Stuck in the middle of a forest made of
Flesh and bones and they're all scared of
A lost little boy who has lost his heart
Fear's not enough, they have to
Tear him apart
—-------
There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well:
He’s adopted.
He can’t remember anything else before that.
‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents.
What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill.
When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.
(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.)
The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.
It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one.
The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself.
His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.
(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.)
(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.)
They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.
(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)
Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe.
He turned back around and went inside.
—-------
Where do we go
When the river's running slow
Where do we run
When the cats kill one by one
—------
One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.
He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal.
It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking.
He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter.
Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind.
(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)
After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous.
He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.
—------
Hazel beneath our claws
While we wait for cerulean to cry
Unsettled ticks run through time
Enough for the hunt to go awry
—-----
There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own.
He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t.
Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward.
(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”)
(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)
He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell.
A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his.
He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it.
His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.
Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.
—-------
Harpy hare
Where have you buried all your children?
Tell me so I say
—-------
When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now.
Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.
He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.
Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own.
(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)
(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)
(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)
—--------------
It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders
And they will never
Hear me here listen to croons and a calling
I'll tell them all the
Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow
Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare
—-------
More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother.
Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten.
His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands.
They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely.
It is a fast dream.
His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.
His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods.
The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him.
The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal.
His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train.
(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.)
—---
She can't keep them all safe
They will die and be afraid
Mother, tell me so I say
(Mother, tell me so I say)
—-------
When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again.
The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person.
(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.)
(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)
Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird.
(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)
—------
Seeker, do you ever come to wonder
If what you're looking for is within where you hold
Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path
You'll soon forget
Home
—---------
When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is.
When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.
‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off.
He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.
He ends up calling himself Phantom.
(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.)
----------
Home is where we are
Home is where you are
Home is where I am
-----------------
Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.
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Go Heavy on the Red
ALASTOR x (F) READER
Summary: SOULMATE AU. To say that you never thought you were made for love would be an understatement. All your life, black was all you knew. Black ink and a faded tattoo. Till you died and met him
Warnings: Mentions of death, drunk driving, dugs, alcohol, and sex. Rating: PG-13
For the lovely @anon-of-the-void
Requests are OPEN
In the chaotic realm of Hell, where demons and lost souls roamed endlessly, there existed a peculiar demon named Alastor. With a penchant for mischief and a flair for the dramatic, he ruled over his domain with unmatched charisma and power. But beneath his imposing exterior lay a longing, a desire for something more profound than the endless cycle of torment and chaos that he so loved.
All his life, Alastor’s wrist had been adorned with perfect neat red cursive spelling out the words ‘Going heavy on the red, huh?’. Whoever you were, your handwriting was pristine, perfect for someone like him. Yet, despite this, Alastor never truly believed that he would ever find the soulmate behind the words inked upon him. His tattoo was in red…his soulmate was alive or not yet born. A strange phenomenon for a soulmate not to be born within one’s time but then again Alastor was a strange phenomenon in and of himself.
You were no different. To say that you never thought you were made for love would be an understatement. All your life, black was all you knew. Black ink and a faded tattoo. ‘New to the whole being dead thing my dear?’ Your soulmate was dead, you always wondered how. You were born with the ink so black and murky that it looked like a void space. The handwriting was a fine print, definitely from a time long past. It looked as though it was printed by an old typewriter or someone who had an orderly and steady hand. Crisp and clean. Maybe your soulmate was like that too?
But fate is an even crueler mistress, and despite laying on the load of soulmates from different eras - your mortal thread was also fragile. As the years passed, your time on Earth drew to a close and when you closed your eyes for the last time after being slammed into by a drunk driver - you awoke not to pearly white gates but deep dark brimstone ones. Your bearings were slim and despite trying to orient yourself to your new environment, nothing was working.
Slowly working your way along the smoky streets, you peered upon an ad for a hotel - the Hazbin Hotel to be precise. The ad was clearly hand drawn with what seemed to be childish crayon but nonetheless the happy picture seemed to stand out amongst the dismal exterior. Following the directions, the streets you walked were perilous. Screaming, crying, the heavy smell of alcohol, sex, and sin filled your nose. Holding your stomach, you convinced yourself that expelling the contents of your stomach right before you approach a hotel didn’t seem like the best idea. You would at least wait to find a decent bathroom…if there was such a thing in this place. In fact, where were you anyway?
Soon, you came to gaze upon an older structure with a giant vacancy sign. Entering the Hotel, you observed your surroundings. A…cat…stood at the bar with a…spider demon there too? A shorter hyperactive woman ran around with a knife…and were those walking eggs?!
“OH MY GOSH!! Hello~! Welcome to the Hotel, my name is Charlie!” Without warning a younger woman with blonde hair and a red suit came up and shook your hand furiously. Dazed and confused, you shook back slowly.
“Oh, hello.”
“So wonderful sinner, would you like a room?”
“Wait, um sinner? I..I am not a sinner.”
“But you are—oh. OH. I see. You’re new!”
“Umm..new to what exactly?”
“Oh, this…this is Hell. You…died?”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, it all made sense. You saw the headlights, he sped through the red light. Crash. Now..now you’re here. Not in your car where you were. But here. In Hell. Hell, the supposedly a fiery pit of destruction and seduction that held the most enigmatic and psychotic of characters.
“Well, let’s get you settled in! Come on, I want to introduce you to everyone!”
Grabbing your arm and dragging you around the Hotel, Charlie introduced you to everyone in an effort to get your bearings and settle down. Little did you know that from the shadows a figure lurked. Watching with glowing red eyes, Alastor peered and sized up this newcomer to the Hotel. Fresh meat was always a good idea and especially with all the changes going around, he felt a need to grasp onto some entertainment. Distract himself with unworthy souls who would fail here spectacularly.
His soulmate tattoo had turned black this morning and his mind began to reel with all the possibilities. Would his soulmate be in Heaven or in Hell like himself? Would fate be too cruel again and separate them not only across time but planes of death? Throughout the day, his wrist started to burn with a fiery pain. They were close…and as this newcomer approached the Hotel, his interest peaked. Maybe they knew something, he would find out sooner or later.
“Alastor, where are you? We have a new guest for you to meet! Oh, he may be a bit creepy but just don’t try and focus on that.”
With a flicker of shadow, Alastor appeared in front of you in all his 1930s red pinstripe radio glory. His voice was static with radio waves, he extended his hand to you.
“Going heavy on the red, huh?”
Static crackle. His grip tightened around your own as he heard your words. With an evil crackle he spoke with a smirk.
“New to the whole being dead thing my dear”
Alastor's grin widened as he reached out, grasping your hand and drawing closer to his wrist.
"Look closely, my dear," He started tracing the intricate patterns etched into their skin. "Do you see it?"
Your eyes widened in awe as you beheld the tattoos adorning their wrists, glowing softly amidst the darkness of Hell. "It... it's...," you trailed off, breath catching in your throat.
"Our soulmate tattoos," Alastor finished, his voice softening with an unexpected tenderness. "Fate's cruel joke on us my dear has come to an end."
For a moment, you were speechless, heart pounding with a mixture of wonder and disbelief. "I... I never imagined..." you began, voice trailing off as you searched for the right words.
But before you could speak further, Alastor locked his gaze with yours in an unspoken promise. Manipulation has its place and it was Alastor’s preferred tool.
"In this realm of chaos and despair, we may have found each other against all odds," he murmured, his voice barely audible over the din of Hell. "But together, my dear Y/N, we shall defy fate itself."
And as they stood there, their souls intertwined in a bond that transcended the boundaries of Hell, you knew that they had found not only their salvation, but also your truest companion amidst the darkness. Alastor knew that he had found his only weakness, the tinge of his dark black heart beating once again. Feelings he knew were real despite his aversion to such moments. Maybe hiding and indulging in this one weakness wouldn’t be so bad after all.
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Sebastian Sallow with a Muggle Significant Other Headcanons
Co-authored by @diligentcranberry
Sheepish as he is to admit it, until he met them, Sebastian always felt rather bad for muggles and their lack of magic.
Being rather shocked initially when he realised that this captivating person who has caught his attention is, in fact, not a wizard/witch at all yet they're so bright and clever he is fascinated by them.
Scheming of ways to get around the statute of secrecy when they're first together because being limited from magic in front of them at first feels like torture.
And he wants to impress them and open them up to all these amazing things he knows.
But the more time he spends with them discussing mythology, history, art, and all manner of things challenging his mind in new ways, that need for magic lessens.
Seb, who realises it may not be the magic he craves but the intellectual stimulation from learning and debating.
Initially baffled by their muggle habits and how long everything takes.
Seb who realises how when his partner does something as simple as brewing a cup of tea for him it takes so much more effort, but he swears it makes it taste better.
Sebastian, whose love language is acts of service and wants to take care of the people he loves.
Starts doing things for them the muggle way and expressing that love in the labour of it a flick of a wand can't replicate.
Relishes how heavy their bags are when he insists on carrying them. How their skin puckers when they wash dishes together. How long the journey is when travelling by train and not by floo and all this time they get just to talk and be with eachother.
Experiencing life in a completely different rhythm, he always thought he'd find tedious, but doing it together makes even the mundane seem spectacular.
Sebastian who loves magic and continues to pour over spell books, but his partner opens his eyes to this whole vast world of topics he never knew anything about, and his mind is blown.
He's inhaling anything he can get his hands on science, technology, engineering, and muggles are achieving these incredible things without magic he's not even seen wizards accomplish.
21 year old Seb in 1896 reading a muggle newspaper his partner passes him one morning and finding out about X-rays and radium and he's nothing short of giddy.
Kissing his bemused partner spinning them around wildly because muggles are bloody brilliant and they are the most spectacular of the bunch.
Sebastian who starts using magic less and less at home because his partner makes it seem frivolous.
This has come from mine and Cran's very niche Henry Winters (the secret history) x Sebastian Sallow (Hogwarts Legacy) AU but I think a lot of the headcannons we've been gushing over work for Seb x Muggle!SO regardless.
I'd literally love to hear any other headcannons on this because we have been consumed and loving talking about these.
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