#the prompts are very very light

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[visismu]

This is my gift for @duck-in-a-spaceship for the @palestaticexchange! I tried my best to draw Harry having a Shivers moment. I hope you will like it! Thanks again to the organizers!

(close up below)

I almost ended up cutting the whole drawing like this at the last minute lol

[kyyuuuy]

au where L dies of salmonella from consuming too much raw cookie dough

[mothgoddesss]

SKY MERMAY 2023.

W1: BUTTERFLY W2: CRAB W3: JELLYFISH W4: KRILL W5: MANTA

Last year, I hosted a Sky-themed MerMay challenge on Instagram! I designed these characters as my own entries for it, but due to interest/energy issues (worsened by Dopamine Jail at the time), I unfortunately had to leave it unfinished. Since then, I've been yearning to show off these lovely characters, as there was a lot of joy designing them out in my old backyard. So I made this doodle with some rough marker rendering.

They now have a place within the Sky Kingdom, as a semi-secret society of Light Children who switch between capes and mermaid tails. Sort of like the hypogrypths in My Little Pony G4! They all worship ASEA, the goddess of ABZU whom Tapushea was split from, which is how they switch between air and water.

[sashthesloth]

Starting out the new year with a big buff demon lady courtesy of a ‘let’s make a demon OC’ on Twitter

[faenemy]

Day 2: Gem w/ Etho!

Today's GemWeek prompt, courtesy of the lovely @dronepikachu, was, Gem w/ another hermit! Have a Gem and Etho practicing pvp as I desperately try to learn how to capture movement in my art.

no motion line version under cut :]

[the-witchhunter]

DP x DC: Cyber Six AU

So Idea, take some aspects of Cyber Six and make it a Danny Phantom in Gotham situation

For those who don’t know, the basic premise is that Cyber Six is the creation of this mad scientist that escaped. She needs a substance that only the bad guy can produce to live and has to fight the creations of the bad guy in order to stop evil plans as well as get the substance. In the comics it’s more of a vampiric feeding. During the day she poses as a male English teacher while hiding her identity from her love interest. The love interest is in love with her as Cyber six, and friends with her as her teacher identity. The whole thing has a lot of trans themes and is totally worth watching the cartoon, but do you see where I’m going with this?

Danny in Gotham, hiding as a teacher by day, and fighting the artificial ghosts Vlad or the GIW send after him by night as Phantom. Gotham doesn’t really have much Ectoplasm, and Danny needs to feed on it. He’d move to a place with more, but Batman is a major deterrent and hiding in Gotham is keeping the people chasing him from coming themselves and risking getting on the Bat’s radar. Luckily, instead of realizing they could starve him out, they send their creations to drag him back, providing a guilt free source of ectoplasm

Danny get’s work at Gotham Academy as one of Tim’s teachers while hiding out. It would be just fine, he has a degree in chemistry and one in engineering. The issue? They gave him an English class, a subject he struggled with in school. Lucky for him while lamenting this fact to a stranger, one Jason Todd, he finds out the other man is a literature nerd and would be happy to go over his curriculum with him. Jason is just happy he has someone to info dump about Jane Austen to while he waits for Tim to get out.

Meanwhile, Red Hood is dealing with the sighting of odd creatures in his territory when he comes across Phantom. The two strike up a friendship while dealing with the threat to Hood’s territory, Phantom gets to feed from the artificial ghost, and so it goes on. 

Jason gets feeling for the mysterious Phantom, While Danny gets feeling for the charming literature nerd Jason. That’s right baby, the love square. They’re in love with their other identities. Meanwhile Tim is dying inside as his teacher is making goo goo eyes at his brother.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A Writer's Advice: John Steinbeck on Falling in Love

Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968) writes this beautiful response to his eldest son Thom’s 1958 letter, in which the teenage boy confesses to have fallen desperately in love with a girl named Susan while at boarding school.

New York November 10, 1958 Dear Thom: We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers. First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you. Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had. You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love. But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you. Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it. The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it. If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration. Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also. It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good. Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it. We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can. And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away. Love, Fa

[citrusinicake]

Vitalasubzam Week 2024 Day 4: Shield / Sword

sword and shield? more like sword IN shield amirite?

[chinzhilla]

We've been waiting for this moment, the moment to prove to everyone that we're not losers like they think we are. Let's do it. Let's not waste all of the BBQ pork we've eaten!

for @userdramas event 13 » team spirit and @asiandramanet jan/feb creator bingo » free choice

+bonus:

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizontober 2023 | 31: future

[spinnysocks]

i've had this idea for a while, to randomise two or more of the outlanders, put them into a platonic/found family prompt generator and see what comes out! sooo here we goooo :3

Outlanders interactions!! (based on a prompt generator)

Mzingo trying to teach Tunu some life skills, but all that ends up happening is the Outlands nearly being set on fire and Mzingo almost breaking a wing. Still, at least Tunu is so innocently unaware of the danger that he has fun hanging out with the vulture anyway :)

It's Kijana's birthday party! Mwoga checks in on the jackals to see what all the fuss is about so he can tell Mzingo the news of the Outlands for the day. Kijana tells him he's invited to the party. Mwoga asks “Isn't this just for your family?” and Kijana replies “You are family!” and invites the rest of the Outlanders so she can have the awesomest party :D

Njano drags Kenge along on his mission to find a supposedly very spicy herb that's a challenge to eat. When they find the plant, Njano dares Kenge to eat it too, and Kenge doesn't back down from a challenge (in the actual generator it said kenge and njano do the tipe pod challenge wtf help??)

Nne has an idea for how to get out of a bad situation. Sumu says it's the stupidest one he's ever heard, but they're going with it. (couldn't really think of what the idea or situation is for this one, but i'm gonna assume it involves violence lmao)

Nne and Tano are tasked with watching the jackal pups. They don't know how, they just are. They escort the pups on a walk, completely lost with the whole Taking Care Of Kids thing, when a rockslide traps Tano and Kijana. While they're stuck waiting for help, Tano learns how to be a nicer hyena and Kijana learns that maybe hyenas aren't so bad :3

The Wet Season is almost over, so Janja spends extra time hanging out with Kiburi before the crocs go into hibernation for the Dry Season :)

Kenge and Mwoga aren't friends yet, being very different with the monitor lizard going solo and the vulture part of a parliament. Encouraged by Jasiri to share experiences with other Outlanders, they talk about their very different lives and how going solo or being aligned with others helped them. (damn this wheel spin generator really favours these two, nne and kijana lol)

Sometimes, Goigoi likes to sing something randomly to pass the time. Janja appreciates his enthusiasm for the musical arts :3

Janja's Clan knows the ins and outs of the volcano's geysers and steam vents better than any animal. It's Cheezi's job to escort Jasiri through them today so she can get to the other side of the Outlands. You can imagine how that goes :]

if i do any more i will never stop lmaoo, maybe i'll turn this into a mini series if anyone likes it :] tho i am really disappointed that i could only find ONE platonic prompt generator like bffr, but whatever

bonus (human au) one i got for Nduli and Janja bcuz 😭😭

[lurking-loaf]

Sun and Moon but make them pigeon. My small contribution to @daycarefriendpickup's weekly Magma. Featuring: the ghostly pizza slice and ants that were already there when I started drawing, courtesy of @itsahotminuteinbetween.

[ragnarokhound]

((you don’t have to do both if you don’t want to, you can consider this one a back up / alt))

“If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.” 💞

From this writing prompt list i reblogged in...november lmao fljdsjfa

anyway this grew legs and sprinted away the second I picked it up yesterday - clearly it just needed some time to proof lmao. Thank you for the ask, tauria!! From *checks watch* almost 5 months ago fjdslafjsa I will be cross-posting it to Ao3 in my new oneshot collection fic :)

Warnings for: Vague allusions that Ra's Al Ghul is a creep (what else is new), threats of gun violence, canon-typical violence

15. “If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.”

When Tim arrived in Gotham this morning, he had no way of knowing that his day would end in Jason Todd’s bed. 

Frankly, he wasn’t really sure what bed he’d end up in— because his own certainly wasn’t an option right now. But If he had to pick, Jason Todd’s was somewhere near the bottom of whatever list he’d make.

He didn’t exactly plan on this, okay? 

But, uh. Let’s back up a little.

—

Tim knew his day was going to go to shit when he got back from the airport at 7 AM.

He had his driver drop him off two blocks away from his townhouse for the sake of caffeine at the hole in the wall place he likes. Wealthy CEO he may be, but a sixteen hour flight is still a sixteen hour flight and Tim is cursed with an inability to sleep in the air. 

Don’t ask. He’s tried. It doesn’t work.

So he wants coffee, and he wants a shower, and he wants his own bed. In that order.

With the first thing on his list acquired and blessedly burning his tongue, he managed to tug his brain cells together enough to realize that the building they’d passed that had been shrouded in tents and canvas was his building.

"What's going on here?"

The worker outside his building looks up from her clipboard, her face wrinkling into apprehensive confusion.

"Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

He hasn’t slept in roughly seventy two hours. He is not awake or patient enough for this.

“My name is Tim Drake. I own this building. What’s going on here?” He repeats.

The woman raises her eyebrows and looks down at her clipboard again. “Mr. Drake?” She questions, clearly expecting him to look like a grown-ass man and not a sleep-deprived college student coming home from spring break or whatever.

“Yes. Timothy Drake-Wayne. Why are you—” he tries to gesture with the hand still holding his suitcase handle, walking towards the tarps and tents erected around his townhouse with increasing trepidation, “—here?”

“I’m sorry sir, but you can’t go in there. Not for at least forty-eight hours.”

Tim stops in his tracks.

“Forty-eight—?”

“We've been scheduled to fumigate the property today.” She says it like she’s reading it out of a handbook. “It won't be safe to enter the building for at least forty-eight hours. You should have received prior notice. Uh. Sir.”

Tim's jet-lagged brain kicks into overdrive. 

Bruce hasn't made any disappointed noises about Tim’s perfectly normal work ethic lately so it probably wasn't a misguided attempt at benching him. And besides, rendering Tim’s apartment inaccessible is counterproductive on that front. 

Dick wouldn’t. They haven’t been exactly— great, lately but he wouldn’t. Besides, if he wanted to get Tim out of the house more, he’d show up to drag Tim out into the daylight himself. This is a little too roundabout for him.

It’s too much work to be Steph. She would think it’s funny, but there’s no way she’d follow through.

Damian might, but this doesn’t quite fit his preferred methods for making Tim’s life hell. It could be some cloak and dagger maneuver to leave him vulnerable, faking a complaint to the city so he’ll—

And then Tim thinks about the call.

The call he’d brushed off at fuck o’clock in the morning somewhere over Europe, too busy with another project. The call his secretary took for him instead. He thinks about the distracted confirmation he’d given to whatever it was she’d asked him about five minutes later. 

He also thinks about the form he signed about two weeks ago, before this last minute trip to Hong Kong had consumed his entire attention. The one with “Two Weeks Notice” stamped across the top. His stomach sinks.

“Today,” he repeats.

She looks apologetic. “Today,” she confirms. “And we just started about an hour ago. I’m very sorry, Mr. Drake-Wayne but—”

"No it's—" he says through gritted teeth, "fine. I'll just. Make other arrangements."

—

He does not make other arrangements. Though not for lack of trying.

Tim has a handful of safehouses scattered throughout the city. He has options. He gets a taxi to the closest neighborhood, and nearly falls asleep in the backseat. The cabby has to knock on the glass divider to get his attention when they come to a stop. He grumbles and hauls his suitcase out of the backseat, and tips the man excessively.

Shower. Bed. Sleep. He’s so close he could cry.

Except when he finally rolls around the block, coffee half gone and trying to remember if this safehouse is the one with in-unit laundry or if he’ll have to haul his shit down to the laundry room, his building is a blackened husk with police tape all around it.

He stops on the sidewalk. He peers up at the window of his unit, squinting at the peeling black wood and shattered glass. He ponders whether two is enough data points to be considered a pattern. And whether he could get away with napping in the alley on this street or if that’ll end with him stabbed and robbed.

As he’s pondering, he catches sight of a passerby and stops him.

“‘Scuse me,” he says apologetically. “What the hell happened here?”

The guy looks up from his phone and takes in his rumpled clothes, his suitcase, and the scorched remains of his apartment.

“Oh, uh. Yeah, there was a big fire about a week back? Bad fire. Took out, like, half the block. Cops are saying it’s arson.”

“A week ago,” Tim repeats. The guy’s eyes widen.

“Oh shit, bro, did you live here?”

“I’ve been out of town,” he explains numbly.

“Dude, that sucks. And right in the middle of con’ season. Good luck finding a hotel!”

“Yeah,” Tim sighs as the guy walks away. “Thanks.”

—

The next safehouse he tries isn’t in much better shape. 

He remembers hearing about Freeze going on a rampage a few days into his trip, but he hadn’t realized another one of his places had been caught in the cross-fire. The cold burst the pipes, and now the whole place is undergoing renovation.

He hears all this from the crotchety old lady who lives in the next building over (her building needs renovation too, but will the city pay for it? Of course not, they weren’t ‘directly impacted by disaster’ so they won’t see a penny of relief funds even though their pipes are on the same line. Typical) and when he finally extricates himself from the conversation, it’s almost noon, his second cup of coffee is long-since empty and he’s at the end of his goddamn rope.

By the time he sees his next safehouse, he isn’t even surprised anymore.

“Does God hate me?” He asks the boarded up building. “Is this a punishment? What did I do? What the fuck did I do?”

He is 99% sure at this point that someone is burning his bolt holes. There’s a short list of people with the resources and the intel to do it, and while he’s not above ruling out the likes of Damian just yet, he seriously doubts anyone wearing a bat is behind this. 

Besides, Dick would have noticed by now if Damian were sinking this many resources into convoluted covert ops designed to make Tim suffer. Definitely. Probably.

Fuck it.

He goes around the back and hops on top of his suitcase to reach the clunky camera watching the back entrance. This building is on the shittier side, closer to Crime Alley than his other haunts; cameras break all the time around here. He’ll have it replaced after he’s a functional human again.

Reportedly, this building was tagged for ‘high toxicity levels’—  which is pretty typical for any building where fear toxin or Joker gas are found in any amount. They must have found a lot to condemn the whole building, but Tim is confident he’ll be fine. The airborne shit dissipates to safe levels within hours depending on the ventilation. If it was in the air, it’s long gone. Anything else needs to be injected to be effective.

Once the camera’s busted, he kicks out the boards and heads inside.

He drags his suitcase in after him, and mourns the shower he probably won’t be getting. The hall lights are out, and chances are the water’s been shut off along with the electricity. But at this point, he simply does not give a shit. All he wants are four walls and a mattress.

Leaning on the door to his floor to make it open, he stumbles out into the hallway—

And catches sight of the glistening curved dagger stabbed into the wall next to his door, the hilt gleaming green in the sinking sun.

“Nope,” Tim says, spinning on his heel and going back down the stairwell double time. “Nope, nope, nope.”

He is now 100% certain that the League of Assassins has been burning his bolt holes. Ra’s al fucking Ghul can eat his whole ass.

—

Seven blocks away, Tim sits on the sidewalk in front of a bodega and contemplates a third cup of coffee. The shittiest one yet.

See, here’s the thing.

The thing is, he has options.

He could go to the Manor. Or the penthouse. Or to Steph’s place. He’d have to answer some unnecessary questions like ‘Master Timothy, you know you can’t sleep on aircraft, why didn’t you sleep before your flight’ or ‘Tim, why didn’t you come here first, you know you can still come to me if you’re in trouble, right’ or ‘why did you agree to fumigate your fucking house, you loser, lmao’. (Stephanie is not going to let him live this down). 

He is absolutely certain that he would be welcomed in any of these places and after a completely undeserved amount of fussing, he could take a fucking nap and someone else would deal with the League bullshit for him.

And that’s the thing. There’s the rub.

No one should have to deal with the League bullshit for him. This is his problem. He’s not in a hurry to bring them down on anyone. Not even Damian.

With grim resignation, he reaches for his phone to try and find a hotel room (during a con’ weekend apparently, RIP) and maybe get a fucking handle on this whole stupid thing, when he hears:

“Hand over your wallet!”

He lifts his head slowly and finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun. A gun held by some guy wearing a ski mask in broad fucking daylight. There’s another guy next to him who’s watching the street. There’s a third guy somewhere behind him who he can’t see, but he can hear the scuff of his boots.

Sure. Why not. With the day he’s had, this might as well happen. He holds up his hands placatingly.

Tim contemplates his muggers. The guy with the gun is jittery, probably new to this, or hopped up on something. He keeps glancing between Tim and the bodega behind him, so they were probably planning a run on the till. Might have chickened out, or thought Tim was an easier target, an unexpected meal ticket plopped right in their path. Or they were already inside when Tim sat down, which wouldn’t bode well for his situational awareness seeing as he just came out of there himself.

The grinding gears of his tired brain keep getting caught on the fact that this is happening in the middle of the fucking day. Tim glances at the street corner and bites his cheek in frustration. Yeah, he’s smack dab in the middle of the Alley. Figures.

“Are you deaf or somethin’ man?” The guy with the gun is saying. “Hand over your fucking wallet!”

The other guy doesn’t seem as crazy-eyed. He’s nervous, though. He keeps looking around like he’s expecting Batman to materialize, to come whistling down the street like a beat cop.

“Dude, come on, it’s not fucking worth it,” he says, grabbing at the gunman’s shoulder. “We got the money, let’s fucking go.”

The third guy kicks over Tim’s suitcase. “Yeah, come on, Don, let’s just grab this shit and bounce.”

Tim can’t do anything. He’s not Red Robin right now. He’s Timothy Drake-Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and he’s getting mugged in front of a bodega at two in the afternoon in a rumpled suit and tie and still toting his suitcase from his early morning flight. 

His hands are trembling from unspent adrenaline, too much caffeine, and not enough sleep. His eyelids are the heaviest they’ve ever been in his godforsaken life. His ears are ringing. He could knock all three of them down in less time than it takes to tie his shoelaces. But he can’t.

“Shut up, Johnny, look at him shaking! What’s he gonna do? If he doesn’t wanna get shot, rich boy’s gonna hand over all his fucking shit!”

“Hey, let’s just—” Tim tries to say.

Stars explode across his vision as Tim takes a punch he genuinely wasn’t expecting. He stares up at the blue sky for about half a second, more confused than anything else, before the gunman grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him up to shout in his face.

“What’s it gonna be, pretty boy?!”

Caught on the exhausted edge between vigilante training and the preservation of his identity, Tim is frozen. He doesn’t know what to do. He kind of wants to cry.

“Gee, Donny, what is it gonna be?” A fourth voice says, full of false cheer.

Tim blinks. So do the muggers. 

He knows that voice.

“Who the fuck—?” The gunman drops Tim, spinning around and into a fist. He tumbles down to the ground, out cold.

Everything happens pretty quickly after that.

Jason Todd is in civvies. He’s sporting a worn out looking hoodie and a pair of jeans that have seen better days. But his heavy boots are the same ones he wears for his uniform, and the kick he delivers to Johnny’s face is all Red Hood.

Almost in a daze, Tim watches him fight with the usual mix of seething envy and raw desire that rears its ugly head any time he gets to see Jason in action. He’s fast, decisive. Efficient. Beautiful. Tim wishes he had Jason’s skill. And he wishes— 

Well. He wishes a lot of things about Jason Todd.

Tim is pretty sure he and Jason are friends. Maybe. Probably. They’ve pretty much moved past the whole “replacement”, “zombie-dickhead” part of their relationship and have graduated to occasionally providing backup on ops that overlap in each other’s sectors, ganging up on Dick when they’re all in the same room, and maintaining a surprisingly steady stream of vigilante gossip to keep each other in the loop. 

So, ok, yes, due to the aforementioned, he’s pretty sure they’re friends. And also because Jason wouldn’t have stuck his neck out for him otherwise. He would have just let him get mugged.

Watching Jason fight is one of Tim’s favorite pastimes. But right now, Tim’s usual appreciation is soured by the gut-roiling embarrassment of being caught in this position by Jason of all people. His eyes itch. His cheek throbs. He’s so fucking tired.

“Hey, little stalker,” Jason says suddenly, holding out an expectant hand in Tim’s face. The muggers are groaning on the ground around them. Tim isn’t sure when that happened. He might have zoned out. “Did you know that you had a stalker for a change?”

Tim flushes. “I resent that. I haven’t stalked anyone in years.” He takes the hand. It’s warm, and calloused, and big around his.

Jason laughs at him and yanks him to his feet. “Liar.”

Tim’s mouth twists into a scowl. He tries to glare at Jason, but he can feel himself swaying and Jason still hasn’t let go of him, and it’s ruining everything.

Also, lowkey, Jason is right. But in his defense, it is literally their job to stalk people, so.

“I haven’t stalked you in years then. Just other guys. Bad guys. Not non-bad guys. Fuck. You know what I mean. Whatever.” He pauses; recalibrates. “Had?” He asks.

Jason’s eyebrows inched higher and higher the longer Tim talked. Tim doesn’t blame him.

“Yeah. Had.” 

So much for the League, Tim muses.

Jason gives him a once over before tugging decisively on Tim’s wrist, easily grabbing the handle of his suitcase and starting to walk with both in tow, to Tim’s rising horror. 

“You’re coming with me, shortstack. What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk? You look like shit.”

Tim tries to yank his wrist out of Jason’s grip, but the asshole doesn’t budge. “I’m not drunk,” Tim snaps. “I’m fine. I’m just. I’m just… really tired.”

Jason stops abruptly, and Tim stumbles into his shoulder.

“I can see that,” he says, steadying Tim with an amused but ultimately sympathetic look. He loads Tim’s suitcase onto the back of a motorcycle that Tim literally just now noticed. 

God, he’s fucked. And not even in a fun way. 

“C’mon,” Jason says. “Don’t fall asleep on the way over— road rash sucks ass.”

—

They don’t talk on the way to— wherever Jason is taking them, but once they’re parked in a random garage and walking towards the elevators, the game of twenty questions begins.

“So why’ve you got League assassins after you, anyway? Piss in a lazarus pit? Push over the baby brat on the playground?”

“Ra’s al Ghul wants my body,” Tim says, dejected but resigned to this bizarre fact of his life. “Since I was seventeen, I’m pretty sure.”

Jason wrinkles his nose. “Ew.”

“I don’t think it’s a sex thing? But it could also be a sex thing.”

“Again. Fucking ew.”

“Yeah. Also I blew up a bunch of his shit and I think he’s still salty I got away with it.”

“Is that why you weren’t at the Manor?” Jason asks, herding Tim out of the elevator and down a long hallway. “Or anywhere but a random street in Crime Alley?”

Tim nods. “Yeah. They found all my safehouses, but— my mess. My problem.”

Jason thwacks him upside the head.

“Ow! What the fuck?”

“You’re the dumbest person on the planet.”

“Am not. B is on-planet right now.”

“Then you’re pretty fucking close,” Jason snarks, fishing out some keys and opening one of the apartment doors.

Tim scoffs at him as he’s pushed inside. “Oh, please. Don’t try to tell me you would let Dick swoop in and solve all your problems for you.”

Jason rolls his eyes, stepping into the side kitchen and popping open the freezer door of the fridge.

“Dickiebird can’t even solve his own problems,” he says as he rummages. “But maybe when I’m fucked up enough to let three nobodies robbing a fucking bodega get the jump on me, that’s a sign that, maybe, it might be time to call in the cavalry. Dick isn’t the only person who’s got your back.” He presses an ice pack to Tim’s face until he takes it himself, and keeps steering him through the apartment. “Just saying.”

Tim would protest with all of his very good reasons why Jason is definitely wrong here, but he’s too busy processing the fact that Jason has led him into a bedroom. With a bed. There’s a bed, with a mattress and pillows and blankets. Right there. Tim stares at it with lustful eyes.

Jason catches him staring. He rolls his eyes, but he’s sporting a small smile that Tim has the presence of mind to memorize. He walks over to a dresser and pulls out a big shirt and a pair of shorts that he hands to Tim.

“Look. If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here. No guarantees I’ll be always around, but, yeah. Mi casa es su casa, or whatever.”

Tim eyes him up, clutching the bundle of Jason-smelling fabric in his hands. “And you’d do that for me because…why, exactly?”

Jason flicks his forehead, a stinging reprimand. Tim hisses.

“Because, dumbass, you need help and I feel like it. And you don’t actually suck to be around, so shut up and be grateful.”

“Oh, yes,” Tim deadpans, rubbing at his forehead. “So grateful to be allowed the privilege of squatting with you.”

The thing of it is, Tim is grateful. But Jason doesn’t need to know that.

Jason squawks, and before Tim can duck, he’s snatched Tim around the neck in a headlock. His arm is thick and doesn’t budge no matter how Tim shoves and kicks. The ice pack and the clothes go flying, and Tim just about dies. Jason is warm.

“Jason—!”

“Brat!” Jason crows, not giving an inch. “I paid for this place fair and square— you’re the only squatter here!”

“Blood money doesn’t count as square!”

“Tell that to half of Gotham, kid.”

“I’m trying to, thanks for noticing,” Tim says, finally wrenching himself free of Jason’s grip, stumbling into the bed and giving into its siren song. He sits down heavily on the edge, toppling over sideways and reaching pathetically for the fallen ice pack that’s just out of his reach.

“And don’t call me kid—” he complains, muffled by the pillow. It also smells like Jason. “You’re barely two years older than me.”

The cold ice pack is pressed into his fingers. He cracks an eye open to look, but Jason is just smirking at him, like he’s giving Tim the win. Ass.

“Coulda fooled me, shortstack.”

Tim rolls his eyes, and onto his back, toeing off his shoes and letting them clatter to the floor. He can’t tell if Jason’s bed is the best bed in the world, or if he’s just deliriously inventing things.

Frankly, Jason Todd’s bed is the last place he ever thought he’d end up, this morning or otherwise, so he’s never bothered to speculate. He does not have a contingency plan for this.

“Is there a reason you keep calling me short,” he complains, “Or will I just need to fill in the blanks myself?”

“Can’t help it. You’re just so small,” Jason coos. Tim props himself up on an elbow at that, raising a disgusted eyebrow.

“You don’t hear me constantly talking about how big you are.” 

Jason grins like he just won the lottery; Tim shuts his eyes the second it’s out of his mouth.

“Baby, you don’t know how big I am.”

He does, actually. Not in a creepy stalker way, just— there was this one time. A big rogue breakout at Arkham, all-hands on deck type of situation; Tim, Cass, and Jason were covering Poison Ivy in the park. Acid-spitting pitcher plants were involved.

And look, Jason’s tactical gear is fine in the day to day, but it’s not like any of them had time to prep a neutralizing agent, so when Jason needed his pants off, stat…uh. Well. Tim was right there.

He knows, okay?

“Alright,” he rallies, trying desperately not to replay the memory of Jason adjusting himself through his boxers. All of himself. “I walked right into that one.”

“Oh, trust me. You’ll know if you’ve walked into it.”

Tim scoffs, but he can feel how red his face is.

And the thing is. He says it without really meaning to. 

But he still means it.

“You gonna put your money where your mouth is, big guy?”

The change is immediate. Jason had been halfway out the door, but now he turns to Tim, giving him his full, undivided attention. He looks at Tim, laid out in Jason's bed, giving him a very slow once over. The scrutiny is at once nerve-wracking and thrilling.

“Thought you didn’t want my money,” Jason murmurs.

The temperature in the room spikes. If it weren’t for the slow throb of his bruised cheek, Tim would think that he’s already asleep and dreaming.

But he isn’t. He’s very much aware that he’s wide awake.

Tim swallows. “Well. It’s not your money I want.”

Jason’s grin is electric. 

He stalks over to the bed, and Tim is frozen like a rabbit, waiting to see what he’ll do next. Jason settles a knee on the sheets between Tim’s legs, looming over Tim and boxing him in against the mattress. Tim’s free hand reaches up of its own accord to tangle in the collar of Jason’s hoodie, and the cotton is softer than he expected.

Jason’s eyes rove over his face, dark and heavy. He catches Tim’s face in his hand, swiping his thumb lightly across the bruising hot ache of his cheekbone. He leans in deliberate and slow and—

—and stops about an inch away from Tim’s mouth.

“Get some sleep, babybird,” Jason teases, his breath puffing gently over the skin of Tim’s lips. “You can proposition me again tomorrow.”

“It’s, like, 3:30 in the afternoon,” Tim argues, breathless.

“Yeah, and your body thinks it’s 3:30 in the morning. You’re dead on your feet. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and go the fuck to sleep.”

Jason moves to rise. But Tim hooks a stubborn arm around his neck and pulls him down that last remaining inch. 

The kiss is— bad. At first. 

Tim basically smashed their mouths together to prove a point, and Jason muffles a surprised sound against Tim’s teeth. He lands heavily on top of Tim at an awkward angle, and he’s kind of crushing him. Tim refuses to let go, but— Jason doesn’t pull away.

Jason gentles the kiss instead, and Tim thrills. He levers himself up onto his elbow, wrapping an anchoring arm around Tim’s back. He finds a home between Tim’s legs, and he lets Tim kiss him until Tim's lips are tingling and his fingers go slack; until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

Somewhere between fifteen minutes and a small eternity later, Jason presses one more kiss to the corner of his mouth. He curls around Tim on his side, and Tim turns his face into Jason’s neck with a soft wondering sigh.

“I’ll keep it. Promise. Wait n’ see,” Tim mumbles. Jason snorts, but doesn’t budge, and Tim can hear his smile in his voice, lilted and lulling.

“Sure, babybird. I’ll wait. I got nowhere else to be.”

Tim is already asleep.

[kryptonbabe]

You will get a new Wonder Woman run planned to be a long and structured one - but it's written by Tom King

You will get a new Black Canary run - the thing is, it will be written by Tom King

You will get a series of some silver age partially forgotten characters you like - Adam Strange, Omega Men, Metamorpho - but here's the catch: they'll all be written by Tom King

Why all these times I got something I wanted from DC it was like meeting this wise and cruel Jinn trying to warn me about the potential harm of my heart's desires?

"Be careful what you wish for, little one. Now take this Tom King book" the creature whispers while I sob

[radioactivepeasant]

Free Day Thursday, Part Three

<Prev

Jak did not wake that entire day.

Nor the next.

Nor the day after that.

His body was flushed with fever, and dark, angry lines had begun to spread from the double injection over his core. Infection set in so much faster than they could have anticipated.

Was this what his first injection cycle had been like?

No. Even if the symptoms were the same, this was fundamentally different. He wasn't injected while awake and fighting restraints too big for his little wrists. He wasn't dumped in a frigid prison cell to survive the first infection alone.

Jak was constantly monitored, fluids fed into him to compensate for how much he sweated out. Cold compresses pressed against his forehead at all times. Bio readings on constant readout.

And, most vital of differences, the people around him were fighting to keep him alive because they cared about him, not because it was inconvenient to lose a test subject.

Damas barely ate or drank during those two days. He didn't sleep more than a few minutes at a time. Every waking moment was spent at Jak’s bedside, holding his hand or smoothing back his hair.

Sometime after evening meal on the second day, Sister Yan returned with the light eco. That was the first time Jak’s eyes opened, if only for a moment. The light eco did little more than break the fever, but even just that was a relief. Everything else was up to Jak, now. He just had to fight.

"You can do this, little one," Damas whispered, over and over. "Just stay with me, Jak. Stay with me."

By now word had spread: Damas had a child in the hospital. Now was not the time to bring petty concerns to him. The council of advisors appointed Mako as interim steward to seize temporary power in his absence -- how very strange it was to live in a place where he trusted Mako wholeheartedly to make the right choices and peacefully hand over power when he returned! And he would have trusted any of his advisors to be a good steward of the throne!

Perhaps it was because they had all shed blood as equals. They knew what it was to go hungry. To suffer thirst. They each knew what it was to go without a roof over their heads. It was a lot easier to govern a people when you didn't try to balance on a pedestal high above them.

Jak woke while Damas was dozing. His movements were slow, and sluggish, but the faint sound of his bare arm against the sheets was enough to snap Damas back to consciousness. His eyes flew open and he straightened to check the bed.

Confused blue eyes blinked sleepily back at him.

"Jak!"

Damas leaped up, hands hovering awkwardly.

"Are you alright? How do you feel, son?"

Jak squinted against the fluorescent light and squinched one eye shut.

Too tired to lift his hands, he grudgingly used his voice.

"Th. Thhhhh. Hers. Tee."

"You're thirsty?"

"Mhm."

Jak didn't understand why there were tears in Damas’s eyes. Or why he laughed at that.

"I'm not surprised! Hold on, bug, I'll get you some water."

It wasn't cold, but Jak didn't care. He felt like he hadn't had anything to drink in days! He grumbled when Damas made him slow down, and tried to pull away. Something tugged painfully at the crook of his elbow, and he yelped.

"Ouch!"

He turned, and saw a tube. Sticking out of his arm. Sticking out of the skin.

What did that mean?!

Very, very slowly, Jak swiveled back to look up at Damas.

"Tha-at?" He asked nervously.

Damas brushed the hair from his face -- hey! Where were his goggles?! -- and kept making a sad face. Why the sad face? What was going on?

"It's medicine, son."

Damas swallowed hard.

"That's um. It's a special kind of tool for when people can't take medicine like normal. The doctor uses that little- little tube to trick your body into thinking it's part of the bloodstream. The um. The medicine goes straight into your blood to fight infection there."

Jak hastily drained the last of the water in the paper cup and forced out a few lethargic signs.

"It stays there?”

"No, no no no!" Damas took the cup from him and refilled it. "Only until that bag is empty. See?"

He pointed to where the pinkish line sat on the bag.

"Once that's gone, Dr. Rezzik will come take it out. We'll put a little tourniquet on it, and you'll be fine in a few hours."

"Woo. Aye. Nnn-n oh. Ee. Co?"

Damas winced and drew back a little.

"You...need to stay away from eco for a few weeks, son."

A few weeks?! Jak was horrified. What had happened?! He'd just been playing with eco on the beach, with Flick! How did he get to this cold white room, with a medicine tube, and no eco?

Jak wanted to ask what happened. Why he was here. But his voice was tired, and his arms were tired.

"...d...Dad-t?" he asked, trying to pour all his questions into that one word.

Damas’s breath caught. He slowly lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Do you remember what happened? When you were playing with Flick?" he asked softly.

Jak tried to remember, he really did. But his brain felt all mushy and sleepy.

He shrugged.

"That was-" Damas sighed and brushed back Jak’s hair again. "That was three days ago, son. You accidentally made dark eco."

Jak recoiled in horror. Made dark eco?! Like the Acherons?! Did that make him bad like them?

Samos would be so mad at him! Daxter would be so mad!

"Hey, hey, Jak, look at me. Look at Dad."

The words snapped Jak back to the present, and he turned teary eyes towards Damas. Damas didn't look angry, at least.

"It was just an accident, son." Damas reached down and squeezed his hand. "You're not in trouble, and neither is Flick. Not for that, at least. I'm just-"

He shuddered. "I was so worried, Jak! You wouldn't wake up! We had to induce eco overexposure just to correct the imbalance!"

"That's why my core hurts?" Jak felt the spot between his sternum and intestines where the small organ sat. The skin there was hot and tender to the touch. He hissed in pain and withdrew his hand.

"Yes, son. It is. I'm sorry.”

____________________________

There were, Jak discovered, pros and cons of being in "the hoss-piddle". He couldn't run, he couldn't get out of bed, and it was intensely boring.

But Damas was almost always there! And sometimes Jak's friends visited!

Raza even snuck her dogat kitten in under her shirt and almost started a mini riot in the children's ward.

Flick hadn't visited yet.

Damas said shd felt like it was her fault he'd been in a "coma" for two days. That she probably felt too guilty to come see him.

Didn't make Jak feel better about it. How did he know she didn't just want to stay away from dark eco?

Dr. Rezzik said it would never fully go away. Even if it was only a tiny little bit, that dark spot on his chest was probably permanent. They didn't know how he'd done it, but he'd absorbed it into his core.

That scared Jak a lot more than he let on. Would he turn gray and lose his reason, like Gol and Maia?

Emotions sat a little closer to the surface while he was in the hospital. Little things bothered him in ways they hadn't before.

Lights hurt his eyes too much once the sun went down. The sound of the kid in the next bed chewing his food made him irrationally angry for some reason. Sometimes just the chair next to his bed being empty made him start tearing up.

Nurse Brooks called it puberty. Jak was pretty sure he already did puberty. This was something else.

"Hey, kid."

Jak looked up from absolutely mangling a little metal can they'd somehow squeezed juice into. He hadn't even noticed that he'd crushed it into an unrecognizable lump.

Damas folded his arms and looked at the crumpled mess.

Jak's ears drooped. He'd spaced out again. He did that when things got too noisy already, but things were just noisier here.

But Damas just smiled and suppressed a chuckle.

"I bet you're ready to get out of here, huh?"

*"Yah,"* Jak said emphatically.

He looked around a moment, then sheepishly put the mangled can on the little tray his decidedly bland lunch had been on.

Wiping droplets of juice from his fingers, Jak hoisted himself further upright.

"Can I go home yet? I don't like it here!"

He'd repeated the same question almost every day. And almost every day the answer was "no, son, not yet."

More scans. More finger-sticks. More cold metal things against his back and chest so they could listen to his heart and lungs and core. More bedrest.

But today felt different.

Damas set a small canvas bag down on the chair beside the bed and nodded to it. "I brought you some clean clothes. You'll need to wear the pulse-monitor bracelet for a few more days, but Dr. Petros and Dr. Rezzik cleared you to come home."

Jak whooped and pumped his fist.

"Can we go now? Like right now?"

"You don't want to change first?"

Jak shook his head. "No. The longer I'm here, the scarier it gets. I'm gonna fight somebody if I have to wake up for one more night round."

"Please don't fight the nurses, they're just trying to help." Damas held out a hand and let Jak pull himself to his feet.

He examined the dark circles under his eyes and clicked his tongue disapprovingly.

"Nurse Brooks said you haven't been sleeping well even without his rounds at night."

Jak looked away, embarrassed.

"Nightmares."

Tattooed faces and maddened eyes and crackling, arcing, dark eco-

"About when I landed in Haven. And the woods."

Damas pulled him into a very careful hug, avoiding compressing the icky little starburst shape on Jak’s chest.

"Oh Jak. I'm sorry, son. Do you think you'll sleep better in your own bed?"

"Yeah."

Jak took the time to say goodbye to his roommate. It wasn't Beten's fault he chewed so loudly. He didn't need to get so angry about it.

But Precursors he was glad to be getting away from all that slurping.

"Am I allowed to go exploring yet?" Jak asked as Damas walked him out of the ward. Some of the other kids waved to him. Some were only there for bumps and bruises, one or two were longterm residents with chronic conditions.

"We'll see how you feel tomorrow.”

"Aw!"