#Constantine WILL figure this game out SO HELP HIM! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dairy-farmer · 10 months

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Saw a Timeloop prompt and had to come here! Because? Accidental Time Loop Au! Most times? Time loops are Serious Business(tm) with something at stake. A terrible threat or enemy agent. But WHAT IF you knew exactly what caused the problem, how to fix it, and it legitimately WAS your own fuck up? And the fix was just tedious to find? So it would take a while. An enforced vacation if you will.

The day is even *gasp!* Uneventful?! Say it isn't so! But it IS. And Tim fucked up. He let Damian get under his skin, words were exchanged, and he slammed into a magical idol, breaking it. Constantine can fix it easily. IF HE WERE HERE.

So in the 24 hours he has... he has to grid search Earth (yes all of it) for the man's damn magic house, find it, GO TO IT, convince him, and get free'd. The going is easy. He has both a Flash AND a Super on speed dial. Bruce has THE Flash and Super on speed dial. It's the "finding" that's the issue. *groans*

Luckily? Photographic memory and a supercomputer. Set up, exclude what's already been searched, and go! But what to do with the rest of his hours? He... doesn't know... case work maybe?

He runs out of case work. And games he wants to play. And silly things he wanted to try. And honestly? He's really frustrated by... all.. this........... Now there's a thought.

He hasn't really had TIME for a proper "me day" in... actually has he ever done more then THINK about how much he'd like it? Well today starts now! So Tim explores himself. Has a leisurely time of it. The loop starts over. He stays in bed for that one, learning what feels... Good.

He starts up the search again the next loop, the back off to bed. To do research. To rub his poor little clit raw. Work fingers into himself to figure out what the fuss is about. Next loop he steals Dick's lube. He figures out what the fuss is about.

Loop after that he steal more then just Dick's loop. He works fingers into himself one by one, til he can take himself with slim dildo he's stolen. Loop after that he's so eager to try the other toy he saw he forgets that to GET to Dick's room, he had to dodge Damian. He's confronted.

They argue about why he's in in Dick's room. Damian once again gets under his skin. He says things he shouldn't. Once second they are nearly ripping each others throats out, the next Tim is nearly shredding his back, demanding fingers plowing into his body with little skill are somehow still sending sparks up his spine. Making him wet. Spreading him open.

His legs are being roughly held open as the most obnoxious little shit he knows, rams home like it's his right, to take him like an animal on Dick's bedroom floor. Damian is panting and cursing and he ruts, taking his pleasure, thinking of nothing BUT. And it's... it's...

Tim doesn't think he can go back to just touching himself. It's not enough after this. Could NEVER be enough. By the time the loop ends, his poor hole is stuffed full and on fire. He can never go back.

He wakes up and starts the search. His pussy doesn't ache but it feels like it should. He does the obvious, calls up Kon. Bros help bros with their virginity problem after all. Then bros fuck them up and down their cock like they weigh NOTHING and let them practice oral. You know, like bros.

Bart is equally willing to help, next loop. Is SO excited in fact, he blurs when slamming in to him. Pumping him fuller and fuller of cum then he ever thought possible. Vibrating to the touch and sending Tim's nerves alight. He's never loved ANYTHING as much as sex, he decides before passing out, it's the Best~♡.

He decides to shoot his shot the next time, gets turned down hard and lectured. Dick is Unamused. Next turn he tries again, and again, and again. He refines his approach. Dick hesitates longer each time. He pulls out the big guns. Oh noooo. He got exposed to (a low dose of) Ivy's Pollen! He's applied the antidote, but he's soooo uncomfortable and upset! Hurting even!

Dick eats him out until he sobs. Rocking himself deeper and deeper into Tim's mouth until he can barely breathe. He fucks his throat like lover then bends him in half and pounds him until Tim wonders if he'll ever sit again. Tim passes out covered in sweat and cum and slick and... the loop resets.

He decides not to test Dick's self control. Jason's? Well he hasn't learned his lesson. He does. Bent over on his hands and knees, getting slammed back onto to the thick thing inside if him. He learns Jason likes to hear him beg, to make him squeel. He didn't know he made that noise.

He spends a loop sleeping. The search is half way done. Damn you, Constantine.

Tim can't banish the crazy thoughts. To be honest he never could. Usually his friends can talk him out of bad ideas. But... it's a time loop... no consequences... and he HAD always low-key wondered. You know, under the absolutely unethical and monstrous everything... Would it be good? Just... just a string free hook up. Would he take it?

Apparently the answer is "Yes". God help him, he might be going insane. He calls up Ra's. Today only, he'll be at checking into a hotel, Tim knows damn well you can find out which one, show up or don't. This is Ra's sole chance to fuck him.

The man damn near breaks the sound barrier. Not that he'd even SHOW it. Tim has never seen such covetous unholy glee. He also learns Ra's will do things to him with his tounge that shouldn't be legal. Balanced on his shoulders as the man slams dead on to that spot inside him with out mercy, as he has been for HOURS, Tim is torn between sobbing and passing out as the bastard spills another load of seemly endless inside him. Purring all the while of how he will BREED him, KEEP him, dress him in jewels. He's lost count of how many time Ra's has cruely brought him off as Batman crashes through the window, but midnight hits and he's back in his bed.

At least he has his answers now.

After a loop's break, he decides he wants to spend time with Bruce. He DID apparently rush to save him. And it's been a while. It's nice. The thing is? He... he's AWARE now. Of things he missed before. Of Bruce's possessive little should touches and back rubs, the clingy way things are scheduled so they always travel together... the way he wants Tim to "double check" his flawless work, just so Tim spends his free Tim with him.

Tim shouldn't. He really, REALLY shouldn't. It's a Bad Idea.

He presses his leg against Bruce's anyway. Sits closer. Leans closer. Braces his hand on Bruce's thigh when reaching over him for the otherside of the desk. He catches Bruce's eye out of the corner of his. It's all over the second he does. Bruce is too good a detective not to know how to read arousal and interest, especially on a familiar face. He's in Bruce's lap in seconds. His mouth plundered.

He's hauled off to Bruce's room. Bruce barely let's him breath between consuming kisses as he mercilessly finger fucks him open, almost cruely drawing the first orgasm of the night of of Tim just so he'll be relaxed enough Bruce can FIT. And then it's like being crushed and swallowed alive. It's so big. Keeps going and going. Bruce is growling little whispers of reassurance and praise but Tim can MOVE. Bruce won't let him.

Pressed to the bed, spread so wide it almost hurts, arms trapped against his sides by Bruce's embrace. It's like he's being pinned and impaled. Then Bruce starts to MOVE and... and... oh god, Tim can't take it. Too much. Bruce, too much! Everything is pinpricks and stars and his inside are being destroyed but it's g-good and... and he just CAN'T!

But all Bruce does is kiss his tears and hum, making soothing little noises as he buries his face in Tim's neck, and pounds harder. Holds his boy. Close and perfect, everything melting together. Bruce loses himself to the rhyme of the thrusts. The wet heat. The gasps and whimpers and whines. It's so, so good. Overwhelming for Tim no doubt. Bruce groans and fucks them both through orgasm after orgasm until everything is too bright and too hot and the edge of agony. The last hour before midnight, Tim is held tight, stuffed full of Bruce and keeping him warm, barely able to move.

Loop resets. Tim feel sudden and accute sympathy for Selina. Also deep respect. He ALSO wants to strangle John Constantine. He let's the computer run. And Run. Aaaaand Run. Until his Bad Idea impulse starts to kick in and he can't take it anymore. He HAS to know. Dick has denied it but there's no real telling and it kinda is THE gossip in Hero circles... plus he HAS money.

He has to fuck Deathstroke.

He doesn't get the chance, John has been found! Oh thank FUCK. One trip on the Kon express later he's pound on a hungover magicians door. Bastard laughs at him. Just for that, no thank you sex. Oh LOOK, suddenly not funny? Imagine that. Kon would like to know, you know, since HE didn't laugh, if Thank You sex is still on the table for HIM? Absolutely. But only AFTER the Time Loop is Fixed.

Invested Kyptonian is Invested in these proceedings. John fixes the idol... not that he gets THANKED or anything :/ . But uuuuh, you didn't do anything... CRAZY while you were looping, right?

Why?

Local Kon has Remembered some shit. Bros helping bros. Uh Oh.

Tim's phone starting blowing up with messages and calls. OH NO.

They remember. SHIT.

YES YES YSES YESY EYS ESEYSEY YES YES YS ESYES !!!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!! THISIS IISO SO GOOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TIM BEING STUCK IN A TIMELOOP AND GIVING INTO ALL THE BAD IDEAS HE NORMALLY IGNORES AND NEVER LISTENS TO BUT ON THE DAY OF TEH LOOP LITERALLY NOTHING INTERESTING IS HAPPENING, HE'S NOT INJURED, NOT ON A CASE, NO ONE ELSE IS ON SOME PRESSING CASE, ITS LITERALLY JUST A NORMAL AVERAGE DAY AND TIM HAS TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

the thing is that tim is always so busy. its not an exaggeration, every single moment of tim's life has a time slot specifically set aside for it- even bathroom breaks and showers. its not about being 'anal' like how jason likes to say or 'psycho' like how steph likes to believe. it's quite literally only about tim maximizing the amount of time he has in a day and, put simply, there's not enough.

there is not enough time in the day for tim to be able to get everything he wants done. the amount of days he's had where he was...free to do what he wanted are small. very small. as in 'hasn't happened in years' small.

and its not like tim couldn't take a vacation if he wanted to!

he was sure that if he told bruce he needed a break and wanted to go away for a week to recharge, tim's almost certain bruce would have the plane tickets booked and tim's packed bags out the doors before he had a chance to finish the '-tion' in 'vacation'. he's pretty sure that's how it would play out. but he'd never tried it. he just forced himself to be content with the fantasy of it and pretending not to stop for a moment and stare at the windows of department stores while running errands as they displayed mannequins in swimsuits along with surfboards and posters of young teens tim's age living life to the fullest.

tim has a deep respect for the work he does and he feels that a lot of his work is incredibly important so...he never tries to go bigger than the occasional wistful dream.

until he's stranded in, quite honestly, the most boring day to time loop within- in history. bruce is down in the cave all day, only surfacing for dinner. alfred is carefully instructing a landscaping crew for the new lawn design he drew up because alfred is actually quite proud when it comes to the greenery of the manor. dick is in one of the manor's offices pretending he's not upset about another job rejection letter and trying to redo his resume again in a more 'atmospheric' room. damian is in his room listening to music and watching other people play video games on youtube yet somehow remaining startlingly aware of each creak of the floorboards in the manor. jason is in the city, lounging in his apartment and committing credit card fraud by using bruce's card to order the things that catch his interest on qvc.

the thing is that tim knows what to do in a time loop. there's a protocol for it. there's a protocol for everything.

but the thing is...most of those protocols are of the 'world is ending' variety. someone keeps dying/ "I" keep dying/ the world keeps going to shit. or it's one of those loops where it's more centered around character development where tim needs to reach some kind of revelation about appreciating his family and believing in santa again or something.

but its none of those. tim doesn't have to go on some journey of self reflection or find some way to stop dying. no. because tim knows exactly what caused the loop. and it was damian picking a fight with him while tim was on 'tagging' duty for the new box of magical artifacts that bruce wanted identified, logged, and put into storage.

a magical artifact that bruce was now painfully and delicately reconstructing because he and damian had gotten into a fight that ended with tim throwing the closest thing on hand at the twerp-turned-towering-giant which....turned out to be a carefully carved statue of a hand that was apparently from an offering site of some germanic god.

there was no other explanation of it because as soon as that stone had shattered; tim had woken up in bed, dizzy and cursing damian. he spent the entire day nursing his body and the next day felt...slightly better so he'd ventured out.

it took the third morning before tim figured out he was stuck in a loop and what the cause of it was. knowing that there was no danger afoot tim took a few loops to rest his horrendous splitting headache before buckling down and looking for a magic user to help fix this.

loops started by magical objects were relatively quick fixes. all it required was the 'stabilization' of the person affected's soul to tie them back to the timeline.

only that zatanna was out with the league on some mission in space. doctor fate was utterly unreachable by tim's current standards. zachary was a douchebag who would hold this over tim. which left basically only john constantine.

who would winge about it but help tim out without being too much of a dick. so long as tim could find him.

bruce had a program on the batcomputer specifically for being able to track down constantine's exact coordinates. only that the program had to go country by country for the search and each one could take days. bruce usually had an educated guess about where to start and didn't normally use the program because it was so slow so other magic users were usually contacted before bruce resorted to the program.

but it was tim's only option.

besides this could be...nice. he finally has all the time in the world to do everything he wanted. tim had been laid up sick for 2 whole loops and nothing had happened while he was curled up in bed.

he could get a headstart on everything he needed to do while waiting for the program on the batcomputer to find constantine! like his casework!

it takes tim almost a dozen loops to find the culprit in each one of his active cases. there's no point going to gordon or typing up a report because it will just disappear in the next loop but the entirety of tim's investigations are safely stored away in his head for when time finally starts working right again.

tim is at a bit of a loss for half a loop before he remembers all the birthday gifts from his friends, both civilian and caped, he'd never gotten to use. videogames he never got to play. books he never got to read. movies he never got to watch. in fact, tim had a huge towering stack of gifts from christmas and eid he never got to open.

tim spends about a week and a half on each videogame, systematically beating every game. then when he's finished he goes back around and starts going for all the achievements. then he starts playing all the games on the hardest settings. he tries to co-op a few times but after the first loop realizes that each attempt will just be with the same people who will say the same things and have the same conversations.

tim decides to put the games to the side for a little while and starts digging through his stack of unwatched shows and movies he'd never watched. he even cracks open some of those gifts and finds packages of candy and sweet treats waiting for him- many of which are still good! he watches all the movies and binges the shows. he laughs, cries, boos, throws popcorn at the screen of his tv in his room.

that takes up almost two months worth of loops.

tim tries reading a few of those books jason rants about and even gifted him but keeps falling asleep halfway through them.

speaking of sleep. tim sleeps. a lot. a lot a lot. he catches up on his sleep debt for a few loops but ultimately can't stand it anymore.

he does everything he can think of. he rests and relaxes until he's bored to tears. he looks into and solves the few cold cases that bruce has sitting in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet in the cave.

tim even eats until he's sick. he pigs out with no reguard for his usual diet and gorges himself on food until he's sick at the sight of it.

it doesn't work. tim runs out of distractions and things to have fun with.

he's...bored. woefully understimulated and SO frustrated and...

well....there was an idea he hadn't considered before.

tim never understood the fuss about sex. couldn't understand why it made people like bruce and dick lose their cool at the promise of it. tim has masturbated, sure. for hormone and health reasons but orgasms had never been something so life-changing that he'd let himself get turned stupid over it like how...so many of his friends and family had.

so. tim tries. tries to figure out what's so good about it. he stops rubbing at his clit with single-minded focus and intent to get off.

he goes slower. he tries watching porn. reading porn. tries to find what gets him aroused.

it works. tim finds himself fascinated with the sight of plush lips swallowing down cocks until their throats bulged. he grows red and hot with the sight of thick, white cum flowing out of red, stretched-open pussies.

tim starts fucking his fingers into himself, using fingers to explore the little hole he's never paid much mind to.

the thing about masturbating is there is always a reward for it. tim always feels good, body growing warm and content with orgasm. unlike the other things he's tried, he doesn't grow easily bored.

there are just....so many things to learn about his body. about how he likes pinching his tits until it's painful and they're blossoming into a red color. he likes figuring out how many fingers he can press into his hole, how many times he can orgasm in an hour.

it's good. it's nice. it's fun.

but...its also labor intensive. tim's hand hurts from rubbing so much after a whole day. by the time it reaches nighttime he's so horny he's sobbing but he can't get off because his poor abused hand keeps cramping.

it also takes awhile for tim to work up the arousal to get wet enough that every clench of his thighs or working of his fingers releases wet sounds that echo in his room.

tim likes how wet he gets. how he just keeps drooling and dripping clear cum from his hole onto his bedsheets until he's lying in a wet spot.

tim knows there are...toys.

he's seen them in videos and he's overheard dick's friends joke about his 'collection'.

tim is...curious. there's no way he can get a toy delivered from the internet on time and the sex shops in gotham all require IDs to purchase and tim would get kicked out if he even tried that.

normally tim would be too mortified to even think about sneaking into dick's room to steal the lube he knows he keeps in his bedside drawer or seatrching his room for those dildos he's seen in porn because tim's desire to know what a cock feels like inside him has only grown...

but tim is stuck in a loop and it only takes another day of hand cramps before he's creeping past damian's door to sneak into dick's room.

he manages to get the lube and opens a drawer....filled to the BRIM with toys. tim gets so suddenly embarrassed that he just grabs the smallest one and darts back to his room.

tim took a dildo that vibrates at a kind of humming frequency. tim only has to touch it to his red throbbing clit a little bit before he's whining and grinding his sopping baby cunt all along the length of it. he doesn't try any of the 'techniques' he saw in porn and just relies on instinct to kick off the rest of his pajamas and gasp as he presses the things head against his hole. the vibration is intense being pressed in and tim almost gets a tummy ache because he can feel the vibrating in all his other organs as he gasps and wetly drags out the dildo streaked with strings of tim's wetness. the glide provided by the lube is heavenly as tim grinds against it, arching into each stroke and crying out as he cums and clenches around nothing. eventually tim gets brave enough to try fucking the slim dildo inside. tim is still in the middle of fucking himself when the loop restarts and even though tim's cunt isn't wet or throbbing from use he's so damnably aroused and furious that his orgasm was cut short.

tim races to dick's room and is digging through the drawers again when damian interrupts him. he's haughty and annoyed because he got grounded for the artifact breaking even though tim had been the one who broke it.

tim's happy the little brat was finally facing consequences for messing with him though he's a little irritated that it was only when damian surpassed him in height that bruce and dick started putting their foots down.

tim is horny, hot, and all kinds of annoyed at the interruption. he tries to ignore damian but the boy doesn't take kindly to it and starts yelling about tim being in dick's room and askin what he's even doing and tim is half tempted to whip out the dildo just to see the bug-eyed look on damian's face but that would just cause more problems in the loop than it was worth.

besides...tim has other concerns as he drowns out damian's huffing to press his thighs together. he can feel himself getting wet. with every loop its like he's so much more aware of his body.

before, tim had to work to get wet but now it was like the slightest thought had his pussy beginning to gush with interest and the promise of feeling good.

damian's not going away only getting louder and closer and tim is so warm and sooooo not in the mood for an argument-

the frustration and mutual aggravation in the room is reaching boiling points.

tim's not sure how it happens.

but he's on his back, pajama bottoms discarded somewhere off near the foot of dick's bed.

damian, the not-so-little-runt, is on top of tim and growling, grunting, almost heaving as he fucks into tim's wet, warm hole. tim doesn't even care that he hasn't stretched himself, that damian is the first real life cock he's ever had inside him. tim doesn't care, all he wants is to feel that thick cock inside him hammering home as tim grinds his clit along with every snap of hips into him. tim is whining and squirming on damian's cock. every time damian thinks he's trying to crawl away he's dragged back down and fucked harder like it's a punishment. it's not, tim is delighted to feel the force of damian's thrusts slapping wetly into him as he tightens his legs around damian's waist. tim arches and lets out a broken cry when he finally cums, clenching tight and feeling damian let out broken grunts as he pushes deep inside.

the feeling of cum flooding his insides is like nothing tim has ever felt. the relief and satisfaction that comes with it, the feeling of a warm body over him and pinning him down....

his fingers will never be enough. a fake cock will never be enough. there is no way tim can ever go back knowing what a cock feels like now.

the next loop tim is calling kon.

damian is right next door but...that's a whole mess tim would rather not repeat. he's blaming it on the loop madness. a burst of temporary insanity!

kon is his best friend and probably one of the few things that kon has more experience than him in is sex.

tim will try to forget the fact that he let the brat fuck him and "technically" take his virginity even though a new loop meant that tim's cunt had never known the feeling of a cock... besides tim's pretty sure if he tried approaching damian for another go he'd get a blade to his throat.

kon is willing to help tim out with his...virginity problem. more than willing actually.

tim doesn't even get a chance to hang up after his request before kon is knocking at his windows with the face of a kid set loose on a carnival.

kon explains that he's more of a 'hands on' instructor. he tells tim this while flinging off his shirt and groping one of tim's tits with an almost audible sound of glee.

kon is a good fuck. tim has no real standard for comparison but everything kon does feels amazing. his cock is BIG. about the same length, maybe an inch or two bigger than damian's, but also much thicker. it's a struggle to sink down on it but kon helps him with his grip on tim's hips, gently bouncing him up and down until tim's mouth fell open at the feeling of being so...full. kon kisses at tim's gaped mouth, humming and murmuring little noises as tim wetly clenches around his cock spearing him open.

they fuck a couple of times before tim needs a breather. he asks kon if sex is always like this.

with damian it had been more of a 'tearing at their clothes and each other and fucking desperately in one position'. kon takes him on his back, on his side, his front, and sitting down facing each other. tim liked that one. sitting in kon's lap with a cock pressing all the way to the opening of his womb and grinding their hips together while kon hugged him close and tim whined about being so full.

kon makes a humming sound of consideration as he grinds his hard cock between the wet seam of tim's cunt, not pressing in and just idly thrusting between tim's rosy folds.

"well most chicks don't let me cum inside them bro."

tim makes a considering noise and honestly, if he wasn't in a time loop there was no way that tim would risk getting pregnant with either damian or kon's fat headed babies.

but this was a time loop and by morning both of their cum would be banished from his womb and his eggs would be unfertilized.

of course tim doesn't say that.

"well that's cause you're my bro kon. special privileges."

kon makes a happy sound and finally presses the thick head of his cock into tim's pussy with a wet sound as tim's cunt accepts the gentle thrusts.

tim hums a little at the nice feeling but his poor pussy throbs at the stretch.

"can i try sucking your cock?"

kon moans into to hollow of tim's neck.

"god, you're the best bro to ever live tim."

well there was tim's answer.

next loop tim wants a smaller cock. kon's was nice but by the end of the night it was clear that his cock was not for first time pussies like tim's.

so tim dials his other best bro.

it's the best decision tim's ever made. it's like having a human vibrator. bart fucks him so fast everything is a blur. tim is pretty sure he blacks out for a few moments. bart babbles the entire time, talking about how soft tim is and how nice he smells and how good he feels and how he has really nice tits- real cute!

bart has basically no refractory period- he just keeps cumming. he never stops fucking into tim, not even for a second. when he cums the only signal tim gets is the flooding of warm cum filling him up and then just as quickly being fucked out of him.

tim manages to get bart to slow to a grind by cupping his sweet head and kissing him. apparently bart loves kissing with tongue. the makeout is so thick and wet that tim's not sure if the wet sounds in the room are from them kissing or from bart fucking him.

tim is fucked until he's on the verge of passing out- and bart never stops. tim's insides just hum with the constant buzz of arousal at the thought of bart continuing to fuck his unconscious body. just as he starts to black out, tim can't help but think about how he loves sex so fucking much.

sex has made tim braver. more confident. maybe stupidly confident because as soon as he's up and restarting the program to search for constantine- he makes his way to the office where dick is agonizing over his unemployment.

tim knows he's always had a little crush on dick. his cool, hot, kind older brother. when he was younger it'd been harder to hide the blatant admiration. the years hadn't been kind to them or their relationship. there's a distance between them they both wish wasn't there. tim knows they've grown apart and maybe that along with his new sexual discovery have provided him with the guts to go in and proposition dick.

if all failed he could just go back to his room to lick his wounds of rejection and call up kon or bart (or both) for a round 2.

he doesn't get a chance. he spends the whole loop in that office being made to feel like shit as dick furiously lectures him about how incredibly "inappropriate" his proposition was. that dick was his brother and several years older and that tim was a child and what on earth got into him to believe that this was okay? if tim was young and curious about sex fine, he got it. but there were so many other people his age that he could go for-

it's probably the worst that dick has ever reamed him out.

but...tim couldn't help but feel like there was something... off about it.

so many of the points that dick brought up were...really well thought out for something that dick was put on the spot for. almost as if...almost as if dick had already thought of it all before.

....like he was just repeating all the reasons he'd thought of for why a relationship between him and tim wouldn't work.

the next loop tim isn't discouraged. he tries again. he's shot down.

he tries another approach. turned down, but gentler this time.

he tests boundaries and tries again. dick hesitates before telling tim to go back to his room and they'd talk about it in the morning.

it's like tim can see all the pieces chipping away as he finds a new way to ask dick to fuck him. after a handful of loops it becomes very clear that dick wants to say 'yes'. that he probably wanted to say yes during that first loop. but....some weird moral hangup was preventing him from finding out how sweet and tight tim's pussy was.

even if tim spent every loop from therein asking dick, he'd never say yes.

unless....he was given an excuse to.

like ivy's pollen. of which there are plenty of sample vials in the cave. antidotes too.

but antidotes don't always work to the full effect. side effects are still possible. side effects that only tim's big brother can help with as he stumbles into the quiet office with a whimper and call of 'diiiiick'.

dick holds him close, hands stroking tim's fluffy strands as he tells dick about how his stomach hurts and how...how the place between his legs is all sore and -and...wet. tim whispers it shamefully in dick's ear and pretends to not feel the shiver that courses through dick's body.

dick strokes tim's abdomen, softly whispering comforts at each of tim's whimpers until tim starts kicking off his pajama pants.

"it huuuurts dick-"

tim whines. he's sure that dick is going to offer his fingers but he's suprised when dick presses him onto his back. dick is as red as a tomato as he tells tim he has something that will help. dick helps tim out of his pajama bottoms and carefully spreads his thighs apart to get at tim's cute clenching pussy.

tim squeals when dick puts his mouth on him. at first it's just a careful drag of a tongue along the slit but then tim's thighs are in a brusing grip and being spread further open as dick lets out a moan and starts pressing his tongue inside tim's tender baby hole.

tim has been poking a bear for several loops so he has no right to complain when all of dick's self control breaks and he has tim's legs over his shoulders and starts pounding tim's baby pussy like an animal. as soon as he spills burning cum inside tim's seizing cunt he painfully grabs tim's hair, tugging on his head to pull tim's chin against his sternum and sits on tim's chest so he can feed tim his cock that he hastily ripped out of tim's pussy just as he started cumming. tim is trapped under him as dick fuck's tim's throat like its a cock sleeve. his balls slap against tim's chin and he can only be grateful that kon helped him figure out how to suck cock without gagging or choking. dick. messes. him. up.

tim's face is a mess of drool, spit, and cum. tim gasps for breath everytime dick tugs his cock out only to swallow a gasp as dick sinks all the way in with a choked moan. dick fucks tim's face for a while longer before deciding that's enough.

tim is flipped like a pancake on his front when dick is done and his tender hole is immediatly filled with tim barely having any time to adjust as dick begins slamming deep and hard into his tender hole, every wet slap is echoing as dick pumps into tim with a fury of someone whose self control has just snapped.

tim gets so messy and wet. cum streaks his thighs and mouth and all down his chin. dick even pulls out at one point and strokes himself in tim's face so he can smear a thick white mess all onto tim's sweet face.

tim gets fucked unconscious and wakes up having to take a minute to process everything. clearly dick is a creature that must be awakened with caution.

but tim has already had a taste of what a fucking from someone who's lost control feels like and needs more.

he goes to the only other brother he hasn't fucked. jason.

jason takes no convincing. he has tim kneeled and on his front. tim gets rug burn on his poor tits because jason does not let him up. he's the first one to fuck tim's ass and tim makes noises he didn't even know he was capable of. jason likes him vocal, he wants tim to sob and cry for more, he wants him to beg jason, to thank jason, to worship jason and his cock that fucks him so well and fills his womb so good.

jason likes telling tim that tim is going to have his babies as he slams into tim and floods his womb with cum. jason makes tim bend in ways that ache his body- dick is the flexible one but jason ignores tim's whines and fucks him in impossible positions while grunting about how tight tim's slutty little princess pussy is.

tim falls asleep to jason stroking his hair and telling him about what a sweet little cunt he was for jason and that he's going to fuck that little thing whenever he wants because its his now-

so tim's brothers are freaks. he always suspected that but now he's certain.

tim doesn't seek anyone out for a few loops. he spends them sleeping, resting, and eating.

even though he's physically fine and there are no aches in his body- tim's soul has spent that last few loops getting mercilessly and endlessly fucked.

the search for constantine still hasn't turned anything up and the time loop might be making tim go a little bit...loopy.

a time loop is endless possibilities and potentials.

it's really a test of a person's character because of the whole 'do anything you want and there will be no consequence' thing. some people might kill, rob a bank, or fulfill some dangerous stunt to test their new 'immortality'. but not tim.

no. tim, after being trapped in a loops for a few months, decides to call a psycho cult leader and long time enemy of his and....bootycall him.

tim tells ra's al ghul he's checking into a hotel in downtown gotham in a little bit because he's apparently gone crazy. if ra's shows up tim will let him fuck him. no catch. no trap. just tim having what's clearly a crisis and this is the way he's decided to work through it.

tim almost doesn't go. he gets in the car and just stares at the wheel and asks if he's really about to do this. if time loop tim is really about to fuck ra's al ghul for...the kicks.

in the end tim goes. even if it ends badly at least the curiosity will be satiated and he'll have no regrets and that damnable voice in the back of his head that sometimes brings up about how ra's is built so nicely, how his voice is like a purr and sometimes sends shivers that aren't all that bad down tim's spine. and....tim really wants to know what getting fucked by someone with centuries of experience is like.

it's amazing. more than amazing.

tim's pretty sure that ra's makes him feel pleasure in muscles he didn't even know existed. tim's half sure that in terms of technique, he's ruined for anyone else. even if tim lived for the next one hundred years he'd never be able to find someone who made him feel what ra's did.

ra's had, apparently, decided to go all out on tim's poor body the moment tim told him to not use condoms because he wanted to feel it all-

tim had seen what those words had done to ra's. the way his eyes had darkened, the way he'd creeped closer like a lithe panther and said 'oh timothy' with that wonderful drawl that tim would finally admit- turned him on.

tim is ashamed of his kissing skills as ra's pillages his mouth while thoroughly fucking his pussy. skilled fingers rub and stroke tim's clit while tim gasps and wraps his fingers into ra's hair and whines, grinding down on the cock inside him. ra's coos at him like he's a darling little pet doing something adorable. tim can't even talk to tell him off, too focused on the feelings flooding through him as ra's bends him in half and fucks him harder and deeper while whispering about breeding him nice and full with his child, that tim will carry his heir in his lovely little womb and they will be perfect because they will be timothy's-

tim's brain is mush. purely oatmeal gray matter mush leaking out of his ears. he doesn't even care about the windows breaking and bruce flying in with a furious snarl as ra's continues fucking him. tim's eyes roll back into his skull as he feels one final blissful orgasm.

tim stays in bed for the entire next loop. he doesn't get up. he just lies there and stares at his ceiling and accepts that he did, in fact, do that.

he's almost disappointed in himself for not feeling a shred of regret.

tim hasn't seen bruce in a while. even though every loop starts with tim restarting the program and checking off all the countries that have already been searched.

bruce is a different level than everyone else. he's in a league completely of his own. and even before tim considers it, he tries talking himself out of it.

but the loop eliminates many of the reasons why tim shouldn't fuck bruce. the change to their relationship, their dynamics, bruce's history of how he treats the people he fucks, the fact that bruce is his father, the fact that for tim- it will always mean something more than a simple fuck.

but the loop will let tim get it out of his system. it will let him feel and know and experience what he's fantasized of ever since he was a child.

the loop has also allowed tim to better prepare for the confrontation. tim's memories of how bruce talks to him, treats him, acts around him help develop support. and then there's the loop with ra's, which in tim's mind, was further evidence of how bruce...might have a deeper interest than he lets on.

its not hard to find bruce. he's in a more isolated part of the cave digitally reconstructing the broken artifact. he doesn't even blink at tim's presence and accepts his companionship as tim glares down at the artifact that's to blame to tim's most recent questionable life choice.

tim takes the oppertunity to...look at bruce. to admire him in the way he hasn't in a while. to stare at the fine line of his jaw, curve of his lips, the dark lashes shadowing those cold blue eyes, the neatly groomed hair and the gray shadow of his unshaved face. bruce's thick, calloused fingers and neat nails, the fine slope of his broad shoulders and trim waist that lead down to thick, muscled thighs.

bruce has always been a level of handsome well above most people and tim knows its partly the plastic surgery he's gotten over the years but also the natural air that just oozes from bruce, the authority and confidence that can just never be replicated.

tim knows that bruce feels him staring. he doesn't falter even when tim slides closer and lets their thighs touch. bruce glances at him and tim stares at him with big undisguised interest in his eyes. he lets bruce pick up on his fascination and attraction and he can see as bruce's eyes sharpen to confirm if the messages tim is putting down are, in fact, correct.

it's not a hard sell for bruce. tim knew that the moment bruce stopped working and turned to him with something heavy and burning in his eyes with the words 'tim....what are you doing?' echoing in the cave.

bruce's tongue is in tim's mouth and his hands are fondling tim's tits as tim straddles him in his chair. bruce picks him up like it's nothing, navigating the cave without looking at all or pulling his mouth away from tim as he makes his way to the exit that leads up to his bedroom.

tim can feel as bruce barely manages to restrain himself from how he squeezes tim's ass and tits, from the way he practically rips tim's clothes off and climbs on top of him the minute they reach the bed. how, without a word of warning, bruce stuffs two fingers into tim's baby cunt. tim can feel the brutal want overflowing in bruce as he finger fucks tim and mouthes at his tits, sucking harshly on tim's chest and mumuring little words while tim runs his fingers through bruce's hair and hums, twitching around bruce's fingers. tim figures out that bruce is trying to force an orgasm out of tim with just his fingers as bruce's thumb brutally starts stroking tim's little clit, grinding the pad of his thumb against the wet little hole. tim whines, closing his eyes and trembling as he feels a shaky little orgasm begin to stem from his little clit. tim gasps and bruce covers his open mouth with a wet, possessive kiss.

bruce gets lube at some point because the fingers return and start fucking tim deeper with an easier slide. tim whines and fucks his hips down, taking bruce's fingers deeper until bruce rips them out without mercy and uses his hands to wrap tim's arms into a hug and pin them to his side. the hug is tight and constricting, the top of bruce's head is under his chin and tim's back is slightly raised from the bed courtesy of bruce's arms under him. tim can't move his arms at all. his legs are spread obscenely open, as far as they can go, and tim can feel the stretch and strain in his hip socket from being in a split

tim can feel the cold air of the room in his pussy that's holding open. but then he feels the press of a very BIG cock. tim almost stops breathing as he feels bruce's mouth fall open around a tit and give it an open-mouthed kiss.

its a stretch. even with bruce's fingers and an orgasm to loosen him up- tim can feel as his pussy is pushed to the limit to accept the cock that bruce is sinking into him. tim is gasping 'ah ah ah's', choking, getting the wind knocked out of him as he feels bruce's cock fill. him. up.

every bit of tim's hole is hyperaware of the cock grinding inside him. tim clenches weakly around it and whines loud and low at the full, aching throb in his cunt at bruce's cock. it's...it's too much. not even the good too much- it's just too much. tim can't take it. there's no way he can take it. his pussy resets every loop and tim's poor virgin pussy can't take this. tim bends his knees and tries to squirm off-

"b-bruce t-too much, it's too big nnnngh-"

tim can feel bruce shake his head against tim's chest. bruce inches inside a bit more and tim yelps at the stretch. god he can feel his pussy stretch, the muscles working hard to accommodate. tim's insides are painful with pinpricks of pain as bruce goes deeper in. tim tenses up which earns him a groan. he can feel bruce, he can feel him so deep inside and even though it's not physically possible, tim's pretty sure that bruce has breached his cervix and he's now fucking his womb.

"y-you're i-n my womb- bruce, bruce hhahhh hnnn i-it's too much you're too deep-"

bruce groans deeper and starts slowly fucking tim, using his hold around tim to bringing him down on his cock as he destroys tim's insides. tim can feel as bruce's cock bumps his other organs out of the way as he sinks all the way down to the base of his cock.

tim's cry is soundless as bruce's rough, calloused fingers pinch his clit and force tim's uterus and pussy to hum with arousal. tim gasps and lets his head fall back while his brows furrow and alternating feelings of pain and pleasure fill him. bruce's cock brings tears to tim's eyes and tears streak down his cheeks. they're kissed and lapped up by bruce who starts speeding up.

tim's pretty sure his brain has become zombified all he can do is helplessly moan and groan as bruce's thrusts grow faster and wetter, as every slap is followed by bruce's grunt as he falls into a steady, panting pace to fuck into the wet heat of tim.

all tim can do is lie there and take it. his poor pussy and womb are being ravaged by bruce because he fucks just like how he fights- without mercy.

it never stops being too much. bruce's cock and his fingers on tim's clit force orgasm after orgasm out of tim that all make him a little looser until bruce has tim on his knees on the bed, savagely banging tim even though their orgasms. he fills tim up with cock but never slows down, continuing to fuck tim even while soft until he gets hard again inside of him and restarts the cycle.

its pure overstimulation. it's torture and tim cries through it all as bruce keeps fucking him even after he's cum its like...like he's some kind of possessed beast intent on killing tim with his cock.

it's only when the sun has been down for hours and the manor is quiet and silent and bruce is humming with tim limp and weak on his chest that tim can breathe. he strokes tim's hair with the tender love that you would stroke a beloved cat. he kisses the top of tim's head while one of his hands play with tim's gaping hole that's drooling out thick cum. bruce rubs tim's burning clit between two fingers, presses gently to the hot puffy lips of his pussy and reverently strokes at tim's tired little hole that's home to the buckets of cum that bruce has released into him.

bruce just hums with satisfaction and presses another kiss to tim's head.

tim lucks out. he lucks out because the program finds constantine and tim can end the loop. he's also lucky because the program found constantine just as he was about to dial death stroke's 'work' number that he managed to track down.

tim's not sure just how far his bad idea impulse would have taken him but he can only be glad that the most recent loop begins with him at constantine's door and kon, who flew him over, that was confused but willing to help.

constantine opens the door, takes one look at him, and immediatly must see his soul unanchored because he immediatly starts laughing.

tim has grown something of a...shamlessness while stuck looping so he says the first thing that he knows will hurt.

"well you just lost out on the 'thank you' pussy you were going to get for laughing."

constantine sucks in a sharp choked sound. tim doesn't even have to turn around to know kon's eyes have widened.

"i'm guess you know why i'm here though?"

constantine stares at him for a moment longer before rubbing at the deep wrinkles between his brows with a 'bloody hell'. tim's not surprised at the reaction. most other heroes know him solely as the 'uptight' one of the robins.

tim and kon follow constantine inside as he gestures for them to enter.

constantine grumbles something while he begins clearing a nearby table of books and knickknacks.

"you know, 'I' didn't laugh rob." kon innocently offers and tim knows this is just him being his usual flirtatious self. but tim's also had his cock inside him numerous times in another loop so...

"once constantine's done i'll suck your dick in his chair." tim assures him. kon immediatly starts helping constantine clear the tables he needs to perform whatever spell that will end this debacle and allow tim to finally return to his normal life and bury what time loop tim did as just another temporary bout of insanity.

it's a quick fix. really quick. tim doesn't even realize anything has happened until constantine is clearing his throat and lighting a cigarette with a "right, that ought to do it- and just to be clear, you didn't do anything too murdery, crazy, or shitheaded right love?"

tim's 'why?' is on the tip of his tongue when kon, who is standing nearby, suddenly goes blank-faced and raises a hand to his temple like he's a teen psychic in a TV show that just had a vision.

"woah." kon sways slightly before the fogginess in his eyes clears away and he looks at tim with a sort of energy that wasn't there before. "tim- did we have sex today somehow?"

tim feels something cold flood his insides.

constantine blows out a puff of smoke suddenly much more interested in the conversation happening in front of him.

tim's phone starts vibrating in his back pocket.

oh.

tim's phone starts chiming with news of a text message.

oh no.

and another. and another. tim's phone doesn not stop vibrating.

---

it turns out the artifact tim broke did not start a normal time loop but rather a 'layered' one. in which everything tim did or said would be recalled by the people he did and said it to. turns out it WAS one of those 'valuable lesson' time loops. just a...delayed one.

constantine had been banking on tim having murdered someone in the loops which is why he hadn't told him. the asshole.

he had NOT been banking on tim having fucked friends, family, and an actual villain. constantine's laugh is cut short when batman and nightwing break his doors down accompanied by their respective confused speedster and kryptonian, that they clearly called to carry them to tim's location once they tracked him down.

in response to the inquires, interrogations, and questions from the various people he allowed to pump his guts- tim....evades.

tim is wholly of the opinion that he cannot be held responsible for the actions of time loop tim. so what if tim had some ill advised liaisons?

he only did it because he thought he'd get away with it!!!! and he would've!

if it hadn't been for those meddling kids!!!

#anonymous #asks #answered asks #dicktim #brutim #kontim #barttim #damitim #jaytim #rastim

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batpham-discord-highlights · 2 years

Text

Ghostly bats and camera straps

source: #ghosts-and-bats

Danny gets stuck in Tim's camera

Tim thinks the fact that all the photos are in black and white are because he dropped/it broke, and that the people he sees in the photos but swears weren't there when he took the photo, well he blames that on a lack of sleep.

if he takes a photo of Jason's ghost following Batman around, then that's a hallucination caused by grief, nothing else

when he starts seeing neon green words begging for help on otherwise blank walls, he realises something might be up

he'll take a photo of graffiti because wow that's some pretty art of Batman and Robin and over top is just bold, neon green text saying he should smash his camera

it's all a big misunderstanding, but Tim thinks there's some ancient evil being in his camera, so he keeps it to make sure that it can never escape

his parents brought him the camera back from some place they were doing archeology things at, they didn't know it was left by a magician trying to catch ghosts in photographs

alternately: it fell out of the ghost zone and into their site

he sets it up to take a family photo and Thomas and Martha are in the back, standing behind Bruce

shows the camera to Raven or Constantine and they're like "!!!"

they ask if they can use it, and he gets oddly defensive about it

"no, you can't touch my weird monochrome camera, it was a gift from my parents!"

even funnier if some boomerang just comes out of no-where aiming for the camera

follow closely by a girl with white hair yelling, "We finally found the fucker"

Danny's camera got lost in time but they didn't know that, they've only been looking for him for like a dozen hours or so

ooh ooh what if the camera can sorta stun ghosts

Dani just stops in her tracks, staring, until someone tackles her and she snaps out of it

Tim uses the time to run away

que shenanigans of Tim running around Gotham being chased by some weird glowing girl, the only way to stop her being to take a photo of her

even funnier if he's not Robin, and Batman sees this boy running across rooftops screaming bloody murder

maybe Dani can only be seen through the camera lens?

omg she goes invisible to try and get the jump on the twerp

Sam and Tucker are in the Fenton jet and batman is like "wtf is going on here?!?! you are 100% not allowed to do that"

Sam grabs Tim by the scruff and "politely" asks for his camera

Tucker is enamoured by the Batmobile™️

Danny can only see the photos taken by the camera, there's a sudden influx of blurry/poorly taken photos of who he can only assume is his clone and his two best friends

each photo of Dani, he can vaguely make out her stunned expression

the camera takes perfectly normal photos of ghosts, so the fact that Dani comes out blurred means that Tim is not on his game

The messages on walls turn into "those are my friends!"

That doesn't help

How does Tim find out that the ghost in his camera isn't evil?

Oh! Danny is hurt really badly and suffering while in the camera and the writing on the walls is written in his ectoplasm! Just for added angst!

THIS WHOLE IDEA IS WONDERFUL IM DYING

Poor Tim and Danny when Danny finally gets out

It actually causes Danny more pain when Tim takes pictures, but it's the only way Danny can communicate or try to reach out. Tim would feel horrible when he finds out.

I can feel the emotional damage lol

But still

How does Danny get out?

And I wanna know how the conversation goes when they all figure out the misunderstanding.

Sidenote but I vote that we name this AU Ghostly bats and camera straps

Sam punches Tim and Tucker takes the camera

yes

#batpham server #ghosts and bats channel #batman #danny phantom #tim drake #danny fenton #dc x dp #dp x dc #dp crossover #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #dani phantom #tucker foley #sam manson

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gourmet-trash · 1 year

Text

As others have pointed out, I too reject "token straight friend Rose Walker" and instead give you "bad taste in women Rose Walker"

The first time it happens, Hob doesn't say anything. He doesn't even acknowledge, outwardly, that he noticed it at all. Between the Inn and his teaching job and, oh you know, just several hundreds of years of being around children and young adults, he can confidently say he has at least some modicum of knowledge on how to interact with them.

So, the first time, he doesn't say anything. He's cool like that.

He also doesn't say anything the second time.

But the third time he watches Rose Walker making figurative heart eyes at Johanna Constantine, of all people, he can't help himself. He also can't really pretend he doesn't see Rose so busy gawking that she misses the rim of her glass and splashes cider onto her jumper. She's sitting right in front of him at the bar, after all.

"Doing all right there?" he teases, passing a few napkins across the bar.

Rose grabs the proffered napkins quickly, visibly flustered while she dabs at the damp spot on her chest. "Just, uh, clumsy, I guess."

Hob snorts softly. "Or distracted," he says, lifting his eyebrows when she jerks her head up.

"...I don't know what you're talking about!"

Hob makes a little "sure you don't" humming sound and picks Rose's glass up to wipe it down for her while she deals with her jumper. "It's cute," he insists, even though he knows from experience that most young adults don't like to hear it. And judging from the face Rose makes, she's no exception.

It almost makes Hob laugh -- Dream makes a very similar expression when someone tells him he's cute.

For Rose's sake, he swallows down that particular amusement and sets the cider back in front of her. "It is! But you might want to work on being a smidge less obvious with the staring."

Rose clears her throat, passing the damp napkins back across the bar when he motions for them. "...It's that obvious?" she asks slowly.

"Little bit, I'm afraid," he says, smiling apologetically.

Rose groans at that and drops her face into her hands. Hob only just makes out the muffled, "Do you think she noticed?" that follows.

Hob glances to the corner of the Inn where Jo has roped some sorry sap into a game of darts. It's not going well for the lad if the jeering of his friends is anything to go by. "Mmm...she's a little distracted, so probably not this time."

"This time?!" Rose repeats, lifting her head out of her hands to balk at him.

"You've been very obvious about it, poppet."

"And you didn't tell me!? I can't ever come back here!" Rose hisses.

Hob bites back his amusement -- poorly, judging by Rose's narrow expression. "I promise it isn't that big of a deal."

"What is not that big of a deal?"

The next few seconds are spent by Hob and Rose startling, someone bumping the glass between them in the process, and then both of them frantically trying to catch said glass before it spills more cider over the bar. When the glass is upright again and they turn accusatory stares on the King of Dreams, sitting at the previously empty barstool at Rose's side, his expression is nonplussed if not vaguely amused.

"You know, one of these days you're actually going to give me a heart attack or something. And then you're gonna have to explain to Auntie Death why she's here," Rose points out.

"I will take that under advisement," Dream drawls, more obviously amused by then. And when Hob leans over the bar, he obligingly tips his head a bit to accept the kiss dropped against his temple.

"Hello, love. Please don't give any of my patrons heart attacks at the bar."

"I will endeavor not to," Dream assures him. But the scuffle over the cider has not distracted him, and he repeats, "What is not that big of a deal?"

"Nothing!' Rose says quickly -- too quickly -- before Hob has a chance to deflect with a bit more tact. "Hence, not a big deal," she adds, snatching the glass off the bar and taking a long drink.

Dream watches her for a moment, no doubt taking stock of the damp spot on her jumper and the blustering, before turning to Hob, expectant.

But Hob has not been a snitch for many, many years, and he is not looking to revive that particular character trait this century. He flashes Dream a smile and leans back from the bar, already grabbing a cocktail glass. "How about we try a French 75 today?"

Dream purses his lips, though Hob suspects it has more to do with his question being very obviously ignored and less to do with their ongoing game of "make Dream try a new cocktail every time he comes in until Hob finds one he actually likes."

"Hob."

He hums to acknowledge he heard him, considering the gin he has on hand.

"What are you not telling me?"

Hob grabs one of the bottles. "That I don't think you're going to like the French 75."

He turns his back to fetch the champagne and to hide a grin when he hears an annoyed little huff from the other side of the bar. Dream would deny huffing, of course, so undignified. But he huffed. He was huffy.

"Rose Walker."

"No," Rose says shortly, setting her nearly empty glass back down. "Look, no offense Uncle Morpheus, but it's seriously not a big deal, and it's also not something I wanna talk about. Okay?"

It is not, apparently, okay. Hob can tell the second he turns back around, spots the telltale sheen of emotion in Dream's eyes. Rose probably did too, which is why she's very pointedly looking down at the last of her cider rather than at her Uncle. Because they have come a long way since the rocky start of their relationship, but Hob knows better than most how fiercely Dream wants to nurture this relationship with his niece and nephew, almost despite himself.

And bless him, but jumping straight into teenagers and young adults, nevermind the complications of a crush, is a tall order for anyone, much less the anthropomorphic personification of dreams. He definitely hasn’t had as much hands on time with young humans as Hob. Or if he has, he’s…rusty, to say the least.

"You were comfortable to discuss these things with Hob, but not with me?"

Rose groans outright and turns on her stool, however reluctantly, to face Lord Shaper. "No, actually, I didn't want to be talking about it with Professor Gadling, either. So if we could all stop talking about it and pretend this never happened, that would be great!" she said, shooting a pointed frown in Hob's direction for good measure.

He holds his hands up in as placating a gesture as he can manage with a lemon twist between his fingers, and Dream glances between them for a moment before, with obvious reluctance, inclining his head.

"Very well," he says. "It is not my intention to make you uncomfortable."

"Thank you," Rose says, less terse, and Hob sets another cider in front of her at the same time he passes Dream the French 75. Dream eyes the cocktail with no small amount of distrust and Hob can’t help but laugh.

"Oh, come on, don't make that face before you've even tried it."

"Yeah, they're not bad. If you don't like it, we can switch," Rose offers, and while Dream does not look anymore convinced that he'll enjoy the beverage, or that he'd prefer Rose's cider, Hob can tell some of his proverbial feathers (well, currently proverbial, but sometimes more literal?) have settled.

Heaven help him, but he does so adore this impossible, mercurial creature.

At their encouragement, Dream does eventually take a sip of the cocktail. And while his reaction is not quite as strong as it had been to the martini from last week or the Alabama slammer which, admittedly, Hob had only made as a means of getting Dream to say Alabama slammer, he is clearly not impressed.

"What do you think?" Rose asks, amused.

"It is...palatable," Dream says after a moment, and Rose laughs when he lifts it for another reluctant sip.

"Don't drink it if you don't like it!" she protests, waving for him to put the glass back down, which Dream does with something not unlike relief.

"Starting to think gin might not be your thing," Hob says, glancing over when the bell over the door jingles. He smiles and waves a hand that way. "See? Cor can use the door."

"Didn't you say he broke into your apartment through a window last month?" Rose asks, smirking when Hob shushes her.

But, by that point, Corinthian is close enough to hear. And to reach around Dream to pluck the French 75 off the bar. "And guess who finally got the damn locks on his windows repaired after that?"

"That is not a good reason for breaking into my flat!" Hob protests.

"It's a perfect reason for breaking in! I could've stabbed you in your sleep!" Corinthian argues.

"You have stabbed me in my sleep!"

Corinthian chuckles over the cocktail, half draped against Dream's side, who shifts subtle to make room for him there. "I have done that," he agrees.

"You've what?" Dream says, turning a frown on Corinthian who waves a dismissive hand.

"Metaphorically," he lies, before sidestepping out of the conversation by leaning around Dream again to flash a smile down the bar. "Well, hey there, Rosebud."

Rose, whose attention had drifted back in the direction of the darts game -- new bloke trying his hand now and losing just as spectacularly -- turns quickly back around. "Hey! Where's Jed?"

"Dropped him off at the movies with a couple friends."

Rose frowns. "...What movie?"

"One that I'm certain Jed and his friends were able to buy tickets to themselves, of course," Corinthian says breezily. Rose narrows her eyes a little further.

"If Jed has nightmares all week, it's gonna be your fault."

Corinthian makes a little noise of disagreement over his drink, and Hob starts wiping down the bar to keep himself useful while they bicker. And to avoid letting Dream pull him into any further interrogation about the whole stabbing thing.

"Technically, that would be My Lord's fault, wouldn't it?" Corinthian says, motioning at Dream between them, whose suspicious expression has not wavered.

Rose rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean!"

"Uh huh. Didn't know you were so into darts, Rose."

Hob pauses his cleaning to glance up between them, Rose visibly flustered and Corinthian's eyebrows lifted high above his sunglasses while he sips Dream's drink.

"What?" Rose eventually says, and Hob doesn't wince but it's a near miss. Poor thing, she's usually better toe to toe with Cor in one of his more meddling moods.

"You know what I mean," he drawls, and Rose snatches her cider up to chug. Again.

Rose knows what he means. And Hob knows what he means, even if he's not entirely sure how Corinthian himself knows. But Dream, sitting between the three of them, clearly does not, and he misunderstands rather wildly.

"Would you care to play darts, Rose Walker?"

"That's a great idea!" Corinthian insists while Rose coughs around her drink. "That gal in the corner seems like she's pretty good, I bet she could talk you through the rules."

And then Dream turns his head and his attention alights on the darts game already happening. "Johanna Constantine is here?" he asks, looking back to Hob for confirmation.

"She's a regular these days, yeah," Hob says, and he'd argue that Dream doesn't stand from the stool so much as he pours himself from it, too liquid in his movements for the human shape he wears.

"Then I shall have to introduce you, Rose," he insists, and Rose only manages a token, squeaked protest before Dream is ushering her towards the darts game.

Hob swats Corinthian with the towel he'd been wiping the counter with. "That wasn't necessary," he points out, trying very hard to tap down on his own amusement.

"Sure it was! This way Dream can figure it out himself, and then he can be the one to tell her there's no way in hell we're gonna approve her trying to date Johanna fucking Constantine."

Hob laughs despite himself and leans against the bar, smiling when Corinthian takes up Dream's abandoned stool to meet him halfway. "She is a grown woman, you know. We can't stop her from trying to date who she likes."

"We can sure as hell try."

"We can do that," he agrees, leaning in to return the quick, sharp kiss Corinthian dips in for. "Does he know how to play darts?" Hob asks, glancing towards the corner when Corinthian leans back.

"I have absolutely no idea." [ ← prev ] [ next → ]

#rose would like to point out that you can appreciate the view #without wanting to fucking date somebody #but corinthian would like to counter that that's great!#cause they wouldn't let her date johanna constantine anyway #he is highly concerned for the taste of these kids #hob is mostly amused #dream is trying his fucking best #jed is definitely watching something rated R right now #rose walker #the corinthian #hob gadling #dream of the endless #the sandman #hobrintheus #fanfic #long post #it's so long i'm so sorry

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tired0artist · 2 years

Text

| descendant of hob gadling |

Okay so. What if in 2021 it turns out that Hob has a descendant that can be considered almost his doppelganger!

Something like with Lady Johanna and Modern Johanna.

Of course apart from Robyn, Hob never really kept track if he fathered any children. So imagine how shocked he would be to maybe run into a 20-something collage student that looks way too much like himself.

Better yet.

It’s Dream who runs into the descendant first. He mistakes him for Hob, because why not. So the descendant is just chilling on a bench, unfortunately quite to the New Inn. And then from behind him he just hears an ominous (for a stranger) voice:

Hello Hob.

And the descendant just jumps off the bench and sees a pale, goth standing behind his bench looking suddenly quite confused. He frowns, still a bit startled asking:

Sorry? What? Who?

Then after a moment the goth purses his lips and nods his head:

Apologies. You are not the one I am looking for.

And then, to add a cherry on top, the goth disappears in a swirl of sand. Leaving the descendant just staring openly at the empty spot.

Enter paranoia, when that night in his dream he catches a glimpse of the goth and… wait. IS THAT HIM BESIDE THE SAND GUY??????

So while the descendant is full on panicking, thinking that a demon is trying to eat his soul or whatever. Conjuring 2.O in real life.

Dream and Hob are just trying to figure out when did Hob father a child. They make a game out of it, going as far as Dream taking Hob to visit the descendant’s dreams and nightmares to check out if they find out anything.

What about 17th century?

Actually, I didn’t get around much back then so I doubt it.

Hm. You surprise me, Hob Gadling. You did look rather ravishing back then.

Oh, please dove. You did not see yourself then, you almost made my heart stop when you entered.

Then I suppose, I should try harder.

You want me to have a heart attack?

Perhaps.

I love you.

And I you, my Hob.

After their flirting is done, they get to a conclusion that perhaps they should check in with Constantine, figure something out about the descendant doppelgangers. Or whatever.

And going back to the descendant. Well. He found Johanna as well.

Listen kid, I don’t see any signs that you’re possessed or that something is trying to claim your soul.

You don’t understand! I see him in my dreams and nightmares! Always standing at the edge with myself beside him! He’s obviously sending a message that he’s going to take my soul!

Wait. Your dreams and nightmares?

Yeah!

*sigh* What does your demon look like again?

By the time Dream and Hob visit her, she glances at the immortal and immediately understands and laughs.

You bloody idiots!

The pair share a confused look. While Johanna points at Hob and says:

Your poor poor descendant visited me.

He did?

What did he want?

Johanna calms herself but keeps on giggling as she explains:

Apparently a demon is haunting him. He first met him in a park, then he’s having trouble with sleeping in, and sees the demon in his dreams and nightmares. The said demon always stands ominously at the edge with a version of him. The poor kid was on the verge of loosing his mind!

While Hob looks guilty, Dream huffs without missing a beat:

I am no mere demon.

Johanna snorts:

Tell that to the kid, he’s afraid to go to sleep. Says he’s too young to die.

Hob frowns asking her:

Did you ease his mind? Or help him?

Oh, yeah. Told him to cleanse the apartment and take a bath with some bath salts.

That does not—

I know, but I needed the idiot calm while I contact you or something. He was out right refusing to sleep, so don’t thank me for saving his sanity.

After that they leave the descendant’s dreams alone, simply doing their own little investigation in the Waking.

All is well, until they enter a bar near Hob’s campus and the descendant is there with his friends.

The moment the descendant catches a glimpse of them both at the edge of his vision, his blood runs cold.

Just like Hob’s.

Shit. Okay, okay, we gotta go.

The immortal pulls the endless out of the bar but someone comes after them.

Oi! Wait! I— I know you! You’re that—that demon and you’re— me? No. Wait I’m not old—

Hey! I’m not old! Well. Not physically! I’m like 33!

And I am no mere demon, descendant.

Descendant?

And that’s how my friends the poor descendant has his whole world turned around as Hob explains the whole situation and how the three of them got there.

So… you could be like my… great-great-great with probably more greats grandfather?

Yes?

Okay… and he. He’s like a… god—

I am more than a simple god. I am an endless—

Yeah, sure. So, super god. Cool, cool.

You seem rather… accepting of this?

Hahah… yeah I’m just glad you’re not gonna take my soul or whatever. I’m cool with whatever else, as long as I don’t get cursed or something… I’m not gonna get cursed by you guys right?

Oh no no no! We would never!

If you keep this to yourself—

Dream?!

—you cannot go around spreading information on this matter. Do you understand?

Yeah, yeah jeez I get it. Damn… so. You wanna get a beer or something ? I mean. It’s kinda sick to get to know your ancestor and an… endless?

And just like that, Hob gained a family member and as did Dream in a way. Their meetings at the New Inn now kept one more chair open for the young man to join them from time to time.

#dreamling #dream x hob #dream/hob gadling #hob gadling #dreamling headcanon #lord morpheus

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angelasscribbles · 2 years

Text

Mother in Law Hell: A Drabble Me This Story

Series: Drabble Me This

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Pairings for series: Riley x Liam

Rating: R

Warnings for this chapter: Language

Word Count: 2,154 Once again, I have way exceed the word count for a drabble. Sorry/not sorry lol.

A/N: This is in no way designed to start an argument about bottle v breast feeing. The main problem here is Riley, as the mother, getting her wishes ran over.

My other stuff: Master List.

@twinkleallnight:

The ask: Riley and Liam marry. Connie dies... But Regina who has been so supportive till now starts playing double game with Riley. Riley tries to tell Liam. He doesn't understand. Creates lot of misunderstanding between them leading to the fallout. How do they fix it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Riley had always gotten along with Regina, but something changed after Constantine died. Regina grieved for a while, as was expected. So, Riley let a lot of the barbs and snide comments slide, chalking it up to grief. It got worse when she got pregnant. And as her belly grew bigger, the barbs got deeper.

“Are you sure you should be eating that my dear?”

Riley paused, sandwich halfway to her mouth and blinked at her mother in law, “What?”

“I mean, is that pastrami?” Regina shuddered a little, “Maybe I can have the kitchen make you a nice salad.”

Regina flagged down one of the maids as Riley protested, “N-no, thanks. The baby needs the protein.”

Regina tsked, “My dear, I’m just trying to help! You’ve gained so much weight! I mean, really, is that any way to keep the eye of a king? I never let my figure go, not in all the years Constantine and I were together.”

Riley sat the sandwich on her plate as she stared at the older woman in shock, “Regina, I’m pregnant!”

“That’s really no excuse to let yourself go, is it?”

Riley’s hand went protectively to her belly, “First of all, I have preeclampsia and half of the weight I’ve gained is retained water! Second of all, my doctor was concerned that I wasn’t gaining enough weight in the first trimester because of how bad my morning sickness was! Third, Liam is a loving and devoted husband, and your insinuation is just gross! And fourth, seriously, weight shaming, especially a pregnant woman, is just…just….”

“What’s going on?” Liam asked as he entered the room.

“I was just having a snack and Regina started trying to body shame me about my weight!”

“What?” Liam looked at Regina then back to Riley in confusion.

“Oh, dear, no. I was just giving her some tips on healthy eating. I only want the best for the baby, after all!”

“No, that’s not-“

“It’s ok, dear,” Regina patted her arm on her way out of the room, “It’s the pregnancy hormones that make you overly sensitive!”

“Liam! She was being horrible! You believe me, right?”

Liam looked at his wife sympathetically, “Of course I believe that she hurt your feelings! But I’m sure she didn’t mean to! She can be…brusque from her years of ruling.”

“Yes, but her suggestions weren’t even right! She criticized my food choices and said I was letting myself go!”

“She doesn’t understand, she never experienced pregnancy herself. We’ll get her some literature about healthy eating during pregnancy if you want.”

She looked up at him and he was so sincere, she decided to let it go. Maybe he was right. Regina was trying to be involved, right? But shouldn’t a former queen have more tact? Riley couldn’t push away the feeling that she’d been cruel on purpose.

“Hey.” Liam sat down and pulled her into his arms, “How about I have the kitchen make you a chocolate milkshake? You love those! And it’s full of protein! Then maybe we can sneak off to our room for a midafternoon rendezvous? Hmmm?”

She giggled as his nose nuzzled into her neck, letting go of her ire. It would be okay.

But it wasn’t. It only got worse after the birth of the baby.

Riley returned from the hospital to find their apartment inside the palace had been redecorated, with hideous paintings that looked like they had been molding in the attic for years.

Regina was waiting for them when they entered the living room, “Welcome home!”

“What the hell happened in here?” Riley asked.

“Oh, I wanted to surprise you!”

“But…where is my stuff?” Riley had worked hard to decorate the apartment, to make it feel like home, a true retreat for their family, a place to get away from the palace and the demands of public life.

“Oh, it’s in storage, but I’m going to have it hauled away. It was so tacky, don’t you think? You’re a mother now, you need to think about the fact that you’re raising the heir! These portraits are our history! You won’t be able to teach her what she needs to know because you aren’t from here, so I thought this would be a good start!”

“Liam!”

Liam embraced her, “Here, let’s get you settled in. We can sort this out later.”

“The bedroom, Liam, I want to go to the bedroom.” She was shaking with anger, no way she could sit in that living room while Regina was still in it.

“She meant well.” Liam told her.

“No, she didn’t. Get rid of her and get rid of that shit on my walls! I want my decorations back, Liam, the ones you and I picked together!”

“Of course, love.”

“And you need to tell her to stop overstepping boundaries!”

“I think she just wants to be involved. She’s still grieving my father, she never had children of her own, Leo is gone, we’re all she has.”

“She has Madeleine and Adelaide!” Riley fumed, “Let her go stay in Krona!”

“Riley! We can’t send her away! We’re her family!”

Once again, Riley was forced to let it go.

But the final straw came when Riley woke from a nap to find Regina feeding the two month old crown princess of Cordonia from a bottle.

“I thought we were out of expressed milk.” Riley said.

Regina rolled her eyes, “Oh dear, I don’t think she’s gaining enough weight on your milk. You’re too sickly and weak, you’re not strong like a Cordonian woman. I sent the butler out for some formula.”

“What?! No! You know that we’re exclusively breastfeeding!” Riley felt tears prick her eyes.

“Well, that’s your mistake dear. It’s why she’s not sleeping through the night. She needs something more substantial in her stomach.”

Riley’s eyes tracked across the counter, landing on a box of baby rice cereal, “Did you put cereal in that bottle?”

“Just a tablespoonful. You can thank me when she sleeps through the night.”

“Get out!”

“What?”

“Put my baby down and Get. Out. NOW!” Riley roared.

Regina jumped, Ellie started to cry.

“See what you’ve done, you selfish little bitch?” Regina hissed, “All you care about is yourself! That’s why you came between Liam and his father at the end of his life! My husband was dying but did you care? No! All you cared about was casting him as the bad guy to clear your own name so you could manipulate Liam into marrying you!”

“What?”

“You heard me! You came in here with all your American ideas and modern values and seduced him with sex and inappropriate behavior! You’re not fit for the throne, and you’re not fit for my son! He’ll see that soon and send you packing back to America!”

Riley couldn’t stop the hot, angry tears streaming down her face as she stumbled to the door and yanked it open, “Marco!”

“Yes, Your Majesty?” The young guard looked tentatively back and forth between the women.

“I want her to put my daughter down then I want her out of my sight, and I never want her back in here! I don’t care if you have to lock her in the cells to do it!”

Marco took in the sight in front of him and resolve washed over his face as he moved toward the queen mother. He knew who he worked for, and it wasn’t Regina.

“No need to be so dramatic.” Regina handed the baby to the nanny who had come running at the sound of crying. “I’ll go. But Liam will be hearing about this!”

After Regina was escorted out, Riley took her baby from the nanny, kissing the top of her head as she gently rocked her, “It’s ok, it’s ok, baby, momma’s so sorry she yelled.”

“I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, I didn’t know-“

“It’s not your fault, Callie.” Riley sniffed, “Just, go get Marco for me, okay?”

Callie left the room and returned with Marco. The young guard asked, “Is there something else I can do for you, Your Majesty?”

“Yes, there is. I need you to send a message to my husband and then I need you to send up several butlers and a couple of maids right away.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Marco replied as he backed out of the room to do her bidding.

As soon as he could get free, the king responded to his wife’s summons.

Liam walked into mass chaos.

Riley’s breasts ached; Ellie wouldn’t latch on. Riley’s breasts were so full she couldn’t get the pump to form a seal so there was no relief to be found there. Ellie was screaming because her tummy hurt, she was pulling her little legs up, grunting in an effort to poop. The royal doctor had just left, saying Ellie was constipated from the cereal and to try a little apple juice in a bottle, but diluted because her digestive system really wasn’t ready for that either. Riley was leaking milk from both sides and crying from pain, frustration and anger. Her face was red and streaked with tears, the front of her shirt was soaked as rivulets of milk ran from both breasts.

There were two maids scurrying around the apartment and three butlers carrying luggage and baby items from the bedroom and nursery out the door.

Even the nanny was crying.

“What the hell is going on?” Liam exploded.

Riley wiped her face on her sleeve and stood, “What’s happening is that Regina did it again, Liam, only a thousand times worse and I already know that you’re going to excuse her behavior no matter what I say! Even though I have witnesses!” She swung her arm in the nanny’s direction.

“Why are the butlers taking luggage and baby equipment out of here?” He demanded as his head turned to track their activities.

“Ellie and I are going to stay at Valtoria.” Riley said sorrowfully.

“For how long?” He yelled.

“Forever.” She replied quietly, her voice rising steadily as she spoke, “You dismiss all my concerns when it comes to Regina! You don’t listen, you don’t believe me that what she does is intentionally mean! I can’t take it anymore! I won’t put my child through it!”

“Wait.” Liam’s face paled, “You’re…you’re leaving me?”

“Yes. I love you, Liam, desperately. You are welcome at Valtoria anytime, but I can’t and won’t spend one more night under the same roof as Regina.”

Desperation laced his words, “Riley, no! You can’t leave me!”

“You can just spin it as me wanting some alone time with the baby. I’m sure the PR department will come up with something believable, so your public image isn’t tarnished.”

Liam’s mouth fell open, “You think I’m worried about my public image?”

She wiped at her face again, “Aren’t you?”

“No!” He grabbed her by the shoulders, “I’m worried about losing my wife! I love you, Riley, with everything in me! I can’t live without you! I don’t want any of this without you! I’ll abdicate right now and fuck Cordonia all to hell!”

“Liam, you can’t abdicate, that’s crazy talk!”

He slid down to his knees, right in front of the staff, taking her hand in his, “Please don’t do this!”

“I don’t want to!” Fresh tears fell down her face, “But I don’t know what else to do!”

His features hardened as he rose to his feet, “I do.”

Liam raised his voice, “Everyone stop! Alec! Marco! Get in here!”

All activity ceased as the king barked orders, “Put everything back where you found it! The queen is not leaving, my daughter is not leaving!”

He watched as the staff scurried around, carrying luggage and baby items back into the bedroom and nursery, then he turned to the two guards he had summoned, “Go find Regina, and escort her from the premises.”

“Your Majesty?”

“You heard me. Take her to Krona, or wherever she wants to go, but she can’t stay here. We’ll send her things later, wherever she ends up. Go! Now!”

The guards jumped and hurried out the door to carry out their orders.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what she did?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He took her in his arms again, “You wouldn’t be this upset for nothing. I’m sorry I didn’t listen before, didn’t take it seriously. I need you to know that no one is more important to me than you and our family. Okay?”

She smiled through her tears as she nodded, “Okay.”

“I love you, Riley Rys, you’re my life, my heart! Can you ever forgive me?”

“I forgive you, Liam! You were just trying to be a good son.”

“I’d rather be a good husband, and a good father. I know where my priorities are.”

She collapsed into his arms and cried tears of relief.

Riley never saw Regina again and she lived happily ever after.

#drabble me this #angelasscribbles #trr #choices #the royal romance #the royal romance fanfic #choices stories you play #liam rys #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #mother in law

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howl-fantasies · 2 years

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Now that I think about it, [name] is kinda like batman 🤔

They both act totally whorish 😆, kinda goofy, but in reality those are all an act to hide their true level of skill and intelligence.

They are both dedicated their life to study all kinds of knowledge no matter how obscure.

They have also dedicated their life to protect Gotham, one way or another.

Both super paranoid, I'm willing to bet they have an emergency plan to save Gotham if ever aliens decided to come to Earth

They both have super emo-ish hot bitches, and they would literally adopt children left and right.

All [name] needs is to form herself a team of badguys, find herself a best friend that she has more chemistry with than her own lover (reference to the fact batman x green lantern (Hal), batman x Constantine, batman x superman have more chemistry than batman x Catwoman (based of animated series)).

🦇

Aaaah a very good comparison here too thank you so much for sharing it! 🦇

>> I think you're right, Y/N has many things in common with him when you look at it. They're like two sides of the same shady coin, him tending most of the time to the good side, and her the bad.

>> Luring people with their whorish - goofy personalities, hell yes! Though, Bruce is better than her at it I think since he had the chance to have a "healthy" - as much as it's possible in Gotham- family and normal/loving interactions with his parents. Y/N's goofy side is more calculated. You said once in one of your posts that she acts by mimicry, watching shows/games to get inspire by them and coping them later. I think it 100% accurate. Her whorish side is true though 😂 she's a proud bad bitch, like Bruce.

>> Even if the two have history, since I made them knowing each other since Bruce was a teenager, I think they respect each other because of their skills and fine intelligence. Even if Y/N is a villain, I'm pretty sure she'll be ok to help Batman sometimes, when Joker is threatening the whole city for example.

She's bad, yes, but working so long with Carmine convinced her to try to maintain a sort of good-bad balance for Gotham. So if she has to help Batman in order to preserve it, it's fine with her. Bruce figured it out and knows she does good work so, if he has to call her from time to time to save the city, so be it. She used to work a few times with the GCPD and Gordon when he was a kid, so she knows how to not blow everything around her and make things a bit more legal. Kind of.

>> Of course they have a plan to save the city if aliens decide to join their little party one day. After hearing about Superman, Y/N stole some kryptonite. Just in case it works on other aliens (does she call Clark Alienman? Of course she does.) She also coaxed Ed to work with her on finding other materials which would potentially weaken other forms of life after studying the properties of the kryptonite stone. They may or may not also be in contact with Lucius about it, since he also works on it for Bruce. The three make a weird nerdy trio on this topic, but collaborate surprisingly well together.

>> What is funny about Selina and Victor, is that they are a subject of tension between Bruce and Y/N. Bruce is sure Y/N can be "saved" if she throws Victor away and follow one hell of a therapy. He's clearly delusional since we saw Y/N was even worse without him, but I think the billionaire still genuinely wants to believe he would be able to help. A bit like he's delusional with Harley.

>> Concerning Selina, don't get Y/N wrong, she appreciates the girl, but it's killing her to see the kicked puppy's eyes Bruce has every time he talks to her or think about her. Kyle makes me think of Yennifer in how she manipulates Bruce to gain what she wants 😂. Catwoman loves Batman in a twisted and absolutely toxic way. Y/N respects that (Morticia vibes here). But hearing Batman chastising her about her non-healthy relationship with Zsasz makes her see red and she HAS, every TIME, to remind him he isn't that different with his leather lover girl. And she's right. She knows it, he knows and doesn't like it one bit.

>> The stray children thing is so funny and so right. Both of them make me think of teenagers from anime finding a cardbox full of stray cats and taking it home even if they don't have time nor experience to take care of them.

>> Hahaha! She'll have to work on her badboys team!

>> Concerning the best friend, I think Ed has the role so far.

>> The two make one hell of a team when they are on the same side and I love their jests. I think Y/N genuinely likes Edward and Riddler, even if she's a pest with them. She's feral with protecting Ed's most sensitive side from deceiving lovers. I mean look at him, he's so adorable it would be a shame to ruin his dorkness! He deserves a dorky lover as cutely weird as his softer side.

She also like Riddler's spice and enormous ego, he's a breeze of fresh air, truly. Their riddles contests never end well because she never gives him the answer he wants. But since they still make sense he has to recognize she has one valid answer, not that she's correct though. The most horrifying one for him still is the : "The more you cut me, the more I grow. What am I?" "Victor". See? Valid answer but not the one he wanted 🤣

What do you think about it? I love how you write their complicated relationship! Thank you so much for that too! 💐

#gotham #gotham imagine #gotham x reader #gotham fox #victor zsasz #victor zsasz imagine #victor zsasz x reader #gotham fandom #gotham villains #Batman fox #gotham bruce wayne #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne #selina kyle

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consceleratuswrites · 9 months

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Hi Hi hi ANOTHER ANON HERE (I just wanna be private) I just wanted to say I love your work and your writing rocks!

I was wondering, despite the obvious voice lines and what we kinda get from Galactic Emperor Sigma's depiction (for the crumb it was - thanks Blizzard) how do you go about characterizing him? I kinda like how you aren't afraid to make him into a bit of an asshole (lol) do you have a headcanon you go off?

There are quite a few of you guys! And it's all cool - as long as you're all comfortable! Never wanna force anyone x

This is an interesting one as it relates to my personal views on Sigma as a whole, which I could go on for HOURS ABOUT. Mainly because the trailer makes him come across as this maniacal hubris-based scientist who is incredibly intimidating and self-interested in his own research. Then you have the in-game characterisation which is this rather tragic figure being manipulated by an organisation that uses him as a weapon.

There is this beautiful dichotomy in his character (which is why he's so beloved, as he has this depth on a self-referential level). I do not doubt that he is equally as gentle and a tragic anti-hero as he is an egotistical and (at times) a vicious-mad-scientist force to be reckoned with. That's due to the in-game Canon!Sig voice lines range from quite endearing to being quite callous (to me at least). And I could go on and on about my personal feelings about the mental health allegories that can also be gleaned from him (I'm someone who has pretty bad anxiety and PTSD, so the drifting in and out of thoughts is something that got to me).

So for Emp!Sig, I wanted to magnify those aspects and dial them up to be more ruthless and more arrogant. And I loved that we got this antagonistic-bad-guy version who will call you a "pathetic worm" if you get in his way. But then I like the thought of him being multifaceted here too (I have this saying that I talk to my friends that I think of 'salty and sweet' when I write him). And I like giving him these little anxiety-fuelled moments where he's painfully vulnerable.

I have a lot to thank @akoiromanticstudent for (I tag her a lot as it's her help that's made her indulge this hard, and I love how she writes sig in his professor ways).

I have a literal page-by-page list in my notebook (because I'm crazy and do this for fun HAHA) of who I've taken some inspiration from for his characteristics so here we go I shall list a few (and this isn't even all of it so - lmao YOU ASKED)

Game of Thrones' Tywin Lannister is a massive influence on me as well. His dialogue is excellently written, and he was my favourite character in the series for being this rather diabolical yet magnificent bastard. I love how Charles Dance plays him as this character hardened by the world around him and too far gone with using violence as a means to an end. He's undoubtedly cruel and has this stubbornness that is fun to emulate and spar with.

I also take some inspiration from Hades - the Hellenic god (being a bit more of a neutral yet incredibly threatening force within ancient Greek polytheism). And his representation from the HADES game series and the Disney-fied version (for the back and fourth in his dialogue and dynamic).

I also really loved Peter Stormare's representation of Lucifer from the 05' Constantine film - I love how terrifying and threatening he is with his presence and invading personal spaces. Stormare plays him as this ancient, wise, sinister force, and I just adore it. Despite the film being of typical noughties-popcorn-movieness (but I love it for that too). So I've taken little pieces of that there as well.

Obviously, Star Wars plays as an influence (Darth Vader/Anakin being the tragic villain he is and Palpatine because I just love that silly evil old man.)

There's obviously a few Lovecraftian cosmic horror elements in there as well.

Also adding loads of representations of various Gods, Kings, and Emperors in history, Leonidas being one of them, Ceaser, Odin, Ra the list goes on and on all of which are in the mixing pot.

Thanks for reading this if you did I hope it was interesting - I get started on something and then it grows and grows because, as I said, I'm crazy.

#every day i wake up and think about galactic emperor sigma #and then i think about sigma #and then write in my stupid notebook every time i have an idea #asks #shut up conc #conc talks

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whimsyswastry · 3 months

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Right back at you for the creating your OC ask! :)

Numbers 3, 15 and 17 for everyone?

Oooh...goodness :D This may take a while...as I listed a lot of OCs.

All the Info below the cut 💛

3. How did you choose their name?

Ellaria Trevelyan -> I think I must have been in the midst of reading Game of Thrones. Which, naming her after another character was completely unintentional. I don't even remember thinking about it, until I saw the GoT episode with Ellaria Sand and being like... "Huh... I wonder..."

Ori Lavellan -> Oriana's full name actually came from the fantasy name generator website. It didn't really seem to fit the naive and idealistic character I was crafting, but the shortened version of Ori really did. Plus, I just love nicknames.

Eliza Shepard -> I really like the word Elysium. So, initially, the name was Elysia. But as her background is a twisted version of a War Hero, I didn't want her name being so close to Elysium. I figured Eliza kept the feeling without seeming uninspired.

Lucette de Sardet -> This is another one that I got from a nickname. She's very close to her cousin Constantin. I wanted Constantin to use a petname for her that was one part obnoxious and one part adorable and settled on LuLu, but she's a diplomat and part of the royal family so she couldn't be named Lucy, but Lucette worked perfectly especially with the surname De Sardet.

**I should note that both of my Ryders look the same (default), but I kept waffling on his personality. I couldn't decide between a bitter, angry, daddy-issue ridden asshole who doesn't want anyone to know he has a heart of gold (Thomas) and a goofy, adrenaline junkie, with a nerdy side (Alexander). So I just ended up using both for different stories.

Thomas Scott Ryder -> I created Thomas Scott around the same time I was playing Greefall, and Lucette's faceclaim has always been Antonia Thomas. I thought the name sounded really natural. I like to think he's named after his mother's grandfather who was 10x the father to him that Alec ever was.

Alexander Scott Ryder -> This one was lazy. I just wanted him to be named after Alec, but Scott Alexander didn't sound nearly as good as Alexander Scott.

15. What is something about your OC that makes you laugh?

Ellaria Trevelyan -> She is really outgoing, but doubly so when she's around Cullen who is so reserved. She makes bawdy jokes and gets in his space because she finds it so funny and can tell he likes it, even if it turns his ears scarlet.

Ori Lavellan -> Having grown up with only the noises of nature, she's actually really skittish. Not scared, but easily startled by loud noises. This has lead Varric to calling her Cricket because she jumps so high.

Eliza Shepard -> She has a voracious sweet tooth (in part inspired by my own blasted sugar addiction). She keeps a secret drawer of sweets that Kaidan and Liara pilfer from to help them cope with their biotic metabolism. Eliza still hasn't figured it out because she thinks she ate it and just doesn't remember.

Lucette de Sardet -> She is really diplomatic. It's her job. She's representing her entire country! But she also has a really strong moral compass, and when someone crosses those lines, she has no qualms punching them in the face. Needless to say, she's caused a diplomatic incident or two.

Thomas Scott Ryder -> His relationship with his sister. I only have sisters, but I have a couple cousins who have always been really protective, playful, and rambunctious with me the way I imagine an older brother would have. It's really fun to write and I hope equally fun to read. Especially since he's an asshole to just about everyone else.

Alexander Scott Ryder -> Just how energetic he is. I am always drained so it's lots of fun to explore a character who acts like a kid hopped up on an entire bag of halloween candy. And, just like that kid, how he crashes into his bed at the end of the day.

17. Is there some element you regret adding to your OC or their story?

Ellaria Trevelyan -> Big YES for this one. Initially, her backstory involved abuse by a templar. I thought it was an important part of showing the power imbalance between mages and templars in the circle. But, even though the abuse was only ever eluded to and not explicit, it never felt right. I couldn't do justice to her experience. So Unharrowed (my fic about the Inquisitor pre-DAI) has been on hiatus for the last...5 years. I recently had a breakthrough with her backstory and finally starting writing the version of Unharrowed I've always wanted.

Ori Lavellan -> I have a few ficlets when Ori is really struggling with Solas' departure and uses another character to feel something other than pain...These were written for fictober a few years ago and upon reflection, she never would've done this no matter how much pain she was in.

Eliza Shepard -> This is more of an oversight on my part. But half of her storyline is written as though she has biotics and the other half as though she's just a soldier. I like the story with her as a soldier, it makes her interactions with Kaidan's biotics more novel.

Lucette de Sardet -> It's been a while since I've read any of my Lucette fics...but nothing comes to mind for her :)

Thomas Scott Ryder -> I both love and hate that he smokes clove cigarettes. It fits his angry at the world, leave me a lone so I can sulk outer persona. But I worry that readers will judge him because it's 2185/2819 and he's still partaking in a really unhealthy habit.

Alexander Scott Ryder -> It's not really a character element, but another writing regret regarding him. The only stories I've ever written about Alexander Scott take place after High Noon / breaking up with Reyes. I feel like I could've made the stories infinitely better if I'd taken the time to think about specific storylines or head canons about the way he and Reyes got together. As it is, it feels somewhat generic.

#my ocs #ellaria #eliza #lucette #ori #Thomas scott #Alexander scott #whimsy replies #greypetrel #💛 💛 💛

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dairy-farmer · 29 days

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Okay... but imagine my time loop prompt? If both Tim AND Bruce tried to catch the Idol as it got knocked over, failed by accidentally getting in each other's way, and both managed to JUST grab it as it broke? Thus both getting Time Looped.

BUT!

>:Dc Seperately~☆

It's the same layered, Learn A Lesson But Delayed type loop. But! Now Tim is stuck in metaphorical Room A, while Bruce is stuck in metaphorical Room B. Both thinking THEY must have touched it first, thus got cursed and spared the other.

Tim's plan remains the same. Bruce? Experienced with this sort of thing. But ALSO Constantine Bane. And has to chase the fucker down. (Get BACK HERE YOU GLOWING, MAGICAL TWINK!!)

Still gonna take a while.

Still time for Bored Thoughts to turn to Bad Ideas.

Contemplating the Forbidden.

Tim realizing he should PROBABLY address the elephant in the room, when all the porn he ends up invested in most, during "Research", has men that look VERY... Bruce-like.

Bruce, trying and slowing failing to beat of the phrase "timeloops are consequences free" from bouncing around the inside of his skull like a screen saver, as he stares as Tim. His SON.

But... he WANTS.

Obsessively, covetously, WANTS. Surely just a taste? Whispers temptation. That won't ADDICT! It lies.

And it shouldn't be as easy as it is. Tim surprised but sinking into his warmth. Probably thinking exposure to any number of things. Bruce doesn't care. He'll lie if he has too.

Dragging him off to bed like some impatient newlywed. Hands not gentle enough for a virgin, so he uses his tounge, to drag an orgasm out of him so hard his back bows. Drowns pretty little toys in lube to work him open, fucking them in and deep. Not rough or calloused like his fingers.

He knows damn well its brutal on a virgin to take some as big as him. Would work him open, little by little over days, if he could. Plugs and toys. Fingers, round after round. Getting him used to it. But he has today.

Just. Today.

So all he can do is work himself in slow. Press kisses to gasping, teary cheeks, and tell him how good he's being. How brave. Press vibrating little beads to his clit, to drag out some pleasure in all this. Help him adapt. And listen to him whine pitifully in overwhelmed sensation.

Rock into that magnificent heat. God, it feels so GOOD. Work himself in and out, til it's less of a vice. Drenched in lube. Crushed to the mattress and trapped in his arms. Impaled on him. Good for him.

Working up the speed of his hips as he snaps them deep. Buries himself inside that hot, perfect body. Tim gorgeous and incoherently undone beneath him. His. He did this.

Bruce gives in to that desire to stuff him full. Like he's trying to BREED him. Gives in to the desire to whisper filthy praises and tender, emotional things. The sort Tim can't bear, but now can't escape. Impaled on his cock as he is.

Midnight hits too soon.

He does get addicted. How can he not? But he manages to focus. Wants to take his time. Do it right. Which he CAN'T in only 24hours.

And with Tim? His matra of "I will not climb Batman like a tree" has failed him. Curse you, sexy, sexy, Batman! He has learned a lot! But mostly, that unless he is dosed on Pollen? That glorious dick barely fits and does NOT FEEL GREAT, until like? Orgasm three! Which is a lot to ask!

Doesn't STOP him. He just figured out he has to pre-game. Loosen HIMSELF up. Make a morning of it. Get his bits destroyed deliciously all afternoon.

But both Bat can agree? Fuuuuuuck, John Constantine and his escape artist house.

It's ultimately Tim who finds him. Frees them. Bruce is in the cave when Memories Hit. And.... oh. Oh? Oooooooooh.

WELL then~

Meanwhile Tim is just standing there like :O Bruce you KINKY ME FUCKER.

-🐼🐼🐼

and bruce can't possibly deny it at all 😭😭😭!!!

#answered asks #asks #anonymous

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ofglories · 3 months

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there's no better sign of a special day quickly approaching than the extra bustle of activity occurring in chaldea. in particular it appeared that many took turns working on their gift ( whether that be homemade in the kitchen or craftily done in the common room ), aiming for perfection.

well, understandable. even as he swiftly avoid those gatherings for the sake of his own sanity. however, that day still would be a while yet, but today charlemagne had a goal to accomplish.

naturally, he had to be cool about it too.

it's finding his target in his lonesome section of chaldea, focusing intently on a board—engrossed in a strategy game no doubt—that charlemagne slyly grins, sneaking ever so closer and closer behind constantine, until standing right behind him and then, suddenly, announcing, "happy birthday, constantine!" while carefully tossing a box onto rider's lap that was carefully wrapped ( astolfo's doing since he wanted to help ) filled to the brim with those honey fritters that the man enjoyed the most ( not charlemagne's work; but rather a request he put in days ago after finding the man enjoying them to the kitchen staff ). ending it with a gentle nibble at his cheek, if only now to see how his reaction would end after all these surprises one after another.

with a laugh, he'd pull away to take a seat across constantine now, making himself comfortable. "i figured that in contrast to me, you'd want something a little more subtle and," he said, leaning against his hand, "since it's your birthday and all, i'd give you the whoooole day with me to spend. how about it, constantine? whatever you want."

February always brought with it a veritable blizzard of activity, one that was as easy to be swept up into as a flood.

The common rooms were usually filled with people planning or prepared handcrafted gifts, or making further decorations for the walls. And of course there was the reminders plastered on just about every flat surface that no, the flowers that lined the hallways were not to be picked for gifts or else retribution would follow. Whether that was true or a bluff Constantine had yet to figure out but he was not so reckless as to test it himself.

Reckless fool he could be but there was nothing to be gained from possibly angering a certain Ruler.

As for the kitchens, they were in a state of absolute chaos.

Kitchen staff scrambled, trying to make meals ahead of time for storing in preparation for the upcoming days while all around them whirled those Servants already busy with their more edible gifts. And inedible, as the case may be from a few Rider had seen last year. A nightmarish tempest of chaos and noise from which every so often emerged angry yelling.

Naturally he'd hurried away from there to one of the few remaining quiet spaces left in all of Chaldea. A small reading room, with more than a few strategy games tucked away under the tables.

Peace at last.

Until...

"Happy birthday, Constantine!"

The unexpected, but very welcome, call had him jumping in his seat, eyes finally tearing from the board game before him to the box that landed on his lap. There was a familiar sweet smell wafting from it, one Constantine knew without even having to unwrap the gift.

Honey fritters!

Just like the ones from his life!

The way his face turned as red as his earrings when Charlemagne nibbled his cheek was also expected. Constantine squeaked, hand pressing to the exact spot as Saber finally took a seat before him. A gift, a bite on his cheek, and the promise of an entire day with the other man?

He laughed, lowering his hand to smile properly at Charlemagne.

"I'm truly touched that you thought of me today, Charles. Thank you for the gift!" His smile grew softer as it grew wilder, head tilting to the side. "The whole day with you? I must say, that's an even better gift than the treats. Let's go somewhere sunny and warm, to explore and to share these fritters. How does that sound?"

#messages on birdwing; asks #toadmiretoweepover #the twilight emperor; constantine xi #aaaaaaaaaaa what a good birthday gift for him~#charlie's future wife is very happy

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themaribatpit · 3 years

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Jasonette July Day 4: Game On

Written by: The Maribat Pit @jasonette-july-event Prompt: Game On Rated: T (for sexual references, mostly references to things that happened in the comics. You have been warned.) “I can’t just go spilling my protégé’s secrets. I can barely send her out into the mean streets on her own.” she said with a coy show of innocence that she wasn’t even trying to make believable.

“I’m not asking for her identity, all that concerns me is why you decided to take her in.” Batman explained.

“She was in trouble, I was in the neighbourhood and I gave her a helping hand,” she explained. “That special claw of hers comes in handy, and besides we all know how you feel about magic users Bruce.” She wasn’t wrong about that. Batman could never trust Constantine further than he could throw him. He could only bring himself to turn to Zatanna when he really needed her help. Shazam was an exception, seeing as the limits of his magic were clear and simple enough to understand. That didn’t make him any less formidable, but it didn’t make him quite as unpredictable. He was, at the end of the day, a detective who was trained to think rationally and logically in order to get to the bottom of a situation. Magic was the ultimate wild card, and the sooner he figured out this girl’s abilities, the better. “You’ll be pleased to know she’s not a completely hopeless case, she’s been helpful but she doesn’t get quite the same thrill out of thievery.” Catwoman remarked, “but it’s been lovely having her around, and I’m not about to just hand her over to you”.

“Then what would you have me do?” he asked, “I’m concerned your rivals might be a little less forgiving.”

“Is that so? You don’t think she’s strong enough to save herself?” Catwoman smiled, it was nice to know that he cared, just a little. “Besides, she’s already had years of experience under her belt, maybe you’re just jealous you didn’t find her first.” She taunted playfully. Goodness knows he was in no position to talk when it came to taking people under his wing. “Tell you what, how about we have a friendly little wager?” Bruce saw her eyes light up at the thought, but he was undeniably curious about what she had in mind.

“What do you propose?” he asked.

“A fun little game, your boys against my little foundling. If any of them can take her down, then you can welcome her into your family with open arms” she explained.

“How do I know she won’t just kill them?” Batman asked, it wouldn’t be the first time Bruce had to try and steer someone away from any homicidal tendencies.

“She’s a lot of things, but let’s just say killing wasn’t really an option for her back in the day.” she explained, “She’ll fall in line with your ‘no killing’ rule quite nicely. Think about it, your sons versus my little girl.” Her claws skated across Batman’s shoulders as he pondered this.

“Anything else?” Batman asked, he had to know exactly what they were walking into.

“Your boys can bring a second to their little duels, but only one. No need to have the Titans ganging up on her.” she explained. She left out the part about her protégé having other tricks up her sleeve. With the power she had, they would be lucky to get a single scratch on her.

“So be it then.” Bruce said, it would be an opportunity to see how this girl measured up against the boys he had trained. At that moment Catwoman decided it was game on.

Marinette had just come home from her classes at Gotham University, and she was looking forward to a quiet night working on some designs that were due a few weeks. A text message from Catwoman brought her plans to a grinding halt:

“Mari dear, made a little wager with Batman. You beat his four sons in a fight, and you get to stay with me. If you lose however, he gets to take you under his wing (in every sense of the word). They’ll be on the lookout for Lady Noire in the next few days, but I never said anything about only using her to win.”

Marinette was really starting to regret being saved by Catwoman. That night, she was outnumbered by some muggers who thought she would be an easy target. She was trying to find an opening, to make a break for it, maybe find somewhere to hide and transform if she really must. Suddenly she heard a voice grab their attention, “I’ve always loved big strong men who aren’t afraid to show it with someone half their size.” she purred. While they were distracted, Marinette decided to call on Plagg for some help. She always loved how the Lady Noire suit made her movements feel lighter, plus the night vision and Cataclysm were useful too. Unfortunately for her, it meant that Catwoman saw her in action and decided to take an interest in her from that day forth. Sure, she was a cunning thief and there was little that Marinette could do to stop her. At the same time, Marinette was a young woman in a city that was the polar opposite of what she knew in Paris. She couldn’t deny that there was something comforting about having someone in this city looking out for her. Especially since her parents were in Paris, and Master Fu was no longer around to help her. She took the Miraculous with her to Gotham City, but none of the other wielders came with her. She was still their guardian after all, but she had to be more careful about using them. She wasn’t about to single handedly take on superpowered crime lords with their armies of henchmen. She had to be a lot more careful with her powers since other people could get hurt. Besides, they already had a small group of vigilantes keeping the city safe, they didn’t need her.

Marinette reread the text message over and over again. she was about to see what these vigilantes were made of, though it was just as accurate to say it was the other way around. She opened the box, carefully choosing which ones she could use in a fight. She usually used Lady Noire when she was with Catwoman, but by the sound of it she was counting on her to use all of her tricks to win.

Damian never fully understood his father’s attachment to Catwoman, but this was a challenge he could not refuse. They were told to keep an eye out for this “Lady Noire” character while they were out on patrol. Oracle had agreed to referee this ordeal, Damian was absolutely certain he was going to be the one to bring her in. They were allowed to bring a second, but Damian didn’t think it would be necessary. From what they were told she was a smaller Catwoman, though they were told to exercise caution because of her destructive abilities. The last person Damian had expected to find was a girl in a red and black body suit, who looked nothing like the girl with long hair and green eyes that Batman had described. Still, there was something odd about the girl and Damian moved in closer to investigate.

Catwoman had given Marinette a vague rundown of who her opponents were. There was Nightwing, the eldest of the four boys and a trained acrobat. The second eldest was the infamous Red Hood, Marinette had heard rumours about him and she had no way of knowing if the Kwamis could guard her against someone who uses firearms. The third was Red Robin, Catwoman advised using clever strategy if she was going to get the upper hand on this one. Finally, there was the current Robin, the son of Batman and Talia Al Ghul, the youngest of the boys who was trained by assassins before Batman took him in.

She took the Ladybug earrings with her, seeing as they were more versatile for the occasion. In addition to the earrings, she wore the Longg’s choker around her neck. Master Fu had often cautioned against using fusions, considering how draining they were on her body. Her new mentor advised her to use every tool she could in her arsenal, because they certainly would. On most nights she noticed a small, hooded figure passing through her neighbourhood from time to time. She decided to see which of these boys would be her first opponent.

While she was standing on that rooftop, she heard a few footsteps behind her. It was raining but through the mist and the rain she could see a small, shadowy figure watching her closely. It made sense, she was dressed in bright colours and standing on a rooftop in the pouring rain. She practically had a sign on her head that said “come and get me”, which in some way was part of her plan. The question was, whether or not her first opponent would take the bait. “I know you’re there little one, so are you going to stay there or come over and say hello?” she asked, Marinette tried to sound cheerful but she ended up sounding silly instead. She tried to hide the burning embarrassment she felt at how silly that sounded. The boy could probably sense it too, because she turned around and saw him narrowing his eyes at her suspiciously.

He leapt from his perch and landed behind her with a thud and splatter of rain water. He was no taller than Marinette and he wore a red and green outfit, with a black hooded cape and a green domino mask. The red and green outfit had a golden yellow “R” on his chest, and she also noticed a sword that was sheathed at his side. Marinette had to suspect this boy was the youngest out of the boys, Robin. The two of them stood in silence for a long moment, she figured that someone who was formerly trained by assassins would be a little more hostile. Then again, he was probably expecting someone else entirely. “Aren’t you a little young to be out patrolling by yourself, little one?” she asked, trying to make some kind of conversation with the boy. She wasn’t in any position to say anything about this, considering she had been protecting Paris since she was 13.

“What’s it to you?” He scoffed, “we’re looking for someone named Lady Noire, and you clearly wanted to attract someone’s attention by standing on a rooftop in that costume”.

“Robin, can you not be a brat for like, five minutes?” Red Robin groaned into his comm, but Damian didn’t listen.

“You can either state your business or stop wasting my time” he snapped, as Marinette chuckled.

“So, you’re planning on challenging Lady Noire. Tell me, what do you really know about her?” she asked him.

“Only that father and that woman have taken an interest in her, and I intend to prove to both of them that she is nothing special.” he growled, “so unless you know something about her, stay out of my way”.

“You seem certain, for someone who has never once faced her” she said with a smile.

“I was trained by the best, I will not lose to someone who is little more than a foundling.” he was reaching for his sword at that moment. Red Robin and Nightwing rolled their eyes at that comment as they listened in. They knew they had all bested their youngest brother at some point or other, despite being “foundlings”.

“It would have been easy too just to hide from you and your brothers, but I’m going to enjoy taking you down a peg.” She braced herself for her first fight of the challenge. She really could have, but sadly she had very little patience for people who thought they were better than everyone else.

“I won’t lose to you Lady Noire, or whoever you are”, he growled as he drew his sword and pointed it at her.

“Tikki, Longg, unify!” she called out, and a flash of red and gold light stunned Robin for a moment. The red and black bodysuit now had gold accents and a symbol on her chest. The symbol was a lighting bolt, a wave and a gust of wind all swirling together.

“What did you do?!” Red Robin yelled into his comm, “I swear if she kills us all just because you couldn’t control yourself…”

Robin looked up to see that she had a yo-yo in one hand and the other reached behind her to draw a sword.

“And by the way, it’s Dragon Bug to you”, she swung her yo-yo with one hand and Robin ducked to dodge it. After dodging it, he charged at Dragon Bug, katana in hand. She blocked his attack with her sword before kicking him back with her foot. Dragon Bug pulled back her yo-yo and charged at him with her sword, when he blocked her, he spun around and kicked her legs out from under her. As Dragon Bug fell to the floor, she raised her sword and yelled “Water Dragon!”. There was more than enough to create a barrier that pushed Robin back before he could strike again. Robin was knocked back against the wall, and she took out her yo-yo to make an escape to the streets below.

This Lady Noire, Dragon Bug, whoever she was, had insulted his honor. To him, that just simply would not stand. His father said that he wanted her alive, but he could barely get a scratch on her. He got up quickly and used his grappling hook to swing after her. She was waiting for him, with her hair blowing in the wind, and a smile that Damian wanted to wipe off her face. He charged at her once more, this time sliding on the floor at the last moment and hoping to take a swipe at her leg. Once again, she managed to turn and block his katana. The pair of them traded blow after blow after blow, but he could only land a few scratches on her. Marinette could use Lightning Dragon and shock the boy, to bring this to a swift end. However, with all the water that was around them, she might end up killing the boy instead. Before she could try anything else with that sword, he blocked it and sent it flying off to the side. Marinette watched as her sword flew out of her hands before clattering on the ground next to them.

Marinette had to admit that this kid was good and that the fusion was starting to drain her a little. She had to act fast as she dodged another incoming strike. She leapt backwards to dodge it but the boy took out a grappling hook, he gave it a few good spins before flinging it forward and catching her foot. He pulled the wire taut and sent her crashing to the ground, hard. “You may have your tricks, Dragon Bug, but I have skill, I have training, and now I have defeated you.” he called out as he tugged at the wire, pulling her towards him.

“That may be true, but there’s something you should know…” she groaned as she propped herself up on her elbows, he stopped for a moment as he waited for her to tell him exactly what that was. Marinette reached for her yo-yo, she needed to finish this and safe her strength, “…you’re not the only one who’s had training.” she told him. Dragon Bug quickly spun her yo-yo and swung it at Robin, this time wrapping the wire around him and pulling the string tight. He tried to free himself using his katana, while Dragon Bug unwrapped the wire around her foot. As she stood up she said, “another one of my ‘magic tricks’” as she ran to retrieve her own sword. She sheathed the sword and looked back to find a hog-tied Robin, desperately trying to cut the cord and free himself. She wanted to enjoy this moment for just a little longer, there was always something so satisfying in moments like these. She took a moment to send a quick message to Catwoman:

“Dragon Bug: 1, Robin: 0” before sending her a selfie, with Robin tied up in the background.

She glanced back at Robin who was now just scowling at her. “You fought valiantly little one, but sadly you are not my only opponent” she told him as she unwound the string around him. When she had her yo-yo back, she flung it towards a street lamp and swung forward, lifting her up off the ground. There was one thing Damian was certain of, there was no way his brothers were going to let him live this down. With a good tug of her yo-yo, freed Damian, spinning him around in the process.

Meanwhile, Jason and Roy were on a road trip back to Gotham, the two of them had just taken care of a Drug Lord in Starling City. Jason’s phone buzzed with some news from Dick, something about how they had all been embroiled in a bet to take down Selina’s new protégé. If any of them win, she has to join the Bat family, and if they all lose then she keeps working with Selina. He could not bring himself to care, it was 50/50 on whether or not this girl was tolerable or if she was going to annoy him like the rest. Roy glanced over at him before turning his attention back to the road, “you look like you’re desperately searching for a fuck to give” he commented.

“Just some dumb bet Bruce made,” Jason shut off his phone before reclining back in his chair.

“That’s not like Bruce, usually making dumb bets was something you guys did” Roy wracked his brain trying to imagine the stoic and serious Batman making a dumb bet.

“Something about Catwoman and her little sidekick.” he drawled, “If Dick, Me, Replacement or Demon Spawn take her down, she becomes Batman’s little sidekick. Like he doesn’t have enough of those running around”.

“Ah, I’m guessing you don’t want to fight her when we make it back to Gotham City?” Roy asked, “wouldn’t it be hilarious if you taught her how to win against your brothers?”

Jason gave a half-hearted chuckle, moments later his phone buzzed with more messages. He was really looking forward to this little power nap, but he checked to make sure no one desperately needed his help.

He sees the picture that she took with Damian tied up in the background. Babs, Steph and Cass had watched the whole thing, with popcorn. While Tim had made that photo the new wallpaper on the Belfry’s computer.

“Well, says here she literally wiped the floor with Demon Spawn, before swinging away on a yo-yo.” he said and they both laughed “now I’m just mad I won’t get to buy the girl a few drinks”.

“I mean either way, I’m sure you’ll get your chance if you’re both in Gotham City. I’m just sad that I’ll have to be your third wheel.” Roy said wistfully.

“Roy, I had to listen to you and Kory in the next room,” Jason recalled, “you have no room to complain about third wheeling.”

“Awh was little Jaybird jealous?” Roy joked.

“Hey you’re the one who assumed that we banged in the first place,” he said “all I said was I was with her, and you decided to interpret that however you wanted”.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway because she ran off to Miami to work through some things, and we’re just over here thinking about the good old days,” Roy said. The two of them continued to drive in silence and Jason leaned back, trying to get some sleep before facing whatever chaos was waiting to greet them in Gotham City.

Tim has researched all he could on this mysterious Lady Noire, yet there are several reported sightings of different vigilantes all with the same height and build. Lady Noire, Ladybug, Dragon bug. Tim compiled all known sightings onto his corkboard to get a clear picture of who this person is.

The fight between Dragon Bug and Damian provided him with crucial information on how he could counter Dragon Bug. Tim then donned his Red Robin costume and began patrol of Gotham City. Gliding across he spotted an usual sight, a costumed person standing on a rooftop. It had to be the one Batman told him about, the person he was to fight because of the bet.

Tim landed on a nearby rooftop to reconfirm the target. "Same height and build, but this costume is different." Tim sighed, he had noticed that each costume had its own power and abilities, and made detailed notes on each. Codename: Polka-dot had the power to summon an unknown household object. Codename: Catwoman II used an indestructible staff and the power of disintegration, Codename: Drake used a sword and came with the power of hydrokinesis.

However, he had no intel regarding this new costume. He decided to press his luck and use stealth to take her down. He leaped off the roof and began gliding towards her with a kick.

To his surprise, his target shrank at the last second, he glided through and smashed into a skylight, landing inside an abandoned building.

Multimouse followed suit and jumped in through the broken skylight. Landing right at the centre of the room, she simply stood there arms akimbo looking at him. Red Robin threw a smoke bomb, grappling to the rafters. Multimouse did not pursue, no sense of panic she simply walked to a wooden crate and sat on it.

Red Robin, took the opportunity to launch himself off and glided towards Multimouse with a kick. He was shocked to see her suddenly turn around as if she knew he was there the entire time, with perfect timing she grabbed and judo flipped Red Robin through the wooden crate. Wiping her hands in a dramatic manner, Multimouse walked to the centre of the room and crossed her arms. Red Robin crushed a smoke bomb with his hand, obscuring the area and diving towards an underground vent.

He began to wonder how she was able to counter him so effectively. "The power of foresight? 360 degrees x-ray vision? No it can't be." Red Robin thought to himself. While crawling in the vents to a position behind Multimouse, he berated himself for pressing his luck without any information on Multimouse. He peeked his head out of the vent, Multimouse had not moved, she continued to stare at Red Robin's previous location. Taking another chance, Red Robin jumped out of the underground vent ready for a takedown.

Again as if she was a clairvoyant she countered him perfectly, spinning on the spot and delivering a crushing kick to Red Robin’s midsection. Sending him flying across the room, he took out his staff and slowly got up, using the staff as if it was a cane. He stood on shaky legs, in disbelief.

He then begins to notice something unusual hanging on the hem of his cape. His eyes widen as he takes a closer look. A miniature clone of Multimouse was hanging on, his eyes snapped up to the rafters and then the vents. There were several miniature clones all over the building, all about the size of a small insect.

Red Robin's jaw dropped as he had this epiphany. Seeing her cue, Multimouse shrank down and spawned a horde of miniature clones. Millions of clones rush towards Red Robin, he begins swinging his staff, stomping on any clones on the ground, flailing his arms like a madman. The horde bellows a collective “Surrender,” Red Robins defiantly continues to fight.

Soon the swarm begins to cover Red Robin all the way up to his neck, his body unable to move. The Multimouse arms pulls off the cowl and begins pulling all of Red Robin’s hair. Red Robin, facing the agony of Multimouse waxing his head. “Ok, ok I give up.” he cried. As he finished his plea, the swarm dissipated and reforms to the singular human sized Multimouse. Red Robin is then left kneeling and staring at the strands of his own hair left on the floor.

Multimouse, seizing the opportunity to obtain a trophy of her efforts, takes a selfie with a poor, disheveled Red Robin in the background.

Marinette was really starting to feel the effects of using different Miraculous for two nights straight. Dragon Bug was draining enough, but she had to use Multimouse to take on Red Robin. That left Nightwing and The Red Hood, and she was starting to wonder what was the point of this game. She felt like she was just fighting to win, fighting so that the person who took care of her when she first arrived in Gotham could prove a point. If she won, then she would stay under Catwoman’s protection, and the Miraculous would be protected with her. Though she was lucky that the Miraculous themselves didn’t look valuable enough to pique her interest. If she lost to one of them, she would be under Batman’s protection instead. She would become a part of the group of vigilantes who operate in the city, and she didn’t know how she felt about that either. How would she feel about seemingly being the only magic user among them? How would he feel about her being a magic user? She hadn’t even met the guy, all she knew was that he took an interest in her dealings with Catwoman. Maybe she would encounter the Red Hood and he would make the choice for her by putting her out of her misery. She decided to settle this fight once and for all as Ladybug, maybe then someone would give her some answers.

She got a text message from Catwoman, telling her to meet her on a rooftop that had gargoyles glaring down at the streets below. Maybe she had information on where her next fight would be, she didn’t say. By the time she got there, she saw two people eating fast food next to the gargoyles. The first was a redhead in red armor, and the second was…

“Get your own brooding spot, this one’s taken!” He yelled. Marinette looked up to see the other guy had a red domino mask, and in addition to being dressed in Kevlar and leather, had a red bat symbol on his chest.

Marinette spun her yo-yo, getting ready for a fight. The redhead continued eating, while his dark-haired companion gave her a swift once over.

“So, you’re the girl who took down Robin and Red Robin?” he asked, as if struggling to believe it.

“And you are?” she asked, when he put on the red helmet that was in his hand, it suddenly became clear.

“So, looking for me?” he asked, “Or are you on your way to fight the original boy wonder?”

“Honestly, I’ll take my chances with you.” Marinette said as she launched her yo-yo at his companion and wrapped the cord around him.

“Wait, wait, wait why me?” the redhead cried, then she threw him and sent him crashing into the Red Hood. The pair of them slammed into a nearby wall before she released the redhead. She unwound the cord and was getting ready to strike again.

Underneath the sprawled out pile of bodies, Red Hood grunted “Arsenal, get your ass off of my face or else…” Arsenal got up before he could finish his threat and they both stood up.

“So who checked ‘Fights with Toys’ off their bingo card?” Arsenal joked.

“Is that the best you can do?” Red Hood taunted. He came at her with a knife in hand, when she leapt in the air and wrapped her yo-yo cord around his arm. She launched herself at him, landing an aerial kick on his helmet. Red Hood grabbed her by the foot and flipped her over, sending her crashing to the ground.

“If you came here to fight me that’s one thing, not many people get to say they took on someone with a yo-yo and lived, unless you’re Toyman.” he said, as he lifted her up off the ground. “If you think this is what it takes to face Nightwing, then you have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

Ladybug took a few steps back after he helped her get to her feet, “so are you going to fight me instead?”

“Pixie, take it from me, it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. As fun as it’s been watching you kick my brother’s asses, they are nothing compared to Nightwing.” he explained as he took off his helmet and set it down next to him.

“What do you know about Nightwing?” she asked, still understandably guarded about the situation.

“Oh what don’t I know, he’s basically Batman’s heir.” he told her “I’m just one of the spares, and that’s on a good day when I managed to not die.”

Dick had made it clear days ago that he wasn’t going to fight her, he already put his foot down at how silly this whole thing was. Jason, however, decided to have a little fun. “Honestly, you might as well just walk right into the batcave and challenge Batman yourself.” he told her, “I mean you won’t die, that’s kinda his whole deal, but you’ll be eating through a straw for the rest of your life.”

Jason, enjoying the anxiety bubble in the young woman, and he decided to crank it up to eleven.

“Nightwing is equal if not better than Batman in every way, he once took up the mantle of Batman when he was injured. Not only that, he broke Bane’s back. He lifted a 7ft tall 500lb big guy, snapped his spine over his knee as if it was nothing.” Jason moves his arms, mimicking the motion of breaking something over his knee. Ladybug began to sweat even more, struggling to imagine the powerhouse of a man to even accomplish such a feat.

Jason’s grin widens, “not only that, he fought a giant mutated bat the size of a man. He wrestled Man-Bat, putting him in a full nelson and smashing its face into solid concrete” Ladybug cringes at the thought of feeling the full force of having your face slammed into concrete. Jason gets ready for the coup de grace. “In fact, when he was 10 years old, he watched his parents get murdered by mobster Tony Zucco in front of his own eyes. After being taken under Batman’s wing, he went out for revenge. He chased after Tony for hours and cornered him in Crime Alley.

Tony died that night when Nightwent went after him, the official cause was a heart attack.”

Jason stops talking to look around him, as if he was paranoid and there were eyes all around him. He walks up to Ladybug and whispers to her ear “but between you and me, it wasn’t.”

He turns to Roy, “but if she’s gonna try and take him on after all that, then we might as well pull up some chairs and watch.” he said, giving Roy a knowing look.

“Oh yeah, I mean he’s no match for a cute girl and her yo-yo.” Roy joked.

“Come on, he’s probably waiting on top of the Iceberg Lounge, and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting” he declared, Ladybug followed as the three of them made their way to the Iceberg Lounge. She felt her legs shaking, but it’s fine, she would at least live to tell the tale...right?

Nightwing stood on the roof of the Iceberg Lounge, carefully watching the whereabouts of the people going in and out of the area. He heard footsteps and looked up to see three figures landing on the rooftop in front of him. He looked up to see Red Hood, Arsenal and a short girl who looked to be in her late teens, maybe early 20s. He looked between them, then back at the girl who was spinning a red yo-yo with black polka dots.

Nightwing waved to them, figuring she would be the short girl mentioned in the bet between Batman and Catwoman. As he noticed the three, the short girl visibly frightened as he walked towards them.

Nightwing sighed “what did you tell her?” he asked, he had better things to than get involved in Batman’s dumb little bet. The outcome would have been someone joining the Bat family by force, even he had put his foot down by that point.

“I mean, nothing that wasn’t true.” Red Hood told him, “she might as well know who she’s dealing with.”

“Right, and you probably told her you are just a soft teddy bear compared to me.” Nightwing remarked sarcastically, “was it to keep her from beating the stuffing out of you?”. At that point Ladybug was visibly confused, so Nightwing looked over at her “so how did you get dragged into this? Got sick of having to share a litter box?”

Ladybug eyes Nightwing cautiously, thinking his joking mannerisms are an elaborate ruse to lower her guard. “What, don’t tell my Catwoman’s got your tongue?” Nightwing jokes with a large grin. Ladybug begins to slowly walk back, confused at how expectations did not match reality.

Nightwing points his thumb at Ladybug and talks to Red Hood, “Alright what did you tell her about me?” Red Hood raises his arms innocently “Like I said, nothing that wasn’t true.”

Nightwing raises his eyebrow at Red Hood and crosses his arms. “Alright I told her how you took down Bane and Man-Bat by yourself” Red Hood admits. “And?” Nightwing begins tapping his foot. “I may have, insinuated that you may or may not have had something to do with Tony Zucco's heart attack”

Nightwing facepalms, “well so much for first impressions, let's start over shall we?”

Nightwing reaches his hand out to Ladybug, “Name’s Richard but everyone calls me Dick”

Marinette tentatively reaches out to shake his hand, “I know you aren’t enthusiastic about this bet, neither am I. I don’t want to knock your spots off, so how about I lie on the ground, you take a picture for Catwoman and you fly off into the sunset”

“Where would I go?” she asked,

“She could come with us.” Red Hood suggested, “nothing would annoy Batman more.”

“Right, and next she’ll start asking me if I actually hypnotize people with my ass.” Nightwing said as he raised an eyebrow at him. “Think Catwoman would let you take her?”

“We already asked, someone has to look after this pipsqueak while she’s doing what she does best, alone”, Red Hood explained.

Ladybug felt herself calming down a lot more at that moment. She came to this city not really knowing anyone, feeling like there was no one else looking out for her. Now, for the first time in a long time, she felt like she was going to be in good hands.

Bonus 1:

Roy: So, should we call ourselves “Red Arse Bug” or “Lady Red Arse”?

Jason: Do you want me to throw you off this roof?

Bonus 2:

Ladybug: So you all had to wear red, yellow and green?

Red Hood: Yup.

Ladybug: What was it like?

Red Hood: I did my time in the pixie boots, Pixie. Doesn’t mean I like to talk about it.

#jasonettejuly2021 #jasonette #maribat

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walkerismychoice · 3 years

Text

Queen of My Heart - Chapter 36

Book: The Royal Romance

Pairing: Drake X MC, Liam X Olivia, Hana X OC Lydia

Rating: NSFW (I didn’t intend it but it just happened

Summary: Liam finally clears the air with Constantine, and we go to the Fire and Ice Ball at Lythikos, the final social season even before Liam chooses his future Queen.

A/N: Umm, I don’t even want to know how many years it’s been since I updated, but it is with the encouragement of you readers that I was compelled to finish. My tag list is probably way outdated and I’m sure I’ve missed some poeple who’ve asked to be tagged along the way. Feel free to let me know either way if you want to be tagged or removed from the list.

Tag List: @khakie4 @dreadpirateemma @ritachacha @blackcoffee85 @choices-fanatic @boneandfur @butindeed @simplyaiden-blog @bobasheebaby @traeumerinsworld @theroyalweisme @umccall71 @lizeboredom @debramcg1106 @enmchoices @jadedpixiescribbles @withice @viktoriapetit @mfackenthal @drakesfiance @drakelover78 @speedyoperarascalparty @silviasutton1989 @krisnicjack @devineinterventions2 @choiceswreckedme @notoriouscs @blackcatkita @hamalu @akrenich @drakewalkerfantasy @jamielea81 @andy-loves-corgis @jlouise88 @jovialyouthmusic @sleepwalkingelite @i-miss-trr @dragonball-luver @gkittylove99 @lovingchoices14

Word Count: 2861

Queen of My Heart Chapter Index

“Hello, Father.” Liam greeted Constantine as he walked into the hospital room. He noted the King's color was back to normal and he seemed in good spirits.

"My son, I knew you'd come!" Constantine reached towards Liam with arms outstretched.

Liam just shook his head and held up a hand to stop him. "This is not that kind of visit. I'm here because I know... I know everything."

"What-" Constantine choked out before a coughing fit ensued.

Liam fought the instinctual urge to comfort his father. "Enough with the theatrics. I know about Madeleine...about you threatening the show if they didn't help her win...as if me choosing the woman I plan to spend my life with is some political game to be won."

"How did you find out? I gave strict orders that my demands were confidential."

Liam scoffed. "Seriously? I just told you I found out you tried to have the producers manipulate me into marrying a woman I don't love, and that's all you had to say for yourself?"

"You have to understand," Constantine pleaded. "Madeleine is what's best for Cordonia, and what's best for Cordonia is what's best for you."

"Unbelievable!" Liam felt the anger rising in his chest like a simmering pot ready to boil over. "You may have told yourself that to feel better about choosing your commitments to Cordonia over happiness, love, family... Maybe you’ve lied to yourself for so long you’ve actually started to believe it, but it's one hundred percent bullshit. I know I'll be a more effective leader if I get to choose the woman I want by my side, and that woman is Olivia."

Constantine's jaw dropped and there was a long pause before he gained his composure to protest. "Absolutely not. You know her family's history. I'd rather have you on the same page as me, but I am still King-"

"Save your breath," Liam shut him down. "You should know that your perfect candidate Madeleine has displayed some behavior quite unbecoming of a future queen, and it is all on film. I know Cordonians are generally flexible with their views on monogamy, but I don't think Madeleine sleeping with the host of the show while she's trying to compete for my affection will look good in anyone's eyes. She has been eliminated from the show and is no longer in the running. That leaves only Riley aside from Olivia, and I know you know what's going on there."

Constantine's face fell momentarily in resignation, but then he perked back up again. "Well, then you can bring back someone else. Kiara is quite lovely and is fit to play the part."

"Enough!" Liam practically shouted much too loud for the thin hospital walls. "Not that I owe you an explanation, but Olivia is stronger, smarter, and more capable of ruling a country than anyone you could hope to pair with me. You seem to forget that I am the son who stuck by you and am now the rightful and only heir to the throne. Your reign is coming to an end, and you have no choice but to accept my decision."

Unexpectedly, Constantine's demeanor changed, a sly grin creeping across his face. "My boy, I've always been a bit worried you were too soft to be king. However, seeing you stand up for yourself today gives me hope. I still don't approve of your choice, but I will no longer stand in your way."

Liam shook his head and let out an incredulous laugh, reeling from Constantine’s sudden change of course. "Bastien will take you back to the palace. We can talk more when I know it's not just the medicine that's gotten to your head."

-----

“Well, this place certainly explains a lot about Olivia.” Riley mused aloud as she scanned the ballroom. Ornate floor to ceiling windows with deep alcoves were surrounded by walls with intricate, gilded accents leading up to a hand-painted ceiling measuring at least 3 stories high. The grandeur of the space was both intimidating and beautiful at the same time, much like its owner.

“Has she shown you all the toys in her armory yet? That too says a lot about Olivia," Drake chuckled at his own joke.

Riley laughed along. “No, but she does constantly remind me she keeps a dagger hidden under her skirt. Are you sure Liam knows what he’s in for?”

"Heh. Better him than me, that's for sure. Liam's warm and fuzzy exterior can make him seem like a pushover, but he can hold his own when it matters. Olivia needs someone who can roll with her mood swings but still call her on her bullshit when needed."

"You know, I admit I had a little trouble wrapping my brain around Liam choosing Olivia, but when you put it that way, it makes sense. Now I suppose I need to find Kat so I can figure out if I need to dance with Liam or something. Ugh, I cannot wait until all these balls are over.

Drake almost doubled over laughing. "Oh, Bennett, I hate to break it to you, but this shit never ends. Next will be the coronation, then some charity gala, Liam's wedding...the list goes on. Welcome to your life as a noble woman."

Riley stared ahead blankly as a giant wave of realization washed over her. It was all so much, so fast. She'd never had time to think past the next day to consider this was all ending soon, and then what? Did she stay with her new-found family and live this life that was still foreign to her in so many ways? What about her life in New York? Sure, she didn't have much going on at the moment, but she still had her aunt Susan and best friend Sarah along with some good friends at work like Daniel. Becoming a therapist was still one of her goals, at least it was until the day she left for Cordonia. Now everything was so unclear, and she could hardly breathe.

Drake must have noticed her face looking some kind of way because he placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her to an open doorway to a nearby balcony. "Why don't we get you some air before you go off and do your thing for the show?"

Once outside and around the corner of the wraparound balcony, Drake pulled Riley into his chest, holding her securely, and she was almost instantly calmed. All the what-ifs fell away, and it was just them. All she needed was the be with him, wherever that turned out to be, and everything else would fall into place.

But what if Drake didn't quite feel the same? They'd been talking as if they'd be together indefinitely, but in reality, they'd only known each other two months. The anxious fluttering in her chest started up again.

Drake pulled back to look her in the eyes. "Riley, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. You know, we're both still half American. We can move back to the states....or uh, I mean you can move back to the states if that's what you want." His eyes darted bashfully to the ground.

Riley's face lit up, the nervous thumping in her chest giving way to excited butterflies. "I like the sound of 'we' better if that's what you really meant. You'd really move back to the U.S. with me? I mean I've hardly had the chance to think about what I want, so that may be irrelevant, but you seriously see a future with me?"

"I do." Drake smiled earnestly. "I'm sure anyone who knows me will think I've gone mad, but whether it means being in New York City and putting up with cramped apartments and way too many people, living a quieter, simple life in Texas, or stealing moments away at dreadful Cordonian events such as this, I know we can make our own happiness...together."

"Wow, the Drake Walker I met two months ago would not believe what's coming out of your mouth right now." Riley touched the back of her hand to Drake's forehead in jest. "Are you sure you aren't running a fever?"

"Haha, very funny." Drake swiftly but gently pushed Riley back again the stone wall. "I'm not feeling ill, but I know how to make your temperature rise.

"You pushing me against duchy walls is becoming a thing, huh? Must have really enjoyed the almost public sex last time."

"Possibly," Drake teased as he slipped his hand through the side-slit in her icy-blue gown, gently gliding his fingers up her thigh. Riley braced herself as Drake neared the place she wanted him the most. Goosebumps gave way to a burning need before she remembered where they were.

"Wait." She pushed a hand against his chest. "We're not exactly alone here, and we've gone to such lengths to keep this under wraps. Someone could walk out here at any moment."

Drake shrugged. "I know it may be a bit reckless, but honestly at this point, I don't care. I just want you."

Riley opened her mouth to protest but nothing came out before Drake swooped in for a searing kiss. She instantly melted into him, Drake continuing his earlier action and deftly plunging two fingers inside her, his eyes widening slightly in surprise when he noticed there was no fabric barrier to work around. A strangled moan escaped Riley's throat as he stroked the exact spot he knew always left her at his mercy.

Drake pulled back with a satisfied grin. "Do you want me to stop? Just say the word and we'll go back in right now."

Instead of answering, Riley yanked him by the collar and crushed her lips to his. Drake responded by hoisting her up and over to the balcony. He perched her atop the railing, one hand grasped firmly around her waist and the other making quick work of undoing his pants.

Teetering on the narrow ledge two stories high, Riley clamped her hand tightly to the railing on either side of her and Drake noticed. "I've got you Bennett, no need to worry. I won't let anything happen to you. I'm just doing my job after all," he said with a smirk.

She smiled at his reference to what was now an inside joke between them. But all joking aside, he always made her feel safe. She released her grip, flinging her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

Drake eased his cock free and Riley could tell how hard he was just by sight, the skin stretched taught from his perfect proportion of thickness and length. He lifted her dress and she couldn't wait any longer. She pulled him in and he took the invitation to thrust inside her. Even as wet was she was, his size created just the right amount of fullness and friction to take her breath away.

Riley moaned and gasped with each thrust, which in turn seemed to turn Drake on even more. The thrill of being up so high with nothing but him to hold her only added to her excitement and when he began rubbing circles over her clit with his thumb that was all it took to push her figuratively over the edge. She tightened around him everywhere, her orgasm eliciting immense heat and pleasure with every pulse, resulting in Drake picking up his pace until his own release followed shortly thereafter.

Drake carefully set Riley down before putting himself back together. "I'm almost a little disappointed we didn't nearly get caught this time."

"If I don't get back in there immediately, that's still a possibility." Riley had no idea how much time had passed but it was probably more than she thought. "Fuck, Kat is going to be pissed." Riley straightened her skirt and started towards the ballroom door.

"Wait!" Drake puller her in for a quick kiss. "I love you. Just so you don't forget."

Riley rolled her eyes but smiled. "You know you have nothing to worry about. If Liam's charms haven't wooed me yet, I think you’re safe. But I love you too. Now go do your job." She smacked him on the ass before hustling back to the ballroom, Drake following shortly thereafter.

As expected, Kat was frantic when Riley found her. “Where the fuck were you? You were supposed to meet up with me twenty minutes ago?”

Overhearing Riley’s scolding, Olivia smugly sidled up next to them. “I mean, I didn’t mind getting extra time with Liam, but you know Jo and Kat and there ‘ratings’, Olivia said while gesturing with air quotes. She scanned Riley from head to toe and then glanced over to Drake on the perimeter. “Ugh, I can tell you exactly what, or rather who she was doing. Gross. I guess that just makes my position more secure, but really, couldn’t you have waited until after my ball to fuck him?”

Riley sheepishly smoothed her hair and adjusted her dress. “I just needed some air, that’s all. I was having a moment.”

Olivia scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever you want to call it. Although I still cannot fathom why you chose Drake, I suppose I should be a little easier on you for eliminating yourself from the competition and allowing Liam to break free of his distraction of the shiny new object.”

“Aww, Olivia, that’s so sweet. Next thing you know we’ll be best friends,” Riley replied sarcastically.

“I don’t know about friends...but I do dislike you less than the rest of them.” Olivia tried and failed to hold back a smile.

“I’ll take it,” Riley said with a laugh before turning to Jo. “Okay, now tell me where I need to be.”

Jo set Riley up with Liam on the dance floor. It still wasn’t hard to pretend to be into Liam because it wasn’t all pretend, but there was no lingering pining between them.

“Well, I spoke to my father this morning.” Liam spun Riley around and brought her back to face him.

“Finally!” Riley exclaimed. “How did that go?”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it to be completely honest, but it went surprisingly well. I told him I knew everything, and he no longer had a say in my decision. He tried to argue with me at first, but somehow something I said made him respect me. He still may not agree with my choice, but I think this is finally all over! I am free to choose who I want without any threat or blackmail hanging over my head.

Riley pulled Liam in and hugged him tightly. “That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you, and for all of us.” The weight on Riley’s shoulders was suddenly ten times lighter. She hadn’t let herself think too deeply about how much was at stake, but now that the air was clear, she realized how stressed she had been. “Now all that’s left is for you to tear my heart to pieces on national television, and you get your fairy tale ending.”

Liam chuckled. “I’ll try to let you down easy.”

-----

Drake stood in his usual position off the side of the dance floor. This may not be the last of these events he’d have to endure, but at least it should be the last time he’d have to stand on the sidelines watching Riley dance with someone else. He was secure in what they had, but it still didn’t stop that twinge of jealously seeing her and Liam together talking, touching, and having fun. But it wasn’t a bad thing that his best friend and girlfriend get along so well. Girlfriend...that’s the first time he’d used that term for anyone he’d “dated”, even if only in his head. It was hard to believe everything was falling into place.

Drake took his eyes off Riley to scan the perimeter. What he saw didn’t immediately register as out of the ordinary, but then he quickly recalled this person walking towards the dance floor wasn’t supposed to be there.

“Bastien, check out three o’clock.” Drake altered Bastien via his radio earpiece. “How did she get in here without security clearance?”

“I don’t know.” Bastien replied. “I’ll check with the other guys to see who let her in. Keep an eye on her.”

Drake watched in concern as Madeleine marched towards the dance floor. She’d been banned from the rest of filmed events after her stunt. Not wanting to let her cause a scene, Drake was about to stop her from getting any closer, when she pulled out an unmistakable object. She had a gun and it was pointed right at Riley and Liam.

Before Drake could alert the rest of the team, people started to scatter. He heard a familiar click and knew he had to disarm Madeleine immediately, but it was too late. A shot went off and he didn’t hesitate. Drake dove between the bullet and his two best friends on the dance floor, and that would be the last thing he remembered before he hit the floor.

#QOMH #TRR #drake x mc #ns*fw #playchoices fanfiction #the royal romance #my fic

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jinx-jade · 3 years

Text

A little bird and his Prey Chapter 4

Babs let out a tired groan, letting her head fall into her hands.

The bat kids had been combing these camera recordings for hours with no luck of finding any evidence or leads to who could have done it.

“Got anything?” Barbara questioned, exhaustion dripping from her voice.

“Nothing useful,” Damian said with an annoyed growl. Titus lets out a whine for attention to try and distract his human, earning him a lazy scratch behind his ear.

“Nothing,” Tim replied, setting down his laptop in favor of picking up his thermos of what they could only assume was a death brew mix of caffeine.

“Nope. Nothing suspicious here either.” Jason claimed with a groan, collapsing from his upright seated position, flopping onto his back.

“Here,” Cass claimed, rewatching the security footage once more to double-check her findings before hooking her laptop up to the tv.

“Watch,” Cass instructed, pointing to the screen.

The security feed began playing and they watched the explosion.

A few minutes later they saw themselves and the cops appear, heading straight to the scene.

Except for one of them.

Crow strayed from their path to push a civilian out of the way of falling debris.

“Nice save,” Jason called out to his younger brother before looking at his sister with a silent question.

Cass simply shook her head before pointing at the woman Damian had saved.

They watched as the civilian took what appeared to be a calming breath before beginning to move.

She ended up leaving the range of the camera, Cass switching feeds to follow her.

The bluenette casually walked into an alleyway, disappearing into the shadows.

That had the bat kids’ attention.

She didn’t just disappear from view.

She was gone.

No longer in the alleyway.

A dead-end alleyway no less.

There was no way out of the alley except for the way she entered and scaled the buildings to travel by rooftop.

None of which she did.

Cass pulled up the other feeds for all possible angles and views of the alleyway.

Nothing.

She was just gone.

“Well. Shit.” Jason claimed.

“She could just be a magic user?” Barbara tried, even though she didn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.

“It could be Menagerie.” Tim guesses with a yawn, he really should take a nap since he has a back-to-back meeting later.

“Replacement, get some sleep. Your theories are getting a bit…” Jason stopped mid-sentence.

“Fuck. That makes sense.” Jason swore as he took out his wallet, handing Cass fifty dollars.

“You couldn’t have gone another week before making outlandish theories make sense,” Jason grumbled under his breath

The other bats looked at them in questioning.

“Win bet. Thanks, little brother.” Cass said, ruffling Tim’s hair.

“O… kay?” Tim questions, scrunching his brows in confusion.

“Back on topic please,” Babs said with an exasperated tone of voice.

“Oh. Right. Ugh... Menagerie was already in Gotham when the bombings had started. The bombings are connected to the stolen heirlooms. Menagerie is already a known thief that has a habit of stealing from the upper class and their businesses.” Tim explains. “Plus Menagerie is the only magic, meta, thing, person, that can turn into or disappear into, thin air.”

The bat kids weren't sure if they liked the fact that the theory made sense or hated the fact that the theory makes sense.

If Tim was right, and there is a high chance that he is, then they now have more than a thief on their hands, they have a bombing terrorist.

Barbara ran the woman through facial recognition, and to her surprise, she got a match.

"Uhm… guys?" Barbara says, gather the other bats' attention.

"Did you figure out who she is?" Jason questioned.

"Uhm. Yeah. I got a match from facial recognition. Two matches actually." Barbara informs them.

"So she has fake identification papers?" Damian states more than asks.

"Yeah," Barbara answers a bit unsure.

"Well?" Damian asks, waiting semi impatiently, for the names.

"The first one is Marinette Dupain-Cheng, age 24," Barbara informed them.

The bats raise a brow at her hesitated to read her file.

"Her other ID?" Tim questioned.

"Marinette Constantine, age 24." Barbar read off her other identification papers.

The room fell silent.

"Constantine?" Cass questioned, receiving a nod from Barbara.

"Yup, with John Constantine listed as her father. Wait. What?" Barbara furrowed her brows in confusion as she started typing rapidly.

"Something wrong? Besides the drunk mage apparently having a kid and not telling anyone." Jason questioned.

"Uhm. Alfred is her godfather?" Barbara informs them.

There was a defining silence that fell over the room before it changes into loud shouting.

“What are you guys yelling about?” Dick questioned as he entered the room.

“We thought we found out who Menagerie cause someone with the same magic as she was caught on camera near the bombing. We ran facial recognition on her and it turns out that John Constantine has a kid, and that kid is Alfred’s godfather.” Barbara explained with a defeated sigh.

“Wait a minute! Constantine, has a kid, and Alfred is their godfather?” Dick questioned confused.

Cass gave him a thumbs up, causing Dick to let out a sigh.

“So in other news, your promising suspect is one of ours or the Justice League’s at least, which knocks her off of the suspect list. We should definitely question Alfred and Constantine later but besides that, we’re still at square one.” Dick summarized.

Each of the bats gave their annoyed agreement at Dick’s summary but agreed that it was correct nonetheless.

“Welp, It’s your call on what to do next, Little d’ since this is your case,” Dick said as he took a seat on an armrest.

“Tch. We should call a private meeting with Constantine, if we didn’t already know about his kid then it’s probably for a reason and he might not want that information to be found out by league members.” Damian told them what he thought they should do while petting Titus.

“Sounds good. What about Alfred?” Tim asked.

“We can ask about Constantine’s kid but Alfred is more likely to direct up to Constantine if we want any real answers.” Damian reasoned, receiving agreements from his siblings.

“Looks like we have our game plan. If all goes well maybe Miss….. Marinette Constantine will help us with our Menagerie problem.” Dick claimed, leaning over Barbara’s shoulder so he could read the, admittedly small, file on Constantine’s kid.

As today’s plans were rattled off, Damian realized that today was going to be a long day with far too many meetings, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

tag list: @henie04 @only-trust-fictional-characters @lolieg @Moon5608 @animegirlweeb @asrainterstellar @toodaloo-kangaroo @mystery-5-5 @dontbenddontbreak @jayjayspixiepop @ilovefluffbutsmutisalsogreat

#maribat

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bbrandy2002 · 3 years

Text

Happy Birthday Burnsy!

The Country AU -- I'm Gonna Live Where The Green Grass Grows

Pairing: Drake x Alyssa, Liam x Riley, and a whole host of other TRR characters.

A/N: This was a silly little idea I had months ago for an AU built around the places and people where I grew up. I never had plans to actually write it, but I mentioned it to Burns, and well ... she wanted it lol so here we are. And she’s already read half of this and is the one who made the mood board for it and the song inspo hahaha. Thank you to @mskaneko for the edits of our OTP’s, and @charlotteg234 for pre-reading the first half of this.

Trigger warning: Gun usage, hunting, mild language ... I think that’s it

@burnsoslow

My dearest friend, when I think back at where we were one year ago, I can’t help but be reminded of the vastly different world we live in now. On February 5, 2020, there was no covid keeping us sheltered and fearful, families were complete, jobs were stable, and so many of the things we worried about then simply pale in comparison to now, Life wasn’t so bad. But here we are with all these new changes and mindsets. Through it all, one thing remained consistent: YOU. You have been my strength, my rock, the anchor that grounded me. We have cried together, laughed a lot together, worried for each other, and celebrated those small victories that were important to each other. And I get so happy when someone comments about how much they love the friendship between Riley and Alyssa because it's the most real part of Fearless. If anyone ever wanted to know what we’re like, it's all written out in that story. I’ve got your back, and you have mine. You’re my best friend and I just love the hell out of ya! I hope your birthday is amazing and that this fic is everything you wanted for this AU.

------------------------------------

On Sunday mornings in southern Georgia, you did one of two things: You woke up early for church services or woke up late to watch NFL football.

Some people figured out a long time ago how to do both.

Sitting in the back pew of the First Cordonian Church of Everlasting Peace, Alyssa Walker sat quietly with the sweetest southern belle smile, nodding her head along to the beautiful words spoken during Pastor Hakim’s sermon and hiding a pair of earbuds lodged in each ear.

She and her husband, Drake, had laid claim to the pew when they were teens trying to sneak a kiss or two during prayers. After ten years of marriage, they no longer needed to sneak kisses but stayed in that same seat, believing the biggest sinners should stay as far away from the minister as possible. Why be the barrier that may prevent the spirit from reaching the rest of the congregation? The couple felt it was the least they could do.

They were actually pretty good folks and well respected in their community. Alyssa had taught first grade for eight years at the local elementary school, where her two children, nine-year-old Audrey and six-year-old Patrick, also attended. Her best friend since third grade, Riley, was the art teacher there.

Drake worked nearby as the lead mechanic at Rys and Sons Chevrolet out on North Ramsford Avenue. Constantine had owned the auto dealership for 35 years before passing it down to his sons, Leo and Liam, when he ran for and became the town's mayor. Leo peaced out, heading to South Florida, while Liam took on the sole responsibility of ownership himself.

And while most people in this sleepy little town of Cordonia were Falcons fanatics, Alyssa grew up rooting for the team where her parents were born and raised before settling in Georgia as newlywed lawyers: The Chicago Bears.

With the game against the Packers blaring into her ear, she kept a keen eye on the rest of her fellow parishioners. When they clapped, she clapped. When they sang, she sang. She raised her hands in hallelujahs when they did. She had learned to read lips and could “Amen” and “Praise God” right on cue with the rest of them. All the while, she sat in contentment, listening to her weekly football games.

“The score with 14 seconds left in the second quarter is Chicago -- 14, Green Bay -- 17. The Bears have the ball on the 5-yard line. It’s third and goal. If Trubisky can score here, they’ll go into the locker room at halftime with a lead for the first time in this game, or possibly tie it all up with a field goal after this down. This is a huge, HUGE play, Jim ...”

Alyssa twined her fingers together and lowered her forehead onto them as she waited with bated breath for the announcer to call the play-by-play. As far as anyone else knew, she was praying fervently for the Hebrews crossing the parted Red Sea away from Pharoah's army that the pastor was chronicling.

“And here comes the snap. Trubisky backs up. He tosses to Robinson in the end zone. OHHH! So close… batted away by Alexender …”

“JESUS!” Alyssa yelled out in anger. With earbuds in, she didn’t realize how loudly that just came out of her mouth. Drake nudged her in the thigh. She glanced over at him for a second before he nodded to the 123 pairs of eyes that had all turned at once in her direction. It instantly dawned on her that everyone in the congregation heard the outburst.

Feeling the color drain from her face, Alyssa placed a hand over her chest and addressed, “I am soooo into this sermon, Hakim. Woohoo! Go, Jesus, go!” She pumped her fist in the air like she was rooting him on.

Drake dropped his face onto Patrick’s shoulder, who was sitting on his lap, to cover the incessant laughter that threatened to spill out of him. He was doing a terrible job of it, as a momentary burst of muffled snickers could be heard through the sound of the game playing in Alyssa’s ear. Her husband was nothing but a big kid himself -- she wouldn’t change that for anything.

“Mommy,” Audrey whispered next to her. “It’s about Moses. Not Jesus.”

Alyssa smiled, patting her daughter’s knee. “Same thing, baby. They both performed miracles.” She cut her eyes to the phone hidden under the cardigan draped across her thighs. “And the Bears need a miracle right now, guys,” she muttered, “Part those shithead Packer’s defensive line, Lord. It’s time to help my Bears get to the promised land.”

“Going for it on fourth down, Trubisky drops back. The Packer defense is putting a lot of pressure on the Bear’s offensive line. Every man is covered in the end zone. He has no one to throw to, Jim. They’re running out of time. Four seconds left. And, NOOO, they sack Trubisky on the 10-yard line … WAIT THE BALL IS LOOSE … THE BALL IS LOOSE ... he fumbled the ball. The Packers are scrambling to get it. There are green and white jerseys all over that ball. BUT LOOK … Green Bay’s Klark picks it up. He’s running the other way … and he just slipped … he just slipped, and the football fell right into the hands of Chicago’s Robinson --”

Alyssa grabbed Drake’s thigh, her fingers digging deeply with hope and panic. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” her stressed words weren’t audible to the crowd, but they were speaking volumes in her heart.

“--Robinson’s on the 20, now 15, he’s sweeping past the defense to the 10 -- 5 -- TOUCHDOWN, CHICAGO!!!”

"FUCK YES!" Alyssa jumped up, her arms outstretched in a V shape. “Hallelujah. Holy shit. Thank ya, Jesus.” She let out a huge sigh of relief, feeling nothing short of elated, not concerned in the slightest by the heads that twisted around again.

Hakim stood slack-jawed from the raised platform for a moment, his tallish physique slouching on the pulpit, before adjusting the microphone and clearing his throat deeply. "I'm certainly glad, Sister Alyssa is ... feeling the spirit this morning."

"I am feeling it, Brother Hakim," She shook her head profusely. "I. Am. Feeling it." She shot him a dimpled grin.

Drake snorted loudly, covering his face with one hand and grabbing the side of her dress to pull her back down with the other.

They turned to each other, neither one able to control the snickering and shaking of their bodies. Drake lifted a sleeping Patrick over his shoulder while Alyssa grabbed Audrey's hand; the Walker couple decided they were too immature for church this morning.

They laughed all the way to the parking lot.

"It's never a dull moment with you, baby girl," Drake chuckled, turning over the ignition.

"You know me …” She blew on her nails before rubbing them against her chest. “... just doing the Lord's work."

--------------

It was customary in Cordonia for families to gather together each week for a big supper after church.

The Walkers traditionally took turns hosting with Liam and Riley, and Constantine and Regina. This week's meal was at the elder Ryses.

Sitting down at the dining room table, everyone licked their chops, hungry and ready to dig into all the made-from-scratch southern goodness Mrs. Regina had prepared: Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, macaroni and cheese, green beans with hamhock, corn-on-the-cob, deviled eggs, biscuits, sweet tea, and coffee. It was all accompanied by two containers of broccoli salad, Alyssa picked up from the Piggly Wiggly deli after church, and Riley's lopsided carrot cake.

There was always a lot of food, a lot of love, and what would it be in a small town without a little gossip here and there.

"Regina, you've outdone yourself on this meal," Liam raved while placing his five-month-old son in a high chair and fastening the clasps. "If it tastes as good as it smells, we're all in for a big treat."

Everyone agreed as she sat down, Constantine pushing her chair in with a peck to the top of her head. "Thank you, Liam." She looked up at her husband with a sincere smile, rubbing his arm. "Only the best for our family."

She meant every word of that as she and Constantine glanced around the table at all the cheerful faces of the people they loved most — that included Drake and his family.

Drake's father had been the sheriff for many years before his untimely death, while the younger Walker was a teen. Connie had never met a braver, more hard-working man than Jackson; the now mayor stepped in after that death to be the father figure in Drake's life. Drake was already best friends with Liam, and over time, the family just considered him one of their own. Drake and Alyssa's children referred to them as Mamaw and Papaw Rys.

As everyone settled in and passed the food around the table, the doorbell rang; 7-year-old Ellie -- Liam and Riley's oldest -- jumped up to answer it. With everyone focused on getting their helpings, Riley leaned over and whispered to Alyssa, "Any more scoop on Savannah?"

Alyssa passed the potatoes to her and answered in a hushed tone, "I drove past her house yesterday ... Chuck was there. His big rig was backed right up into the driveway. They're not even trying to hide it anymore."

"I knew it." Riley slapped a scoop of potatoes onto her plate, passing them across to Liam. "When does Bertrand get back from that Bankers Convention in Atlanta?"

"I think Max said on Tuesday. And I guarn-damn-tee, Chuck will be there until then."

"Of course he will. Have you told Drake yet?"

Alyssa shook her head, peeking over at her husband, who was in hog heaven, dousing everything on his plate with white gravy, blissfully unaware of their idle chitchat. She turned back to Riley. "Not yet. You know how protective he is. I'll need to hide the gun cabinet keys when he finds out ... if he finds out. You remember how upset he got when Bianca got caught at the Love's Truck Stop with Landon Ebrim over the summer. His mama can do what she wants, but not with a married man."

Riley agreed with a nod before taking a sip and swallowing her sweet tea. "Ya know, I've never seen sweet Emmaline that angry."

"Yeah, me neither. She sure whopped ass that day." They both giggled lightly. "Landon's dentures flew clean across that truck lot."

"I saw her the other day at the Food Lion, grinnin' like a baked possum. Got that ol' dog for everything he had."

Alyssa huffed, "Cept' his nuts."

Ellie ran back in and hopped in her chair. "Miss Olivia is here!"

Alyssa stiffened, clutching her fork a little tighter before letting out a faint groan. Not that she didn't like the Assistant Principal of Cordonia Elementary -- she was her boss, after all, and they grew up together -- she could just be a little off-putting, sometimes with her treatment of Drake. In light of Olivia's recent divorce, she had, however, started directing most of her scorn on her ex-husband, Anton.

Everyone greeted Olivia as she strolled in behind the youngster, shrugging her jacket off and tossing it on a counter with her purse. "I smelled your chicken and taters all the way from Lythikos Drive, Regina. You know how I love a good rib stickin' meal."

"Is Travis and Waylon here?" Patrick piped up eagerly from the children's table, hoping to have some boys to play with rather than the three little girls who kept ganging up on him.

Olivia pulled out a chair and started loading her plate down. "They're with their daddy this weekend, sugar. I'll tell them you asked about them."

Drake lifted his coffee mug, not making eye contact with anyone. "Speaking of ... I saw Anton yesterday at the Dollar Tree ... with someone." He smirked into his drink. While everyone else knew who and was trying to avoid the elephant in the room, he owed her for years of squabble.

"Who? Madeleine?" Olivia spat, adding heaping spoonfuls of sugar to her already overly sweetened tea. "Bless her rotten heart, he was seeing her before our break up. Moved in with her right after the divorce was final, so I hope she's enjoyed cookin' and cleanin' after my youngins' all weekend, cause she's gonna be doin it a hell of a lot more now that she got herself fired."

Madeleine was a bank teller in the drive-thru at First Cordonia and also Leo's ex-fiancee.

"Madeleine got fired?" Alyssa asked in surprise. "She's been there for years."

The redhead swirled the sugar around in her tea with a spoon before licking it off and continuing, "Mmm-hmm. Bertrand caught her on video, stuffing her gaudy drawers into the vacuum tubes at the bank and sending them to that bastard when he drove through to make a deposit. He was making deposits alright. Right between her scrawny, cankled ass --"

"Olivia!" Liam quickly interjected, knowing once she got going, it would likely turn R-rated with several little ears listening. "I'm dying to hear how the Christmas Festival for next Saturday is coming along." He shot a look across the table at Drake for getting her worked up. Drake simply grinned.

By late afternoon, supper had been eaten, dishes cleaned, and pants unbuttoned. After a couple of hours of chatting on the back porch and watching the kids play, the two younger couples packed up leftovers Regina insisted they take home and were ready to hit the road.

Liam and Riley lived next door and walked out with the Walkers who were making their way to the Tahoe parked on the street.

Alyssa bounced and cooed over baby Jacob before handing him back to Riley and getting into the vehicle's passenger seat.

Liam was leaning into the driver's side window, having a casual discussion with Drake about the opening day of deer season next Saturday and asking what time he wanted to head out.

Alyssa was half-listening and half-working the stereo when an idea popped into her head. "You know what would be fun?” Both men stopped talking and glanced over at her. “We should all go?”

Drake knit his brows. “Go where?

“Hunting. We can make it a double date. You and me, Riley and Liam. The great outdoors. Some quality time together. I’ll even make snacks for everyone. It’ll be fun,” her voice was chipper. She was excited about it.

She was also deadly serious.

So were the dubious looks Drake and Liam gave each other over the thought of taking their wives on the most important hunting event of their year. Not that either didn't enjoy spending time with their significant others, but hunting was a whole different world. It was a one-person sport where you spent the day away from reality and responsibilities and just enjoying the great outdoors —a place to be alone and experience the thrill of a good hunt.

“Guys, I’m serious. We go fishing together, and I’ve shot targets plenty of times. I really wanna go hunting with you. Riley wants to go too, don't you?” She cast an inquisitive glance out her window at Riley, who glared back with the biggest what-the-fuck look she'd ever made. “See, she wants to go too.”

“Baby,” Drake began softly, giving her knee light squeezes. “I don’t mind taking you, but this is opening day. We’ll be in the woods for hours, in the cold. It’s not really what someone would consider a ‘date.’ And we’re going to the Festival that night … we’ll get a chance to spend time together there.”

She held his gaze as her lips began to quiver. “I understand. You .. you need time to be away from me, and it was a dumb idea anyway --”

“No,” Drake cut in. His heart plummeted from the sadness in her voice and eyes. “That’s not it at all. I love spending time with you. And if you really want to do this, then … let’s do this.”

“Really? We can go together?” Drake nodded with a smile before she squealed in his ear and pulled him into a tight hug. “I can’t wait! Thank you!”

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Liam let out a heavy breath as he looked over at Riley -- The woman he knew would not be a fun hunting partner next week -- still standing on the sidewalk, appearing like she might faint. “Yeah ... I can’t wait either.”

---------------------

Saturday. 5:15 a.m. The cellphone alarm on Drake’s bedside table let off a series of rhythmic beeping sounds and vibrations.

The alarm wasn’t needed. The man had been awake for hours, listening to his wife's gentle snores; the anticipation of bringing home at least a 12-pointer keeping him from falling back asleep.

Letting out a ferocious yawn and a hearty stretch, he picked up his phone to dismiss the alarm and rolled over to wake Alyssa.

With her ass perfectly curled into the space between his stomach and thighs, his hands settled on her curvy hip, jostling her slightly. “Time to get up, my little peach. We gotta get crackin’ before all the good deer are gone.”

“I just need one more hour, okay? Thanks,” she protested with a drowsy murmur, pulling the pillow over her head.

Drake chuckled, rubbing soothing circles over her back. “No. We have to get up now. We’re wasting time, sleepyhead. Unless … you don’t want to go.”

Alyssa’s heavy eyes stung as she tried to peel them open one at a time. “No, I wanna … go ...” she trailed. Her eyes slowly shut again, and she was out.

On a day like today, Drake was usually up and ready in ten minutes. Once he could finally get his wife out of bed, dressed, and back awake again from where she fell asleep on the toilet, it was close to 45 minutes.

Maxwell, who was also a childhood friend and the music teacher where Alyssa taught, rented the room over their garage. He agreed to come down that morning and watch the kids while the pair spent their morning in the woods. Bianca used to help out in that regard, but the kids complained she slept the whole time, and Alyssa was pretty sure her mother-in-law smoked pot around them.

Drake loaded up the truck, placing his rifle and a smaller .22 caliber for Alyssa behind the seat. Dragging herself slowly to the vehicle, the night sky still pitch black and her breath turning to thick vapors in the frigid air, she listlessly tossed a Taylor Swift tote bag on the floorboard and climbed in.

Drake looked at his phone after everything was packed up to see if Liam had sent a message about being late. It was unusual for him not to be there already. Typically, his best friend was up and at his house before Drake was even ready. He sent off a quick text to check.

Drake: Where you at, man?

Liam: Running late. Riley had to put makeup on and do her hair.

Liam: I’m having so much fun already 😑

Liam: snark

Drake: Lyss couldn’t decide which gloves looked the best with her orange vest. I guess she wants to impress the deer before she kills them.

Liam: We’re not catching deer today. We’ll be lucky if we catch a cold. Be there in 10.

Twenty minutes later, Liam’s gray Silverado pulled onto the Walker’s gravel drive. Riley had wanted biscuits and gravy from McDonald's, and she had to run back inside to pee, so that set them back. But, with everyone now there, they were finally ready to head out.

Just down the rural road from where Drake and Alyssa lived, the current sheriff of Cordonia, Bastien, owned several acres of unoccupied land that he used for recreation. He had been a close friend of Drake’s dad and agreed to let Drake and Liam hunt and fish on his property whenever they wanted.

Turning onto the dirt road and opening the gate, the four friends arrived at their spot just as dawn was breaking.

No one spoke much as they trekked through the mud, sticks, and brittle fall leaves that littered the path to the deer stands. Riley and Alyssa were too exhausted to say anything. Drake and Liam just weren’t used to talking at all.

"Riley, love,” Liam whispered softly. “Can you watch how you’re walking? The noise is going to scare the deer away.”

“I can’t help it if … " She reacted loudly in frustration before Liam placed a finger over his lips, and she resumed speaking more quietly. “I can’t help it if there're leaves everywhere. I’m walking on them as delicately as possible.”

“How much further? I think my toes are frozen and I need coffee.” Alyssa bemoaned while walking on the balls of her heels. Drake was basically dragging her sluggish body by the hand. Her eyes were still drooping from exhaustion with every careful step.

“Just over yonder of that fence row is our stand.” He pointed out.

Alyssa aimed her flashlight around the woods in several spots. "And where do we pee at?"

Liam lightly snorted as Drake answered matter-of-factly. "Just over yonder of that fence row below our stand."

"Oh ... " her tone was small and apprehensive, "... I guess that's ... okay." She glanced back timidly at Liam, who was following close behind.

He shielded his eyes from the beam of her flashlight in his face and frowned. "I'm not going to watch you pee, Alyssa."

Riley gasped, "Eww! I don't want Drake watching me pee either."

"Shhhhh." Liam was quick to remind her again of the volume of her voice.

"Stop, shushing me, Liam! Those deer don't know I'm out here."

Drake grunted, then whipped around to face the three of them. "Would you keep your voices down? No one's watching anybody take a piss," he whisper-yelled. "Lyssa and I will be at least a hundred yards away from ya'll. Riley, I promise you can piss your little heart out, and I won't see it."

"We're separating?" Alyssa asked wistfully. "What if I need to ask Riley something, and she can't hear me yelling across to her?"

"You'll just have to ask her when we're done, baby girl. And ... please don't yell questions to her while we're out here. Low voices."

They continued on with their noisy hike.

"Having so much fun," Liam grumbled to himself.

-------------------

Liam and Riley headed to their tree stand as Drake helped Alyssa climb up the ladder to theirs.

The stand and ladder were made of plywood -- chipped and faded from years of exposure to the elements -- and were attached at the apex to an oak tree about twenty feet off the ground. At the top it had enough room to take a step onto, with a wooden seat just wide enough to accommodate them. One plank rail came out on both sides.

Alyssa plopped down onto the seat, clutching her tote bag of goodies on her lap. She lifted the brim of the orange beanie she borrowed from Drake -- that smelled of animal carcass and gun powder -- above her eyes and peered out to the wilderness spread monumentally below. She closed her eyes and slowly inhaled the fresh, dewy air, taking in the sounds of twittering birds, branches clashing from the nearby squirrel frolicking on them, and the rippling of a bubbling brook streaming down the hill.

A pleasant warmth overcame her as Drake's much larger body sat down next to her and protected her from the frosty wind blowing in from his side.

Alyssa wrapped her arms around his waist, snuggling into him. "I can see why you like this so much. It's so quiet and peaceful ... look how purty it is out here, Drake. It's just real purty, isn't it?"

Working diligently on getting their gear together, he stopped briefly to look out; affection glowed in his eyes. “It sure is, darlin’. Almost as purty as you ... and notice I said 'almost.'” He winked, and Alyssa blushed, feeling that same love trickling up inside her she'd had since they were teenagers. Drake could charm the pants off a chipmunk, but she was thankful he only used that gift on her.

"Sooo ... " She drawled in her thick Southern accent. "How long will it be before the deer start coming out?"

Drake drew the barrel of her gun back after loading it with shells and explained, "Don't know. It could be minutes. It could be a few hours. Just whenever they head this way, I reckon."

Perplexed, Alyssa nodded slowly. "A few hours? I s'pose that's okay. What do you do while you're waiting?"

He shrugged, passing a gun to her. "You just ... sit here."

"You just sit here and do what?"

Drake leaned over to kiss into her orange cap and replied, "Wait."

"Wait." She acknowledged. "I can do that. I'll just sit here ... and wait."

Several minutes had passed, and Alyssa was already bored with listening to nature, Drake's gurgling stomach, and sitting quietly with nothing to do. Every so often, a shotgun blast was heard in the distance, signifying either someone out there had gotten their prize or Riley had driven Liam insane. It was the only break from the monotony that came with the boredom of sitting in a tree for who knew how many hours.

Letting out a giant exhale that caught Drake's attention, she propped her rifle against the railing and pulled the cloth tote that was sitting between her boots into her lap. Rummaging through the bag, she pulled out her phone and began thumbing out a message.

Drake furrowed his brows and asked, "What're you doin'?"

"Just texting Riley,' she answered dismissively. He shook his head and leaned it back against the tree while she formulated her message.

Alyssa: You still alive over there? How's it going?

Riley: This is boring as shit.

Riley: And now my texting is apparently scaring away the deer. F the deer Liam. F all the damn deer!!!! What were you thinking, Lyss?

Alyssa: I was thinking we could spend quality time with our husbands. The men we love and cherish with all of our hearts. I’m having a great time with Drake so far 😍😘

Alyssa: And no one twisted your arm to come bitch.

Riley: Liam's just staring through binoculars. He hasn’t spoken in 20 minutes except to tell me to point the gun away from him or to quit moving. Let’s go get our hair did at Adelaide's.”

Alyssa: OHHH Yes! And get Chinese food ... CRAB RANGOONS!! I'll have Drake drive us back. Girls Day Out. Love you!

Drake let out a belch and blew it away when Alyssa turned to him with a dazzling smile and a sparkle in her blues. "Can you drive Riley and me back to the house?"

"What? Right now?" he shrieked. She answered him with a cheerful nod. "What happened to all that talk about wanting to spend quality time with me?"

"I still do. But ... we're just sitting here, not really doing anything. I could be getting my hair done for tonight's festival. I also have a ton of laundry to do, some papers to grade, and I’m supposed to be making the Devereaux’s famous peach cobbler for the raffle. If I leave now, I’ll have time to do all of it.” Alyssa knew she probably wouldn’t do half of that, and Audrey would likely make the cobbler, but it made the situation sound more urgent.

"It's opening day, baby. I'm not leaving this spot." He reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out his keys. "If you and Riley wanna take my truck, I'll ride back with Liam."

She gave him an exasperated look. "I don't know my way back to the truck. And I sure as hell know Riley doesn't."

He smirked, stuffing his keys back. "Then you're stuck."

The next hour was brutal. Alyssa texted Riley to alleviate the boredom for several minutes, but there had been no responses in a long while. She wasn't aware that Liam tossed her friend's phone over the hill when she started making TikTok videos of her plight -- Liam took his deer hunting seriously: No noise meant no noise.

Drake wasn't much better; he was quieter than his usual self. It wouldn't have been so bad if she could at least talk. An occasional whispered word was not going to cut it.

Alyssa sighed heavily. She wiggled around for comfort. She unwrapped a Nutty Bar. She crunched. She opened a can of pop. She tapped her fingers. She flipped the pages of a magazine. Each one got that look from Drake that let her know it was too loud. If she ever made it out of there, she planned to jabber and stir until she couldn't do it anymore.

After another half-hour of stewing quietly in her thoughts without a sign of a deer anywhere, Alyssa decided now was the time to finally just talk.

"Do you ever think about having another baby?" It was a topic that had been on her mind for a while. To her surprise, Drake didn't give her a look or even freak out the way she anticipated. Despite his own rule of silence, he even responded in kind.

"Yeah. Kind of a lot."

Her right brow darted up. "Really?"

Drake took a breath and shifted the gun across his lap. "I mean, of course. It's always been my dream to settle down and have a bunch of youngin's with the woman I love." He studied her lit-up face; he'd swore she'd gotten more beautiful with age. That's why he hesitated when he added, "But ... "

Her shoulders slumped at his words, and a deflated look impressed upon her face. "But ... " The word barely made it past her lips.

Drake reached for her hand and gripped it tightly. "Lyssa, we have so much going on right now. You're working on National Boards, Audrey has piano recitals and basketball, Patrick has peewee football and Boy Scouts. We barely have time -- except for right now -- for just ... us. I'm not saying,"never"... just that right now ... isn't a good time."

"I understand that, but ... we've always made it work. And don't you miss those tiny little fingers wrapped around yours? And the way they smell fresh out of the bath? And those chubby little cheeks pressed up against yours?" she goaded.

“Of course I do. I remember the first time I held Audrey and PJ in my arms -- there’s just no better feeling in the world than ...to look down ... " Drake paused as his voice cracked, and his brown eyes glistened like glass. " ... and to see someone so small ..." When she sniffled, it made it that much harder for him to speak. "... that you created with the woman you've loved since you were 16 years old. But I like who they are now, and watching them grow, and doing things with them ... And, well ... there’s no shit clean up.”

“You obviously haven’t washed Patrick's clothes in a while,” Alyssa retorted with a chuckle that brought out one in her husband.

"I’ll have to talk to him about that." He gazed deeper into her eyes. "But I do love you ... more than all the peaches in Georgia, Lyssa Claire.”

Alyssa smiled.“That’s what you said to me when you promised to marry me when we were teens.”

Drake returned his own smile. “I did. I remember like it was yesterday too. Sitting in your parent’s basement, watching Friends reruns, eating pizza, making out. And hell, it’s still as true today as it was then. Somehow, even more."

Their cold lips parted and joined halfway for a fervent kiss, with Drake's hand meandering around the subtle groove at the junction of her waist. Just as it became more intense and desirous, a rustling of twigs off in a nearby thicket caught Drake's ear, and he broke away, his eyes scoping the perimeter. Alyssa wasn't offended, she heard it too, and her heart raced with excitement.

Lifting the binoculars hanging from his neck, he spotted two deer eating from a blackberry patch some thirty yards away. He pointed in their direction; Alyssa gave a quick thumbs up, letting him know she saw them too.

Drake carefully lifted the rifle resting in his lap as Alyssa leaned forward and squinted to get a better visual. "Is that a buck and a doe?" she whispered, not moving an inch.

"Sure as fuck is." He mounted the stock of his .30 caliber, Winchester, just beneath his collarbone; the rush of this moment coursed ravenously through his body. He lined up the scope and placed a steady finger on the trigger -- his thumb pulling the hammer back.

“Wait.” Alyssa loudly whispered. “You can’t shoot him.”

"I'm gonna. Better cover your ears."

"No, Drake. There's a doe with him. What if that's his wife? You can't just leave her all alone without him."

"Lyss, this is the whole reason we're out here."

"So you can make a widow out of her?"

"No ... so I can make deer chili out of him."

Alyssa's mouth flew open. "No. No. RUUUUUUUUN! RUUUUUUN!"

Drake pulled his face away from the scope and fired her a look. "What the hell are you doing? They're getting away!"

She tilted her chin boldly. "I don't care. That was her husband, and they're in love, and you can't take that away from them. I would be so sad if we were just out eating berries and someone came up and shot you, ALL SO THEY COULD EAT DRAKE CHILI!".

Drake dropped his head. He knew there was no point in arguing with her. As long as he’d known her, she was stubborn, and at that moment, she was dead set in believing those two deer were living out the greatest romance of all time. Nothing he said or did would change her mind on that.

A thought emerged while he attempted to comprehend the logic of the situation. Those deer ran off in the direction where Liam was set up. Maybe if he could give his friend a heads up, it was still possible at least someone would leave those woods with the prized buck.

Turning his back from Alyssa so that she couldn't stop him, he pulled a small walkie-talkie from his pocket and radioed Liam. Alyssa knew what was up and jumped to her feet, thrusting her arms around him in an attempt to stop the travesty.

"You can't do this, Drake," she hollered, "That’s her soulmate. And why don't I have a walkie-talkie? I want a walkie-talkie!"

While seated next to Liam, Riley was swinging her legs, purposefully making the soles of her boots scrape against the platform. Liam tried to ignore her; maybe he had been a little too uptight about every little noise and utterance she made. But this was playing a whole different ballgame now: she was now making it her mission to piss him off.

Prepared to pound his head against the tree, Liam gritted his teeth, skimming his eyes in her direction. "Love, do you have to do that?"

"Did you have to throw my phone in the woods?" She spat back.

Liam rubbed his hand over his face. "No, and I am sorry that. I apologize for all of eternity. I promise I will get you another one as soon as we get back, okay?”

Riley huffed. "Fine, but that phone had all of my contacts on it. It had our babies' pictures and videos on it ... our vacation photos. I can't get those memories back ever, and I have to find it, and God only knows where it landed. It could be ..." She stopped rattling on when she caught sight of the distressed look Liam was giving her. Knitting her brows, Riley asked, "What?"

"Nothing ... just ... can you lower your voice a little? You're gonna scare the deer away,"

He regretted it as soon as it came out.

“LIAAAAM!”

He saw the steam gushing out of her ears. There was no time to answer the incoming call on his walkie-talkie from Drake.

Belting out a furious screech, Riley jumped up and tried to jerk the gun from his hands. There was no question she wouldn't shoot him, but she'd sure as hell shred his favorite gun apart piece-by-piece and toss them all the way to Portavira Lake on the other side of town.

Riley tugged with all of her might. "I have HAD IT with being quiet for those damn deer, Liam. HAD IT!"

"Sweetheart, you need to calm down ..." He stood up in front of her, pulling back on the rifle even harder, surprised -- and not pleasantly so -- his considerably smaller wife had this much struggle in her.

"Don't you sweetheart me. You have shushed me for the last time, Liam Preston Rys!"

“Okay, I’m sorry! But can you at least admit us fighting over a gun is dangerous? Somebody is going to get seriously hurt, and I don’t want it to be you, Riley. Please. I won’t shush you anymore, I promise.” His face softened, eventually adorning a loving smile at his wife, who, with a sigh, was unable to resist that handsome face and relaxed her grip.

Riley gave him a half-smile in return. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve ruined your hunting trip.”

“Yes ... you did.” Liam agreed, dodging the playful slap she nearly made to his upper arm. “But I don’t want to fight anymore.”

With the War of the Ryses finally over, they went in for a makeup kiss until Drake’s voice called out to Liam again through his walkie talkie. Liam set the gun down on the bench and leaned it against the tree before he started digging into his pocket to answer the device. Riley dropped down onto the seat, her elbow brushed against the rifle and caused it to slide away until the barrel end hit the railing and set off a powerful blast.

When the ringing in both of their ears subsided, and the smoke had cleared, Liam and Riley collected themselves from the sudden spine-gripping explosion that shook them both. While Riley explained to Liam what happened, a hysterical sounding Drake came back over the walkie-talkie, wailing, “Alyssa’s been shot! Alyssa’s been shot! Help me!”

__________________

Later that evening, in the courthouse square, the street was lit up with zig-zagged rows of red, green, and white lights. Strands of garland were wound around every lamppost in perfect spiraled loops, and red bows hung and waved with the wintry breeze.

With traffic rerouted away from the area, vendors lined sidewalks selling local goods to put the town's citizens in the festive spirit. What would this small town in Georgia have been without boiled peanuts, low country boil, fried green tomatoes, barbecue, and peach everything?

Once Constantine had lit the 30-foot spruce, surrounded by hundreds of merry people from all walks of life that made up this small community, the festival was officially kicked-off.

In a large tent set up on the square, Liam and Riley laid out styrofoam containers and drinks they’d purchased from a barbeque vendor on one of several picnic tables inside. With their two young daughters munching away on their meal, and the stroller with their sleeping son beside them, they both sat down with heavy hearts and restless minds.

Liam bit into his barbecue sandwich, noticing Riley only prodding at her mac-and-cheese while staring off into the distance. He didn’t have to ask what was wrong; he knew what happened that morning was bothering her with guilt and worry. It wasn’t every day she accidentally shot someone.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Riley shook her head slightly with a sad look. “No. It’s just not the same without Alyssa here. You know how much she loves Christmas and the festival. She was so looking forward to it too, until --”

“You shot her.”

“Yeeeeeesssss,” she cried out. Liam reached across the table and gave her hand a comforting squeeze, his thumb caressing her smooth skin. Riley continued to sniffle as she grabbed a handful of napkins and wiped the barbecue sauce off Liam’s sticky fingers that were now smeared all over hers. “I didn’t mean to, I swear it. And the way … and the way Drake cried. It broke my heart. Now he has her on bed rest AND house arrest. He won’t let her take calls. I’ll never see or hear from my bestie agaaaain.” The tears continued to flow in steady streams.

Liam stiffened, feeling the eyes of everyone in that tent, gawking at his overly-dramatic wife breaking down. He started to tell her to lower her voice, but after the gun battle in the woods, he thought better of it. “Riley, darlin’, you know Drake is really overprotective of Alyssa. And as scary as what happened was, she only needed the one stitch and band-aid for her graze wound. Something tells me Drake won’t be able to keep her down long.”

---------------------------

Liam was right. As much as Drake tried to keep her in bed so he could wait on her hand and foot, protect her from the careless friends of the world who could inadvertently do his baby girl harm, and check to see if she needed a new band-aid every few minutes, he could not keep her down. She had been far too excited to hang out with the people she loved so much and celebrate at one of her favorite festivals.

Maxwell had left for the events with Audrey and Patrick an hour ago; they were part of the children’s caroling group and needed to be there early. Against Drake’s wishes, Alyssa showered, got dressed, and made sure he knew in no uncertain terms would he be able to prevent her from going. The only thing he knew to do was to go, follow her around the entire night, and make sure she wouldn’t get shot again.

They circled the block where everything was held several times, but spaces to park were impossible to find. Three blocks away was the church where they attended, and the parking lot was completely empty. Drake didn’t like the fact that Alyssa would have to walk so far in her debilitated condition and was prepared to haul her piggyback style if he had to, but this was the best spot he could find.

Drake moved the gearshift into park and reached over to grab Alyssa’s arm, who was already bounding out the door. He pulled Alyssa back inside, the chilly air blowing through her open door swept her straighten hair this way and that way.

She cocked her head to the side and exhaled, “Drake, I can open my own door. I’m not broken. It’s just a scratch. I’m fine.”

“I know.” He smiled that tenderhearted smile only Alyssa had ever seen. The same one sending a shudder through her already chilled body. “I changed my mind,” he replied simply

Alyssa slammed her eyes shut and groaned. “I just told you I was fine --”

“No, no,” He shook his head. “About having another baby. I want to start trying.”

Saddled with curiosity, she slid back into the truck and shut the door. “But, I thought you said we didn’t have time for that --”

“Yeah, I did say that. I still believe it. But … today made me realize that yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today …”

Alyssa’s hand flew to her mouth as she laughed out loud. Drake gave her a confused look before chuckling awkwardly to himself, “What’s so funny?”

She lowered her hand, still laughing. “You got that saying from a quote on a poster in my classroom. You’re the one who hung it up for me.”

The memory dawned on him, and he lowered his head, attempting to cover the guilty grin that spread over it. “Well, hell. Here I was trying to make you think I was all insightful and smart and stuff.”

Alyssa’s hand splayed across his rugged chest as she leaned over to kiss him.“You are very insightful and smart. You know I never settle for anything less than the best.”

“I s’pose.” he said, forking his fingers through his hair. “But … I guess what I wanted to say was … I know that bullet missed you, barely … but what if it hadn’t? What if I’d left those woods without you today? Just like you were afraid that doe might. Time wouldn’t matter anymore. There will NEVER be enough time with you. You’re my life, Alyssa Claire. You’re my lover, my friend, my heart, my confidante, my soul, my everything … my little peach. I want to experience all that life has given me with you as my wife … and forever make time with you.”

“DRAAAKEY!” she bawled, spreading her tiny arms wide around his bulky body. Alyssa drew him into her so hard it nearly crushed the wind right out of his lungs. “I -- love -- you -- so muuuch!” Drake patted her back and kissed into her hair as she sniveled into his shirt. He hated when she cried, but damn if this didn’t feel good to him. Anytime she was happy made him that way too.

They took a moment to kiss and pet each other a little before Alyssa sat up and asked, “So … when do you want to start trying for a new baby Walker?”

He shrugged. “Whenever you want, baby.”

Alyssa looked through the back window of the truck and scanned the parking lot. She bit her lip and looked back at him impishly. “What about … now?”

Drake’s eyes flew open wide. “In the church parking lot?”

Pursing her lips, she affirmed, “Yes. We’ve done it behind the Piggly Wiggly plenty of times. And let's not forget the ‘Great Ass Blow-out of 2019’ in the Atlanta Convention Center parking garage.”

“I will never forget that.” Drake shook his head as that momentous sexual experience replayed in his mind. “Mmmm, you performed magic that day, woman.”

She raised a brow and coaxed him on, “So? What’dya say?”

Drake took a tentative look around at the dark, empty lot, then back at her. “We’re so going to hell, but I’m in.”

“Eeeeeee,” she squealed, jerking his arm around in excitement. “Try to keep your ass out of the window this time, okay?”

Thirty minutes later, Pastor Hakim pulled into the church parking lot with Mara, the game warden, following behind in her truck. There had been several reports from passerby’s of loud animals howling and screeching behind the church. The stray cat population was out of control in that area, and several cats had burrowed their way inside the church on occasion.

Hakim parked his car, with Mara pulling in beside him. They both got out simultaneously and listened quietly to see if they could decipher where the commotion was coming from.

Within seconds, a load moan roared out, followed by several consecutive whimpers that were hard to make out by the duo.

Mara listened intently, then gestured with her flashlight to an area near the back of the lot where clusters of shrubs and dry brush bordered. Hakim ambled behind her, the noise getting closer and closer until the pastor's brow furrowed at the shaking of a nearby truck.

“Damn, teenagers,” he grumbled as they tipped toed discreetly.

Mara crouched down by the truck's tailgate, Hakim bending over while she duck-walked toward the driver's side door.

The game warden turned to the pastor and instructed, “On my three. 1 -- 2 -- 3.” They both jumped up at the same time, flashing the light inside the cab. “HAHA Caught ya! OH MY GOD!”

Alyssa, who was on top of Drake, completely naked except for the band-aid on her left arm, looked up in utter humiliation and shock. She crossed her arms over her chest to cover her breast, feeling like she might faint. Not knowing what to say at that moment to rectify their actions or why those two were still staring inside the truck, Alyssa smiled sheepishly. “I’m still feeling the spirit, Hakim.”

---------------------------------

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#drake x alyssa #Liam x Riley #gun usage #hunting

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