJ6YnC7dRDGQ

this is so san??! the way he will get you to spread in front of a mirror and finger you so well but doesn’t stop when you cums and overstimulate you with his fast pace…😵‍💫

holy fuck 😭 NOT YOU SENDIND ME THIS WHEN IM AT MY WEAKEST???

Like when San spreads your legs open in front of the mirror of your shared apartment, which you thought getting a full length mirror was for your pretty little fashion shows you would put on for him (which you found out very quick that it’s obviously not).

He’s pressing your bare back against his chest, his cock fucking hard and rutting against your back, but he’s gonna keep himself busy with you for now.

San brings up his fingers to your lips, and tells you, “be a good girl and suck.” His voice is so dominating even when it’s mellow. You take his fingers like his good girl. Of course you do, like you’re under his fucking spell.

He internally curses at the way your tongue is swirling around his fingers, and he makes a mental note to make sure to ruin your mouth when he’s done.

You feel his breath at the shell of your ear, and each vibration of San’s voice blooms goosebumps on your skin.

“Keep your legs open for me baby”, he instructs you, as his wet fingers leave your mouth and travel down south right to your glistening, wet pussy.

He starts off with slow circles around your clit, which he locates within seconds mostly thanks to the mirror. You sigh as he picks up the pace, trying to lean onto his shoulder, your eyes almost shutting, that is, until San’s other hand is on your jaw, his voice once again reverberating in your ears.

“I didn’t tell you to close your eyes baby. Look at the mirror, or I won’t let you cum.”

You bite your lip, soft whine leaving you as you stare back at the reflection, watching the way San’s fingers start pressing against your clit, soft circles become grazing north to south, each brush only building your orgasm way too quickly.

“San…” you whine, your fists balled as the pleasure continues to build. Only San could make you putty in his arms like that—a moaning, dizzy mess.

“That’s a good girl. Look at you, so pretty letting your clit be rubbed like that. Doesn’t it feel good?”

You nod. Oh god. It feels so fucking good. When he pulls your drenched folds open and uses his middle finger to rub against your puffy clit, you bite back a cry from the pleasure and increased sensitivity. You swallow at the sight reflected into the mirror—your pussy in her full glory, slick just endlessly leaking out with every brush of his fingers, and San’s gaze never leaving your pussy through the mirror. Your small jerks and twitches, all in effort to keep your legs open don’t go unnoticed by him.

“Gonna cum. Fuck. Oh fuck. I’m gonna cum”, he hears you cry. “Please, please Sannie.”

Even through hooded eyelids, you see a smile spread across his lips as his fingers speed up rubbing your clit, the wet sounds egging you onto your orgasm.

A pitched moan bounces off the walls, and your orgasm floods you like a fucking hurricane, and you hear San behind you moaning along with you as he watches the way your cunt flutters through the mirror, white leaking through your hole. His cock is leaking precum and it’s staining your back.

“Good girl. Keep cumming like that. So fucking pretty when you’re creaming like this, baby” he groans into your ear. “Could watch you, hear you, let you cum all day, baby.”

Your high slowly wears off but San’s finger is still on your clit, small, light slaps that make you jolt from the overstimulation.

“S-sensitive”, you squeal, your legs automatically snapping shut, keeping San’s fingers trapped in between them, still on your creaming pussy.

“Bad move, baby”, San smirks against your ear, his fingers forcing your legs open. He doesn’t fucking care. He doesn’t care that you’re squirming so much to the point that that you’re crying at your overstimulation. He doesn’t care that his fingers are pruning from how fucking soaked you are while he stuffs two fingers so easily into you, watching your completely fall apart before him like you always do.

But what he does care about though, is making sure he pulls out another three more orgasms out from you before he breeds you stupid. 🩷

[cloudyyoimiya]

hi! Can you do a part two of measuring hands with bsd boys? including ranpo, fyodor, Nikolai, and sigma?

oh my word yall i’m so glad you enjoy these little scenarios! anyways yes ofc i can write these! i already did nikolai and sigma, so i’ll just write fyodor, ranpo, and jouno :)

Measuring Their Hands; Ranpo Edogawa, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Saigiku Jouno

Format: Scenarios

Quick Note: Heres a link to part one and part two

Ranpo Edogawa

It was roughly six in the morning, the world still shrouded in darkness with the occasional few lights from stores turning on, getting ready for business in the morning. As of now you and your boyfriend were currently cuddling in your shared bed, holding hands comfortably as the two of you woke up. Ranpo’s head was lightly resting on your shoulder, clearly comfortable.

You could feel him squeezing your hand softly, and that made you shift your gaze down to your interlaced hands.

“Ranpo?” You asked, still slightly sleepy.

“Huh?”

“Can you flatten your palm real quick? I wanna see something,” you said as you flattened your own palm against his hand.

“Why? What do you wanna do?” He asked, his voice still slightly groggy from waking up.

“Ranpo, you already know. You’re smart.”

He sleepily chuckled at the praise. “That I am! I just wanted you to say it so I can confirm my suspicions, but I guess I don’t have to do that. I’ll be merciful just this once!”

After he was done talking, he flattened his hand against yours. When you glanced down to get a good look, you could tell that his hands were only the slightest bit bigger than yours—maybe by only an inch. They were also rather soft considering that he doesn’t use firearms all that often. His nails also were well taken care of surprisingly. You never really saw him take care of them before, so this was new to you.

“Your hands are bigger than mine,” you said with a small smile. “That’s shocking. I thought that your hands would be smaller than mine, not the other way around.”

“I’m surprised that you didn’t know that sooner,” Ranpo spoke as he looked down at your joined hands. “I’ve known that for quite a while.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Well the first time I saw you I took in every detail I could! You were so attractive… How couldn’t I?” He grumbled into your shoulder.

You giggled. “I see. I’m glad you found me attractive.”

“Mhm…”

Ranpo quickly interlaced your fingers once more and pulled your arm over his side so you could cuddle him. He then let go of your hand then wrapped his own arm around you, making sure not to hold you too tight or too loose.

“Let’s go back to sleep. It’s too early,” Ranpo whined.

You sighed. “Love, it’s six in the morning. We have to get ready for work soon.”

“Ten more minutes…”

“How about two?”

“Five.”

“Alright, fine. Five more minutes,” you said as you kissed his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You were currently sitting on the couch, listening to your boyfriend play the cello while reading a light novel. Fyodor was playing a piece called “Bird of Death,” and it was rather relaxing. Occasionally you’d glance up from your reading and watch how Fyodor would carefully yet so gracefully glide the bow across the strings, creating a beautiful melody.

After a while, Fyodor had stopped playing the cello. He then looked up at you, giving you a knowing look. He could see you staring at his hands, so that raised the question…

“Why are you looking at my hands?” Fyodor asked with a small smirk.

“Oh! It’s nothing really,” you said as you closed your book. “I just wanted to see whose is bigger.”

He let out a small hum. “Then come over here so we can measure them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, myshka.”

“Alright then,” you said as you stood up from your seat. You then walked over towards where he was sitting. “Give me your hand.”

He let out a soft a soft chuckle, then gave you his hand after putting his bow away in its case. “Here you go.”

You took his hand, then flattened it against your own. His hand was considerably bigger than yours, and his fingers were also quite skinny. His hand was surprisingly soft excluding the areas where he had small callouses from holding his bow. You then shifted your gaze to his nails. They were very short and uneven, most likely from him biting on them when he was scheming something. You could also see a few blue veins on the back of his hand.

“Your hands are bigger,” you simply stated. “I’m not surprised.”

Fyodor continued to smirk up at you. “Why so?”

“Because you easily play the cello. Don’t you need long fingers for that?”

He bummed. “I suppose you do, though, I do find your small hands cute.”

“They aren’t small! Your hands are just abnormally larger than mine.”

“Sure they are, my dear,” he spoke with a slight chuckle escaping his lips afterwards. “My hands are average. Yours are just small.”

“They are not.”

“Alright, alright. Keep telling yourself that, my love.”

Fyodor then curled his fingers under yours and brought your hand closer to his mouth. He then gave your knuckles a slight kiss and looked up at you while doing so. It seemed like his main goal was to fluster you into agreement, and it was slowly starting to work. He know exactly what he was doing.

“I know what you’re doing,” you said with a small smile creeping onto your face. “It’s not gonna work.”

“Oh? How can you be so sure? My love, you’re already cracking a smile. I think whatever I’m doing is working.”

“You’re terrible.”

“But yet you love me.”

You sighed. “You’re right, as always.”

“Of course I am,” he spoke as he kissed your knuckles once more. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Saigiku Jouno

Currently you were in your shared home with your boyfriend. He had just got home from fulfilling his duties as a Hunting Dog, and you were finishing up cleaning the house for him. It was starting to get rather dusty, and you knew that it would throw off your boyfriends senses, so you decided to clean up around the house because you wanted to stop something that was easily preventable.

Jouno sat down on the couch, then let out a rather loud sigh. You could tell today was a long one for him, so you decided to stop what you were doing and sat down next to him.

“Something wrong?” You asked as you took one of his hands into yours. You then took off his glove and put it on your lap.

“Tecchou was being more of a nuisance than usual today,” he groaned. “He’s insufferable.”

“From the stories you tell me, I bet he is,” you said with a small chuckle. You then paused for a moment. “Hey, can I do something with your hand real quick?”

Jouno’s eyebrow quirked up for a moment. “What are you thinking of doing?”

“I just wanna see if your hand is bigger than mine is all,” you spoke softly. “I have no ulterior motives, don’t worry.”

He took a moment to listen to your heart rate, then nodded to himself. “Alright. Go on then.”

“Thank you,” you said as you carefully flattened your hand against his. You made sure to go slow in order to not startle him.

Once your hands were both flattened against each others, you looked at them for a moment. They were calloused from his constant use of his saber, but yet there were tiny spots where they were also soft. His hands were also a little bit bigger than yours—maybe by one or two inches. Jouno’s fingernails were also slightly unkept, but they remained short all the same.

“Your hands are bigger than mine,” you simply spoke.

“I can feel that,” Jouno said with a small smirk crawling onto his face.

“I shouldn’t have let you find out about this.”

“Oh? Why is that?” Jouno asked sarcastically.

“Because now you’ll tease me over it,” you said as you huffed. “You always do that when you find out something that I can be teased over.”

“That I do, my dear,” he said as he chuckled. “Though, who’s to say I’ll tease you about something as small as this? I could always find something else.”

“Like what?” You questioned.

“Hm, let me think for a moment,” he said as he put his free hand on his chin, acting as if he was deep in thought. “Well, your heart rate does accelerate when I tell you how much I find your reactions cute.”

“Huh? Does it really?”

“It does. And it’s rather loud if I may add.” He smiled. “You know how much I dislike loud noises, my love. Maybe you should apologize for that, hm?”

“Saigiku! Quit it!”

Jouno sighed. “Alright fine. You’re no fun.”

“Yeah, sure I am.”

Jouno then intertwined the both of your hands and brought them to his mouth. He then gave your knuckles a small kiss.

“My dear, you make teasing you too easy. I love you for that, you know.”

[britcision]

AND HERE WE ARE! Totally getting this out in February well done team! And this is gonna be our last chapter before a wee teeny tiny time skip and Jason’s finished core! What a beautiful day 🥰

We’re getting another two-parter too, because Danny and Jason refused to let me get to the end of this lil introductory arc without at least one more pile of abject fluff! But finally, we’re ready to begin the plot!

Once again, the link to the AO3 version is in the first chapter and the 15th chapter; you can see it in the text for the link if you wanna subscribe to be told when it updates 😁

First Chapter:

Previous Chapter:

——————

So That Just Happened part 1

Back in her own room on the other side of the country from Gotham, Sam Manson reclined back into giant, coffin shaped body pillow her beloved girlfriend had given her when they moved and contemplated her phone.

The brand new Wayne-chat was blowing up satisfactorily, although apparently Tim was a massive stalker too. That was probably a good thing; it meant she hadn’t actually nuked Tuck’s chances with his nerd-crush. Now they could bond over their mutual stalker tendencies.

But, did that make her revenge less effective?

It wasn’t like she was actually out to ruin his life, but she’d kinda like to leave a mark. Something that would make him think twice about letting her think he and Danny had fucking died in Gotham in her absence.

Or. Well. Gone radio silent in Gotham, which was probably actually worse because if they were dead she’d know exactly where they were.

The Wayne chat were all pretty sure Tim and Tucker were together too, and Sam’s new best friend Babs had even pulled up the feed from their living room tv somehow. Sam wasn’t exactly the tech wizard Tucker was, but… after seeing that, she disconnected her and Val’s TV from the wifi.

And settled in to remote watch Tuck get his ass kicked at Spiderheck, apparently. At least for a little while; until something else on her phone caught her attention.

It was… almost funny. While she knew she was a whole three timezones away, she’d never really felt left out before. Like maybe she should have stayed on the east coast…

Not that she regretted it, of course. She had a good job, a good school, a wonderful girlfriend who’d been so excited to get into a good school and really go to town on the business department.

(Apparently there were posters of Val’s face in the ethics classrooms. Sam refused to ask if they were golden example or dire warning.)

She was just… a long way away. Even a long portal away, and… being back with the guys, even in Gotham, made the quiet of their comfy little apartment seem lonely.

Huffing, she turned and traced her fingers through the leaves of her mimosa plant on the windowsill beside the bed. They curled gently shut at her touch, and made her smile. Just like always.

She was happy to be home. She wasn’t technically liminal enough yet that it was her haunt, but… well, for all the jokes Val made, Sam had to admit she’d put down roots. She loved her job at the greenhouses, and her internship at the botanical gardens.

She loved scaring the hell out of the dudebros in Val’s business classes who thought ethics were a waste of time. She loved sharing messages with Jazz about the boys, laughing that even three hours ahead, Tuck and Danny still couldn’t get up before them.

She was kinda considering texting Harley about Timblr too. Not like, for any particular reason; if Tim’s family weren’t gonna embarrass Tucker enough, Harley probably wouldn’t either. She’d probably think it was adorable.

Or, y’know, worrying evidence of obsession. Psych types worried about stuff like that, usually.

Sam was kinda also considering sending Harley Jazz’s number. Jazz might still be skating just on the neurosurgery side of the line, but she’d always been big into psychology. Big enough to try and triple major, and only drop to major-major-minor after the third pre-exam meltdown.

And she could use having someone else do the shrink bit on her a little more often. Although really, for that Sam should make her a professional appointment; friends didn’t ask friends to psychoanalyze their overprotective pseudo-sisters. And Jazz could use more friends.

Jazz could use a transfer to a specialty that would let her sleep once in a while, a more stable supply of fresh ecto, and about six weeks in a meditation retreat to get the accidental telepathy under control, but more friends would be good too. And less stubborn insistence on her second try for double majors.

Maybe the switch to psychiatry full time would be good for her? Or psychology. Sam was a little fuzzy on the difference, which one Jazz was currently still minoring in, and which one Harley did.

(Jazz’s current second major was neurosurgery, which Jazz insisted was totally less taxing alongside a neurology major because it was the same body part. She was the only person in her class attempting the double major though, so.)

Humming tunelessly to herself, Sam flicked back into the group chat. Babs was still sharing the feed… brows drawing in, Sam frowned at the little spider figures still fighting to the death. Now, she wasn’t as big of a gamer as she used to be, but she was pretty sure Spiderheck didn’t actually offer red berets.

Snorting a laugh, she flicked back out of the chat and opened a new one, adding both Jazz and Harley. All it needed was the perfect name… something that would grab both of their attention.

Obvious. Child’s play.

Snuggling back into her coffin pillow, Sam grinned down at her phone screen.

Danny Has A Boyfriend chat was live.

**

Having eight legs wasn’t exactly the same as suddenly having four new ones, or two new legs and two new arms. While the first two were definitely functioning as “hands”, being the ones to pick up and use all of the weapons, Tim had quickly learned that he could grip with any of the eight “feet” that were available.

Yeah, spinning a laser staff all the way down one side of his body and up the other was fucking cool.

He’d adjusted pretty quickly during their “practice” round, while they all got used to the web slinging and worked out how to open the boxes and use the weapons.

(Tucker had swung himself into the lava by accident, so they’d started a second round.)

Tim felt pretty much ready to go, although if he was honest with himself… his only actual complaint was that he didn’t have a camera.

Conner had asked Tuck at the start of their second round if his powers had been nerfed to make it “fair”. Tucker, sweet innocent Tucker, had managed to convey a sidelong look even looking at even without a face on their little blob bodies and said he didn’t think Conner needed a nerf.

He just needed to understand how the powers worked, and they could be incorporated into the system. Which, well, was like catnip for Conner.

At least Tucker seemed a lot less flustered about talking to him while they were both spiders, because Conner had started talking his ear off about TTK and hadn’t stopped since.

Tim was kinda considering swinging over and taking them both out, just to get the game moving. But Conner was cute when he got really into something, and being a headless little spider body did not seem to have changed that.

He spent the time practicing with the webs instead, spinning and tossing himself around the map. It was pretty similar to using a grapple, although he wasn’t exactly sure whether or not the web was coming from his own body.

If it was, it was coming from inside a foot, which wasn’t how actual spiders worked… but Tim was pretty sure that was on Spiderheck, not Tucker.

Being able to run around upside down was the biggest change for him, and pretty cool. Tim scuttled around under a couple of the higher platforms for a while, planning his strategy.

Honestly, he was pretty sure TTK was going to wind up fucking Conner over rather than making anything easier for him. You’d think that flying would be an advantage in Spiderheck, at least as far as avoiding lava or an out of bounds, but Tim knew pretty explicitly how far it took Conner to stop.

It wasn’t exactly on a dime, and in this game? The pace didn’t exactly allow for imprecision.

And they were wasting time talking about it rather than getting used to having an extra six hand-feet.

Still upside down, Tim twisted until he could see the other two spiders. Which was when he learned that… they did kinda have their faces on them. Just, instead of being in a face position, on the front of his body that he was seeing out of, it was just sorta… plastered across the body.

Like a photo skin mapped onto a flat blob.

He considered letting the other two know; if anyone walked into the room, they’d probably be able to see their little faces on the screen. If they were just standing around talking.

Also, the pictures’ mouths weren’t moving, which hadn’t been weird when Tim was listening to them talk and didn’t think they had mouths. Kinda was to look down on Conner’s smiling face and hear his voice at a mile a minute.

Tucker probably already knew, and might have done the faces on purpose? And if he hadn’t, it was gonna be pretty funny to see what happened when he noticed.

He’d gotten progressively better at actually talking to Conner the longer he wasn’t actually looking at him, and the focus being on the game had helped too. Face in the game? Probably gonna throw him again.

And it was probably time to get things actually moving, so he could enjoy that.

Humming softly to himself, Tim scuttled across to the loot crates, found himself a double ended lightsabre, and dropped down on Tucker and Conner’s heads.

**

“Sooooooo…” Danny clapped his hands, doing his best to make his broad grin at least look a little innocent as he floated sideways into Jason’s field of view, “not that that wasn’t adorable and dramatic and everything, super touching, buuuut…?”

He almost laughed as Jason jumped, having apparently forgotten Danny was there for a hot second, then pulled his hand back from Lady Gotham’s to glare at him. The Lady herself didn’t bother hiding her chuckle, settling back to recline once more on a cloud of smog.

“Was there something you needed, Phantom?” She asked with a dry amusement.

Danny shrugged innocently, sticking his hands in his spectral pockets. Much more dangerous than regular pockets, but he’d not been doing more than blob wrangling lately.

“Not so much what I need, just, y’know, trying to keep things on track. I dunno if you’ve got other plans for the night Jay, but we were with Frostbite for a while and if you did…” he trailed off, and Jason grimaced.

“Not what you’d call set plans, but…” Jason trailed off as well, and Danny could feel the guilt even before it tried creeping in.

Nope, not having that. He’d almost talked himself into that bullshit already tonight, none for Jason. He nodded airily, floating up to drape an arm over the larger man’s shoulder.

“All I’ve gotta do is get to bed before midnight, so I’m not rushing now that Tucker’s found himself a new ride.” Waggled eyebrows punctuated that comment with enough emphasis that Jason snickered, darker feelings pushed aside without finding purchase.

“What, you don’t wanna go watch that train wreck in person?” Jason teased with a lopsided half smile.

Danny pulled a face, both at the thought of Tucker’s goddamn disastrous attempts at flirting and… well, the possibility of running into Bruce again. Maybe Constantine.

Danny was maaaaaybe kinda avoiding the wizard since he’d started collecting the other contracts on his soul; it wasn’t like he wanted them for nefarious purposes, it was just fucking weird. He didn’t like owning people. Not even overgrown Sour Patch Kids in trench coats.

(At least Constantine was still alive though. Those unlucky souls who died still bound to Pariah damn near went through a full reboot. No memories, no personality, none of what Danny would have thought of as like, the core components of a soul.

So far nothing anyone had done had been able to help them, and Danny had a nasty feeling the final answer would be Ending them. The Observants didn’t want to, they were perfectly happy with a thrall army so long as they controlled it, but Danny was firm.

No slaves, no thralls. If the only way he could free them was through a final and permanent death… he would.

But Clockwork was still looking, and so long as the ancient of time thought there might be a way… Danny held out hope too.)

For now, he shook his head quickly, holding up both hands.

“No way man. Bruce already hates my guts, I’m gonna keep a healthy distance.”

For both their sakes, really. Jason’s mood every time Bruce had spoken to him today kinda proved he hadn’t listened to Danny’s advice and stepped up. Not that Danny had exactly expected him to; again, hated his guts.

Jason pulled a face but didn’t bother to argue; he’d probably rather not actually deal with the old man for a third time either. Instead he just shrugged, turning his attention back to Lady Gotham.

“Do you know what time it is in Gotham now, my lady?” He asked, and the really weird thing was that it didn’t actually sound weird.

Danny always felt awkward and formal whenever he tried to address a ghost by their title, and Lady Gotham was the very worst because she never bothered to hide when she was laughing at him. Which was, y’know, every time he said it.

(He wasn’t gonna just call her “Gotham” though. That would be worse, so he just sucked it up.)

On Jason’s lips, words like “my lady” just sounded right. Danny flashed back for a moment to snow in a graveyard, and Jason knelt before him quoting Shakespeare. There was something in Jason that was just made for flowery language and dramatic proclamations.

Lady Gotham clearly agreed, bestowing a fond smile upon Jason before inclining her head back for a moment, those red on black eyes glowing suddenly brighter. Looking into the living world, or right up Clockwork’s ass?

“It’s coming to ten o’clock,” she said softly, something almost like regret in her tone. The smile that she turned back to them was softer, sadder.

Danny’d feel bad about being the one to point it out, except, yeah. He’d had to. Ghosts in general didn’t exactly think about time. It was a problem for the living, so - him. And Jason.

Who didn’t seem nearly so sorry with the answer. He nodded, fingers beginning to drum against his thigh.

“Time for a few more questions, then.” That wasn’t a question, and if Danny was completely insensate or possibly locked in a sensory deprivation tank he might have warned Jason about talking to a powerful spirit like that.

It’d need to be a damn good tank for him to miss all the signs though; Jason was so in the good books. Lady Gotham just smiled and nodded, gesturing once more with her traffic cone.

“Of course. And, of course, we will have plenty of other opportunities to speak. I may spend much of my time here, but now that we have been introduced… I can also speak to you there, if you would like?”

It was a delicate question, and Danny hesitated, suddenly wondering if he should… well, elaborate again.

“Uh… yeah, sure? I’d like that?” Jason asked, clearly confused by the reticence, and that made up Danny’s mind.

“She’s not going to sound the same,” he explained quickly, giving Lady Gotham a quick smile. She smiled back, gesturing for him to continue, because none of the damn older ghosts explained shit for themselves.

Danny totally didn’t roll his eyes.

“Like, the way we talk to her in the Infinite Realms is kinda the abstract? She looks kinda human,” he added, gesturing vaguely at the Lady.

Jason’s brows furrowed for a moment, but he felt more curious than concerned.

“So… she’s an anthropomorphic personification, but not in the living world?” He asked, and Danny’s eyes nearly crossed.

He turned to Lady Gotham, hoping that this might be some weird city slang, and she laughed at him. Again.

“Yes,” she agreed with Jason instead, which absolutely did not help. “It’s easier for me to speak with you here, using eyes and ears like your own. But building and maintaining this shape in the living world is… complicated.”

“Because her real body there is the city,” Danny added, privately resolving to ask Sam what the fuck Jason was talking about later.

Honestly, Jason would probably get along real good with Mr Lancer. They both liked weird words.

At least he actually looked a little confused too now; Danny had freaked the first time Lady Gotham talked to him out in the city itself. He gave Jason a consoling pat on the shoulder.

“You’ve gotta see it to believe it, man. Just… it’s gonna be weird.” Not the most helpful, sure, but Danny was doing his best!

Jason nodded slowly, willing to table it for now, and refocused on Lady Gotham, something darker now welling in the purpose building inside him.

“So you said the Joker wasn’t from the Curse,” he said bluntly. Danny flinched, more from the lack of any aura inflection than the remnants he could feel.

Yeah, a lotta Gothamites hated the Joker specifically, but if Danny had even the faintest doubt of who’d killed Jason… the black, leaden lump of Death in Jason’s aura wiped it out.

Lady Gotham stilled too, her own smile fading as she regarded Jason. Those red and black eyes were suddenly so much older, so much sadder.

“Yes,” she agreed softly, lowering her traffic cone to rest at her hip. “Are you sure?”

‘Are you sure you want to know?’

Or ‘Are you sure you want to know now?’

Danny wouldn’t put money on which she’d intended, but it didn’t take a genius to know the answer to both. Stubborn, emotionally repressed, and self destructive as hell, bat-training only left one answer.

Jason nodded firmly now, his jaw clenching.

“Yes.”

Lady Gotham studied him for a moment longer but didn’t argue, inclining her head gently.

“Then I will be brief. While the Curse has always been part of the city, feeding on fear and despair, in recent years we have both felt… something else. I told you of the malevolence on the land?” She asked, and Jason made a soft, impatient noise.

“And that it’s where the Curse comes from, yeah. And that the Joker is different,” he prodded.

Danny made a face. He was usually very much on the side of blunt answers, and knew full well that the Lady wouldn’t actually like, break Jason for being mouthy. He was very, very used to seeing favouritism from the outside, and Jason was clearly a firm favourite.

Maybe because he was currently Gotham’s only actual part ghost child? (To be fair, Danny didn’t think that’d change much in the fullness of time; Jason was his favourite of all the bats alive or dead.)

Whatever it was, his interruption only brought a flicker of a smile to the Lady’s lips, which vanished just as quickly.

“Yes. The Curse is indeed the original manifestation of that malevolence, given form and now, purpose. But even that malevolence came from somewhere; Gotham lies on a crack between worlds, older than time. Every world in the multiverse exist along certain markers; certain weak spots. Gotham is one of them.”

“Of course it is,” Jason grumbled beside him and Danny shifted closer, brushing their shoulders together.

Personally, he figured that if Gotham was a weak point in the universe and all the bad shit just leaked through, they were probably doing pretty well for themselves. Then, he’d seen the depths of the Ghost Zone; he knew what else could be trying to leak through.

Which, obviously, meant the good luck had to end.

“When the Joker died,” Lady Gotham continued, only to be cut off by a startled “What?!” from Jason and a totally-super-dignified squawk from Danny.

“You are not gonna tell me that asshole’s a ghost!” Danny moaned, dragging his hands down his face. Honestly, if he’d missed a whole actual ghost in the city for an entire year too, he was never going to live it down.

Like any of the other ghosts had any fucking clue what it was like being half alive… or living fully inside a city spirit’s haunt. Let them visit Lady Gotham’s and see what they sensed.

“Who the hell killed the Joker?!” Jason demanded, something weirdly like panic spiking through anger. “It wasn’t fucking Bruce-”

Lady Gotham silenced them both with a pointed look, shadows growing suddenly long and dark under her stare. Then she returned her gaze to Jason, her expression sombre.

“The Joker is not a ghost, nor a halfa. Bruce Wayne resuscitated him, which may be all that kept him from becoming a manifestation himself; he was killed not only in Gotham, but by a nexus point, in rage and revenge and hatred.”

There was something dark in Lady Gotham’s eyes now, something black and burning and for half a second Danny could swear he felt that rage himself, deep in his chest.

“Something else leaked through in the short time that he was dead,” she went on, her gaze firmly locked on Jason’s and Danny couldn’t imagine just how much the older-younger halfa was feeling under its full force. “Something small, and hungry, and craving death because it was denied his - the death I believe would give it shape.”

It wasn’t enough for Jason, that much was obvious; bitterness-frustration-grief hung in the air in a cloud almost thicker than the Lady’s smogs, and this time Danny gave in to temptation.

Let his own soothing-sorrow-loss twine through, even if he didn’t exactly understand the cause of the feeling. Jason startled a little, knocked from grumbling something that hadn’t been for anyone but him, but his hand reached back for Danny’s. Squeezed tight, even as the bitterness deepened.

His eyes narrowed, he remained focused on Lady Gotham though.

“Of course. Of course he fucking brought the clown back, even after someone did the world a fucking favour,” he hissed through his teeth, then raised his voice more clearly. “So, what? No one can ever kill the Joker, or Gotham gets another curse? Who’d fucking notice at this point?”

A genuine sorrow and pain passed across Lady Gotham’s face but she schooled it, kept her own aura calm and composed… or at least in closer than they could feel. There was probably a reason she’d put space between them again.

“Not quite, but close,” she agreed softly, those red bat eyes somehow more gentle even against the black pupil. “This other entity is already here, growing each day. Every violent death in Gotham is being consumed by it, which I will admit has strengthened the truce between the Curse and myself. Neither of us wish to feed it any more than necessary.”

Danny’s brows furrowed at that and he tried to think back to everything that Frostbite had ever told him about spirits. Not the dead-people kind, but the Neverborn; entities, concepts, ideas given form. Like time, and cities.

“So… when did the Joker die?” He asked cautiously, and felt surprise jolt through Jason. Lady Gotham gave him a quick glance, and cocked her head at Jason himself.

“Not so long after Jason did. A matter of months, less than a year, though he was dead less than a few minutes.” There was something in her tone, a weight on the words that made Danny think he was on the right track… but that she didn’t want to say it.

Which. Well. That was all kinds of bad fucking news if an entity as old as Lady Gotham was wary of speaking it into being. Luckily, Danny was just a fucked up little half ghost who had absolutely no supernatural tie ins to things like belief.

And he believed in just laying all the cards on the table before he decided if he had to flip it.

“That’s really young for any kind of belief spirit,” he said bluntly, watching Lady Gotham’s eyes. Saw… just a hint of something, creasing the corners, and seriously considered reaching his aura to hers for the first time today.

It’d save so much time to just get the message through feeling, but… if she preferred words, the words had to be important, and Jason probably needed words.

Fuck, they’d all need words, because this was going to be a goddamn bat-briefing if Lady Gotham was filling them in, and Mr Emotional Repression Is My Soulmate was not going to be up to aura reads.

Chewing his lower lip, he thought through the next stage a couple times before speaking slowly, watching for any hint he was still on the right path.

“If… it’s grown fast enough that you both noticed… it’s not new?” He tried, wondering briefly if he’d retroactively doomed them all by thinking about “what else could break through” from the depths of the Zone.

Lady Gotham shook her head though, gesturing impatiently through her smoke to clear it… maybe the first sign he’d ever seen that she didn’t control it entirely.

“No. That much, we are both certain of. This entity… it is new and unformed, with no Name of its own. At the moment, all of the fear it wreaks is only feeding belief in the Curse, which is why it only has death. But there is already a will there, long before it should even have awareness. And it wants to grow.”

“Oh great, so Joker’s got a Pitty 2.0 but his is on the outside,” Jason quipped, irritation sparking through him… and Danny was kinda glad to see it, honestly. Just a little flash of the guy he’d been getting to know in all the dark.

Even Lady Gotham managed a brief smile, and didn’t actually bother refuting it; closing her eyes for a moment, she waved her hand and the clouds of smog between them solidified briefly into a model of the city. Buildings only, but with horribly empty shadows between them.

“The Joker’s death gave it an entrance, and his revival denied it his shape, his Name, and the fear he commands. But it is no longer fixated on killing the Joker - and it was, for several years. It pushed him before it had the power for anything else, driving him further, feeding poison to those around him, trying to have him killed so that it could become The Joker, the pure essence of every bloody mark the clown left on Gotham. And it very nearly succeeded,” she added softly, her gaze turning back to Jason with an almost tangible sorrow.

Something in Danny’s gut iced over, and suddenly he was really, really glad he didn’t know what she was thinking.

**

Bruce looked better as he rose from the table, Diana decided, watching her old friend closely. For all that he’d come with an actual reason for his doom and gloom (for a change), his attitude during the briefing was positively relaxed compared to their own discussion that followed.

He would still be worrying and fretting, she knew him too well to believe anything else, and… she knew why. While Diana had no children of her own (though she had met and heard of other versions of herself who had), she did dearly love her own proteges, and those of her friends.

She remembered Jason as the young, sweet boy who’d stumbled over every word he said to her and stared at her like she’d hung the stars. She remembered Bruce’s grief, Batman’s rage, and the shadow that hung over the Dark Knight with every step until Tim Drake took him to heel.

She knew that there was too much there, the guilt and pain and loss and grief for Bruce to see Jason objectively, and she didn’t begrudge him that. Nor did she condone it.

It only hurt both men, and while she would not give her opinion when it wasn’t wanted… well, she was aware Bruce spoke to Clark of his worries around Jason much more often than he would to her. This time though, she’d had no choice.

She knew the man well enough to know what was truly scaring him in this situation; that Jason would be taken from him again. He was at least as upset by this “Danny” boy as the thought of war with an entire realm.

It would have been cute, if he wasn’t a grown adult man who prided himself on critical thinking. Or actively forcing his son away with his own actions at every turn.

Still, there was one piece of counsel she could give. The thing he hated the most of all was a mystery. And while she also didn’t usually condone his stalking-as-a-sign-of-affection…

“Batman.”

He stopped in the doorway but didn’t look back, still as a statue. At least he was listening.

A fond smile pulling across her lips, Diana shook her head. Let the formal tones of Wonder Woman return to the voice of a friend.

“You see many dangers in the unknown. Perhaps you might reassure yourself by getting to know young Danny Fenton as a person, rather than a potential threat.”

He stayed frozen in the doorway for a moment longer, then nodded his head sharply and swept away.

Diana stifled a chuckle. Honestly, for all Constantine had come to her as if the world were about to end… all of their problems with this Infinite Realm were perfectly clear to her.

The American government had overstepped drastically with their Anti Ecto Acts and would be brought to heel.

The new ruler of the Infinite Realms had turned their head in this direction, and guided them to what must be fixed.

And young Jason Todd, while far from the only hero who had died and returned, had been chosen by this ruler to be favoured with protection, in exchange for service.

Of course, it may all blow out of control and become as dire as her dear friend already seemed to believe it was, but for all Bruce was constantly creating contingencies and backup plans, he very rarely had to use most of them.

She turned her attention to John Constantine instead, the magician seeming much less inclined to make himself scarce than usual. At least he had also calmed considerably, and was even smiling in his own crooked fashion after Bruce.

“You know he’s gonna go stalk that poor kid even more now?” He asked sardonically, pulling another cigarette from his pack but not reaching for the lighter.

Diana hesitated for a moment.

She’d meant for Bruce to talk to Danny, preferably directly. But Bruce did not like talking to new people; not without thorough research and a chance to prepare.

Then she shrugged.

“If it will keep him from disrupting our already tense situation with the Infinite Realms, better that he distract himself with more fatherly concerns,” she said simply.

Constantine snickered again, then frowned.

“Wait, fatherly concerns? For some kid his boy’s known like, a week?”

This time, Diana didn’t bother to restrain her smile, glancing down at the phone in her pocket.

“Merely a week, perhaps, but according to Wonder Girl they have already been caught at least once without their trousers.”

Which hadn’t been part of the official presentation, of course. Nor apparently whatever Bruce had already shared with Constantine, as the mage promptly nearly swallowed his unlit cigarette and began choking.

Diana gave him a carefully gauged slap to the back, sending the now soaked and crumpled smoke across the meeting table, but politely did not laugh.

**

Jason was pretty sure he was going to puke. Or scream. Maybe both.

It wasn’t bad enough that Bruce had refused to kill the Joker, to stop him from killing anyone else, no, he’d fucking brought him back to life. Given the fucking Joker the chance that none of his victims ever got.

None of them except Jason.

And now apparently even wanting the bastard dead was all part of some master fucking plan to make the fucking asshole even worse.

He’d wanted Bruce to be the one to avenge him from the second Tallia pulled him out of the Lazarus Pit, but when he’d come to Gotham… when his plans to carve out his turf, provoke the Joker with an old alias, set the trap had suddenly become stuffing heads in a bag…

He’d thought about it. A lot. About just hunting the fucker down, putting a bullet between his eyes, and leaving him in the Batcave deader than dead.

Had nearly done it, but no. He’d wanted… he’d wanted Bruce to choose him. To put him first, to say he loved Jason more than some moral stance, to value Tim’s life more, and Steph, and Cass, over the fucking scum who would have happily killed every last one of them with a smile on his face just to see if Bruce finally broke.

And Bruce hadn’t.

Bruce had nearly killed him.

And in and around that whole mess, he’d never gotten around to actually thinking about how his fucking daddy issues had saved the Joker’s life for… years, by now.

Jason wasn’t killing anymore. Not like, actively. Intentionally. Not because he thought Bruce was right; something, someone, had to be willing to stand up for the people of Gotham and actually stop fuckers like the Joker from killing them.

But… well, Crime Alley was his territory, and a scared enemy, a cowed enemy who’d seen their life in Jason’s hands and knew just how easily he could end it was more useful than dealing with the power vacuum, or the next million upstarts who’d think they knew better, would be better, and could take on the Red Hood themselves.

Ironically, keeping fuckers like Black Mask and Great White Shark alive and in power (at severely reduced scale) saved him time. Kept him from dealing with all those upstarts himself.

That was how Waylon had put it, back when Jason was considering adding to his bag of heads. It was… like farming. Keep them low, but keep them stable. Break anything new they went for, or anything that got on his turf.

Let them harvest some of the power hungry fucks who thought they could take a piece of the Alley.

And then Dick had noticed. And reached out. And didn’t stop until Jason gave in and reached back.

When Danny came to Gotham. Somehow, it all swung back around to Danny.

And the fact that if he actually believed what he told Bruce, he could have gone to kill the clown himself at any time since returning to the city.

And he never had. The time wasn’t right. Something came up. Something went wrong, or broke, or distracted him before he thought too hard about it.

Killing the Joker hadn’t even been in his original plans for his triumphant return. He’d just wanted to take back the Alley, prove his point to Bruce. Keep his home safe.

When had killing the Joker become such a big part of the plan? Who the fuck had gotten into his fucking head, redefined him as the last moment of his fucking life, demanded his new life be all about how the last one ended?

Eyes narrowing, he looked searchingly into Lady Gotham’s face just in time to catch her slow nod, like she’d heard every thought. Like he’d been speaking aloud.

“I could not stop it from reaching to you,” she said softly, her voice heavy with sadness, “but I could… distract. Get in the way, make its path harder. That you did not give in…”

Something soft, something proud flickered in her eyes again, and it made him want to squirm.

“You may not have consciously known that you fought yet another enemy, yet you triumphed regardless. My dear Jason…” she sighed, heavy with sorrow, and reached out a hand again as though to cup his face.

Jason found himself moving to meet her before he even thought about it. Stopped himself just before it actually got him anywhere.

He wasn’t done being angry yet. He wasn’t even sure he’d actually started. If he could ever, would ever, be angry enough for this.

There was something building in him like a tide, riding high on resentment and his spiralling thoughts. It wasn’t green tinted like the pit rage, his vision was still clear… if anything, it felt sharper, like everything had been dialled up to eleven. Like the terrible, roaring anger was seeking a target.

“I am sorry that you have been robbed of your justice in this way,” Lady Gotham said quietly and once again Jason’s focus narrowed down with her intensity, like she was the only real thing in the world, “that even your own emotions of this, your death, have been used against you. It is…”

She hesitated, actually looking to Danny for help herself for the first time. Judging from the sudden low horror Jason could feel from the other man, he might actually be under reacting.

Or the tide was still rising.

He felt like razing the whole city to the fucking ground, with his own hands, brick by brick. Or puking. Or screaming until his lungs ripped out of his chest, if only he could move.

It felt like something had reached into his brain and cranked up the contrast, made the already neon brights of the Ghost Zone brighter, the shadows darker, the very air prickling at his skin like needles with the urge to do something.

Because if he moved, did anything, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Not when every muscle ached to tear the whole universe apart.

He was almost a passenger in his own skin as something else, a different, slow boiling rage barely under control clamped him in a vice.

“So y’know we talked about not asking about how ghosts died?” Danny said slowly, his voice suddenly low and hoarse.

Jason managed a stiff nod, every muscle twanging tight with tension. It had been pretty important, pre-Ghost-Zone.

And he could put the pieces together, right from the tight hot center of that ball of rage that he was pretty sure was his own core.

“This is worse,” he said gruffly, not bothering to look over. Didn’t have to, when he could feel the face Danny was pulling through the worry-worry-fear-anger-horror still surrounding him.

He… fuck. He was a little afraid of what he might do, if there was even an ounce of pity on Danny’s face, and honestly that panicked him more than anything else. All the rage wanted was a target, and he didn’t think he’d be able to choose what it was.

Danny nodded anyway, making a conscious effort to try and reign his aura in. Like he couldn’t hear the subtext, feel it in Jason’s, or like he could and didn’t care.

It left him feeling cold, icy and alone, but still relieved under the echoing slam of rage in his veins. A little more alone in his own head. A little less watched. Judged. Not good enough.

“Like, worse than worse, dude. Ghosts will throw down and rip each other apart just for fun and no one’s actually hurt, but… you don’t fuck with somebody’s death. You just don’t. It’s the worst thing you could do to a ghost, worse than Ending them. Not even Pariah Dark…”

“Exactly,” Lady Gotham hissed, baring her teeth in something not even remotely a smile, full cheeks and lips suddenly gaunt and hollow as the teeth became fangs. It lasted barely a moment, a flicker before it faded, but it snapped Jason straight out of his fury with a sudden shock of terror.

She’d been intimidating before. Effortlessly, gracefully powerful and commanding, the kind of person people would beg to step on them without a hint of aggression. Those teeth though… just the moment of that rage, of something so powerful suddenly nothing but raw, feral danger…

It wasn’t even directed at him but it still felt like a bucket of cold water down his spine. An instant urge to duck his head, show his throat, convince this much larger predator that he wasn’t a threat.

She was immediately contrite, turning her head away as her face cast into shadow, only the red pupils still visible.

“My apologies. It is… less personal for me than it is for you, yet it seems still too close to my heart.”

Forcing himself to swallow, Jason took a couple of deep, heavy breaths. The anger was still there, kind of. He could feel it in an almost distant way, past the hammering of his heart, but it wasn’t all he was anymore.

It was just… a feeling now. One he was in control of.

The shadows were just shadows again. The green of the Zone no longer blinding.

He blew the last breath out slowly, and let the remnants of the anger go with it.

“No, uh… it’s fine. I think that helped, actually,” he said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck and suddenly embarrassed at just how tense he’d become.

Justified, apparently, from both the other ghosts’ reactions, but that didn’t mean Jason wanted to feel so out of control. How close to just… being carried away by the anger.

No matter what anyone else said, no matter what the damn Pit or Joker-monster or whatever the fuck else tried to do, Jason Todd was not going to be defined by rage.

For one thing, he’d never live it down.

Danny sagged beside him, relief as tangible as that last breath flowing out of him, despite the core of concern underneath. That was fine; Jason was still concerned too.

And maybe thinking about his stash of ecto-candies again, but he honestly didn’t feel half as drained this time. He wasn’t even scared of Lady Gotham anymore - that moment had ended as soon as it started. As soon as she’d tucked those terrifying needle-like teeth away. Now she just looked…

Proud. Proud, and fond, and so, so sad. Like Alfred had been the first time he presented Jason with his very own Robin suit for the field.

It choked something inside Jason just a little, made his throat tight and breath hitch.

“You are so much more than anyone gives you credit for, Jason Todd,” she said softly, her sclera softening briefly to a bright, sunshine yellow. Like the cape he’d drowned in as a boy flying from her rooftops, “and they all think far better of you than you believe.”

That caught him up for a moment, confusion pulling into the absolute fucking mess of emotions he was pretty sure he was projecting to all and sundry.

Then Danny sighed heavily and draped himself sideways over Jason’s shoulders like a particularly lanky and bony scarf.

“Yeah, yeah, and your ghost mom is fucking terrifying. Did not need that reminder, Ladyship,” he tossed at Lady Gotham with a cheeky wink, effectively steam rolling the tension yet again.

Jason could have kissed him, but from the angle Danny had flopped on, his options were armpit or hip, and neither appealed.

Sassy comebacks, he could handle. Reassurances that people didn’t think he was a complete sack of shit, apparently not.

The whole batfam were just perfect poster kids for mental health, alright?

The Lady herself laughed softly and inclined her head, not arguing the point.

“Of course. Still, I am sorry Jason.”

He cut her off this time, raising both hands and stopping just short of reaching for the back of his neck again, which was about where Danny’s waist was sat.

“Don’t be. I… think I needed to be knocked out of my head there. I really do feel better now,” he added, and Danny huffed a noncommittal noise and ruffled his hair.

“Yeah, well. You’re allowed to be pissed about it,” Danny informed him like he wasn’t sure if Jason actually knew that.

Which, obviously, Jason absolutely wasn’t. He had a pit ghost baby to teach good habits to, and Danny still had no idea what Jason was like when he actually lost control of the anger. But he could appreciate the sentiment.

And deflect like a Robin.

“Oh, is that a royal decree?” He asked archly, and while this noise was no more coherent than the last it was decidedly more whiny and drawn out into wordless protest.

Which still ended in a very quiet “yes.”

Luckily, quiet enough that Jason could pretend he didn’t hear it.

“Anyway, I’m good. Still gonna kick this thing’s ass for messing with my head, and maybe put it in a blender, but for now I’m good. Chill vibes only for Pitty,” he added with a roll of his eyes when Danny made a confused little chirping sound.

Lady Gotham chuckled softly to herself and nodded, resettling herself to recline on her smog clouds once more.

“Indeed. You currently have more pressing concerns; as little as I enjoy the present situation, it can wait. The Curse and I can monitor this new being’s behaviour through the rogues it has affected; they are noticeably becoming more violent, while the Curse is swaying the rest towards being less. For contrast,” she added before Jason could ask.

Which… might actually explain why Riddler had tossed a broken game box at Croc and the Wayne gala rather than trying to fix it. He’d stripped most of the interesting stuff according to Tim’s report, sure, but Nygma never let a thread go.

So he wasn’t gonna be on this new bad guy’s kill list.

Nor would Waylon, and Harley had been more destructive than homicidal for years. Already making a mental list on the events he’d caught wind of in the last few weeks, Jason didn’t even realise the conversation had moved on without him until Danny stuck a wet finger in his ear.

“What the actual fuck!” Jason demanded, trying to shrug the ghost off his shoulders. And while there was deadass no weight to Danny in this form, it was frankly unfair that he just rolled with the movement like he also didn’t have bones, snickering.

“You had Resting Bat Face,” he explained with a grin, twisting upwards to look down at him in a way that actually really shouldn’t have been doable with a human spine - and Jason had grown up around Dick Grayson, who ran the limit of everything a human spine was capable of.

“He does best with a problem to solve,” Lady Gotham noted with a sly amusement. “This one, however, has no time limit as yet. If I thought you would listen, I would have insisted on telling you at a later date.”

And that was just pointed enough that Jason rolled his eyes, feeling his cheeks flush in spite of himself. He just… liked to have all of the information. It’s not like he was Bruce.

“Yeah, well, I like to know what I’m dealing with,” he grumbled, folding his arms and scowling at Danny. Who grinned back and ruffled his hair.

“Well, either way. Not like you need to pull the spandex back on imminently, right? There’s plenty of bats around,” he offered hopefully, and Jason felt a quick pang.

Danny… really didn’t want him to have to be a vigilante. He could taste it in the hope, in the worry, in everything his king was putting off. For some reason, he seemed to think Jason had come back to life and left the masks behind.

Like he hadn’t even thought about why Jason was still in fighting shape to be his fucking knight in the first place.

He knew he’d be annoyed if it was anyone else trying to insist he stay out of the game. He’d shot at Dick more than once for suggesting he go home when he was injured; the rest knew better than to say a word.

He hadn’t even considered giving up the vigilante life when he came back from the dead… except that brief period when he’d sort of been a rogue. He’d never even been a normal crime lord, most of them were way less hands on.

If he looked at the future now, he couldn’t imagine ever giving it up. The rogues would apparently literally always be a problem; the city would always need protectors.

That thought had never made him sad before, and yet…

Was it really the first time anyone had suggested he’d done enough? He’d died, and sure Jason was back now, but Danny seemed to really, actually believe he could stop wearing the mask.

That he’d given enough, given everything, and could and should just have a peaceful life now.

It made him almost ashamed to admit that he’d never even considered the possibility.

For all Jason railed against teen heroes, he’d only stopped being one for a temporary villain arc. Which was apparently at least partially supernaturally motivated, which was fun.

It’d shut Bruce up if Jason ever dragged that out in an argument, but Bruce already thought Jason was too volatile and susceptible to being controlled. Never mind that he hadn’t actually killed the Joker and started the apocalypse or whatever, all Bruce would hear was “someone else made Jason a villain so it could happen again”.

He’d probably try and take Jason off the case of this mystic whatever that was feeding on death. Fuck that noise. Until Bruce got a face to face with Lady G, Jason probably wouldn’t even tell him the details.

(Honestly, if there was even half a chance of avoiding that subject altogether, he’d take it. Bruce got ornery about magic in his city in a way none of the Robins had ever enjoyed dealing with, and that had been back when he and Jason had a good relationship.

Now… well, Constantine had been sticking around, so hopefully he could handle that mess and Jason could just get the actual work done.)

He gave Danny his best reassuring smile anyway, rolling his eyes and reaching to try and ruffle his hair. Found that he actually couldn’t quite reach with the way Danny was twisted around him, which was kinda weird.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard Frostbite. Side effects of the forming core could be pretty much fucking anything, and til Pitty pops out I’m not even gonna do research on anything that’ll set us off.”

Which wasn’t the same as saying he wouldn’t start the case. He could arrange what he already knew, start a plan of action, and organise his next steps without doing any additional research, after all.

Something about Lady Gotham’s delicately arching eyebrow let him know that she, at least, was onto his bullshit. Lucky for Jason, Danny just accepted the words, grinning and twisting around to wrap his whole head in a hug.

And then flowed back off his shoulders like a fucking liquid before Jason could worry about having to breathe.

“That’s great! Oh, and we should set up your haunt too! That’ll help!” Danny enthused brightly, clapping his hands and doing his best impression of a totally solid human that was apparently not his default.

Maybe it was a ghost thing.

Just so long as he never did it in human form, Jason could ignore that he definitely shoulda felt a ribcage being squeezed like that…

And no, Jason absolutely wasn’t wondering about what else Danny could use that noodley flexibility for. Totally not letting Dick know either… for competitive gymnast reasons, definitely.

No one wanted to deal with that.

And then his brain fizzled to a halt as Danny’s actual words penetrated and a sliver of concern slipped in.

Because… yeah. They’d talked about haunts. It was practically the first topic on the list; what to do in someone else’s haunt, what to never ever do even near someone else’s haunt, what a haunt meant to a ghost.

It was soul-underwear again, one of the most sacred parts of a person’s soul; their truest, actual home. Fortress and power source.

Halfas had to have them too, since Danny and Frostbite had both insisted that keeping and maintaining his haunt were going to be vital to his health while his cores stabilized. As in, Frostbite told him not to leave it for long and suggested redecorating as a soothing activity.

(Danny’s was officially Amity Park, which had not escaped Jason’s notice when he was apparently being put on haunt-arrest. It might have been an older halfa thing; very few ghosts actually stayed in their haunts all the time, although Jason could see the temptation.

It also might have been something else, and Jason had this thing about secrets and surprises down the line. He’d ask later, if he couldn’t work it out himself.)

Danny called Crime Alley Jason’s haunt, and that had felt right from the first time he’d said it. Crime Alley was his, his territory, his space, his home more than anywhere else. He knew it inside and out, could feel its moods and taste the changes in the air when something went wrong.

Baby ghosts usually couldn’t claim a haunt of any size as their own, but Jason knew that the Alley belonged to him.

That was before he’d met Lady Gotham. And if she was the spirit of the whole city… maybe he’d been wrong? Maybe it was just through her that he knew it so well?

He found himself looking to her uncertainly, searching her face in case there was any trace of displeasure. Any sign she didn’t want another ghost’s haunt in… well, what was kinda her physical body.

He couldn’t see or feel anything, but when she’d already been so careful about keeping her feelings her own… no better time to ask, really.

“Yeah… about that…” this time he did scratch the back of his neck, Danny safely down beside him. Which was about when he realized that he had no clue how to word the question.

Haunts were personal, he knew that much.

Then again, Lady Gotham said she was his ghost-mom. That had to include stupid questions. Blunt it was.

“Is it weird if I have a haunt in the city? I mean, it’s obviously your city, duh, but how do I… it feels like I’m squatting in your closet,” he said finally, giving up on not being just the most awkward creature in a thousand mile radius.

Danny’s mouth opened and closed a few times, excitement fading to a confused fascination as his words sunk in.

“Y’know, that’s a really good point… except it’s more like he’s squatting in your kidneys,” he pointed out to Lady Gotham, turning to face her too.

Lady Gotham chuckled softly and took a slow drag from her traffic cone, which had almost stopped smoking.

“Ah, I forget the limitations of a halfa’s knowledge… all ghosts begin with a haunt within their parent’s, Jason. From the moment you returned to my arms I opened up the Alley for you, and it has been yours ever since.” She paused to blow out a long plume of smog, which shaped itself into a tiny row of very familiar buildings.

Jason didn’t have to see more than a couple to know what they were; he could feel it right down to his core.

“When you are older, stronger, you may desire another, although being in the mortal world is already a degree of distance, but Crime Alley will always be your first,” Lady Gotham continued as Crime Alley bloomed from the smog before them, tiny and yet more than just an image, more than just a replica; the real thing in the scope of her power.

There were no lights in tiny windows, nothing moving through the smog, and yet it was still clearly alive. No, filled with things that were alive, people and noise and even the rats.

And it was his. His beating heart.

Lady Gotham’s smile was a tender beacon in the fog, her hands coming up to caress the smoking Crime Alley and gently waft it in his direction.

“Every crumbling brick, every pothole, every shadow. It is a heavy responsibility, and one I shall share with you until you decide you no longer need my help, but it will always be yours, Jason. It would not have accepted anyone else.”

The cluster of smoggy buildings fell apart as they reached Jason and for a moment he nearly panicked trying to keep them together, but… he was suddenly washed in a wave of old, familiar scent.

Not the burned rubber and pollution of all the rest of the smogs, the constant smell of the city. This was… floral. Soft, and sweet, and chemical in the way that cheap perfumes always were because they couldn’t have afforded the good ones.

Watered down, because they could get even that so rarely that she would begin refilling the bottle with water when it was barely half empty. Catherine Todd’s favourite perfume.

It hadn’t covered the stink of cigarettes and worse coming from the very walls of their apartment; he’d only smelled it when she was holding him close. Shielding him from Willis’s rage, tucking him into bed, cuddled up on the couch to wait out the rain or sickness.

The smell of home.

It brought tears to his eyes, the pressure of the day threatening to spill over and overwhelm him again.

Intellectually, it felt like another moment that should have been terrifying. More than any show of teeth, this was her strength. Who and what she was, she could break him with a wave of her hand, a wisp of smoke, and yet…

He felt warm. Comforted. Wrapped in her smile and at peace in a way he hadn’t in… fuck it had been years.

There was something else too, a layer under the flowers that only the deepest detective-trained parts of him tried to pluck apart; it was part of the home smell, inextricable, but it didn’t make sense. Wasn’t the perfume. Just the very faintest hint of baking far away, and Catherine Todd had never been able to afford…

Oh.

Of course not. Because Catherine Todd, his mother in every possible sense of the word but one, had never met Alfred.

**

So, the good news: Tucker was currently in the lead for Spiderheck. Bad news: they’d finished the first set (Tim won, but he’d been two ahead from the start which was cheating), and… the game had ticked directly over into another set.

They hadn’t been planning on changing any settings, so it was fine, and Conner and Tim hadn’t noticed anything wrong.

But… Tucker was beginning to worry, just a little. He’d done video games before, with Danny and Sam; no worries, they’d taken a turn directly in pretty much every game they’d played together.

Just, y’know, he knew Danny and Sam really well. And Tim and Conner were really cool, and he understood a lot more about how the Supers worked than he ever had before? But, maybe that was why he’d kinda screwed up.

Because he wanted things to be fair, and didn’t want them to think he’d given himself extra advantages. So they were all spiders, all the same.

And he wasn’t completely sure where the meta controls were?

Danny and Sam always insisted he have a version of the controller somewhere, so they could flick to the menu (and sometimes run riot there too). Last time they did Spiderheck, he’d put the buttons on his stomach, so Danny and Sam could try and hit them for an extra level of difficulty.

But he wanted to be fair. Didn’t want extra powers. And, apparently, technopathy had sorta maybe converted that wish into him not being able to feel it while he was spidered up.

All his combat moves were fine! The break, grab, web commands were smooth and easy, just like every other time he did them. Different attacks, no worries. And, obviously, he hadn’t stood still and tried to look for the code, because they were playing Spiderheck and that was a really easy way to get wiped.

Dodging another swinging attack from Tim, he scuttled at top speed across the platform and jumped behind a box. No weapons here, and he scanned quickly for the next spawn point.

Which, normally, shoulda shown up on two levels; the normal game vision, and the white lined underlay of the code, which he could always see through from top to bottom of the level.

(This was usually an active impediment rather than an advantage in Spiderheck; it was way too hard to know what he could stand on.)

He couldn’t see one, just the platform above and the wall behind.

Maybe he should take an early death, just to give himself a little time to work this out. Just so he could stop worrying. He was 21, he’d had these powers for years, he totally knew how they worked by now.

He just, maybe, might have gotten overconfident.

Danny would never let him live it down if they all had to be rescued from Spiderheck.

And, way more importantly, Tim Drake-Wayne and his super hot boyfriend would only remember him as the loser who couldn’t even control his powers.

Nope. Absolutely not.

A loud buzzing heralded the arrival of one of the spinning laser traps, and Tucker made up his mind. Just one early death. No worries. He had a two win lead, and honestly he’d rather lose the set than admit he’d fucked up.

Scuttling “away” from Tim’s probable next attack, Tucker scurried into the path of the spinning laser trap.

And saw, at the very last second, Conner swinging in from the other side, directly into a laser.

Shit.

**

Sam was comfortably snuggled down into her pillows and thoroughly enjoying the chaos her new chat was creating when she finally heard the door. A little too buried to easily get up, or look particularly graceful doing it, so instead she stuck a hand straight up into the air.

“In here, love!”

And, like the angel of mercy that she was, Val only made her wait ten minutes to get out of all of her winter gear and put the kettle on before coming to save her from her fate.

“Not the fastest rescue I’ve received,” Sam teased, even as Val hauled her easily to her feet. Val grinned back and pulled her in for a quick peck.

“I wasn’t aware I was being timed. I can do better.”

“I bet you can,” Sam laughed, draping her arms around her girlfriend’s shoulders. Val gave her another, deeper kiss, then drew back enough to press their foreheads together.

“So, how was Gotham? I saw Danny made the front page,” she teased back, and Sam hesitated.

In amongst all of their various plans for disaster, it hadn’t really come up that whatever they did at the party, it was sure to make the gossip rags. Front page though? That was probably an achievement.

And, given what she herself had done, really annoying.

“What, they gave the front page to him? I blatantly accused at least two CEOs and Lex Luthor of weaponizing misogyny, with citations, and Danny got the front page?” She huffed, drawing back and folding her arms, fully intent on turning away to sulk, but not remotely objecting when Val’s arms snuck around her waist and pulled her back in.

Val’s chin tucked in over her shoulder and the taller woman snickered.

“I know, right? Sadly cold hard facts just fade away in the face of a scandal.” Val sighed dramatically, then dropped a kiss on the side of Sam’s neck. “You’re on page seven. It’s mostly about your parents, but using Lex’s name got a couple other points in. Oh, and Vicki Vale did a three page piece on how Brucie Wayne specifically upholds the patriarchy. I think she quoted you.”

Sam considered that for a moment, her arms automatically coming around to cover Val’s for a brief squeeze. It wasn’t like she’d actually been planning to change anything at the gala. Mostly she’d just wanted to be heard.

It could be an interesting starting point, though. Especially since she got to pick her outfit for the next gala; her mother hadn’t even specified that it had to be a dress on the document, which was definitely a peace offering.

Cass Wayne had looked really good in that suit.

Her cheeks suddenly hot for absolutely no reason, Sam twisted in Val’s arms to kiss her again.

“I’m sorry my mom’s… the worst,” she finished lamely, wrapping her arms around Val again.

The whole fall-from-grace thing may have been seven years ago, and Val had more than moved on, but. Well. Sam didn’t exactly believe all the scars had healed.

Especially when Val stilled for a moment in her arms.

Then she chuckled, wrapping her arms a littler tighter around Sam and lifting her off her feet.

“Hey, at least she’s not actually a bigot. It’s always nicer to be hated personally than in general, y’know?” She teased, echoing something Sam was pretty sure Danny had said to her back in her Phantom-hunting days.

Sam huffed and wrapped her legs around Val’s waist too, raining kisses down on her face.

“Yeah, well, she can still shove it up her ass. You’re my date for the next gala, if you actually want to come.”

Which.

Well.

Was about when she realized that the next gala was probably going to be extra interesting, after all their shenanigans. Maybe they should have been more discrete? More careful?

Her worry must have shown on her face, because Val gave her a very gentle bounce to shake her out of it.

“Hey. Samantha Manson. I would be delighted to go to the next gala with you, and tell all the little journalists that yeah, I’m that Val,” she said firmly once Sam had refocused on her. Then she grinned. “I’ll even be on my best behaviour and not one up Danny until the second one.”

That made Sam laugh again, hugging on tight even as Val turned and easily carried her through to their little kitchenette and sat her up on one of the counters.

“Hey, did you get that autograph from Harley for me by the way? I wanna send it to my dad for his birthday,” she added, sneaking another kiss and then pulling a pair of mugs next to the steaming kettle.

Sam considered hopping off the counter. Didn’t bother, reaching behind herself instead to pull her favourite tea for the month and drop a bag into her mug.

“Yeah, a couple actually. And she said if we wanna meet Ivy she’ll let us know when they’re back on the west coast, but it won’t be any time soon.” That hadn’t been particularly surprising, but it still made Sam a little sad.

Just another reminder that they were on the outside looking in all the way over here.

Valerie stilled, coming back and resting both hands on Sam’s thighs.

“Do you miss being on the east coast?” She asked quietly, those gorgeous green eyes so large and gentle.

Sam hesitated a moment longer, then sighed and let her head thunk back against the cupboard behind her.

“Honestly, I think I just miss being closer to everyone. It’s not far for Danny with the Zone, but if you or I wanna visit anyone we have to hop on an airplane or spend weeks driving, neither of which are good for the environment. We just… get forgotten out here, stuck out of the loop.”

Val raised an eyebrow, a smirk on her face but eyes still soft with understanding.

“Oh, like you’re one to talk. I thought I’d pick up a new phone and rejoin the group chat that day, but suddenly I gotta wait nearly a week for “new secrets”,” she teased and Sam sighed, shaking her head. Not quite able to lift all the way out of her funk.

“Yeah, I know… it probably woulda been fine, Danny shouldn’t have dropped anything at all in the main chat if he didn’t want everyone to see it, I just…”

“Wanted to be more sensitive than he is,” Val finished the sentence, leaning in for another kiss. Not needing to reach up even with Sam sat on the counter. “That’s why I’m still dating you.”

It did pull a smile from Sam anyway and she draped her arms over her girlfriend’s shoulders again.

“For some reason. So, what did you think?”

Val shrugged, her hands sliding up to settle around Sam’s waist.

“About a new halfa? Probably sucks for him. Especially when he’s gotta come out as dead to his family. The Waynes aren’t exactly known for being stable,” she pointed out when Sam snickered.

Which was a fair point.

“They’re actually worse when there’s more of them,” she mused, glancing back towards the bed where she’d left her phone, “and the oldest’s a cop now.”

This time it was Val’s turn to snicker.

“Yeah, I heard. Tuck already sent me the blow by blow of you eviscerating the poor guy.”

Sam preened. Deservedly.

“Hey, you know me, I’m not gonna play nice just cuz I’ve been dragged to some social function.”

The snicker turned to a chuckle as Val leaned in, rubbing their noses together.

“And you know me, baby girl, ACAB all the way, and I still think that should extend to the Justice League. Heard half of Batman Inc also showed up, did you let them have it too?”

“You know I did,” Sam purred, locking her ankles behind Val’s back and nipping playfully at her lower lip. Val laughed, her hands creeping slowly up the small of Sam’s back.

“That’s my little leopard. Tea’s done.” And then, totally unfairly, she reached back with one hand and pulled Sam’s ankles apart, slipping free with a laugh as Sam pouted. “Hey, you’d be more upset if I let it over steep.”

“I can make more tea,” Sam grumbled, finally slipping off the counter, but a rebellious smile made it onto her face anyway. Val toasted her with the french press.

“True that, darling, but I’m not wasting the good coffee beans. Daddy asked me four times if I was sure about taking the train but honestly, he’s a state away now, it’s not worth a flight.”

Setting her teabag aside, Sam squirted in some vanilla agave syrup and took a deep breath. Gotham was fine, but no hotels could match her home tea stash. Not even the Waynes could.

“Beautiful, strong, environmentally conscious, and a Daddy’s girl. How did I land you again?” She asked innocently as Val dropped creamer into her own mug.

“By being all of those but the last one,” Val countered easily, taking a mug and holding an arm out for Sam to tuck under. “Now c’mon, if I’m going to the next gala you need to tell me allllll about a certain cutie Cassandra Wayne,” she cooed, making for their couch.

Sam’s face flushed red and she made to duck away instantly, but those damn vigilante muscles made it so hard.

“Okay, veto, you’re not allowed to do that anymore! My mom is trying to hook me up with her!” Sam did not whine. She. Protested. With dignity. Totally no idea why Val snickered, holding her coffee up and away in her other arm.

“Yeah, that’s the point. How funny would it be if Danny and I both stole a Wayne from you?” She asked with a vicious grin.

Which… did make Sam pause. Because that would be really funny. And Cass would almost certainly be down for it; she wasn’t as loud or attention seeking as any of the boys, but Sam could recognize the wicked gleam in anyones’ eyes when they enjoyed the chaos.

Then she sighed.

“No, we have to be good for the next gala. Otherwise no one’s going to listen to what I actually have to say.”

Val hummed an agreement, guiding her to sit on the plush, well loved cushions. It was an old couch, and a hand-me-down from Sam’s work, but it was just too good to pass up. They could both lie comfortably side by side on the seat, if they snuggled just a little, and the back was wide and plush enough for two throws.

“Okay. The gala after that, then. It’ll make our slow burn long distance romance all the more compelling,” she added when Sam snorted, finally releasing Sam to sink comfortably into oblivion.

Sam swatted at her and put her tea down on the table.

“You’re dreadful. I love you. We’ll ask Cass, lemme just get my phone and I’ll hook you into the group chat with her, Steph, and Babs. They’re Wayne family friends,” she added at Val’s questioning noise, “I haven’t met Babs yet, but Steph is great. You’re gonna love her.”

“Only if we’re going for some three’s company action,” Val snickered as Sam jogged to the bedroom, flipping her girlfriend off as she went.

**

Jason was quiet as they left the Zone. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, especially after the day he’d had and the emotional whiplash.

Danny was doing his very best not to let it bother him. He remembered the early days of being a halfa, how much he’d second-guessed himself, how much every new change and discovery had rocked his world. And he’d been a teenager, all hormones and fire and energy.

He hadn’t even been dead a month before shit got weird.

Jason was twenty-two, and had already been dead for almost seven years. Danny’d like to think he’d found ways to cope, but seven years in himself he was pretty sure he still hadn’t.

Whatever Jason had dealt with in those six and a half years was being ripped up in front of him day by day.

If there was anything he wanted, anything he needed, Danny would be there for him in a heartbeat. Before he could even have to ask, if possible. Aaaand the only thing he couldn’t do that for was if Jason needed space.

Lady Gotham had been able to open them a portal directly into Jason’s apartment; Danny preferred to aim high enough to miss walls and buildings on the way back, but it was her city. She knew exactly where everything and anything was - the portal had been in the back of Jason’s front door.

Danny totally wasn’t jealous. He could come back out almost at the same place he’d gone in, if he was quick. And he could go intangible anyway.

It was still really cool to watch the city spirit do it, the way the realms opened easily and willingly at her touch. She’d given Jason a token, a coin that had to be at least six hundred years old that showed the city’s skyline. Apparently he could use it to get in touch with her, or get back to the Zone on his own if Danny couldn’t take him.

Danny was fine with that. For sure.

The Infinite Realms were dangerous, but the token should bring him straight to Lady Gotham, in an emergency. And then Danny could follow and find her, and find Jason. It was a super reasonable backup plan.

He still found himself hovering in the doorway, unsure if Jason wanted him to stay or go while the other man shrugged out of his coat, boots, and shoulder holster that Danny had totally missed this entire time. And then walked directly into the bathroom.

Danny hovered a little closer, entirely unknowing what exactly he’d do if Jason was crying. Or screaming. Or beating a hole in the wall away from prying eyes. Or, actually using the bathroom for its intended purpose, apparently.

Because Danny forgot Jason was still in mandatory human form at all times.

He couldn’t hear anything from inside the bathroom with the door shut anyway, not even movement or the sink running. But then again, Jason’s family knew Superman personally. That probably lead to some inside jokes and really specific precautions.

Danny hovered back to the door. Stared around at the incredibly clean, well organized display of video games and weaponry on the walls, the double shelf of books.

This, he was beginning to suspect, was a third, larger, more expensive apartment. The furniture and room layouts were about the same, but he was like 80% sure the apartment they’d played MarioKart in hadn’t had as much stuff.

This one had some dishes waiting by the sink though. Given how well organized everything else was, they stuck out.

…

Five minutes. Jason was still in the bathroom.

Danny hated waiting. If he was going to stick around, he could justify it by helping out. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

———————

Part two imminent! All my love to the tag list, you’ll be following the link on this one so you don’t get both separately

Part 2:

Tag list: @welcometosasakiworld @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop p @mayoota-blog @xysidhe e @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper r @bun-fish @aroranorth-west  @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking g @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor r @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778 8 @why-must-i-be-like-this @tkiesai @greenpyrowolf f @frivolous-pastel

[givethemsmut]

Dom Mysterio x Reader

Chapter Two | Where it all started…

Shorter chapter incoming…

Expect some time jumps

Don’t own anything WWE 💪🏼

In no way, shape, or form do I edit. This story is for fun and entertainment purposes.

“Two days. Our flight is at 4 AM. Gives you time to dump the flavor of the week.” The bitterness in his voice hurt. 

“Dom. What we did- I’m sorry. Every second felt amazing, I just couldn’t commit. I was scared.”

“I haven’t been pinning, hermosa. You moved on and so did I. No hard feelings.” He was distant still, cold and vicious.

I knew about the other girls. All of them. He had made it his mission to parade them in front of me. He wanted to make sure I knew he had gotten his dick wet after me.

“No hard feelings? Tell your slut of the month to keep it down this time.” I said walking past him in my bikini as I climbed out of the hot tub. 

I wanted him to see every part of me he could. Dom followed me inside, dry as can be. “It’s not going to work, whatever bullshit you have planned. Parading around in practically nothing and rubbing your boyfriends in my face. It’s not going to make me feel bad.”

“Feel bad? We fucked, Dom. That’s not my fault you can’t get over it.” I shouted back. 

“You’re a fucking bitch for that. You wanna play games? We’ll play. Don’t come crying to me when it finally hurts the same way you hurt me.”

We had taken one leap forward just to hustle back to cruel. 

Dom had no idea there hadn’t been anyone else. No one. He just knew what it looked like and it looked like I was a slut but in reality those moans were faked and nothing went past feeling me up.

I deserved his cruelty tho so I took it like a champ.

Rey had got us a two bedroom condo only this time we didn’t share a bathroom. Dominik was kicking off training and everything WWE the very next day.

The frost melted between us enough for us to eat pizza in our mess of boxes. I wanted to badly to apologize but nothing could take back how I broke him heart.

Eventually we got over it, slowly and started being friends again. I even went to his practice matches and training sessions to support him. Our hormones and not having to share a bathroom truly helped, suddenly we could deal with that tension much easier.

I got meaningless jobs, here and there. Enough to pay for  living, rent if Rey would ever take it from me, which he declined more than once. Every penny I had went to stocking the fridge for Dom who was eating his body weight in food with the training burning extra calories.

We got extremely close again, inseparable most days and boundaries of friendship that made people uncomfortable. It made relationships hard to have and harder to keep. We both went through a period of less serious relationships with minimal risk to our friendship again.

We did have one slip up our twenties after getting drunk. None of it planned and all of it something that didn’t please his fling of the month. 

It was Randy Orton’s birthday, something we never thought we would be invited to but a lot of the roster was so we went. Dom hardly knew anyone and I was just as invisible, only I had boobs that distracted everyone. Least the horny men traveling almost the whole year. No one expected Dom to have anyone with him. He was new, inexperienced, and hadn’t paid any dues in their eyes. It was bullshit. He was the hardest working man I knew who wasn’t letting his dad’s legacy determine anything for him. If I could do anything it was making people believe he was someone before they knew him.

I put in a skin tight dress, a black thong and jean jacket that all fit every curve of my body perfect. Linking arms with Dom I could feel the respect climb the more people saw my hand in his. “Just trust me, okay? You’re gonna leave this party a superstar.”

“Why am I scared right now?” He laughed and smiled but held me closer.

Laughing into his chest I handed the bouncer our invite and breezed by without stopping. That was the night I met Randy, who was married still and raising a toddler. I had no business entertaining his flirting. I had no business letting myself be turned on by the entire night enough to convince Dom to fuck me for the second time.

The head of WWE made his way over to us, extending his hand and introducing himself. “Vince, who are you son?”

I stepped in, “Dominick Mysterio, future of WWE, respectfully.”

Vince laughed placing his hand on my arm and I was prepared to valid every rumor if it meant Dom’s hard work was paying off. “You have balls.”

“Enough to convince you to see what he can do? He’s not his dad, he’s better.”

Dominik’s hands smoothed around my waist, nuzzling his face in my hair, finding my ear. “Mi amore, he’s the owner. Slow down.”

“No one is gonna hand you anything, Dom. You have to want it enough to take it.” 

I smiled, forcing him to talk shop when his hand smoothed down my ass before squeezing. “Remember that later.”

Dom was a flirt, a great talker, dedicated to making it in the same industry his dad did. I was proud of him. 

Talking him up to everyone I let him touch me like I was his at least for the night. When we went back to our condo it was hard to turn it off when he cradled my hips asking me, “Why do you believe in me so much?”

“Because I know you. No more deserves it more.”

The way his mouth covered mine, determined to take me right along with his dreams felt out of my control. I wanted him even tho I shouldn’t have. 

Yanking my dress up to my waits he dipped down to his knee in the middle of the living room. Draping my leg over his shoulder I whimpered in desperation. “Dom. We shouldn’t.”

“Don’t say it. I already know. It’s a mistake. No one finds their soul mate at fourteen. I’ve heard it. I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m asking you to fuck my tongue.”

That’s all he had to say for me to melt and make that mistake all over again.

[fever-project]

Fairy Reveal

Short thing about a half fairy!Hyrule reveal, because I’m obsessed. Also Warriors info dumping about fairies, because again, I am obsessed. 2,947 words give or take. Ao3 link Here. Also @crazylittlejester, you said you wanted to read this once I finished. Hope you enjoy!

Everybody has secrets, that much is obvious to every Link here. Sometimes, secrets don’t need to be shared, but sometimes they want to be shared.

Hyrule was deliberating over whether or not this secret wanted to be revealed or not. Hunched over on a log, chin propped up by his hands, his mouth a thin line, staring directly at the fire in front of him, he was thinking quite hard about this.

“You doing alright?” Wars asked him, leaning over into his field of view.

“Yeah, sure,” Hyrule mumbled back, continuing to stare unblinkingly into the flames.

“Seems like someone is speaking an untruth right about now,” Wild sneered.

“Champion, please just say lying, like a normal person would,” Wars sighed.

“Well I think saying untruth is a very normal person trying to do,” Wild retorted, “Right vet?”

“Well,” Legend crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back on his log, “I would be saying an untruth right now if I said it wasn’t.”

Warriors groaned as the rest of the group laughed. Well, most of the group. Sky already fell asleep, Four was half-asleep, and Hyrule was busy contemplating his entire existence.

“Hey untruther!” Wind piped up, “Wanna talk about what’s bothering you? Are you still hungry?”

“I can solve any hungriness,” Wild added.

“N-no, I’m perfectly fine and content, no extra food needed haha,” Hyrule awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. He actually was still hungry, but he’s been hungrier before, so it was…not fine, but manageable. Actually he should probably get some food, because if he didn’t, they might try to get him to talk about feelings.

“Actually, I could go for a quick snack right about now.”

“Egg?” Warriors…suggested? while pulling out a weirdly large egg.

“Yo! Where’d you get that?” Wild excitedly examined the egg, while the others also looked at it in varying degrees of confusion.

“Did you nab that from my farm?” Time asked. Warriors shrugged with an uncaring face.

“Maybe I did, but it doesn’t have any Cuccos in it, and that’s what matters I’d say,” he turned to Hyrule, “So, wanna eat it?”

Hyrule did want to eat, for some odd reason. It looked appetizing. So, with a shrug, he held his hands out to receive the egg.

“It needs to be cooked first, Link.”

Hyrule took his hands back until he could receive a cooked egg.

“I think he should be able to slurp up the yolk if he wants to,” Wild said.

“Champion, why would you say that?” Twilight sighed, already far too tired for this conversation.”

“I support the champ!” Wind shouted.

“I support the champ cooking this giant egg in my hands,” Wars playfully flicked Wind’s forehead, getting a punch to the arm in return.

“It’s your egg, cook it yourself,” Legend said with a yawn, rubbing his eyes.

“But he’s eating it!”

“I’ll eat it if no one wants it!” Wild piped up again.

“He clearly wants the egg,” Time sighed, “how about we get to cooking this egg already. Is anybody else hungry?”

“If he has the yolk, can I have the shell?” Four sleepily asked. Everyone else just looked at him as he yawned, before lying down and promptly falling asleep right there and then.

“…So we’re putting eggshells in his breakfast tomorrow, right?” Wind asked, “Everyone in agreement say aye!”

“Aye,” rang out throughout the camp.

“Aye,” mumbled out a sleepy Four. The awake Links laughed, and Hyrule hoped that this meant they forgot about why this conversation happened in the first place, however unlikely that possibility was.

…

“This is the weirdest tasting egg I have ever eaten,” Wild commented as he had a bite of his own weird-egg-omelette. Warriors had quite a few of those eggs on him, much to Time’s bewilderment.

And it was a weird tasting omelet, weird in the fact that Hyrule loved it. He definitely wasn’t a picky eater, he, along with Wild, would eat anything they could. Wild seemed to just love food-and things that were decidedly not food-while Hyrule was used to eating all he could to survive. Unlike Wild, he actually seemed to have very specific preferences for what he actually enjoyed to eat. This egg was one of those very few things, along with the milk from the Lon Lon ranch, so maybe it was something about that place that spoke to his tastebuds.

“I…do not like this egg,” Twi admitted, “I dunno, it just tastes…”

“Weird?” Legend suggested, poking his own barely ate omelet with his fork, “I don’t really like it either.” He handed his omelet to Hyrule, who gleefully ate it up without a second thought.

“I like it,” Time stated, “kid, you like it too, right?”

Even though Wind had already finished half of his omelet, the look on his face screamed that he didn’t want any more.

Warriors heartily laughed, slapping Time’s back, “Honestly, most people don’t like these eggs. Zelda was one of the few people that wasn’t a light fairy who actually enjoyed it!”

Hyrule nearly choked on his third omelet, from Twilight, surprised from what Wars said.

“W-what do you mean by that?” He questioned soon after after he recovered. Hyrule was a light fairy, and Wars was the one who offered the egg to him, so did he know about him being a fairy already?

“Aren’t all fairies light fairies?” Wild asked, making another omelet but with his own eggs.

“No, there are dark fairies-“ before Legend could finish his sentence, Warriors sprang into a frenzied rant.

“So you know those healing fairies-the ones you typically find in pots right?” He didn’t leave any room for them to answer, “So those are typically-typically-light fairies. There are around five different attributes a fairy can have give or take.

“There are light fairies, dark fairies, fire fairies, water fairies, and lightning fairies. And you may be thinking ‘aren’t light and lightning fairies the same?’ no, you buffoon!” he grabbed Wild by his face and shook him vigorously, “They couldn’t be completely different from each other, and I will not hear so much as a feeble whimper saying otherwise!”

“I-I wasn’t even thinking-“ Wild tried to say-while still being shaken-before Warriors shoved himself away and pranced around the camp at a concerning speed.

“Of course you weren’t thinking because no one thinks about the fairies! My beloved fairies, who deserve more than being trapped in those dastardly pots! One of the few things that can contain their might.”

“I wouldn’t-“ Twi started to speak, like the others once tried to do. And exactly like the others, Wars ignored him and continued his spiel that has clearly been bubbling under the surface for a long, long time. Hyrule was starting to think that Wars was the half fairy here with all this. Wait, was he?

“Did you know that during the war-of course you don’t, I don’t talk much about it haha! But during the war I found many a fairy in a pot. I freed them, obviously, and they stuck with and helped me fight in minor skirmishes even though I told them not to! But besides all that,” Warriors finally stopped running around the camp and sat down, cross legged, “I feed them, and there are certain foods that only certain fairies like based on their attribute. For example, light fairies enjoy the Weird Eggs. It makes them more powerful as well! And did you know fairies of a certain attribute can also learn spells from attributes that aren’t their own? And did you know that blah blah blah…”

The chain listened intently to Warriors extremely long and passionate speech about fairies and all their powers throughout the night. Hyrule learned a lot more about himself than he thought he would. He only knew about light and dark fairies, as most of the chain did, but now he knows about three more types of them! Even though he wasn’t raised by fairies for long, he felt like that he should’ve been taught about them.

When the morning came, Wind convinced Wars to ramble about fairies to both Sky and Four to catch them up, with Four having eggshells with his breakfast. He was not happy about that. Then the conversation somehow went to fairy clothes, which Hyrule gleefully kept an ear open for.

“So with fairy clothes,” Wars began, much calmer than he was last night, “they can help bolster a fairy’s strength. There are attribute specific, so a certain outfit can bring their light damage up while another can bring their fire cost down.”

“How did you find out about that?” Four asked, sipping his tea and eyeing his eggshells.

“The fairies told me, obviously,” Wars scoffed, “Actually, I have fairy clothes on my person right now.”

The group watched Wars rummage through a bag a few minutes, Hyrule, Time, and Four being the most curious out of all them, before he finally pulled out a rack of tiny clothes.

“Ta da!” Wars cheered, “Here are some of my light fairy clothing, but the accessories are…somewhere else in here, ugh.”

“Is that a small version of your own clothes?” Four asked as he eyed the rack, “And, wait a sec-“

“Is that Fi’s clothes?!” Sky shouted, grabbing the rack and taking off a blue and purple dress and holding it up, “It is! How-“

“It’s the Spirit Dress! That’s-that is what it is called,” Wars explained, “Based it off Fi, as you said.”

“You’ve met her? And you’ve never told me?”

“Now there, I’ve never said I’ve met her-“

“You’ve never said you haven’t-“

“Aren’t those the traveler’s clothes there?” Four asked, pulling everyone’s attention to a specific piece of clothing on the rack. Hyrule got up and walked over to the clothes, determined to see them for himself. Sure enough, Four was right. It was an exact replica of the outfit he had when he was a kid.

Grabbing the fairy clothes and furrowing his brows, he tried to think figure out if his fairy mother gave these to him on purpose, to help him out. He could feel this magic within the tiny threads within these clothes, and maybe if he was more in-tune with magic when he was younger, he could’ve known if his clothes had magic within.

“They don’t really look his clothes,” Wild commented, snapping Hyrule out of his thoughts. Hyrule laughed awkwardly, quickly debating on whether or not he should tell his friends anything.

“Um, yeah. But I did wear clothes like these when I was younger-and is that my flute?!” He had just noticed that, his mind having completely glossed over that. And there it was, a mini version of his flute attached to the belt. He looked at Warriors quizzically, hoping for an answer.

Wars shrugged a bit before speaking, “Huh, I knew that it was based off of some hero. And yeah, the light fairies love flutes, Lofti especially,” he laughed, “She’s one of my many fairy friends by the way.”

“How many fairy friends do you have?” Time asked, examining the clothes while holding up a top that looked very similar to something that Miss Malon would wear.

“Oh, many, practically ever fairy in Hyrule I’d say!”

“Really? I’m impressed.”

“Oh it’s nothing.”

“I feel like we’re ignoring the fact that we’ve just learned that the Captain over here is this guy’s successor,” Legend pointed out, pointing at Hyrule, who was still looking at the replica of his clothes.

“I feel like successor is stretching it a bit,” Wars waved him off to talk more about his fairy friends to Time.

“We still haven’t-“ Sky stopped himself and sighed, rubbing his temples. Four gave him a pat on back while eating the last of his eggshells.

“Successor or not, why fairy clothes?” Wind asked with his signature scrunched up face.

“Popular with the fae, eh traveler?” Twi teased, arm placed squarely upon Wild’s shoulders.

“Ha, yeah, yeah…” Hyrule trailed off. Would this be a good time to tell them? When would be a good time to tell them? Maybe he could just pass it off as he just had the ability to turn into a fairy, but he wasn’t actually one. But he that once the truth eventually came out, it could shake up the trust that they had for him.

Or maybe he was just being paranoid. That. That was likely the truth here. Hyrule couldn’t help but sigh at himself. Yeah, better reveal the truth now than never.

“I couldn’t say whether or not I’m popular with the fairies,” Hyrule chuckled, “But I would say that I’m closer to them than most Hylains.”

“Oh really now?” Wars sneered, leaning over to Hyrule, “What makes you think that, traveler?”

“Hmm, well, it might be because of the fairy blood in me.”

You could hear a pin drop in the few seconds after Hyrule said that. Warriors reeled back, sputtering while trying to process what Hyrule just said. Similar reactions were held across the entire chain, all the while Hyrule was trying to keep up the best poker face he could. In an instant, Wars had grabbed Hyrule tightly by his upper arms, practically squeezing him. Wars breathing was uneven while Hyrule’s has been put on pause.

“You,” Wars sounded exuberant, his voice a higher pitch than normal, “You’re a fairy?!”

“Tech-technically I’m only half fa-fairy,” Hyrule said as he tried to regain his breath.

Warriors’ eyes grew wider, and he lightly shook Hyrule a little before turning to Time.

“He’s a half fairy,” Wars practically hissed, “He’s a fairy.”

“Cap-captain,” Time held out his arms to grab Wars, “calm down now-“

“I’m perfectly calm!” Wars hissed as he shook Hyrule a few more times, “Fairy-just, fairy! He’s a fairy. Fairy fairy fairy fairy…” Wars let go of Hyrule and started to mumble the fairy over and over again.

Sky lightly pushed Wars’ back and led him a bit aways, guiding him in short circle to try to calm him down.

Then everyone else started to shot in varying degrees of shock as they finally processed what just happened. To their credit, the shouting was mostly short lived, but Time had seemingly lost any composure he had before.

“You okay old man?” Twilight nervously asked. Time looked back at him with an ever so slightly crazed eyed.

“You don’t understand, rancher,” Time said with an extremely shaky voice, clearly trying so hard to stay calm, “It all makes sense now rancher.”

“Wha-“

“It explains your healing magic? The you being part fairy?” Legend asked. Hyrule nodded, not wanting to speak any more just yet.

“See? See?! I should-“ Time took in a deep breath, several times, trying to calm himself. Wild came over to him with a glass of water, but Time waved him off, so he went over to Hyrule to offer the glass. He graciously accepted it. Wind tugged at his sleeve and whispered in his ear.

“I would ask to see your fairy form,” Wind started, “But I don’t think those two could handle it.” He pointed at both Time and the currently walking in circles Wars. Hyrule bust into laugher, nearly choking on his water.

“I apologize for my actions traveler,” Time said as he finally calmed down, “I am just…overwhelmed.”

“Not nearly as much as he is,” Four pointed at Wars, “But yeah, hearing that the traveler here is half fairy is almost as wild as hearing I’m half Minish or something!”

“What’s a Minish?” Wild asked.

“It’s-don’t worry about it, I’ll tell you later. It fairy time, right traveler?”

“I still can’t-I don’t really believe you are a fairy, sorry,” Time sighed, “My head is having a hard time wrapping around it.”

“Says the man who ‘fOuGhT tHe MoOn’ huh?” Legend snickered, “I’ve seen weird stuff, so sure! You’re a fairy or half fairy, whatever, you need accommodations or something? You like bees?”

Everyone was confused as to why Legend suddenly asked Hyrule if he like bees. Legend groaned dramatically, “It’s because the fairies in my time like bees, okay? Yes, collectively, they all like bees, they hang out with them a lot.”

“How do you feel about fairies being bottled?” Wind questioned, “Do they like it? I think I remember Cap saying that they were okay with being bottled.”

“Well-“

“How do you feel about someone drinking fairy dust?” Wild asked.

“Champ, we’ve talked about this before,” Twi pinched Wild’s ear.

“But it tastes like fake strawberries!”

“That’s doesn’t make sense!”

“Yes it does!” Wild turned back to Hyrule, “Are you okay with me drinking fairy dust?” Hurtle just nodded. He did not want that conversation to continue. He’s just glad Wild wasn’t eating any actual fairies. Hopefully.

“Bottle.” Wind tugged at the traveler’s shirt, “tell me your feelings.”

“As long as you don’t shake us around, I don’t see what’s wrong?”

“How do you feel about bees?”

“Vet, drop the bee question.”

“But my bees!”

“I still can’t believe you’re a fairy.”

“We still don’t know why there’s a copy of your clothes here.”

“THE TRAVELER IS A FAIRY!”

Hyrule laughed at the cacophony of voice all around him. He had calmed down considerably since the beginning of this conversation, and he could see the tensions dissipate as the roaring voices went on and on. Secrets will always be revealed, and he’s just glad he was able to choose to reveal his secret. Things would be different, strange, and at least somewhat uncomfortable for a while, but Hyrule knew that in due time, everything would be alright. His friends, his newfound family, would be right by his side.

[aliasrocket]

Rocketober day 1 : ‘friends’

title : stars.

hey guys! Starting this off just to say I’m still on break, my exams have barely started, I just wanted to do a quickie for the first prompt for Rocketober since I have brought it up once in a poll before. Sadly, I’m not sure if I’m able to do the rest of the prompts but I’ll try to do the ones I really wanna do. Take care everyone!

here’s the rocketober list if you’d also like to participate.

Just like the op in the link, I’m accepting requests now for Rocketober prompts, please be sure to specify which prompt you’re putting in a request for.

“Guys, this is my friend.”

Nebula spills your name and points with a glass-filled hand, champagne sloshing inside when her finger swings to point to you.

Rocket could have sworn that she had stepped aside to let the fluorescent lights beam down on just you.

You, with that dainty little wave but a red dress that said otherwise, hem ending halfway up your thigh and a black purse hanging from your shoulder. Was that even a purse?

The moment rotated, just as time does, and the light had swung around to find another muse. Not that Rocket was complaining, because you looked even better in star-stewn hues, some slivers of you hidden in the dark for him to discover again.

If you weren’t Nebula’s friend.

It was a hypothetical.

Hands stretched out from behind him, soon coming around to greet you more personally—after all, they weren’t going to be here for long. Mantis and Quill have each come back from their lifelong trips to catch up with the ol’ gang. Like things changed.

Rocket serves another glance and you were already looking back at him, a star in your eyes each. He came forward with an averted gaze and offered his hand.

“Rocket,” he said, not sure if it had been over the music but when you bent down to let him hear the name he’ll never forget, you took it and let him decide the shake’s strength.

His second round of looking away had been when there was a slight ripple in your exposed cleavage—nothing screams pervert like a speechless rat.

“Rocket,” you repeated, and Rocket took a step back. “That’s a pretty name.”

Yeah, comin’ from pretty lips. The grinding in his teeth almost matched the bass of the party music.

He gets daggers in the form of a look from Nebula, and if you hadn’t been standing right in front of him he would have rolled his eyes.

“Thanks.”

Your chest flinched and you blinked, only for a split second—and because Rocket’s the master of looking away, of drawing back, of letting the pieces fall where they may, he’s stuck looking at your heels and on the floor hoping you don’t hear the cracking noises.

And you cracked just then, too.

Well, no, it doesn’t matter. If you did, didn’t—you were Nebula’s friend. Everyone had already drifted back to their shared table, and it’s another piece of reality that had its hands roaming his throat; you were off bounds.

“Rocket, are you okay?” Mantis asked, tilting her head as her forehead crinkled in that frown he remembered so well even after time made its rounds.

“Yeah, yeah.” The answer cut into whatever had been lying at the tail end of that question. Everyone lowered their heads and held the base of their drinks, not speaking and letting the music beat against their backs.

A light flashes, and a warmth engulfed his hand before he could swipe it to his chest.

Mantis’ antennae were lowered, but the glass in her eyes reflected its light clearly. Her hand was right where Rocket’s had been.

“Fucking—Mantis! We talked about this—you know what? I don’t even have the energy,” Rocket spat. “I’m outta’ here.”

“Wait!” Mantis grabbed Rocket’s shoulder.

“What’s going on?” Quill asked, head emerging from his drink.

Mantis’ head pivoted back to Rocket’s after Peter’s question, lips pursed as the inner corner of her brows arch upwards.

“Hey, if you don’t wanna tell Quill, tell me!” Drax whispered, or made a sad attempt at doing so, but over the music he was yelling.

Quill scowled. “Dude, not fair! I asked first, I get dibs!”

“That’s not how this works at all.” Drax shook his head.

“It so is!” Quill’s head snapped back around the other way. “Mantis, Rocket, what the fuck is going on?”

A darkness loomed over Rocket then stretched its way across the table to retrieve a tissue from the very end.

His head rocked forward when some sort of ball hit him, though the impact was almost like a stroke in his fur.

“Oh, sorry.”

This voice was nothing like poets would describe them to be; but the feeling, the rush and creaking in Rocket’s alloyed ribs—it felt all the more numbing yet painfully acute.

He looked up by instinct.

The first thing he noticed was that your jaw was so defined from this angle, not quite underneath you but so close he felt your warmth over him like a hood.

The second thing he noticed was that what had hit him was not a ball at all. Not a ball at all. Your breast rubbed up against the back of his head for another half second before you finally pulled away to wipe your hands with the tissue you acquired from across the table. Rocket’s ears rung from both the music that now sounded like screeching metal and the clenching in his chest.

“Sorry, I um, spilled some wine on my hands,” you explained as you crumpled the tissue to compress it in your fist. “Which one of you is the pilot?”

“Me.”

Quill and Rocket scowled at the sounds of both their voices in unison.

You laughed. You laughed and it sounded like a laugh you’d hear on Terran TV, something of a ribbon dancing in what felt like stale air. Yeah, Rocket was going to bottle that ribbon into memory like the rest of the things he’d already learned about you, and it wasn’t much.

“Sorry, maybe I should have specified. I need something of mine fixed,” you explained a second time, and you unclasped the lid of your purse to pull out a long metal rod known to be a phone from Terran electronic stores.

Another beat against the ribs and Rocket felt a lung drop. His heart punched it right out of the park.

“I’ve been pressing the side to project the screen but it doesn’t seem to be working.” You showed the entire table the power button as your finger sank into it but came up with no response on the phone’s end.

“I think one of you pilots are engineers, right?”

Quill grinned. He gave a sharp push at Rocket’s shoulder. “This one, he’s your guy.”

He flashed another scowl at Quill.

“I get it, it’s really stupid, I’m sorry to have bothered—”

“Nah, let me take a look,” Rocket insisted, gesturing for you to come closer.

“I was hoping I could get another drink while you looked at it. Can I get you something?”

One would think Rocket would have made eye contact with you before this point, but no—this was the first time since first meeting you ten seconds ago. Those eyes, widened and round, had stars crossing its skies and at this point Rocket thought he was dreaming. There was no way someone could be this fuckin’ perfect.

The ringing in his ear had only increased tenfold; now, it sounded like a flatline, a perfect audial representation of the current situation.

“I’ll walk with you.”

Without sparing his friends another look, he got off the stool and walked around the edge of the cheering room to the bar, where you had handed him your phone with a sort of languid quality to it; was it possible for this kind of thing to be graceful? The way your shoulder lifts slightly when you look down at him, curled hair fluffing up against your cheek as you handed over the tech. He’s looking up, jaw hanging—but now, he has a reason to keep his eyes on you.

He didn’t take your phone. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“About the phone.” You gestured to the phone again, raising a brow at him as some hair fell over one of your eyes from how much she had been looking down. The eye that remained … oh, fuck.

At half-mast, hypnotic. Your features framed a dream for Rocket; someone so damn gorgeous, he knows he’d thought you up at least a hundred times before. Someone of this beauty, of this cherry lip gloss, this fuckin’ dress.

Rocket’s hand slid up the rod to the hilt, both yours and his gaze in a chain neither of you broke before he pressed a button, and a blue screen emitted from the side of the rod.

“I knew it wasn’t broken,” Rocket said, lips parted as his eyes flickered to the phone then back at your star speckled eyes. Your eyes were widened again.

He wasn’t quite sure what he liked better; the almost pleading nature of your wide-eyed gaze, or the allure of your lowered lids reeling him in by the neck like a leash.

“So, the only reason you faked a broken phone is to talk to me.”

Your drink arrived, and you thanked the bartender curtly before taking a sip.

“I do recall asking for an engineer,” you said, your eyes the only part of you facing him, “instead of a detective.”

Oh, the way Rocket fumbled with the seat next to you, there was no coming back from this, because he’d rather trip and fall off than tear his eyes away from your complexion—collection of little shiny trinkets he stole and swiped from far galaxies and arranged so delicately to form you.

Maybe that’s why you felt ethereal. You were something out of a goddamn movie. A fairytale. Your hair looked like it was floating in water. Your lip had a permanent glint to it, always moving back and forth depending on the angle at which light had danced on your body.

“Hey, I’m still your guy.”

It felt irrevocably wrong to say that. He wished he could take it back. But if wishes are made to stars, then he knows if he’d done that, you’d hear him. And he’s had enough of accidentally sending the wrong message tonight.

You cocked a brow at him, finally turning your head over. Your shoulders were shrugged to keep your elbows propped on the table, hands loosely busy with your new glass of wine.

“You’re my guy?” You smirked, teeth peeking through glassy lips.

A lump accumulated in Rocket’s throat, and it happened in a split second—swallowing that lump was swallowing a loose bolt in one of his bombs.

“Yeah, what d’ya need?” Rocket tilted his head, leaning into the bar to get a better view of her when you returned to her already emptied glass.

You raised a flimsy hand, and the bartender nodded from across the isle as he poured a drink for another patron.

“I think I should be asking you that,” your smug grin thawed into a smile as you lowered your head. Your eyes pulled up because of this—it cut that doe-eyed look straight into Rocket, but he simply readjusted his posture on the bar in a sad attempt to cover up his dry lips, an empty tongue, and his parched throat.

“You wanted to tell me something when I complimented you,” you speculated aloud. “Am I warm?”

“Smoking hot, actually—” and Rocket’s eyes almost popped right out of his skull. “Uh, both in your question and—”

You laughed again, shoulders shaking as you threw your head back. Those shiny curls slid off from your shoulder and down your back to join the rest of your styled hair.

“Don’t be so uptight!” You nudged him with your hand, and you both turn to the bartender who finally came around.

“Hi, I’d like another.”

“I’ll start a tab, her refill’s on me,” Rocket chimed in, arm stretched towards the bartender who failed to hold back a crease in his brow when he turned away from you to grimace at Rocket. “And I’ll have one for myself too.”

Your jaw dropped for the first time that night, only slightly, and even then you still looked like an actress. “You didn’t have to.”

“I want to,” Rocket insisted.

“You won’t like wine. You’re the type to enjoy beer.” You finally place the wine glass down. You folded your arms on the table, but kept your head in his direction.

“Never really liked Terran liquor in general.” Rocket shrugged before spinning his stool around to expose himself entirely to you. He would, if that was what you demanded.

“But.” He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling just a hair, a follicle too exposed, down to the very pore of his skin, he could feel each chill the situation brought. “You make it look like steak after years of prison food.”

Your smile caved deeper into your cheeks, roses sprinkled across them.

“So, what was it you wanted to say?”

Now you had rotated your stool to face him, one arm still on the table as you rested your face on your palm.

“Earlier? With Nebs?”

“Mhmm.” You nodded.

Fuck, fuckity flark. He couldn’t even recall the last time he used flark. That goddamn hum, the feigned innocence it implied—was it wrong to think about how much of a brat you probably were in bed?

Fuck. Too creepy.

But with the way your arm was positioned, your cleavage had just been a little below eye level and boy did he avoid eye contact a lot.

“I was gonna say you had a prettier face,” Rocket admitted. It almost sounded like a grunt, and he wasn’t surprised because his tongue tugged his gut all the way up to his throat to confess this.

“Is that so?”

Your tone felt carried, longer than it was meant to be. You grinned. Satisfaction painted you pink in the navy blue tints of the party. And he couldn’t hate it. He couldn’t even look away from it. The party? That god-awful music? Could be happening in a completely separate room for all he was aware of. You wiped him clean of everything else but you.

Before he even got to realize he’d been staring directly at your cleavage again, you rubbed a soft hand under his chin and lifted it.

His eyes met yours, and he hung off a cliff you were looking off of.

“Speechless, huh?”

“I—you—”

“Use your words, big guy.”

Rocket gritted his teeth before nearly barking it out. “Can’t blame me for how fuckin’ sexy you are.”

“Looks aren’t everything.”

“I’m the last guy you needa’ be tellin’ that to,” Rocket chuffed, a corner of his lips tugging up as he regained some of his spine. Oh, has he been slouching this whole time? “I know you know what you’re doin’, princess.”

“Princess?” You cocked a brow down at him again, gaze floating across the ceiling.

“I like it.”

Rocket smirked.

Oh yes, the good kind of warmth returned to him—he was settling in his seat the way he hoped he would, his eyes sitting better in the glimmer of your own.

“Yeah. You’re the type to like that sorta’ thing.”

Your brows furrowed. “How do you know what my type is?”

“Same way you know that I’m the kind to hate wine.”

A beat passed before you returned his gaze. “Just for the record, physically … I find you to be very a—

‘What’s going on here?”

You both turned to the same fuming expression, arms crossed as black crystal balls for eyes burning holes through Rocket’s fur.

“Rocket treated me to a drink,” you said, showing Nebula your glass.

“She’s a friend!” Nebula gritted through a clenched jaw when she swung her head around to face Rocket.

“I’m having a really good time, Nebby.”

And that had been the first time that night Rocket had seen the mask catch fire in the disco light. Some of that actress charm replaced with utmost honesty. Or, maybe it was another accessory Rocket had observed, one of something much more poisonous than anything he’d hoped you possessed.

Nebula shook her head. “You’re lucky I can tell whether you’re lying or not.”

“Well, yeah, and you kinda ruined something we were having,” you admitted further, and Rocket grinned, unable to withhold his chuckles.

“What is it?” Nebula grumbled, turning right back to Rocket.

“Nah, nothin’.”

“Spit it out!”

Rocket’s eyes crossed yours multiple times that night. And just about all of those times he wished he hadn’t crashed and burned right in front you to pick him apart and laugh at his … naviety? Hopes and dreams? His fantasies?

Fantasies aren’t real, yet there you were—smiling right back at him at the look he gave you, lowered head and a smirk as a vice.

“I just know we’re gonna get along plenty,” Rocket rasped in low tones.

“Yeah?”

“Oh, fuck me—get a room you two! And just so you know, I don’t approve of this! At all!”

And so began a long, endless, fateful effervescent string of kisses, bites, fucks and talks waving its filth and bliss in its galaxy-stippled wake.

[koishiro]

Ermmm quick question… HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE A BEAUTIFUL AF BLOG?? Like pls share and help me out bc my blog is BARE and empty and looks nasty af, I wanna make my pinned posts and moodboards and just pfp and theme look pretayyy ☹️☹️

Awe thank youuu!!! >.< I think bc I’m such a minimalist in rl it’s easier for me to pick and choose. But here’s a tutorial that’ll hopefully help :33

NOTE! I do everything on my iphone (writing, editing, decorating my page etc just in case ur wondering if I do all this on a laptop/computer,,,I don’t :p)

ʚ The way I work is I’ll choose 3 main colours; a light colour, an in-between shade and then a dark colour. Mine for example : light colour: white, in-between shade: grey, dark colour: dark grey. It’s up to you whether you want ur dark or light colour to be ur main colour but I’d keep ur in-between shade as an in-between. (Think of ur in-between shade as a gradient, helping to blend ur light colour with ur dark colour)

AND CHOOSE COLOURS THAT WORK TOGETHER! Even when picking pictures like for example ur navigation or pinned page make sure the pics have the same three colour combo you used through ur whole blog even if its minuscule it’ll make a huge difference I promise u (so like I’d personally look out for white, grey and black accent pics for my blog on Pinterest) :

ʚ Even with moodboards I still work with the same mindset! :

SET YOUR THEME! Once you’ve figured out your colours and where they’ll go, set your blog’s theme from the editing page!!! (hint : I’d use your mid/gradient/in-between shade as your accent but it honestly depends on what ur after) :

ʚ What really helps is when you have a pic theme and what I mean by that is maybe use ur fav character from somewhere (like mines megumi from jjk) or maybe it’s a sanrio character like my melody. (I grab my pics from this Pinterest board if that helps which I also use for my moodboards)

Example :

⤷ I also found it helped my aesthetic when I added links into my bio to help find my carrd and navigation (here’s the link for the tut) it helps fill out ur bio especially if ur not sure what to put there :) — I know earlier I said I do everything on my phone but I’m not entirely sure if this is able to be done on a phone (android or iphone) so I’d use a laptop with this part if you can :))

Miscellaneous things you can add!

ʚ You can also customise ur ask page title (like mine is : send me a love letter ︎♡)

ʚ Keep ur writing post themes consistent — this helps readers actually remember ur work while also tying ur blog together.

For example, I always use this draft for my writing :

ʚ Fonts really help! I personally use the app : keyboard + + for free fonts (u just have to watch a few adds to unlock them)

ʚ I find it important to make sure whatever picture you add to your blog has a transparent background — not everyone has the same colour palette (like mine is permanently on Dark Mode while others will have theirs on Gothic) :

(I use Picsart for this)

ʚ Tags make a difference on your posts too! A separate tag index can also help ur followers know where to find certain posts for easy scrolling or maybe posts they want to avoid (like smut) :

ʚ For my pfp I chose a bright main colour like yellow to stand out against the dark grey of my blog and I usually leave this as the last step in my “blog decoration” just because I find it easier once all the main construction is done and then I can see what colour(s) I need to add back to tie my blog together.

ʚ I also like to hide my pfp/avatar from my bio bc it looks a bit too much and too big for me personally and it can sometimes clash with the colours you already have going on, I like a minuscule pfp but again that’s just preference :

Anywhoooo I think that’s it! Hopefully this helped and if you (or anyone else) have anymore questions or if you want me to personally help you with decorating your blog pls pls pls message me and I’ll be happy to help! ,,,Mwah! <3

[noirapocalypto]

blog update

- cleaned up my pinned, moving all my OC tags to their own post which will be linked once I’m done

- this blog will continue being a personal blog of whatever I want plus my OC’s and worldbuilding. I also decided I’m going to go back to using it how I originally was before fandom: unapologetically

I’m not gonna be posting hole and/or pole or anything, but I’m not gonna shy away from stuff anymore to try and cater to others preferences. Follow at your own risk type of thing. I would have wanted to archive this blog and start over but this has been my main since my late teens and I’m attached lol

- on that subject, I’m thinking about making a separate blog for vp/cp2077 reblogs. So if you guys originally followed me for cyberpunk stuff, you still can without having to see the rest of my bullshit if you’d like

but that’s still a maybe, not sure if I wanna put extra effort into running another side blog

- I might start a tag list also, but who knows. working up the courage to ask

- I’m still going to post stuff about my OC’s, and I’d like to try and talk about them some more now that I’m doing my own worldbuilding and separating them from full canon (still cyberpunk 2077 based though). Less “fandom contribution” and more “here’s my stuff if you wanna read/look through it! 🙏” no more posting on a schedule, I just wanna have an organized place to post/share

- might be active again soon, I still feel off and demotivated, but let’s be honest, can never really quit this hotel california ass website

[amiharana]

Bored with nothing to do so I’m requesting streamer au again 😕🏃🏻‍♀️🤙

ask and ye shall receive ☝️😌✨ i mentioned in the tags that the last time i posted about streamer au that i wanna write the champions going to twitchcon and sharing an airbnb together sooo 👹

i'm actually not too sure how to incorporate the location of twitchcon into this au, because (1) i've never been to twitchcon actually KJDJFKKJS and (2) it depends on whether or not hyrule is divorced from the u.s. & the rest of human society e.g. a universe where hyrule is the country analogous to the u.s.... for purposes of this au, i've been kind of writing hyrule as a city that all the champions live in, so maybe it can be somewhere in the u.s.? what state does the city of hyrule give LOL

reading the wikipedia about twitchcon tells me that most of the cons have been held in san diego, CA so all the champions fly there together for the con, and could you just imagine them at an airport 😭 like you know those tiktoks of people either traveling with their family or their friend group and in each case there's always like the dad/dad-friend who's in charge of everything, from being there super early to holding all the passports, etc? because i can totally see daruk being that guy HAHAHKDJHFDKJ

outside of being a streamer, daruk is a dad irl and the oldest of the champs so he quite literally sees all of them as his kiddos 🥹 the flight will be at like 5pm but daruk insists on being there at the airport at 9am, he'd write labels on each of the champions' luggage with their contact information, he would put all their plane tickets into a manila folder and keeps a death grip on it until they reach the desk for boarding 😭 the dad instinct has been Activated ✅ and then when they get on the plane, daruk gets his little travel neck pillow on and conks the fuck out once the plane takes off 😄

before i continue, here's the plane seating configuration i was thinking of in my head:

most planes are usually three-seaters instead of two but for purposes of this ficlet idrgaf 🤞🤓 move along and get with the fantasy 🙏❤️

urbosa will just be chilling to herself (i have this image of her with earphones in and also knitting? no one knew that urbosa was a knitter including me), sidon is talking to zelda's manager impa, and mipha and zelda are talking and giggling to themselves bc they're gfs now <3 but link and revali? woof. these homos are totally going to be shyly holding hands on the plane the whole time, and then when they land, zelda will post a selfie of her looking extremely unamused on the plane next to mipha giggling, with link in the background looking at revali with wide eyes blushing while revali is holding up their intertwined hands to his lips.

in my head, this is gonna be set after the LOH show from the last streamer au ask, but before the date that revali had planned during the show. so throughout the entirety of the event, from the plane rides to and from twitchcon to the sitting together at their panel, revali and link have Hella Tension with each other. since the date that revali had planned during the LOH hasn't happened yet (they have a day in mind though hehe), they're both anticipating it and are also in this limbo stage of being exclusive but not really having an actual label on their relationship. all they know is they really enjoy each other's presence and perhaps they'd like to be around each other more often :>

but link is still insecure and still quite surprised that revali even returns his interest, that the date has been planned and is on an actual, real day and that revali wants to go out with him, and oh goddess revali wants to go out with him. it has him sitting tensely in his seat, nearly sweating because this has to be some sort of fever dream, right? revali, a streamer infamous for his rather arrogant, brutal words and attitude, who has had all the disparaging insults to say about link, and doesn't miss a single chance to rag on him. this couldn't have been the same revali who looked at him so fondly through the camera on the LOH stream, who has taken note of everything link says offhandedly, who sent him a heart in their discord dms (and revali never uses emojis). this has to be some elaborate prank on link and—

he feels a sharp tap on the side of his head, knocking him out of his downward spiral, and he looks up, rubbing his head and ready to bicker with zelda, but it isn't zelda who's hit him. revali stares down at him, one knee on the plane seat and his hands on the headrests in their row and in front of them.

"stop thinking so loud," revali says, before finally sitting in his seat properly. "it's painful to watch."

link scoffs and rolls his eyes. "any more painful than watching you fall in the xp farm while you were making it?"

"maybe don't hit me while i'm building next time and i won't fall in," revali snips back.

"you were wearing an elytra."

"and with what space, pray tell, could i have used to gain altitude? it's a vertical column, you absolute fool, the only way was down."

"and down you went, so i could take all your xp," link replies cheerfully.

revali rolls his eyes as he finishes settling into his seat. "and you'll still use all of that on the worst combination of enchantments possible." they both fall silent, the quiet din of voices around the plane their background noise.

"what were you thinking about?" revali then says quietly, suddenly. link glances at him and is surprised to find the other man staring at him with genuine concern. butterflies come to life in link's stomach, so he averts his eyes, down at his fidgeting hands in his lap. there was no eloquent way to phrase his worries about their date to revali, of all people.

"don't tell me you have flight anxiety now," revali murmurs. it sounds like it was meant to be a joke, but it misses its mark when link doesn't answer, fingers still fidgeting in his lap. "link?"

"i'm not worried about flying or the plane," link mutters. "i've traveled by air before plenty of times, it's not that."

"then what's got you all locked up like this?" revali replies, in the same quiet voice. link still doesn't say anything. "link..."

then, revali reaches for the blond's hand, smoothly intertwining their fingers and bringing it upwards, propping his elbow on the armrest between them. link's eyes widen, blinking, and he slowly moves his gaze from his lap to their intertwined fingers, and then to revali's face. he only stares back, a rather soft look in his eyes, and the butterflies in link's stomach burst to life again.

"you don't have to tell me if it's something personal," revali says, and his tone is so gentle, link thinks he's going to melt in his seat right there. is this the same revali who called him a fool less than a minute ago? "but don't bottle it all up or you'll end up exploding. it'll only make things worse and we wouldn't want that, would we?"

link stares at him with the same wide eyes for a moment longer, and then nods once slowly. "yeah, i guess you're right," he whispers, and after another second, he squeezes revali's hand softly. it seems to make revali's gaze soften even further, and he squeezes back.

"is there anything i can do to help?" revali murmurs. link blinks at him, and suddenly, it feels like the floodgates have opened and he can't stop himself from telling the truth.

"it's the date," link blurts aloud, his cheeks warming and turning pink. shit.

revali's head tilts to the side slightly. "the date?" he repeats. "the one we—?"

"yeah," link whispers. under revali's gaze, filled with such genuine concern, he feels shy again and he looks back down at the other hand in his lap. "it's just... i know we talked about it already, but it just doesn't feel real, like it's all some prank, you know?" he giggles nervously, his left leg beginning to bounce. "knowing you, i wouldn't put it past you to plan one as elaborate at this either, but even if it wasn't a prank, i can barely wrap my mind around that it's actually going to happen."

revali doesn't say anything for a couple moments, and it makes link more nervous, his leg bouncing a little faster, his heart pounding a little harder. please say something, he thinks to himself.

"you know," revali says finally, still in that ever so gentle tone, "we don't have to do the date." and link's heart drops to his stomach. "it was never something i was going to force on you, especially not on that pathetic joke of a show. don't feel like you have to go on a date with me to please your fans if it makes you uncomfortable—"

"no," link says, whipping his head to look at revali with wide, horrified eyes. "th-that's not what i was trying to say, i do want to go on the date with you." admitting it out loud makes link blush and he wants to melt into a puddle in revali's surprised green gaze, but he can't keep shying away. so link steels himself and maintains eye contact with revali, taking a breath before continuing. "i do want to. please trust me on that, i do. i'm just nervous about it because..." link swallows. "i like you, like a lot, and this date is like, confirming that you like me back and actually planning to go on it is insane, because i never thought you'd really return my feelings and what if you back out? because i'm not gonna stop you if you don't wanna go on the date anymore, but i want to go on it so bad 'cause—"

"hey," revali cuts him off, with a strangely soft voice. "breathe for me, darling."

link blinks and then lets go of a long breath he didn't know had accumulated in his lungs. revali nods reassuringly and squeezes his hand again. "one more time," he says in that same soft voice, so link does, breathing in deeply and releasing it slowly. he feels much calmer now.

but then, revali presses his lips to their intertwined fingers, to the back of link's hand. "i want to go on the date with you too," revali murmurs to the skin, and link nearly shivers. "and believe me, i won't be backing out unless you do, because i like you too." he tilts his head slightly to the side. "do you think i'd be so cruel to drag this out if i truly didn't want to go? if anything, i should be worrying about whether or not you want to go through with it since i was the one who planned and proposed it."

"well, sometimes you're too proud to admit you're uncomfortable when it's about being better than me," link mumbles. "i would have been doing us both a favor..."

"i'm not uncomfortable," revali says softly, reassuringly, "but it's good to know that i wouldn't have been the first to back out." he smirks a little, but the fond look in his eyes betrays him.

link's stomach erupts into yet another swarm of butterflies, but he tries to play it off and scoffs. "this isn't a competition, revali."

"perhaps i'll make it into one, if that's what'll get into your stupid little skull that i want to go out with you too." the blond blinks and suddenly, revali's lips are grazing the tip of link's oh-so-sensitive ear. "first to back out of the date loses," he murmurs, the vibrations of his voice tingling into the shell of it.

in an instant, a million thoughts race around inside of link's head, and at the same time, he can feel his face reddening and dripping off of his skull like lava. his mouth drops and his eyes bulge out of his head, but no words come out as revali gently takes the tip of his ear between his teeth, and link all but short circuits—

"boys, i hope you're behaving yourselves back there," comes urbosa's voice. revali immediately pulls away and sits stiffly in his seat, hands in his lap, looking down. link blinks, missing the warmth though his face still burned, eyes still wide staring at revali, whose cheeks were beginning to match link's. "we have a fairly lengthy flight ahead of us, and i would hate to have to deal with you two causing any sort of trouble."

"like what, joining the mile high club?" zelda snickers across the way, only for mipha to gasp in shock, the both of them erupting into giggles.

link rolls his eyes and he catches revali's jaw tense, but the other man doesn't move from his position. letting out a breath through his nose, link sits back in his seat and looks out the window, watching the ground crew scurrying around and preparing the plane for flight. he's glad to have gotten reassurance and confirmation of their relationship now, at the very least.

but then, he feels revali's fingers slip back into his hand, warm and firm against his palm. link looks back, but revali isn't looking at him, his cheeks perhaps a couple shades darker than when he last looked. the blond just smiles and squeezes his hand, looking back out the plane window as the pilot announces readying for departure in the speakers above. revali squeezes back, and their hands stay intertwined for the rest of the flight.

TEHE THEY'RE IDIOTS IN LOVE. the ground crew are the koroks btw they flew on Great Deku Airlines 🙏 zel n miph definitely take pics of revalink holding hands and also when they fall asleep, link's head on revali's shoulder and revali's head leaning on link's... when urbosa wakes them up during landing, link only groans and tries to curl up closer to revali's side, mumbling about having another five minutes and urbosa is recording the whole thing for the champions vlog later 😹 when they get off the plane, revali is grumpy and glaring down anyone who tries to talk to him, but he adjusts himself when link leans on him sleepily, clinging to his arm 🥺 even in the rental car, link's head falls on revali's shoulder again as he snoozes and revali just stares down the rest of the champions, daring them to say anything as his own cheeks color pink 😄

by the time they get to their airbnb, link has regained some consciousness, but he keeps his head on revali's shoulder blinking sleepily until revali gently taps at his thigh to tell him to get up. there are four rooms in the airbnb, so roomies get assigned as (daruk & sidon), (impa & urbosa), (mipha & zelda), and of course, (revali & link). everyone rolls their eyes when revali and link blush at getting assigned to each other, glancing shyly at each other before looking away 😄

after that, the group begins to explore the airbnb. "this is a very nice place," mipha says politely, running her hand along the wall decor. "however, i didn't expect so much winter-themed decor in midst of summer."

zelda shrugs, following after mipha. "this place is owned by a man named pondo, who appears to have an affinity for the season." they come across a pair of bowling shoes mounted on the wall, surprisingly shiny and clean. "among... other things."

revali rolls his eyes as he follows urbosa down the similarly wintry-themed hallway to the room him and link have been assigned (where did link even go?), rolling both of their luggages along. why is revali taking link's luggage with him, you may ask? it's not like anyone asked him to take link's stuff with him either 😹

urbosa stops before one of the doors nearer to the end of the hall, leaning against its threshold and cocking her head at it. "this one's yours," she says, somewhat amused. "behave yourselves. you might be sharing a room, but we're sharing a whole house."

revali's face flushes and burns like a forest fire. "we're not going to do anything like that," he mutters, unable to meet urbosa's gaze. "we're not even official yet."

"but you're officially holding hands in public," urbosa lilts, pushing herself off of the threshold. "so that's official enough."

he makes a face at her. "i bet you're not even going to tell mipha and zelda the same thing, will you?"

urbosa sighs. "i have to keep a closer eye on both of them, actually. those two are complete menaces now that they're official." she pats at revali's shoulder. "i'll leave you to unpack."

and so revali enters the room, beginning to unpack some of his things and leaving link's stuff by the foot of the bed. when he finishes up, he flops onto the bed, staring at the ceiling of their shared room.

their shared room... revali blinks and sits up as it truly settles in that he and link are going to share a room for the week they're here. oh gods. they're sharing a room for a week, and sharing this one bed in the room. well, revali could always offer to sleep on the couch or make link do it, but he thinks about the warmth of link's hand entwined with his, link's soft sleepy expression gazing back at him, link's unruly blond hair spilling like silk all over his skin and the pillow he's laying upon— revali shakes himself out of his reverie, desperately willing himself not to blush. he shouldn't think such things when they haven't even put a label on their relationship yet—

suddenly, the doorknob turns and clicks open, and in steps link, dripping wet and dressed in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. his modesty (is it modest if you're already wet and half-naked?) is protected with only a gentle one-handed grip to hold the towel together and with his free hand, link pushes his wet bangs up and over his head. oh goddesses. it's like everything is happening in slow motion. revali's lips part, his eyes widening, and he can't look away. he should, because that would be the logical, gentlemanly thing to do, but alas... the droplets of water sliding down the ridges of link's abs are rather... enthralling...

"um," link starts, "hi. i, um, forgot to bring clothes with me to the shower."

"the shower," revali repeats dumbly, and it takes his entire will to force his eyes upward to link's face instead of his very grabbable slim waist, or the v-line slipping under the towel. link's cheeks are tinged pink and his eyes are averted as he scratches at the back of his neck.

goddess, he's adorable, revali thinks immediately before catching himself. he can't say things like this when link is practically naked!

"yeah, i needed to refresh after the flight," link says, biting his lip.

"to refresh," revali repeats, blinking. it feels like his brain is melting and reforming and melting again into a searing hunk of unintelligible meat. he can't form a single coherent, logical thought right now, completely transfixed by the enticing droplets of water sliding down link's pretty throat. refresh... oh goddess, revali needs to get out of here right now. "right, okay, shit, sorry, i'll just—"

revali makes it out of their shared room and into the backyard of the house in record time. urbosa and impa are going over plans at the breakfast nook as he zooms by, beelining for the sliding glass door that leads to the back of the house, but not before urbosa can call out, "i told you to behave!"

revali could behave, alright. but it seemed like revali jr. was going to need a little more restraint.

KFDHUSKDJFHKSDJHFFKH WELL ANYWAYS. idiots to lovers is my favorite trope for these two, like they are the ultimate little freaks ever <3

after link gets his clothes on and revali jr. calms down, the champions have a shitty little dinner composed of various fast food places that were nearby 😹 idk the last time i stayed at an airbnb, i went to get mcdonalds with my cousin in the middle of the night and now it's like a core memory, so i'm passing it onto the champs. i do love me some fries and chicken nuggets though 🤍 impa is outside taking a call at the time, but i'm thinking ab daruk n urbosa with double double burgers and animal fries from in n out..... sidon n mipha with five (5) filet-o-fish sandwiches each 😭 zelda dipping fries into her sundae :] link absolutely would have gotten something from dennys, he's chaos incarnate returning to his homeland (dennys), and revali kind of gives me the vibes that he doesn't fw fast food at all LOL, so he just gets whatever link gets to make it easier on himself, but grumbles and blushes a little when urbosa smiles knowingly at him. hehe >:]

after dinner, they all slowly file off into their rooms to wash up and get ready for bed. there's two bathrooms with showers between the four bedrooms, so they divide the two between the guys and girls. revali takes his shower after sidon, and takes a much quicker one than he's happy with. he totally seems like the type of guy that has an intricate hair care ritual/routine and would hog the bathroom for more than an hour, but link still has to take his actual shower and y'all already know down baddd revali is for him 🤣

revali comes back to their shared bedroom, his hair wrapped up in a towel, dressed in pajama pants and a large plain shirt. link is flopped on the floor of the room as he scrolls through what revali assumes to be tiktok.

"shower's yours," revali says, walking around link and sitting on his side of the bed. he takes off the wrap and bends over to towel dry his hair. "why are you on the floor?"

"my clothes are dirty so i don't wanna get in the bed with them," link says, sitting up and staring at revali. "and i'm sharing with you. i would have thought you would complain if i was in bed with my dirty clothes."

revali fights the heat crawling up his neck and swallows. goddess, they're actually going to share the damn bed. "do whatever you want," he manages in a mumble, sitting back up and throwing his hair back, grabbing the brush he left on the nightstand. "that's... very considerate of you, though."

link hums, before jumping to his feet and taking his stuff with him to the bathroom. when the door shuts with a click, revali glances back at it before letting out a sigh. can he really make it through the night sharing the bed with this heavenly creature of a man that's become rather fond of in the last few weeks?

revali is finishing up with the last of his braid when link comes back from his shower, thankfully fully clothed this time, dressed similarly with pajama pants and a shirt. but instead of practically breaking down the door, link opens it slowly and peeks inside, meeting revali's eyes and neither of them looking away, for several moments.

"are you going to come in or will you stand there the rest of the night like a ghost?" revali says finally, breaking the stare and tying the end of the braid. the only light on in the room now is the lamp beside revali on the nightstand.

link finally opens the rest of the door and shuffles quietly inside, closing it behind him before sitting at the edge of the bed. when revali looks back up, link is looking down at his lap and fingers fidgeting again, like he was in the plane. it makes revali soften, recalling why link had been anxious then.

"getting cold feet?" he says, as softly as he can. link's head shoots up to look at him, eyes wide with terror like he was on the plane when revali suggested that they didn't have to go forward with the date.

"no," the blond answers immediately, but revali can see the way his lip trembles when he says it.

"i can sleep on the couch—" he begins to offer, but link quickly shakes his head and crawls onto the bed to properly sit on it.

"no, i want to—" he starts before cutting himself off. link's cheeks pinken. "i want to... i want to share the bed... with you..."

"you don't sound very confident," revali tries to joke, but his tone is still so unbearably gentle.

link shakes his head again, and this time when he looks at revali, his face is set in an adamant expression, his brows furrowed. "i do want to share the bed with you," he says. "i can. i swear. please trust me."

for some reason, it makes revali's heart skip a beat, but he just snorts and shakes his head before settling into the bed, turning the lamp on the nightstand off. "sure," he says, tugging the blanket underneath link up. "and if i wake up in the morning with you on the floor or on the couch, i'll definitely still believe you."

link wrinkles his nose at revali (cute, he thinks), and then follows after him under the blanket on his side of bed. revali sighs as he relaxes, lying on his back as he stares at the ceiling. link shuffles beside him onto his side, and revali can practically feel those wide blue eyes staring holes into the side of his face.

"want to take a picture?" revali mumbles, already feeling drowsy. the travel fatigue was starting to get to him. "it might last longer."

"sorry," link whispers. "you're just so... beautiful."

revali almost has the energy to blush. almost. "thanks," he says instead. he shuts his eyes, and listens to the sound of link's breathing beside him. they're both quiet for a while, until revali continues in a much quieter voice, "you are too." he swears he can hear link's breath catch as he lets sleep claim him.

and it's the best sleep he's ever had in his life. usually, revali wakes up at the crack of dawn, when the light is barely creeping over the horizon, no matter what time he slept. but when he wakes in the morning, the sun is already fully above the horizon and shining through the curtains. link is curled into his side, head on revali's shoulder and an arm thrown over his stomach, revali's own arms cradling link's body, keeping him close. the blond snores lightly, but sleeps like a rock atop revali. dimly, he realizes their legs are tangled together under the blanket, but he's warm and he's comfortable. revali closes his eyes; maybe staying in bed a little while longer like this wouldn't be so bad...

but that thought is cut short with urbosa knocking on the door to their room. "wake up, lovebirds, breakfast is ready!" she calls. "make sure you look decent before you get out here."

even closed, revali rolls his eyes and lets out a soft groan. link mumbles and shifts under his arms, trying to snuggle closer to revali, who dares not move an inch as the blond makes himself comfortable once more. only when link settles, still curled around him, does revali speak again, opening his eyes.

"i'm surprised you're not jumping out of bed for food," he says softly. "i'd have thought of you as a ravenous beast with an endless hunger, or perhaps a garbage disposal unit."

link hums at him. "comfy," he murmurs in response. "still sleepy too."

fortunately for revali, he's also still too drowsy for his heart rate to pick up and link hearing it. "a couple more minutes wouldn't hurt then," he replies, letting his eyes fall shut. "breakfast can wait."

they get a max of 7 minutes cuddling together under the blankets before zelda and mipha bust down the door together, saying they're taking too long and the food is going to get cold, and i don't care if you're being cute and gay and snuggly GET UP ALREADY!!! this time, link groans and throws the blanket over their heads, clinging to revali, but he sighs and decides it's time to actually wake up. after all, revali is well-acquainted with link's large diet and he needs to make sure the blond is always eating well, right? 😁😁 link will still be sleepily, grumpily clinging to revali's arm as they make their way to the dining room since he was so comfy in the bed, and only fully wakes up when the smell of food hits his nose 😹

a couple days later, the champs have their panel at twitchcon 👁️ i don't really care enough to write a whole scene about what the champs get asked, because it'll probably just be standard questions like, "what kind of group content do you guys have planned?" or "are you guys going to make a twitchcon vlog?" ("yes") or "zelda please marry me" ("security please get this person out of here") and i just am not feeling creative enough to write all that

HOWEVER. HOWEVER. revalink during the entire panel. ooughh. oughh man. they're sat together towards the center right of the panel table (from audience pov/stage center left), giggling and whispering to each other as questions are asked, chiming in here and there to crack jokes or answer as needed, stealing glances/side-eyes at each other whenever they can. they're so silly :3

at some point, The Question gets asked; "okay this one's for link and revali. have you guys gone on the date that revali planned from the love or host, or has this all been an elaborate ruse to make us all think you were dating?"

the question catches both link and revali off-guard, the both of them blinking dumbly at it. i mean, they were expecting to be asked a question about their relationship, seeing as it was a bit public and anyone could see it from their collab streams & videos, the way they bantered on twitter or in the comments of each other's instagram posts. they weren't subtle about it at all, but of course anything could be an act on the internet.

link's cheeks begin to pinken as he glances at revali, before turning back to the questioner to respond. "well, um, so—" and finally, the sound of link's voice makes revali's brain click back into place.

"have you any decorum?" he cuts the blond off smoothly. "it's not anyone's business how our relationship is going, actually. but if you desperately wish to know, then all you have to know is that it's plenty real and though we haven't gone on the date yet, it's planned and it's happening." revali looks at link, whose head is fully turned to look back at him, utterly flustered, eyes wide and cheeks fully flushed pink. his heart softens; cute.

suddenly, revali gets an idea. as subtle as he can, he reaches under the table and takes link's hand into his, sliding his fingers down the blond's palm before lacing their fingers together. if it's possible, link's eyes get even wider, his face even darker with blush, revali's heart practically melting even more from the look on his face. "link will not be seeing anyone for a while," revali says softly, but making sure the mic catches his voice as he keeps his eyes on link, "and he's very content with our current predicament.

a chorus of "awh"s and cheers rise from the crowd, while the rest of the champions groan or roll their eyes at the display. link gives revali a small smile and squeezes his hand. revali returns the smile with a fond look and squeezes back.

"i hope you guys know they're holding hands under the table right now," comes zelda's voice through the speakers, haughty and prim. the crowd screams and shouts and cheers even louder. "it's very rich of revali to complain about you not having any decorum and then continuing to have no decorum himself in public."

"oh shush, zelda, you're holding hands with mipha under the table too," urbosa replies. zelda shrieks in opposition, mipha bursts out laughing, the crowd gets louder, but link and revali are still staring at each other, still blushing, still holding hands stuck in their own world.

and of course, people were taking videos during the panel. the entire scene from question to zelda's shrieking is recorded and posted and made edits of and retweeted and qrt'd to death, until they're #1 on trending. it's a little embarrassing; this is the most attention revali and link's relationship has ever received, especially outside of their community. but neither of them regret it. next time, maybe they'll even post a picture of them actually holding hands. <3

[narsh-potatoes]

Never apologize for rambling abt your OCs on my post. I love y ou (and HOHHH THAT SOUNDS SO INTERSETING I'M LOOKING)

OKAY COOL FUCK YEAH THANKS

im using you as an excuse to talk about my very own home-grown blorbos now

So!!!!!!!!! i literally only have half of a design for the two of these ocs, i've only drawn one of them ONCE and i don't count it cuz i wanna redesign him COMPLETELY (that piece is not even canon, i had to do that for a class so i put stuff in there that doesn't even belong to the type of story it is </3), i've written for the two of them a couple times but im not even sure THAT'S canon anymore

(here's the art in case you don't wanna click on a link)

i think the writing might still be canon tho, i do still kinda like a lot of the stuff it went over with that. N E WAYS.

basically there's this pair of witches (they don't. really have. names. oops. they did but i don't like them anymore) who enlisted and then eventually rose to the top of fighting this war/apocalypse/encroaching disaster that has been ongoing for a LONG time. like, they're at the end of the world but turns out the end of the world is a hell of a lot slower than anyone imagined. they've been fighting it for a long time (and it does involve actual fighting? like i like to think that this apocalypse acts more as like. locust swarm but the bugs are big big buggy boys that hates you hates you hates you and eats the magic out of the world)

and the first (we'll call him A) is the one who rose up in the ranks to be best of the best very quickly, because his kind of magic is very powerful and was critically effective in the fight. and the second guy (we'll call him B) is kind of. worst of the best. SORT OF. he was best of the best because he fought alongside A and B's brand of magic explicitly deals with the bond the two of them shared. (i call it bonds magic cuz i can't think of something better for now) (yes it's power of friendship) (there more to that but whatever) it was IMMENSELY powerful!!! not moreso than A's magic, but still!! very powerful!!! so B rose up because A pulled him up (not entirely true!!! but you get the point. nuance)

BUT THEN. sometime after they had been in the war for a long ass time, A leaves. either from shame, either he's disillusioned, something happened, he won't say. and just kind of. leaves B behind. who still is very much part of the war and won't say anything to sway A's mind because he cares too much about what he thinks

years later, B's still part of the war/doom effort. and magic in the world has kind of deteriorated so much that it's. honestly kind of hard to come across a solid magic user these days. they still teach them and still get people to join the effort, but compared to the older days, it's a lot less. people can learn magic, everyone can, but it's hard to get like. a professional, someone who has unlocked the higher abilities of magic. people like A or B.

speaking of! yeah. B is still part of the war effort. and it's NOW at the period of time where he's the worst of the best, but he's the only one they've got. they still keep him around because who else is there, really, and also he can still utilize the powerful bond magic he made way back when with A, so he's still very powerful but it's just. different. ya know? he's standing in the shadow of just the IDEA of A, and he's not even here anymore. and it's not filled with resentment, never. never resentment. he could never tarnish that. it's only ever love. and looking up to A. it didn't feel like he cast a shadow because to B, to him, he only ever cast light.

but also. A left. left him. alone.

so he's dealing with that in a perfectly reasonable manner (not thinking about it)

meanwhile A has decided to live a pastoral life away from the apocalypse and is totally not repressing his issues either. <3.

and like!!! the council or whatever that's in charge of all the witches is like "hey. B. you know your way cooler friend? you still keep in touch right?" and sends him off to go find A again after all these years to bring him back to the war and there's a whole mess of meeting again and having to meet with all the things you left unsaid, and all the everything and OOUAOUGHFF it's a whole mess.

anyways i want to make this a comic but also i kind of need to. yknow. design and draw the comic if i want to make the comic. so like. rage.

[whatsyaname]

Hi.

I can't reveal who i am but i used to be a ex moot of tee (@/saetoru) and i don’t care if this seems cowardly to make a page just to call her out. after seeing lots of people share their experiences with tee i’d like to also add and show some of the stuff she’s done to remind people she’s not as angelic as she makes herself out to be.

me and tee weren’t close as she was with her little clique (they know who they are) and other people but the main reason we aren’t moots anymore is because i broke the mutual. after seeing a callout post about her way back in oct. 2023 with other people’s stories in the thread of reblogs / link (i’m sure you guys saw)

i simply didn’t wanna be associated with someone like that. i was just confused why tee was acting like it wasn’t her fault. she said she doesn’t have to provide proof because she doesn’t owe anyone anything when that doesn’t make sense. because if you’re gonna accuse someone, always provide proof otherwise it’s safe to assume you’re lying.

this was Tee’s response back in october to her being called out by one of her old moots also, she deleted this a few days before she returned to make it seem like nothing happened but oh it did. i’m putting this here for people to see again (if you already haven’t) because just look at this.

this is what a narcissistic manipulator sounds like!

the biggest thing that made me scratch my head was for her to immediately bring up past drama to redirect the situation and make herself seem like the good person, and address the other party as a “white girl who blackfishes,” and she tried taking the attention off her to bring up palestine.

are you serious? if she so called “blackfished” why were you supporting/defending her in the first place? shouldn’t you be in the wrong too? the party she was talking about didn’t even blackfish, from what i can recall it was a simple tan so again, this was Tee reaching and blowing things way out of proportion.

she keeps mentioning some random bnha blog but never gives the @ so she’s probably lying. how are you gonna accuse someone of plagiarism then your only evidence is “oh me and my moots saw the whole thing, so you know i’m not lying.” girl bffr. and for her to even say something as childish and stupid as “she’s stolen ppl’s skin tones and she’s stolen their ideas. not much to left to take besides your identity at that!”

you and i both read that right? this is a supposed 20+ year old, saying something as kiddish as that. she even exposed the persons @ in the tags and why did she do that? so she can make her thousands of followers / anons spam their inbox with threats, derogatory names, and literally anything else. and she has the nerve to say she’s not enabling that kind of behavior with her audience. she’s abusing her following and it’s showing.

and for her to sit there and say it’s not her fault for being in her own space and name dropping people without actually name dropping them is just absurd. subposting is the lowest of the low. If you’re gonna talk shit at least put the url while you’re at it. people can tell who you’re talking about even if you’re being discrete.

She has a private blog called @/clorindes where she uses it to "vent" and bash writers and laugh it off with her moots and even followers.

i know of this particular blog because like many others, if you followed tee that blog (her private) would appear in ‘blogs like…’ or ‘recommended to follow.’ after tee got called out, she privated it but it’s still up.

(i recommend blocking that blog) because i’m sure she’ll activate it again once things settle. i hope that’s not the case because how many drama, discourse posts, call outs does it take for her to fully leave this platform? this is chronically online mentality at its finest.

it’s been an ongoing rumor that tee has this tumblr 'burn book' to blacklist writers on this platform and it’s proven to be true. some of tees even own mutuals are in there, and its just embarrassing. you have to constantly remind yourself this is a 20+ y/o person acting like this, out of all platforms, tumblr…

i remember a while back tee drove off a few blogs just for having the same theme concepts as her. (is that even a thing?) like tee used to have instagram themes i think, yet when she found other blogs having the same, she’d send her thousands of anons to harass that person, and be so butthurt over a theme.

not gonna lie, her themes are generically basic and doesn’t even look like it takes much effort. so what is there to copy. i’m not saying copying themes are good and okay, but she takes things too far. i can see if it’s writing, but a theme or a layout? i just find it so mind boggling people stick by her side and support her still.

from her old blog she’d always say sneaky comments like these and laugh it up with her mutuals in the comments. it’s really…something, because why do you care what those writers do? she reeks of jealousy and envy, literally look at her tone.

“we all know yall just want the notes and numbers.” um, yeah? everyone wants recognition on their work, it feels good to know your works being appreciated. and her jab at shading writers who write half paragraphs was so unnecessary. because again, why do you care? how are those writers hyping each other up seen as ‘shady’ or ‘fishy’ behavior? just say you’re jealous and go.

she acts like she doesn’t do the exact same thing with her cult of friends on tumblr, spamming the tags with wtv.

miss tee, flat out you’re a nobody.

you have no right to judge how someone write. who cares if you have 30k+ followers on this old ass site. congrats ….i guess? in the real world, you’re just a miserable person who likes torturing people online.

she has this thing of coming after upcoming big blogs, if i’m not mistaken, the most recent one was a known jjk writer, kazu _____ another was a popular multi account munson____, and there were multiple others i’m sure. her following count boosts her ego a lot, that i can see. and she thinks it’s okay to say whatever and not get held accountable. well now she is.

notice how she came back to tumblr after a two month hiatus, turned anons on then back off. and shes been inactive for a few days. she’s running away from the drama because she knows exactly it’s no one’s fault but hers.

if you look through the long thread i linked earlier, actually read through the reblogs. if multiple various ppl are coming out to share their experiences (with receipts) chances are you should be able to tell who’s lying! she needs to be stopped and ran off the app, not those blogs who didn’t do anything. tee’s been involved with drama for a long time like i said before, way back in her tokyo rev/hq era in her @/hanmas era. so about three to four years ago.

it’s been said tee and her mutuals send anons to harass other writers and i wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true.

again, it’s a shame you have to remind yourself this is a grown woman in her twenties acting like this on tumblr. it’s sickening and she needs to grow up, and get the hell off this platform before she drives anyone else off.

thats all! thank you for reading

[dragonroar87]

THIS FUCKING GAME HAS CONSUMED MY MIND (Undertale Yellow)

yesterday I watched a playthrough and UHHHH new hyperfixation much???

anyways i wrote a fic:

and if you don't wanna click the link here it is under the read more (VERY LONG POST AHEAD):

Martlet ran her finger over the page of the book she was reading. It was a book on Surface plants that she had checked out from a library. She didn't know humans had those too.

It had been three months since the barrier had been shattered. The seventh human child, a small one named Frisk, had fallen from the Surface and set all the monsters free within the span of a few days.

Martlet once spotted them as they wandered through Snowdin. She watched them from afar, never getting close enough to say "hello" or strike up a conversation. After all, they would suffer the same fate as Clover, Martlet knew. Well, maybe not the exact same fate, but mostly the same. And Martlet couldn't bear to stand that pain again. Not after Clover.

God, Clover. Clover, Clover, Clover.

Clover changed her life. Clover wormed their way into her heart and decided to stay there. Clover saved the Underground, even indirectly.

And yet, when she, Starlo, and Ceroba presented that shining yellow SOUL to the King, they were all but forgotten. Another cog in the machine.

They didn't even get a proper burial! Their body was taken from that New Home rooftop and placed inside a coffin with a yellow heart engraved on it. And that coffin was put inside a secluded hallway with all the others. Out of sight, out of mind.

But never out of Martlet's. Here she was, standing on the Surface, of all places, reading a book on plants.

The page was opened to a certain type of plant that lingered everywhere in the summer: trifolium repens.

To humans, it was considered a weed, a nuisance. Paradoxically, it was also considered very lucky if you found a specimen with mutation that gave it extra leaves.

Trifolium repens, also known the common clover plant.

When she had found out about this plant that shared her dear friend's name, she went out and picked as much of it as she could. She even found one of those lucky four-leaved specimens.

And then she planted it everywhere. Around her house. Around her friends' house. Around the school that the former Queen taught at. At the park. In little cracks in the sidewalk. Anywhere it could take root, Martlet planted it there. Every single one except the four-leaved one. She kept that one for herself.

And every day, Martlet would walk all around town, tending to her plants. Watering them, making sure they got enough sunlight, even giving them small bits of fertilizer if need be.

And after enough time, the world was covered in white blossoms.

Martlet didn't know those plants bloomed into flowers, but it made her smile. With the flowers came honeybees. When Martlet spotted one, she remembered the Honeydew Resort. She remembered coffee. She remembered warmth. She remembered companionship. She remembered home.

She could always go back. It's not as if some monsters didn't still live there. Some simply preferred it.

But there was a sense that something would always be missing. Someone would always be missing.

She knew them for such a small amount of time, yet that time was lifechanging. They had such a small impact, yet that impact was groundbreaking.

Martlet didn't know how the human Frisk escaped to the Surface without killing Asgore. She didn't know how the monsters escaped to the Surface without killing Frisk. She did know she was eternally grateful, and she did know it would be impossible without that child carrying that pistol.

She also knew that it would be impossible without the other five children. When handing over Clover's SOUL to the King, Martlet caught a glimpse of the other SOULs. There was a purple one, a green, an orange, and two shades of blue, all casting radiant light against their glass coffins.

Ceroba handed over Clover, and they joined those poor children. Reduced to only the core of their being, then trapped for an indefinite amount of time in small glass cylinders like a fish on display at the aquarium.

Martlet wouldn't have known what an "aquarium" was without making it onto the Surface.

When looking at those glass cages, Martlet wondered what the owners of those SOULs looked like. What they acted like. How they died. How long they had been there. Whether they had any sentience at all.

Could Clover still hear her? Still see her? Or did all their sentience and senses disappear as their last breath left their lungs? Were they scared to die alone? Were they in pain? Did they regret their choice in their last moments?

Not knowing the answers to any of these questions, Martlet whispered "I'm sorry" to the glowing golden SOUL, maybe hoping it would reach them. Somewhere. Even if she couldn't get a response, just knowing they got her message would comfort her.

Martlet looked up from her botany book and looked around the library. There was a human child studying for an exam across from her, a human librarian helping another human check out books, a human on their computer listening to music....

Martlet suddenly remembered she had her own music playlist. She pulled out her cellphone and plugged in her earbuds, putting one in each ear. She scrolled through her music streaming service, something starting with an S that she could hardly remember (although all the humans got obsessed with it when the year came to a close, like some sort of ritual), until she found the playlist she was looking for.

Ah, here it was. "Martlet's Feel-Good Music," a playlist composed of nothing but high-energy pop songs with lyrics that made you wanna dance.

She put the playlist on shuffle and let the beat carry her worries away. After a few seconds, she was tapping her talon to the drums. After a few more, nodding her head. Eventually she decided that she should probably leave the humans' designated quiet place and go jam out to her tunes somewhere else.

Martlet paused her music and stood up from her chair, striding over to the librarian's desk while she took out one of her earbuds.

"Excuse me," she said to get their attention, "I'd like to check this out, please." She held out the botany book to them.

The librarian gave her a weird look, but that was nothing new. A lot of humans gave weird looks to any monster, even the uncannily human-looking ones like Red. It was something they all got used to after a bit.

They took the botany book from Martlet, along with her library card. They flipped the book onto its back and ran the library scanner over the barcode on the cover.

"Here you go, miss," they said, deadpan, "Will that be all for today?"

"Yep! Have a good day!" Martlet said. She put the botany book into her bag and walked out of the library, walking over to the designated monster liftoff zone before taking to the skies.

With the sudden influx of monsters with modes of transportation other than walking, new laws were quickly implemented. Those that could fly or swim needed to have a license to do so, just like one needed a license to drive. In addition, flying monsters could only liftoff and swimming monsters could only dive into the water in certain designated spots to avoid harm. This wasn't the case on private property, but it was when someone was at a public institution. Say, the library.

Flying monsters could only fly at certain heights and swimming monsters could only swim at certain depths. Again, to avoid harm. Those flying vehicles that humans developed were no joke!

After safely arriving at the legal cruising altitude, Martlet resumed her music. She couldn't resist the temptation to sing her heart out, all her woes forgotten.

Looking down on the world from above, Martlet couldn't believe her eyes. The Surface, with monsters and humans living in relative harmony. Clover would like the world that had been created. Martlet was sure that somewhere, wherever they were, they were proud of their Earth for building this future. This was what they gave their life for.

A world filled with friendship, filled with camaraderie, filled with unity and hope for a new tomorrow.

A world filled with life and a bit of trifolium repens.

[shadowynn]

| in love and lore | sparring headcanons |

okay, so no one asked for this, but....

i always planned on the boys eventually teaching mc to fight, and after this ask, these thoughts have been living rent free in my head. i may or may not have also worked on these instead editing the next chapter, but wanted to share these with you too. maybe, it’ll serve as something short and sweet until the next chapter?? which should still come out here in a few days. anyways, i hope you enjoy! :)

(individuals below cut)

also, if any of you are new, these are some headcanons based on my fic i'm currently writing. if you wanna check out, the link to the masterlist will be just below.

| in love and lore |

~

let’s be honest, they were all surprised when you came to them asking to learn how to fight.

you’re not a violent person and has always been against violence in the past, so you saying you wanted to learn how to fight was surprising.

you may insist it’s purely for self-defense (you can’t always rely on them to save you, despite their insistence they can and will) but it still sparks some interest in them.

okay, maybe a more than just some interest.

they still want you to lean on them for protection, but man the thought of you in battle really does something to them.

jongho

jongho is the best fighter out of all of them, and the one you’re the most comfortable with in the beginning, so he’s tasked with starting your training.

he really is a good teacher, but can be a bit hesitant at times.

he just really doesn’t want to hurt you!

freaks out the first time he accidentally injures you bad enough to leave a mark.

you wave his concern away, healing it in a matter of seconds, but it still worries him and he’ll start pulling back again much to your frustration.

despite the annoyance of treating you like glass sometimes, he’s still one of your go to sparring buddies.

though sometimes he does prefer watching and teaching you from the side.

go ahead and spar with someone else and he'll give you pointers.

as long as it's one of the others though, he wouldn't dare let anyone else spar and potentially hurt you.

if the others don't mind giving you a few scrapes and bruises, he'll let them.

and he'll always be waiting on the side with some water and praise, telling you just how good you're doing.

yeosang

yeosang is also a little hesitant when it comes to you.

prefers doing archery with you than sparring since that’s what he excels at.

100% will take advantage of teaching you to shoot as a means to get close to you.

mentally and physically.

will definitely pull the move of putting his arms around you to guide your movements.

may or may not use his ability every once in a while to make you think you’re doing bad as an excuse to get in close once more to help see what you’re doing wrong.

what you don’t know won’t kill you after all

though he knows you’ll kill him if you ever find out, so better make sure you never find out

will ask to make a competition out of it.

you’ll take it up on him occasionally, but refuse to take him up on his attempt to give the winner a favor/reward

nope, you're not falling for that.

he’ll try to let you win occasionally to bode you into accepting his offer, but you’re not an idiot.

you know exactly what he's doing.

that's okay, though. he'll get you to accept one of these days. he's just got to be patient

hongjoong

you were really intimidated the first time hongjoong wanted to spar with you.

it was bad enough when he would watch you with the others, but sparring with him was something else altogether.

doesn’t use his full potential, but not as hesitant as some of the others.

and once you grow more comfortable around him, fights get a little more interesting.

definitely the most heated out of all on them.

the first time you land a blow on him, you get so excited, knowing you actually did that and it wasn’t him just going easy on you.

may or may not rub it in his face and proceed to get a flurry of hits coming back at you in your distraction in retaliation.

of course, he feels bad when he injures you, but the way you pout is so enticing.

and not to mention he’s always there to offer to massage your sore muscles for you afterwards.

you refuse, but the flustered state it leaves you in has him repeating the offer.

but he really is proud of you and loves seeing how proud you are of yourself.

that and now he has an excuse to drink your blood, something he would never turn down.

now he’s just waiting for the day you’re comfortable enough to take him up on his offer.

wooyoung

smug bastard.

uses it as an excuse to just tease you.

doesn’t even try to hide his intentions and will do and say anything to rile you up.

his haladies mean he’s used to fighting up close and personal, and he’s more than happy to get in close with you.

genuinely just wants to spar with you to get you flustered.

you know this, but you’re also determined to wipe that smug look off his face by beating him.

whether or not you’ll ever achieve that though, who knows.

may or may not use his weapons against your clothing.

never in any intimate places, of course, he respects you too much for that.

but there’s no harm in showing a little skin, is there??

it’s a good thing you’re clueless or he knows you would kill him.

will never let you win a fight, but will let you injure him.

anything to have a taste of your sweet, sweet blood.

that and he loves the faces you make when you think you're going to win only for him to swiftly turn the tables back on you.

you know full well what his intentions are, but the longest you lasted was one day before you gave in.

if only to shut him up from all the complaining he was doing.

san

san is always down to spar with you.

in fact, he’s down there in the fields even when you’re not sparring with him.

he can’t help it though, he loves seeing you with a weapon in hand.

doesn’t tease you as much as wooyoung does, but succeeds in getting you riled up in other ways.

is it hot outside today, or is it just san??

oh well, he better take his shirt off and make sure he doesn’t overheat.

most likely to pull this move when your sparring with someone else.

you do your best to ignore him, but he can see the way your cheeks tint.

and the way you falter in your next move.

as much as he enjoys watching you though, he loves it if you watch him.

can and will get the majority of the others in on his antics, and absolutely relishes if you were to sit and watch him spar with one of them.

and if san is out there shirtless, you can guarantee he won’t be the only one for long.

may or may not get so caught up in trying to impress you that he and the others won’t have noticed you weren't even there anymore.

but that’s okay.

the way you’re struggling to hide the emotions running through you from the bond tells him and the others everything they need to know.

yunho

yunho is also hesitant when it comes to sparring.

honestly, the best teacher out of all of them, especially when he realizes it’s a great excuse to get in close to you.

oh, your posture isn’t right??

yunho’s there with a gentle hand at your back to fix it for you.

is your grip on your weapon wrong??

yunho is also there to fix it for you, guiding your body through the motions a few times before continuing the fight.

if you’re frustrated and need something to work your emotions out, he’s also you guy.

will let you beat your frustrations out on him before offering you emotional support in the end.

fights usually end with the two of you laying on the ground, exhausted, both mentally and physically.

loves how bashful you get afterwards, apologizing for dumping your life on him.

but yunho wouldn’t have it any other way, absolutely loving that you would open up to him in such a way.

mingi

mingi is one of your favorites to spar with.

though his expertise is in throwing weapons, it didn't take long to begin sticking with weaponry that stays in your hands.

you both had come to that agreement after the first few times he had tried to reach you to use his chakrams.

even without his ability, mingi’s aim was near perfect.

yours on the other hand, not so much.

he freaked out the first time you accidentally cut yourself on them.

he wanted to stop there, but you simply waved him away as you healed it.

the time you hit mingi though was a different story.

this time you were the one freaking out, mingi, on the other hand, relished the reaction it pulled from you.

if the way you looked at him wasn’t enough, it was you quickly offering up your blood to heal him.

and who was he to turn you down on such a sweet offer.

he's also a bit like san in the way he loves having you watch him.

the way you obsess over the chakrams after realizing how hard they really are is just too sweet.

the compliments, the praise.

it makes him melt.

seonghwa

not as playful or teasing as wooyoung and san can be, but pretty damn close.

it just depends on his mood

you can always count on him to use his ability to his advantage.

so much so, that you won’t spar with him anymore unless he doesn’t use his ability.

at times he really will try and help you hone your skills, pausing every now and then to help you fix your posture or point out the best way to counter.

but other times, he’s just there to get you all riled up.

will use his ability to pop up right behind you, whisper some teasing comment in your ear before teleporting away before you have time to retaliate.

but even when you don't allow him to use his ability, he's just as bad.

it gives him an excuse to stay up close, which is almost just as bad.

doesn’t have an issue with injuring you like most of the others.

would never do anything to seriously wound you, but just a few cuts here and there with his daggers.

after all, he knows you can just heal them up anyways.

and he can get a taste of your blood that stains his daggers

i hope you all enjoyed! i know i had fun writing them. if you liked this sort of post and want anything more like it, feel free to send an ask my way!

[degloved]

aaa fic requests open………… hoffheight love languages……… (but they dont label their relationship bc inner turmoil of being apprentices ;-;)

hello anon!! first of all this was a very delightful prompt. saw rarepairs (regardless if i ship them) are so fun to me !! hoffheight especially, i think they're slept on (by myself also, tbh.) i thought about the best approach to take so as not to make this too long, and initially decided to pick a handful, out of the five, which i thought most would be best suited to them. those being: quality time, physical touch, gift giving. this is very funny, as it still turned out to be excessively long (normally, these are 500 words—somehow i've ended up with 1600 words here.) therefore, i've decided to post it also my ao3 & the link to it, should you wanna bookmark or what have you, can be found at the bottom. i hope you enjoy! thanks for sending in a prompt, once again! p.s. i'm getting around to writing everything everyone's sent in! i just find myself a little more inclined to first jump into the prompts i know i'm gonna do without much trouble. chainshipping, while largely what i'm getting the reqs for, isn't my forte, hence the wait. but i'm trying!

-> READ ON AO3 <-

‼️SAW REQS STILL OPEN‼️

The Apprentices, despite their shared unshakable tendency to slip into petty conflicts with one another on an hourly basis, appeared to work oddly well together; like a well-oiled machine. Left-brain, right-brain, and their brawn; Lawrence's steady hand, Amanda's creativity, Mark's ability to put it all into motion.

If they were a machine, then Adam was surely the cog that didn't quite mesh with all the other moving parts. Perpetually on the fringes of the warehouse, uncertainly hovering about—passing a wrench here and a drill there—until inevitably slinking off with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

He didn't fit, and he wasn't even really sure he wanted to.

Wasn't sure whether he'd fit anywhere else, either.

He'd always moved through the world with a sense of displacement; as if something had plucked him off some distant planet and dumped him here, only to cruelly leave him to his own devices. Because Adam's life was also a fucking joke, whatever higher power lurked out there must've also seen it fit to exacerbate said feeling. If there'd ever been any hope of an eventual breakthrough—any hope he might stop listlessly flopping on dry land and find a suitable body of water to slip into—it'd sure been squandered now. With something of a bitter chuckle, Adam had the thought he might walk the length of the Amigara Fault without ever stumbling upon his own hole, too. (Well, at least that meant he was safe! Safety being, of course, a commodity these days.)

“Adam?”

The sound of his name bouncing off of the warehouse walls broke him out of that depressing little reverie he'd embarked on. Somewhere out of sight, the clanking of metal against metal; the noise was sharp and, by rights, ought to be annoying if not outright grating on the ears. Unfortunately, he'd gotten used to it. Didn't bother him half as much as it really should.

“Yeah?” he called out—though set down the camera he'd been fucking around with (hopelessly fucking broken after he'd knocked it off the table last week), letting his legs carry him to the machine Mark had been working on for the past hour. “Need help?”

“Nah,” the other man shook his head, rogue droplets of sweat flying every which way. “This should be done.”

Mark stood up on slightly shaky feet, dusting himself off. Adam supposed working for Jigsaw was as good exercise as any: his skin glistened beneath the pallid light overhead, face appropriately ruddy. (His own cheeks must've decided to take inspiration from it, flushing in tandem.)

“I was thinkin',” he continued, hands on his hips, “You've been cooped up in this dump too long. Wanna get out of here?”

Yes. Dear god, please.

But, Adam would never go down that easy. Pointedly, he adopted the same stance, accentuating the jut of one hip, and—with a scoff: “Way to treat me like y'all's dog, some fucking... charity case stray. What, we're gonna walk 'round the block so I can sniff about and take a piss? How big of you, Mark, thanks for the enrichment.”

Mark rolled his eyes, hardly the one to fall for the theatrics. (He was no Amanda.) “What's crawled up your ass tonight, then?”

“Nothing!” he huffed, “I'm just saying it how it is. Got the leash ready, then? I'm really itching to pay a visit to that fire hydrant—”

A strong hand fisted itself into the front of his shirt, tugged him up to the very tips of his toes—at which point, he was being shut up in the most cliché-but-effective way possible. Mark, ever the cavalier, let go of him with all the consideration one might let go of a garbage bag. Adam stumbled back, slightly dazed by the kiss and thrown off-balance—figuratively and literally. “Stop pouting and get dressed.”

Adam raised an eyebrow, “Something fancy?”

Mark snorted, “No.”

-

A bowling alley.

A bowling alley.

Adam had a hard time believing it. Out of all places in the world, a bowling alley? (What were they, sweaty seventeen-year-olds making the best out of the spare change left over from lunch that week?)

In the dimly lit space, he leaned against the worn wooden railing, eyes fixed on Mark as the other stood poised at the edge of a polished lane. His face was scrunched up with a frankly disturbing level of focus; two massive hands firmly gripped a ball, fingers knuckle-deep in its holes. With a smooth, practiced motion, Mark swung his arm back and then forward, releasing it with a precise flick of the wrist. The ball glided down the lane and—crash—it sent the pins scattering, every last one of them.

When Mark turned, pride and triumph etched into every little line of his face, Adam... was a little smitten, alright? Watching him trudge over, eclipsing the colorful lights behind him, Adam soon found himself rather crowded against that railing. “Getting a kick out of showing off?” he needled.

“Yes.”

“God, you're sooo...” Adam groaned, head thrown back. Laughing, despite himself. He felt two thick arms encircle him, peel him off the railing, press him up against a plush chest and a soft stomach.

(It was not lost on him, despite the illusion of privacy in this here corner, that they were in public. All but asking to be seen—which was far from their usual gig.)

“Sooo what?” Mark hummed, grinning.

“Shameless.”

“A little.”

“A lot.”

“The right amount,” Mark leaned down, making the most out of the situation by placing a shockingly chaste kiss to the underside of Adam's jaw, the drag of his stubble tickling just enough to chase a giggle out of him. “You like it.”

“That's a bold statement right there,” murmured Adam, letting his arms fall about Mark's shoulders; so broad, his hands didn't meet in the middle. The reminder of this man's sheer proportions, as ever, sent a little thrill through him.

“You gonna deny it?” Another kiss, a little to the left. Adam was impressed for the fact his knees hadn't yet given out. Granted, he did have supports.

“Mm, maybe,” he hummed, letting his eyes fall shut, fingers digging ever so slightly into the fabric of Mark's shirt. “Possibly. Depends.”

Mark hummed against the front of Adam's throat, the sound more so felt than heard in the way it reverberated throughout the column of his neck, thrumming along the underside of Adam's skin. On a whim, he hooked his ankle around one of Mark's legs.

“Y'know, we've still got an hour on this lane...”

“Wow,” Adam intoned dryly, “Truly didn't cheap out on me here. And you've got your priorities straight. Can't believe I'm not being mobbed by your manifold suitors every day of the week. Should probably start hitting the gym, you know, fend them off easier...”

“Lucky you're easy on the eyes,” remarked Mark, tone measured—though there was a warmth in his eyes, “'cause that mouth is doing you no favors.”

Adam cracked a smile, reveling in his turn to be a smug shit.

-

By this point, Adam had developed a strong sense that something wasn't right. Not to say something was wrong per se, but... Well, they'd been driving for upwards of thirty minutes now—and they still weren't home. ('Home' was used, here, very loosely.) He was quite certain it hadn't taken them even half as long to reach their very romantic destination initially. So, what gives?

In any case, Mark's hand was warm where it lay on his thigh. Very rarely did it move, only to switch gears on the odd occasion—and just as quickly, it’d return to its post. They haven't spoken much, but they didn't need to. The silence enveloping them was comfortable and cozy, like a blanket straight out of the dryer on a cold night. An oldies station played very softly, so much so Adam could hardly pick apart the words.

Frankly, he could doze off.

Out of nowhere (and perhaps it was a good thing, as his eyelids had gotten concerningly droopy), Mark spoke up. “There's uh,” he cleared his throat, “something in the back.”

Adam, too tired to needle ('There's uh, something in the back'—are you a caveman?), twisted in the passenger's seat to the best of his ability, pawing at the—true to his word—a box wrapped in brown paper. It sat just out of his reach. Took a few tries to propel it toward himself.

He looked at Mark, an eyebrow quirked.

“Well,” the other's eyes were firmly affixed to the road ahead, perhaps stubbornly so, “Open it.”

“It's for me?”

“Might be, if I don’t change my mind.”

Needing not be told twice, Adam swiftly undid the wrapping, balled it and carelessly tossed it to the floor.

Then stared, mouth agape, at that which was revealed.

A camera.

“How did you—”

“I didn't do anything,” Mark blurted out, tone on the side of defensive for some odd reason, “It was all Amanda. And Lawrence. I just did the wrapping, that's all.”

Adam couldn't tear his eyes away, turning the box this way and that (even though he couldn't really read or see much of anything, dark as it'd gotten.) A well-timed glance in Mark's direction—just as drove beneath a street-light—revealed a deep blush staining his cheeks, seemingly spreading down his neck.

Adam’s lips twitched. His throat tightened. His heart throbbed.

Softly, fondly, he said: “I can tell. It looked like shit.”

(He’d bet all his life savings—granted, there wasn't much there, but it was the thought that counted—that Amanda and Lawrence had less than nothing to do with this.)

“It did, didn't it?” Mark smiled, shoulders sagging. Perhaps with relief.

Adam set his hand atop Mark's, still sat on his thigh. Squeezed.

The silence resumed.

[thebadjoe]

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 2

Hello! I'm the dude who made a ridiculously long theory post about the culprit for chapter 2 by bringing a good amount of points that makes sense, but also makes it hard to believe for most. Just like previously, the post I'm gonna make is gonna touch the big spoilers territory, especially if I end up being right. More importantly though, a good chunk of this post will CONTAIN HEAVY Ch.2 Ep.10 SPOILERS, SO BEWARE!!!

For those who haven't read my theory yet, here it is. Click me!

MAKE SURE YOU CLICK ON THIS LINK AND READ MY FIRST THEORY POST BEFORE READING THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE SO ALREADY.

So, a while ago, my theory post was made after watching Episode 9, but not Episode 10 since it wasn't released yet at the time. And then once the stream of that episode came live, it was time to put my theory to the test, to see if there would be any reveal that would make my theory difficult to work.

For the most part, it's still holding strong. There is however something in that video that throws a wrench into my theory. More specifically, it messes up with my motive. Today, I am here to explain in details what I mean by that as well as giving you alternate solutions to that problem. Also, I'll be discussing a few other holes in my theory (that was there before ep.10 existed) as well as giving you a few more reasons why my theory could work.

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Step #1 : The note & the flashback

Yeah... let's start with that.

To remind the readers just in case, my theory is all about Eden being the culprit of this case. And... you can already see where I'm going with this.

Eden was pretty nervous and hesitant with revealing the note­. But she eventually shares the note in a reluctant manner. Turns out... it's actually a pretty incriminating proof for her. But then... why would the note be found in the trash can? Why wouldn't she keep it instead of throwing it away if she was the culprit? Why would she help Whit and Rose to match the pieces of the puzzle being the ripped out note?

It seems so weird, but she claims right before that whoever made this note, they're trying to impersonate her. Makes sense, but she's still a tad suspicious. But then this happens...

We learn that the secret "Your younger sister killed herself, and you're the reason why." actually belongs to Arturo which is later confirmed by Eden herself. And to put icing to this messy cake, we also get the full explanation as to what happened back then which we get to view it as a flashback!

So yeah, with that explanation (flashback), not only do we learn why Eden was scared and hesitant in revealing that secret, we also learn that she became friends with Arei. Which screws up with the motive I had set up for Eden. For those who don't remember, it was supposed to be "She killed because of all the bullying, the overly excessive bullying from Arei was the final straw for her."

Because of that note and flashback, my motive doesn't really work on that theory anymore... or does it?

Nonetheless, there is a much bigger issue regarding Eden being the culprit. Thanks to this note and flashback, it makes Eden look a lot more innocent than usual. The odds of her being the culprit seem so... unlikely at this point, right?

Heck, there's even someone who made a poll asking who they think is the culprit after watching episode 10. Wanna know the % of votes towards Eden being the culprit? 1.6%. I repeat. 1.6%!!!! Like man... a lot of people don't think she is the culprit, moreso thanks to this episode.

Then... does that mean you're giving up on your theory?

Heh, not at all. I have an explanation for all of this. It's gonna sound crazy, but please, hear me out.

What if... this was all part of Eden's plan?

....what?

That's right! You heard me right! This was all part of Eden's elaborate plan and the reason why she would pull such a complicated plan is precisely because she seriously has the intention to win this killing game! Therefore, she pulled this grandiose scheme so that she would look the most innocent individual within this class trial and she pulled it off perfectly (so far).

Don't believe me? Then let me explain a few things. Let's consider this following fact first : the beginning of that flashback, from Eden sharing the secret to Arturo, to Arturo threatening Eden to Arei coming in to save the day and kick his ass, all of that is the truth. Otherwise, Arturo would've called it out if Eden was lying.

Now, let's get into Eden's pov and pretend that she's indeed the culprit. Considering how complex that murder scheme is, that part with her meeting up with Arturo to share the secret was also part of her plan.

She intentionally arranged that meeting to conflict so to create the possibility of Arturo blackmailing her. Add a convincing motive that Arturo commited the crime.

What about Arei coming in to save Eden?

That... it's hard to say. Easier answer would be no and that it was a very convenient timing that she ended up coming in to save Eden. It's also possible that she planned for her to arrive somehow. Probably not with a letter since they were not on good terms yet at the time. It's possible that Eden was keeping an eye to her surroundings to see if someone could hear her and Arturo in that medical room.

I know... it seems kinda weak, but I have a counterargument for this. Let me just finish explaining Eden's plan first.

So after being friends with Arei, she proceeded with the setup for her murder scheme, then knocked Ace unconscious with the turpentine. Then after this, eitheir two things happened : Eden wrote the letter to lure Arei into the playground to knock her out or Eden snuck up on Arei, knocking her unconscious, set up the rest then created a fake letter.

Regardless of which situation it was, she made sure to use a different handwriting than her usual for the note, ripped it and put it in the trash can. Whether it gets found out or not doesn't matter because she can easily claim that it wasn't hers.

Cause if we think about it, why would the culprit incriminate herself by leaving such letter out in the open? They could've hidden it somewhere much safer instead, but no, there was a reason for that. She did this because she knew the class would think that it wouldn't make sense for her to write that note and also be the culprit. So by leaving that proof in the open, she actually looks more innocent rather than suspicious.

And then if you take into consideration that she's super kind and sweet, the fact that she was acting nervous in the trial because she felt "threatened" by Arturo, her deception has paid off and now she looks incredibly innocent thanks to that buildup.

Eden is a lot more deceptive and terrifying than we can imagine if all I said ends up being the truth (for the most part).

What about that weak point of yours?

Right! It does seem like Arei saving Eden was not part of the culprit's plan for the most part, but it worked out really well for her. But did you know that even if Arei didn't save Eden, her plan would still work just fine?

Essentially, all Eden needed was someone to pinpoint as the prime suspect with a very valid motive. She only needed to meet with Arturo, to have him threaten her and the rest works out just fine.

It's just that if it happened that way, Eden would've instead snuck up on Arei, knock her out with the turpentine, murdered her, then fabricate this letter, or at least, something very similar.

It's also because of this that I don't think my original culprit motive is not quite thrown out of the water. Because if her plan actually didn't involve Arei saving her, then Eden wanting to kill to end the bullying would definitly work there. It's just that on top of wanting to end the bullying, she also wants to end this killing game, by winning on her own terms.

Now then, let's discu-

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Step #2 : Holes in my theory? Where?

Bro! I don't approve of your disguise theory! Eden is much smaller compared to Arei, so people would've known!

*sigh*

Yeah, this is an issue, but it's not impossible to explain. Let's start by saying that she couldn't hide her real height with heels simply because Arei only wears shoes.

I also doubt there's any kind of special powers or chemicals or skills that allows someone to be temporarily higher in height than usual and that would be a lame solution to this problem because I would be using hints that was never presented in the story on top of using things that doesn't exist.

So instead, there are 2 likely scenarios that could "probably" explain that issue.

People weren't paying attention enough to Arei during lunchtime because of all the arguing. Arei never spoke (obviously cause someone disguised can't replicate her voice) and no one ever spoke to her as far as we're aware. So it's not improbable to think they haven't really paid that much attention to her.

She was sitting down at the time, so it was harder to tell the height difference. I know what we saw were standing sprites, but we can imagine she must've been sitting down most of the time since they're at a cafeteria, surrounded with tables and chairs.

So yeah, not my strongest counter argument, but hey, it works!

Eden has different eye colors compared to Arei!

For the eyes, easiest solution to that problem is that she wore contact lenses of a color matching Arei's eyes.

But everyone has rather unique eyes, you couldn't replicate it with simply colored contact lenses!

Probably not, but it doesn't really matter. Look at this sprite!

See something interesting? You don't quite see her eyes very well, don't you? The disguised culprit could've easily hide any imperfections of the eyes with this pose.

What about the skin? Eden looks nothing like Arei!

Like I said before, makeup kit. I haven't watched these videos in details on youtube, but it's actually very possible to change a skin tone with foundation. Of course, since she'd have to do it on all her exposed body, it'd take a very considerable amount of time and effort.

Ah! I gotchu now! You just said that applying all this makeup would take a lot of time. There's no way she would have the time and energy to carry out a failed murder, a real murder, set everything up and take a long time to disguise yourself! It's impossible!

No, that's wrong!

Actually, it's very doable for someone like Eden. In fact, it's exactly because of this that she's likely one of the only classmate who could've carried out this whole plan.

I have the proof for you right there!

This goes way back. Prologue Episode 2.

"Sometimes I can work up to a total of 15 hours without breaks!"

I'm sure technicly anyone could do this with the proper motivation and determination, but take into consideration that she's used to doing this. She's done it before.

It's possible that she stayed up all night to carry out the plan, get her disguise ready and accurate for morning/lunchtime and then went to bed afterwards to take a nap before meeting up with Hu for cleaning duties.

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Step #3 : One more thing before I leave!

I know that some of you don't believe it's her despite everything I've thrown at you and that's perfectly fine. It's just a theory after all. I'm also perfectly fine with people coming up with different culprit theories, some more crazy than others and whatnot. I'm all down to uncover all kinds of possibilities we can uncover about this chapter.

However, I think it's also important to remind everyone of certain things that are probably facts to make sure we don't get too much off track.

So I'd like to give you guys a few pointers regarding what I believe would be the rules of a danganronpa murder mystery.

Based on my experience with this series and some of these fangans, I think there's a certain guideline and logic to follow. I personally think that from the beginning of chapter to the end of an investigation of that chapter, it's possible to solve the murder mystery with just that information.

Maybe not in regards to the whydunnit, but definitly for the whodunnit and howdunnit.

Although it's not usually easy to figure that out until you learn more information during the trial. They make it pretty challenging, but also solvable. I'd like to think that this applies to chapter 2 as well.

I think the creator intended it to be solvable with all the information given from the beginning until the end of the investigation of chapter 2.

This is one of the reasons why I seriously think Eden is the culprit in that murder mystery. I can only manage to solve it with Eden as the culprit.

But maybe you guys can with a different culprit. There's probably a perfectly explainable theory that I'm not seeing quite yet that could be plausible.

I'm looking forward to see what's about to happen in episode 11!

If you guys have any questions or anything you'd like to point out that I might be wrong, let me know!

Thank you!