#g o d the broken voice? the way it seems to catch in his throat cuz he doesnt really want to admit how much it hurts

[reineyday]

i would like to take a moment to express how much i love yaku's seiyuu! like his vocal tone is so melodious and light and you can hear the playful warmth in his voice, it's like energetic and gentle at the same time? it's just so perfect for yaku, who gets exasperated and yells but also cares so much :')) kudos tachibana shinnosuke!!!

#i think about his vocal tone enough to warrant expression tbh #the way he has this slight breathy edge to his voice when hes exasperatedly telling lev off in land vs air #like even when hes exasperated at his senpai you can tell he cares #tachibana shinnosuke #yaku morisuke #haikyuu!! #rei rambles #like his voice is just so expressive #listening to him voice yaku is like the equivalent of dancing on your toes #his voice is like if twinkle toes was a sound but i mean that in a very very positive way #his voice is like ballet idk how to express this #speaking of seiyuu moments: kacchan vs deku 2 when bkg is heartbroken and he's like 'why was it me' #g o d the broken voice? the way it seems to catch in his throat cuz he doesnt really want to admit how much it hurts #you can audily hear how profoundly the guilt has affected him #idk might make this its own post cuz it's also worth noting but yeah #vocal performances man #you KNOW its good when the emotions come through loud and clear despite me knowing absolutely zero japanese #like i could hear these guys without subs and id still empathize and understand #anyways #long tags

[havokangel]

state of grace (bucky barnes x reader)

the classic nightmare trope, with some angst

♡

a/n; this part 1/3 of my series inspired by taylor swift’s album, red (hey, i may possibly do more!) this is dedicated to my lovely best friend. love u the most <3 i’d also appreciate if ya’ll left some love on ao3 :)

link to ao3

 ----------

You come around and the armor f a l l s

Pierce the room like a c a n n o n b a l l

Now, all we know, is don’t l e t g o.

Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace….

His body twitches as those words come to him in his sleep, brow furrowing and muscles tensing. His heart feels like it’s a fucking hammer in his chest as his physical body feebly attempts to fight back against the dreadful words being whispered to him in his dream. With every word, the voice gets louder, and Bucky’s body reacts like he has no control over himself, as he desperately tries to fight back against it in his current state. All he can see are flashes of his past life as his breathing becomes steadily uneven as if he’s drowning in red, in the feeling of not being able to escape.

Nine, benign, homecoming, one….

He sucks in a sharp breath. The breath feels like sandpaper being forced down his throat, and he can't stop it.

Suddenly, he’s not in his bed anymore.

He’s clinging for his life, the cold bitter air whipping around his face. The train feels so real.

And then... he’s falling. He’s had this dream before, and it always ends the same. It ends with images of snow turning red as his bleary vision recognizes that his arm is five feet away from him, and the face of a monster. But this time, he doesn’t end up broken and in the snow.

He’s in a chair. Naked from the chest up and his long, stringy hair plastered to his face in sweat, with a fucking leather strap in his mouth.

Bucky feels himself slipping, not sure what’s a dream and what’s real anymore. Everything feels so real and it’s like all five of his senses are being overstimulated with memories he’s tried over and over again to bury. All he knows is that he needs to fucking get out and run and have some sense of self-preservation-

But then, he hears that voice again, as the electricity courses through his body. That evil, dreadful voice that starts maliciously whisper the last word…

He shoots himself straight up out of his bed, his sheets pooling around his waist, gasping for air as if he’s been drowning and he’s coming up for that life-saving, relieving breath of air. His hands are gripping his sheets so hard his fist is white and he can feel the dampness of the cold sweat. Bucky’s skin glistens and his hair sticks to his neck and forehead as he tries to ground himself, bringing himself back to the present. As he attempts to even his breathing, he looks around the room.

My briefs, he begins to note, loosening his grip on the sheets. My boots, my jacket, my phone...

….Her purse. Her hair tie. Her clothes.

Bucky shifts to look beside him, frowning when he sees the vacant space where you were supposed to be. You were with him last night; lips leaving hot trails on skin, demanding hands gripping on to one another as if it were the end of the world it was the last time you’d get to see each other. It had become a routine, he supposes; the sex between you two was your secret, a secret that you both began to seek out more and more as a means of escape from the reality that you both live in.

His hand slowly releases his grip from the sheet to smooth over the hills of the blanket, and before he can overthink about where you might’ve snuck off to, the door opens to you, wearing his henley that practically drowns your figure, and his worries about you are calmed.

“Hey,” you say softly. Bucky already knows that you’re quite aware of what just occurred. You’ve always been perceptive of him, of his feelings. It drove him crazy at first -- but he’s learned to grow fond of it. It saves him the embarrassment of fumbling over his words when he doesn’t know how to express his feelings. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah,” he nods, voice hoarse. These nightmares always seem to suck the life out of him. “Nightmare.”

“Was it the usual?” You inquire as you shut the door, making your way back to your spot in the bed. You don’t mention the sweat on the sheets, and he’s thankful for that.

“Yeah, the usual.” He groans, making room for you beside him. He doesn’t say a word as you gently reach out for his arm, wrapping it around your shoulders as he lays with you. Cuddling and touching like this is something new, something foreign that you’ve both been getting used to with each other. In moments like these, he’s thankful that he’s gotten better with soft touches like this, as it pulls his mind away from the nightmares. “S’different, though. Not just one. Two.”

You’ve learned that Bucky talks when Bucky wants to talk. Pushing and prodding for him to tell you what’s wrong never turned out pretty, for either of you. Just like with the cuddling and soft touches, the vulnerability that comes from him now is new; he usually isn’t open with others. But for you, he’s trying, and you kiss his bicep as he continues.

“There was-the train. And Steve. And that damn…” Bucky starts, but his voice falters. “...that damn voice. Those words…”

Your breath catches slightly. His gleaming metal hand rakes through his hair and he stops his words, and you watch as his Adam’s apple bobs as if he was trying to hold it together. You just curl into his side, attempting to get closer than you already all, if possible. The heat that comes from your body comforts him, as does the way you kiss his cheek.

“Bucky-I-Fuck. I’m-I’m sorry” You reply sympathetically. You knew from the beginning that there was no way in the world you could ever relate to what Bucky went through, all those years ago; the trauma, the killing, the suffering -- no -- more like torture.

And he knows that you never could. But you’re here, listening to him attempt to begin to tell you how he feels, and that’s enough for him. He never thought he would ever be able to talk to someone about how he feels, what torments him when his eyes finally shut after avoiding sleep--

But he can. It’s fucking terrifying and exciting at the same time and it confuses him. Instead of shoving those feelings away, leaving you to be wrapped up in his sheets as he’s done so many times; he holds you tighter against him, the cold metal of his arm warming as your skin connects to it. He finds as the nights go on, with you, his arm that once was a product; a fucking machine, a goddamn puppet for someone else’s cruel intentions - can be something beautiful, something that can bring pleasure instead of pain.

(You’re to thank for that.)

“I want to sleep now,” he whispers, voice more gentle than you’ve ever heard before. “And I want you to stay with me.”

“Of course, Bucky. Of course.”

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

This is the golden age of something g o o d

and r i g h t and r e a l.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel #my writing

[seoulnotes]

Love Is Not Over — knj

Inspired by lyrics from Love Is Not Over by BTS

Track 2 of The Playlist Series

S Y N O P S I S | Namjoon wants a divorce; he fell out of love. y/n has one request for her to sign the papers: Namjoon has to act like the husband he once was for the last month of their marriage before he stopped caring. Is 30 days long enough to save love?

P A I R I N G | Kim Namjoon, reader (y/n)

G E N R E | angst (a lot), fluff (a bit) ; PG-13

W A R N I N G S | none

W O R D C O U N T | 4.5k

사랑이란 아프고 아픈 것

이별이란 아프고 더 아픈 것 같애

니가 없으면 나 안될 것 같아

사랑해줘 사랑해줘

다시 내 품으로 와줘

—

Love is so painful

Goodbyes are even more painful

I can’t go on if you’re not here

Love me, love me

Come back to my arms

You already knew what the bound papers Namjoon gripped were as he approached you at the kitchen counter before he had set them onto the countertop.

“What is this?” You feigned ignorance as if you hadn’t discovered the bound papers hiding in Namjoon’s dresser a week prior when you were doing the laundry. It wasn’t a good hiding place. Although, the words in bold at the top of the front page were mocking you far more now as Namjoon set the papers before you.

You were hurt having found them hiding, but now that they were glaring at you on the countertop you just cleaned, you couldn’t help the way your heart shriveled just a bit within your chest.

It was an inevitable end that was coming and it had finally arrived after months of apprehension.

For months, he slowly distanced from you, bit by bit. You felt him slipping away, losing hold on promises he bound himself to in front of both your families. He rarely even touched you anymore.

It started with the little things like your kisses or hugs. He didn’t return them the same at first and then he stopped altogether. Then he slowly spoke less to you. You thought it was because of stress or work, but you couldn’t have been farther from it. A normal stressed filled month never went this far.

He distanced himself so far away you couldn't pull him back even if you tried. And you did, so much. You wondered if there was someone else.

“How was today?” It took enough built up courage for you to speak with him as he walked through the doors. You tried to uphold a smile on your lips as an offering from you.

“Fine,” just one word without even taking a glance towards you to acknowledge your presence.

“Did you eat yet?” Another attempt.

“Yeah.” It made you look at the plates set on the counter with cling film around it. You made dinner for two, but only one person was home.

He continued to walk further down the hall and you trailed behind him with just a bit of courage left after the initial rejection. He laid down on his back.

You leaned against the doorframe. “Are you okay?” Perhaps it would be your last try at trying to talk to him.

“y/n, I'm really tired,” just four words and you knew he didn't want you there. It was probably the most he had spoken to you in a while.

With that, you turned to walk back. When you thought you had reached a far enough distance with a door in between, you crouched down as your vision became blurry. You were defeated; his rejection was enough to shut you out of your attempts to reconcile what was broken.

You let it out. All the built-up frustration came out in cries you attempted to muffle with your hand.

Maybe he had heard it, but either way, he didn't do anything about it.

When enough time passed and you felt more numb towards the matter, you emptied all the dishes on the counter and went to bed. Next to him.

You slept that night with a lovely dream. You dreamt that he would hold you close like he used to with his arms slung around your waist as he pressed tightly to you.

If you dream hard enough, you would be on cloud nine and would feel a slight warmth around you as if he was holding you.

But the next morning you woke up to his side empty.

“I want a divorce.” His words were laced with utter gentleness as if speaking to a child. He knew what he was asking of you. “Just look through the terms and change anything if you need to.”

“Why? Do you have someone else?” You felt pricking in your eyes and that familiar lump in your throat, but you forced yourself to speak.

“No, I don’t,” there was a firmness in his voice. He was telling the truth leading you to further question how things got this way.

“If you can’t tell me why, I can’t accept this.” The lump at the back of your throat became harder to swallow and it was near overpowering the stability of your voice.

“I-,” it seemed the words were hard for him to get out. They were stuck at his throat, unable to be formed by his tongue and he paused.

You knew what he was going to say before he even began the first syllable.

He didn’t love you anymore. You wished you knew what had gone sour.

“Please y/n, please do it for me?” His tone was begging.

This was the most you had spoken to each other in months and it was him asking for a divorce.

At the end of the day, human selfishness was stronger than human logic. Instead of allowing him a chance to escape your marriage which no longer brought him happiness, you turned your body and stood from the chair.

For so long you had wanted his attention, for you both to be in the same room. At this very moment, you wanted nothing but the opposite, to be alone and away from him.

As you turned your back to walk away, you said quietly, “I want to be alone, please.” You took the divorce papers and went down the hall to the guest bedroom.

With yourself locked away, you allowed your emotions to take over and the tears to fall.

What had you done for this to go so wrong?

He'd peek into the room when he came home once every day to check on you. You made sure to avoid him with times that aligned with his schedule. You left the room when he would be out for work and slipped back in around the time when he would arrive home.

The first couple of days were avoidance out of hurt. You cried and cried, but you did it quietly when he was home.

After the initial tide of emotions, you began to briefly look over the papers considering. Those days, you slowly began to abandon the avoiding. You did what you wanted to do and he didn’t bother you.

You caught him at times, eyes glancing towards you, probably noticing the dark circles that formed from nights of not sleeping or the redness of your eyes, and you swore his eyes hid worry as his hand went to the air to reach out to comfort you. He’d catch himself mid-air and then rush to slide his hands back into his pockets.

One day, he came back to see you out of bed and sitting at the counter. Laid out in front of you were the divorce papers and a black pen.

You slid the papers to his view. You had crossed out all of his terms. You crossed out all the terms that gave you anything he was giving you out of pity. The house, your car, you didn’t want any of it.

“I don’t want any of it.”

His eyes held confusion as they began to gloss over what you scribbled next to it. It wasn’t anything of value or you could trade for money after the divorce; it was more like a deal.

He can get what he wants and you can get closure.

Then it would be fair for both of you.

For one month, your last month before divorcing, you both will act like that last month was the first month of your marriage, when things were right. You will act as if there isn’t a divorce, just like how you used to be.

“Just one month. That’s all I want. At the end of 30 days, I’ll sign it.”

To be honest, he was looking at you as if you had grown three heads. “y/n, one month is not going to fix what is broken.”

You shook your head. It would be a dream if that could happen, but you knew reality better than that. “That isn’t what I want. I just want closure so I could remember the end as happy.”

Even if it wasn’t real, at least to pretend to love me for one last time.

That’s what you really wanted to say, but it sounded too pitiful coming from you who was basically asking him to play husband for one last time. At least for one month, you'd receive the love that was once lost; even if it wasn't real.

After a drawn-out moment of silence, Namjoon met your eyes. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

“I have one more request. Every day, carry me to bed for this last month.”

It received another strange look, but he nodded. You honestly didn’t think he would have agreed and in some time, you would have signed the papers regardless.

That very day started the 30 days and you were beginning to think it was an extremely terrible idea.

Namjoon forced everything he did that day with you. It was as if you were both strangers, he didn’t know what to say to you when you ate dinner, leading the air to hang in thick silence and the worst came when he had to carry you to bed.

You were both sitting on the sofa. “Do you want me to stand? Would that be easier?”

To be honest, despite the divorce lingering in the air, the entire situation was quite humorous.

He shook his head and turned towards you. He bent down to slide an arm behind your knees and another arm behind your back.

“Hold on or I’m gonna drop you,” he half-joked with a quiet chuckle.

You obliged and looped your arms around his neck. “You’re out of practice,” you joked back.

Unfortunately, the words didn’t sit well and Namjoon answered back in a still tone. “I suppose I am.” With that, he moved towards the bedroom and gently placed you onto the bed.

He disappeared into the attached bathroom and reappeared moments later, dropping onto the bed beside you.

You supposed sleeping in the same bed every night was also a part of becoming a husband again. As much as you wanted to ask for more, asking for something like him sleeping with you in his arms would just be ridiculous.

When the one week mark rolled around, the routine wasn’t as awkward as the earlier days. This morning, Namjoon woke up before you and snuck out of the room.

When you woke up, you were surprised it was by his hand gently shaking you and the first thing you smelled was coffee.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” his lips curved into a smile and he offered the mug of coffee towards you.

“Coffee? For me?” You were still in your sleepy state, sitting up, and blinking a couple of times to adjust yourself to the situation.

“Coffee in bed, for the both of us,” he added and handed you the mug.

It was warm in your hands. You took a sip; you had not had his coffee in nearly half a year.

Namjoon walked around to his side and slipped in next to you leaning on the headboard. “I suppose it is fair that we have coffee in bed for these couple of weeks since we used to do it all the time.”

You knew what he was really trying to say behind those words.

Yes, you used to have coffee in bed every morning for as many mornings that would allow between both of your work schedules. The real meaning was when he used to wake you up every morning with a hot cup of coffee. He did that and he did it every morning, never missing one.

When you went on vacation or stayed away from home, he found a way to get instant coffee or bought coffee from any shops nearby to surprise you in the morning.

You nodded. “Thank you, by the way.”

“Yeah, I forgot how nice this used to be.”

He thought you were referring to the coffee. You shook your head. “Thank you for the coffee, but thank you for agreeing to do this. I know it’s kinda ridiculous and you might think I’m trying to make you love me again, but it’s not really my intention.” I don’t think that’ll happen anyway.

“I just wanted a nice conclusion you know? That we both said a proper goodbye and remembered the good things better, fresh in our mind, instead of the bad things.” You took another sip of coffee.

“If I’m being honest, I’m glad you chose to do this,” he mused.

While other people liked to spill feelings and nonsensical thoughts over wine or alcohol, you both liked your mornings with coffee in bed better. The comfort of warm sheets and a nice mug of coffee brought peacefulness to your minds. You didn’t mind sharing your thoughts with him and he didn’t mind sharing his thoughts with you.

Guess that was one thing that had never changed.

It was the weekend and that meant your days off. It also meant Namjoon’s days off if there wasn’t anything on his schedule.

Weekends you both had found were the hardest in all of the days of the week to spend with each other. During workdays, it would be a simple dinner, a couple of hours of watching T.V. or spare time, and then off to bed. You really only spent a couple of hours together for the weekdays.

For weekends, it meant the entire day that you had to spend with each other.

At least it was the middle of the month and you were set to do many tasks including laundry from the past week, cleaning the entire house, and shopping for the next two weeks of groceries and other things that you were out of.

“I’ve got some errands today. I mean, you could come with or just do something by yourself.” You swiped through shirts in your closet and chose one.

He was sitting in the bed behind you as you pulled on the shirt you’d wear out.

“Joon? Got an answer?” You began to button your shirt.

“I’ll come with,” he offered, though it took him a seriously long time to answer such a simple question.

No, he had been too distracted, watching you and you noticed realizing that it had been months since he had seen that much of you.

“It’s not something you hadn’t seen before,” you teased. “Or touched.” Which prompted his face to turn a shade of red.

“Groceries!” He attempted to diffuse his own humiliation with a laugh and darted towards the front door.

You realized the intimacy in your marriage had been missing for a long time. You missed the intimacy of Namjoon loving you and all of you. He made you feel confident in your own body when he used to remind you how much he loved every inch of you.

You shook your head and followed him to the door. Now was not the time to be bringing up things you might begin to long for when the divorce was still on the table.

All the while driving to the store, you had the urge to reach over and grab his hand, but you refrained.

Shopping with someone other than yourself proved to be another thing that had gone in your marriage. Groceries on the weekend used to be a two-person job.

It was nice to have someone push the cart behind you while you went searching through every aisle for the items on your list. It was amusing to see the spark in Namjoon’s eyes when you went into the snack aisle and him wanting to fill the rest of the cart with snacks.

“We can’t survive off snacks!” You began to laugh as he swiped numerous items from the shelves.

It felt normal today. It felt normal because this day wasn’t forced. Namjoon didn’t force himself to be your husband again; he naturally began to fill the role.

At the beginning of the 30 days, you almost signed the papers and escaped your own terms. The awkwardness that was yet to overcome was almost unbearable, but falling into this old routine became normal again.

You wanted a conclusion, to end this happy and full of good memories. Instead, you were a dog that was being led on, treat after treat, and you didn’t want this to end. You came to realize you missed all the things that used to be every day in your life. You came to realize that you wanted this so much that you made this ridiculous deal up so you could get it again.

30 days later, you felt the dread of 12 PM hitting the following day. What you had feared had happened: you didn’t want to let it go.

However, at 12 PM, you would take a pen and sign those lines on the divorce papers as promised. It was only fair for you to complete your end of the deal.

Thankfully, the one thing that could potentially have you unraveled completely didn’t occur.

Thankfully, Kim Namjoon had not kissed you.

“Ready for bed?” You attempted to muster a smile.

Namjoon had not shown any sign of dejection for the impending date. He only continued to work towards completing his part of the deal of being your husband again.

“Yeah,” his lips curved slightly as he approached you.

His arms were quick to slide behind you and your knees and pick you up from the ground.

“At least you’re not as bad as before when we started this,” you joked.

Namjoon released a chuckle, throwing his head back slightly. You joined him, releasing a small laugh yourself.

He hasn’t moved yet. After silence settled, he took steps towards the bedroom.

Each step felt like they were taking longer than before, but you weren’t sure if it was just in your head. You subconsciously let your arm fall onto his chest, wanting to be closer if it was even possible with him practically carrying you.

You breathed in a deep breath and noted to remember the way he smelled, a lingering scent of his cologne, the laundry detergent that you used to wash your clothes, and… peaches?

“Did you use my body wash?” You rose your head to look at him and realize that you stopped moving. Turning your head, you were met with your bed and you waited for Namjoon to place you down.

Except he didn’t budge.

“Aren’t you gonna put me down?” You asked with slight humor in your tone after he didn’t move for another minute. You placed a gentle hand onto his shoulder to grasp his attention.

“I don’t want to.” He spoke so quietly that the words were barely audible to you.

You felt a frown tug on your lips. “What’s wrong?”

Instead of responding or repeating himself, he shook his head as if to get rid of whatever was lingering in his mind. He gently placed you onto the bed, but when he was leaning down to remove his arms, he lingered for a second longer.

He wanted this closeness. He shifted his eyes to you and the confusion knitted on your features at his strange actions tonight.

He disregarded your confusion and allowed him to truly see you for the first time in a long time. As his eyes roamed your face, he remembered how beautiful the girl he fought for so hard was.

He remembered your eyes that were always bright like stars reminding him to be hopeful and find the best in anything. He remembered that he hated it when he saw tears in those beautiful eyes because they would dull with the tears washing out any ounce of happiness. He remembered that he was someone who made you cry like that.

His eyes flitted to your lips and remembered the feeling of kissing them. Most importantly, he remembered the way they moved when you spoke or curved into the most beautiful smiles that anyone who saw them might be charmed. He remembered he fell for that smile.

He remembered the curves of your face and how bare the side of your face looked right now because he was used to having his hands caress that exact spot. He wanted to do it right now and subconsciously, he did. His hand raised in the slowest motion and you didn’t stop him when they gently caressed your face.

You didn’t stop yourself from leaning into his touch even though you know you shouldn’t. He was just having a moment and you didn’t want to believe it was anything more than that.

This was a level of intimacy he had not felt in a while and he came to the conclusion that he was partially to blame. 30 days of trying even if it was pretending in the beginning, it made him feel again. Pretending brought back memories, actions like riding a bike, ones that you didn’t use in a while, but they were built in.

Along the way, he realized one of the faults was that he stopped trying. He stopped giving and kept taking. At the same time, it led him to lose the feelings that came with giving.

Taking gets too boring after a while.

He took advantage of the term marriage. He got too comfortable.

“Joon?”

He moved slightly as if you reeled him out of his thoughts once again. You wished you knew what he was thinking.

Instead, he leaned his head towards yours. You stayed frozen; he was not about to do what you least wanted.

He did; he did the one thing that would release you of any control you had over the situation.

His lips were on yours.

He didn’t hold back the emotions that he no longer kept a chain on and deepened the kiss.

It felt like poison yet if the kiss was poison, you wanted to get drunk on it. You lost control over yourself for a second, kissing back and having your hands grasping his hair and sliding down his neck and his back. The feeling that your fingers had longed for and the lips you longed to feel against your own.

Then the leash came back.

You pulled away quickly out of his hold. Shame caught a hold of you and you frowned. Honestly, you were angry. Angry that he would mess with you like that. “Don’t kiss me like that. No, don’t kiss me at all.”

He ducked his head as if just realizing how far his emotions took him. “I’m sorry.”

You wanted to ask him why he was doing this. You want to know if your own hope was fulfilled; you bit your lip to stop the questions from surfacing.

You didn’t want empty hope. It was better to let curiosity be.

Instead, you just slipped the covers over you and turned away from him.

You were already awake when Namjoon brought your coffee the next morning.

It was silent, but not like before. The silence had weight.

“You don’t want to sign it,” he spoke beside you.

“Do you want the truth or something to make you feel better?” You didn’t want to make it sound so harsh, but your words had a bite to them.

“I think the truth and what I want to hear to make me feel better would be the same,” he said, nothing but honesty in his tone.

You didn’t like that he was using riddles. They only made you feel hopeful he wanted the same as you, but he was too scared to admit it.

“What would that be?” You questioned. You wanted to hear him say it.

“That you don’t want to sign it. That after 30 days, you found that this was not a worthy conclusion. That this was not something that put your feelings to rest,” he said. “That you still feel something after this month.”

“You’re right. All of it.” But you couldn’t bring it in you to turn your head to show the truth in your eyes. You were leaving your feelings vulnerable and for all you knew, he could be playing a cruel joke.

“y/n, I don’t want the divorce.”

To hear him say it, you didn’t know why you felt anger rising within you. He was the want who wanted this. He was the one who put you through months of hell and self-doubt that you weren’t good enough and brought divorce onto the table.

The remaining love you nurtured the past month was like cold water splashing onto the fury you felt.

“You’re the one who wanted it in the first place,” bitter. Now you really couldn’t look him in the eyes.

“And it’s my fault. In 30 days I realized I still love you and I let that slip from me.” Namjoon knew that whatever he wanted to say, they would never be good in words, but he was willing to try.

You were conflicted because the work of trying to bring yourself to face the fact that you were going to divorce the one person in the world you would never, was being shattered by this decision he came to face.

You were prepared to give up some of your happiness and out of love, give him freedom and happiness. You didn’t want him trapped in this marriage even if you still loved him.

Now he wanted to stay.

But you wanted him to stay. After 30 days, you’ve come to remember the feeling of being loved again and giving love. You didn’t want to let that go.

You didn’t realize opposing thoughts ripping through your mind made your heart ache so. It was crumbling within your chest.

“I’m sorry,” Namjoon’s voice was weak. He didn’t know if even he would forgive himself for having brought up something like divorce only to take it back. “I know I stopped trying and I know I put you through hell, but,” he paused because you reached under the blanket to grasp his hand.

He was asking for a second chance to start over and you were willing to give it.

“We can try,” you said. For the first time in this conversation, you brought your eyes to meet his with confirmation in them.

It was something that wasn’t nothing. Of course, you wanted to give it to him. You just had to tread on the thin sheet of trust you had for him now and hope it wouldn’t break below you as he slowly worked to bring that trust back again.

Namjoon knew he would have a lot of work to bring things back to what once was if it was even possible.

Subsequently, that afternoon, the divorce papers were shredded and you both began to try once again to fix your marriage. This time, both parties were aiming for the same goal.

a/n

i don’t know how to feel about this one guys, is it angsty enough lol? 

yours truly, Selene ♡

#bangtanarmynet #bangtanfairygarden #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #namjoon fanfic #bts namjoon #bts rm #bts angst #namjoon scenarios #bts #bts fanfiction #bts scenario #bts x you #bts x reader #w: love is not over #w: the playlist series #writing

[oikawasass]

I’m in the mood for some really sad angst so take this.

final goodbyes.

‣ pairing : bakugo x fem reader.

‣ oneshot.

‣ synopsis : after a messy and unexpected fight during a training mission, katsuki finds himself forced to say one last goodbye.

‣ wordcount : 2.3k+

‣ warnings : pure angst, swearing, character death, minor gore.

It was supposed to be an easy mission on that cold winter day, one that was simply for training purposes so the students would be able to begin learning what to do in tough situations from experience, rather than a lecture. A quick sweep of a few thugs in the area assigned to the pair and approved by Aizawa himself. 

The two were confident in the mission given to them, knowing that with their combined strengths It would be a breeze, taking them a few minutes tops. Neither Y/n nor Bakugo had expected things to take such a turn the way they did. The simple thugs they were sent to deal with had brought much more of a punch than either of them had expected. A simple battle with a couple of wannabe villain lowlifes, ( in Katsuki’s words, ) had turned into a 2 vs 16, one of those sixteen people being an extremely dangerous and wanted villain in the area who was called “Pressure.” Despite the rather incredible amount of power the teens had combined, the odds weren’t in their favour from the start.

They were outnumbered, and the sheer strength of not only one of the most wanted criminals in the city, but all of his goons backing him up, it was too much for Bakugo and his girlfriend to handle alone as much as they both hated to admit. The two heroes in training held their ground as best as they could, hoping to buy themselves enough time to call for help, or some sort of backup. Even Katsuki knew that their chances of making it out of there on their own weren’t very high at all. 

It was when Pressure had set off an ear ringing, blinding explosion that things really took a turn for the worst. Y/n and Bakugo had been violently thrown away from each other due to the amount force the blast had administered. The last thing they saw before their vision went white, was the couple’s red and scarred hands desperately reaching out for each other. But they were too late. The villains had fleed before the explosion went off, leaving the couple to presumably die. 

Bakugo’s eyes slowly blinked open, a light fog of dust and rubble from the debris of the explosion clouding his vision. His body tried so desperately to pull him back into the sweet lull of sleep as the pain of his injuries and aching body slowly spread throughout his limbs and joints, but the blonde refused to lose consciousness another time. His injuries were nothing severe or fatal, so there was no excuse for him to stay down any longer. How was he supposed to become number one if he allowed a simple blast to knock him down, after all?

With a sharp inhale and a loud groan, Katsuki pushed himself up off the shredded concrete and into a sitting position, allowing himself to come to his senses a bit more before he forced himself to his feet. The boy leaned back on one of his palms, catching his breath for a moment before a single thought overtook his mind, sending him into a panic.

“Y/n.”


He shot up to his feet, not caring to try and balance himself before frantically running to all the large piles of rubble that littered the snow-covered ground around him. He was throwing metal scraps, large rocks, tree branches, anything and everything in his way while he searched for her.

“Y/N!! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!” Bakugo shouted, in hopes of hearing some kind of response from her in the distance. His heartbeat only grew quicker, hearing the fast pulsating ring through his ears as his panic grew. His determination and will to stay calm in situations like these were long out the window by now. All he cared about was finding his girlfriend.

“Y/N!!” Another heart-wrenching scream of her name left Bakugo’s dry throat. She had to be here somewhere, it's not like she just went and vanished into thin air. 


Bakugo rose his forearm to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the blinding light the setting sun was reflecting off the snow in hopes he would be able to see more clearly. That was when he spotted a shadowed human figure lying dead centre in all the rubble surrounding them, there she was.

He bolted over to the frail-looking girl as quick as his legs would carry him, crashing down onto his knees beside her. She looked absolutely horrible, Bakugo felt himself cringe at the sight of her blood-covered face. She had large scratches covering each of her limbs, as well as a small bump that seemed to be poking out of the inside of her chest, showing she had definitely broken a few ribs. And to top everything off, there was a large metal rod piercing through the lower right of her abdomen, and it was in deep.

“Dumbass, you look like shit.” Bakugo said to her, supporting her head with one hand while using his other to mess around with the small intercom jammed in his ear, attempting to get some kind of reception so he would be able to call for help.

Y/n slowly lifted her gaze to look up at him, a pained chuckle falling from her bloodied lips. “J-just. . cause I-I can't move d-doesn’t mean I w. . won't kick y-your ass f-for that.” She choked out through her raw throat. Bakugo tsked quietly and shook his head, amazed at how she was able to crack a joke despite being so wounded.


“Like you could ever kick my ass anyway, shitty girl. Now stop talking, save your breath.” Bakugo continued to mess with his earpiece, finally hearing some static and the voice of his teacher on the other side.


“Ground zero reporting in, (hero name) severely injured. We need help.” His tone was panicked while his words were rushed out of his mouth. The blonde was willing to waste no time in having help arrive, not with his girlfriend's current state of suffering and deformation. 


“Yeah- I'm at location 23AZ, just hurry up and fucking find me, we don't have time to sit here waiting.” Once Aizawa disconnected, he returned his full attention back to the girl who was practically withering away beneath him.


Taking a strong grip on the sleeve of his costume, he tore off the fabric, ripping it into something similar of a cloth to push against her stomach wound, a desperate attempt to stop the crimson blood spilling out of it. A small cry of pain escaped Y/n’s throat at the pressure to the gash, and Katsuki felt himself flinch at the sound. It pained his ears to hear such an anguished sound come from the h/c haired girl he called his, but her bleeding out was absolutely not an option, he wouldn’t allow it. Not now, not ever. It appears the amount of stress Bakugo was under was evident on his face, his furrowed brows and bottom lip caught between his teeth not able to slip past the observant gaze of Y/n.

“W-worried. . .isnt a g-good look o-n you. . .” She smiled sadly, weakly reaching up an unstable and jittery hand to softly cup his right cheek, using her thumb to try and pull the edge of his mouth into a small smile. Y/n knew her time was running short, and she wanted to see him smile in her final moments, not upset. Though she knew her reaction would be the same, if not worse if their roles were switched, so she understood his concerns.


“What the hell else am I supposed to do, idiot? You’re-You-re bleeding out in front of me goddammit.” Bakugo’s words caught in his throat, a small crack in his voice accompanying the evergrowing agony and worry he felt in the pit of his stomach.

“I-its ok-okay, Katsu. . .It hardly. . .e-even hurts anymore.” She was slipping away quickly, her dazed and tired state of mind disabled her from feeling as much pain as she was actually in. It wasn’t good, she would lose consciousness soon, and that couldn’t happen. Bakugo could see her eyelids struggling to stay open, fluttering open and shut every so often as she tried to stay awake.


Bakugo felt his heart sting in pure fear. Katsuki Bakugo never got scared. He was always confident in his ways and knew that losing would never be an option for him. But right now, he was completely and utterly terrified. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t. “Hey, keep your eyes on me, okay? You-You’ve gotta stay awake princess.” That was a pet name she always loved so much. He felt himself leaning into her touch against his ash-covered cheek. The frigid, bitter winter air and lack of blood flowing through her system caused her to be cold to the touch, her normally warm, comforting hands were practically frozen.

“I kn-know. . .but. . .s-so. .tired. . .” Y/n’s lids fell halfway shut, failing to flutter back open like they had been before.

“No. No, you need to keep your f-fucking eyes open, you hear me? Don’t go to sleep. Just-Just a little longer okay?” Bakugo was surprised at his own stuttering and cracks in his voice, but he was even more surprised to feel a drop of blood trickle down his chin. When he raised his hand to wipe it away, he saw no colour on the skin of his hand. It was a clear, shiny liquid.


Bakugo was crying.

Y/n weakly moved her thumb to wipe away another drop that fell from his tear duct. “d-don’t. . please don't cr-cry. . “ her voice was nothing above a whisper now, the little bit of strength she had left to speak leaving her body. “I-I lo. . love you, ‘kay?” she felt a tear roll down her own cheek. “I love y-you so m. . uch.” She was being forced to say goodbye to someone she knew was her first and only love. Her heart was breaking during the exchange. Katsuki and her had planned to spend so many more years together, make so many more sweet and beautiful memories with each other, cross so many more milestones and hurdles life would throw at them, all while they were one. 

Now the harsh reality was, they would never get to experience those years, memories, nor milestones together.

This was their final goodbye.

“I love you more, stop talking like that.” Katsuki’s jaw was clenched tightly shut, his words slipping out of his mouth through gritted teeth. “You’re not gonna fucking die here, goddammit! You can’t fucking leave me behind!” 


Katsuki’s choice of words was important. Y/n was the only one besides Kirishima he allowed to get close to him, it was true. But Y/n was the one who Bakugo was truly able to open up to, without fear of seeming weak or being judged. She was the only one he allowed to really see his true feelings and emotions every moment of every day, even at his weakest points. She was helping him to grow into the great hero he strived to become, she couldn’t leave him. 

“I-I need you, you idiot! How am I supposed to be satisfied with being number one if you aren’t there being a close number two?! You’re supposed to do this with me!” Bakugo was shouting now, trying to get through to her weakening body as he felt her slowly fade away in his arms.


“I-I I know. . you can do-do it. . without me. . .” her eyes fell closed a final time, the hand she held up against his cheek slowly sliding down his skin as her body went limp. Katsuki quickly removed his hand from her abdomen to hold her it up and keep it from falling. No. She couldn’t die here, not like this, not when she deserved to live such an amazing and fulfilled life as a pro hero, not when he had never taken every moment he got to express just how much he did care about her, not when he couldn’t apologize for things like all the fights he’s caused in the past. 

All the lighthearted bickering they shared, all the secret sleepovers they had in Bakugo’s dorm, Y/n hiding from Aizawa in Katsuki’s closet when he had shown up unexpectedly, the sweet words of encouragement she would speak to him ever so softly when he was feeling low, he wasn’t ready for that to end. Katsuki would never be ready for that to end.


“Y/n. . .” Katsuki’s strained voice choked out, waiting for a response. He didn’t receive one.


“Y/n. Answer me.” He spoke more stern this time with a shake to her body, hoping this was some sick joke and a serious tone of voice would force her into an answer.


It didn’t work.

Katsuki’s body fell on top of her, head resting atop her chest as he felt like he was about to be sick to his stomach. There was a sharp, yet empty feeling in his gut, it felt like someone had just stabbed him.

No more calls of her name left his lips, no more shaking her body while trying to wake her up, it all stopped. Now he was left alone, shattered into what he felt was a million pieces. She was gone. And here he was, laying on top of the near mangled body of his first love, still holding her cold and limp hand to his cheek while he felt something build up and sting deep in his throat.

As his hearing went fuzzy, and all he could hear was his own racing heartbeat in his ears, Katsuki screamed.

Katsuki screamed out of the sheer ache and torment his body felt as she lay lifeless in his arms.

#bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugo imagine #bakugo katsuki #bakugou x reader #bakugo headcanons #bakugo oneshot #bakugo imagine #bnha bakugo katsuki #mha bakugo katsuki #bakugo angst #bakugo katsuki x reader #bnha x reader #bnha headcanons #bnha fanfiction #bnha bakugou #mha x reader #mha headcanons #mha oneshots #mha angst #bnha angst #bakugo fanfiction

[annebethchase]

❝  It was always Anne ❞

F a n d o m : Anne with an E

P a i r i n g : Shirbert

W a r n i n g s : spoilers for 3x08 !

✕    ✕    ✕

Bash eyed Gilbert suspiciously across the table, not saying anything.

He looked sick as he played with the food in his plate, not really eating any of it. The bags unde his eyes were deeper than usual and he looked white as a sheet. He clearly hand’t slept at all.

“Doesn’t Mr. Blythe like his breakfast this morning?” his mother asked worriedly, turning her attention from Delphine. “I can make something else if he’d like.”

Gilbert seemed to snap out of his thoughts.

Blinking up in confusion, he furrowed his brows at the woman.

“Oh, it all looks delicious. I just… uhm…” he mumbled. “I’m not exactly-”

“Mother, would you please be so kind to leave us a moment alone?” Bash interrupted him.

His mother widened her eyes at him, but she simply nodded, pursing her lips. She took Delphine and left the room without another word.

When Bash turned to Gilbert, he was back in his bubble, his eyes empty as he stared at the table.

Bash reached out and placed his hand upon his, making him look up at him.

He wasn’t too younger than him, but right there and then, Bash could see nothing but a scared kid sitting in front of him.

“Nobody is forcing you to propose.” he said as softly as he could.

Gilbert bit his lip.

“I know.” he replied, voice hoarse.

“Are you sure this is the right thing?”

Gilbert looked down and Bash followed his gaze. When he noticed what he was looking at, his heart sank a little.

The recipe book Anne had made for Delphine.

Bash didn’t know what exactly had happened between the two of them, but he could see that Gilbert was devasted, He didn’t believe Winifred and the Sorbonne could mend his broken heart, but he’d decided he would support his friend’s decision regardless.

“Yes. I’m sure.” Gilbert said, steadier this time, standing up and walking towards the sink, his back facing Bash.

“Do you want me to come with you to Charlottetwon?” he asked.

After a brief moment of silence, Gilbert turned and gave him a shaky smile.

“That would be a great help.”

✕    ✕    ✕

“You cannot just give up now!”

“I’m not giving up!” Anne almost screamed, turning her back to Diana and storming to the window.

“Yes, you are.” her friend said subbornly. “And Anne Shirley-Cuthbert doesn’t give up. Ever.”

“I’m not giving up.” Anne repeated, turning to look at her. “I’m letting him go. I’m giving him the chance to have the life he desires. To study in the university he wants and have his dream job. I can’t offer him any of these things, Diana. She can. ”

Diana looked at her without saying anything, her expression something between anger and pity.

“You have so much to offer and you don’t even realize it.” she said softly.

“I have words to offer.” Anne replied bitterly. “Big ideas and big dreams. But no money or stabily to lead the life he’s supposed to lead. I would simply be holding him back.”

“Sometimes you can be so dense, Anne. So much for being the first of the class.”

“I’m sorry?”

Diana sighed and took her hands, leading her to the bed and making her sit.

“Listen, I think you got his words all wrong.” she said. “I don’t think he laid out what a perfect life he could have in Paris just to say that you’re keeping him from his dream, Anne.”

“And how would you interpret his words?”

“He was saying he would give it all up for you if he knew you loved him back. You are as important as his dream job, if not more. Why can’t you see it?”

For a moment, Anne forgot to how to breath.

Maybe Diana was right. His words could indeed be interpreted that way. He could have been saying he was willing to throw everything away for her.

Still, how could she keep him away from his dream now that he had a chance to finally make it come true?

“I can’t be that selfish.” she said, her voice unsteady, standing up. “He deserves this. I can’t take it away from him only because I-I don’t want to lose him.”

She heard Diana sigh heavily behind her.

“You’re not being selfish. You’re just denying both you and him the happiness you could have.”

✕    ✕    ✕

Gilbert felt sick to his stomach.

He was no expert in marriage proposals, but he doubted that was how he should feel on what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of his life.

He silently watched out of the window as the countryside run before him. He could feel Bash’s worried gaze on him, but he didn’t look up.

Was it really the right thing? Was he really making the best decision for his future?

You don’t want to be a country doctor. The Sorbonne is your dream. Winifred is lovely and her parents are supportive.

She’d laid it all out so perfectly it almost hurt.

He couldn’t get the picture of her dancing in the night out of his head, the flames reflecting the color of her wild loose hair blowing in the wind.

She’d been so beautiful. So beautiful and so impossible.

“-engangment party?”

Gilbert blinked, snapping out of his bubble and turning to Bash.

“What?”

“I said, do you have some ideas for the engangment party?”

He swallowed, feeling a knot in his stomach.

“I haven’t thought of anything yet.” he said, trying to cut the topic shortly.

Just as Bash was about to speak again, there was a loud whistle and the train, started slowing down.

Gilbert bit his lip at the sight of the ‘Charlottetown’ sign.

“Alright.” he said, shakily standing up. “Let’s go.”

“No kidding, you will have money to raise a dozen children.”

Gilbert glared at Bash who was watching the Roses house with wide eyes.

“Sorry.”

Gilbert just gave him a weak smile, turning to him and sighing.

“So, this is it.” Bash said, nodding.

“Seems like it.” Gilbert said, laughing under his breath.

It all felt so surreal. It was almost as if he wasn’t in complete control of his body.

“I’ll be waiting for you. Come look for me in the Bog when you’re finished, I was thinking about paying a visit to Mary’s friends.”

Mary. He would have given anything to have her as well by his side in that moment.

“You did bring the ring, didn’t you?”

Gilbert scoffed, rolling his eyes at him. He digged into the pocket of his coat, looking for little box he’d put his mother’s ring in.

But instead of the velvet box, his fingers touched something pointy and cold.

Frowning, he took it out and his breath instantly caught in his throat.

It was Anne’s pen. The one he’d borrowed from her at Miss Stacy’s place before the exams.

For a moment, everything that surrounded him disappeared as he looked at the tiny object in his hands.

Such a simple and small thing. He could almost still feel the warmth of her fingertips against his hand as she’d given it to him.

He could almost see her as she’d been that day, red hair glowing in the sun, nose buried deep in her book, brows furrowed together in concentration.

Be sure you marry for love.

Mary’s words resonated in his mind almost like a quiet prayer.

Wrong. This was all wrong.

He didn’t love Winifred. Not the way he loved Anne. It wasn’t fair to marry her. This wasn’t the path he was supposed to be taking.

It was always Anne. Yes, it had always been Anne indeed.

“You were right, Bash.” he finally said looking up.

“What?” Bash asked, glancing at the the pen in confusion.

“You were right about everything.”

✕    ✕    ✕

Empty.

That was how Anne felt as she stared at the steaming cup of tea in front of her. She couldn’t even bring it to her lips, her stomach tied in a tight knot.

That night, she couldn’t even bring herself to be delighted by the colorful shadows the setting sun casted on the walls of her room.

Suddenly, it looked grey around her, nothing really bringing her joy.

She’d been a child just a couple months before, and now she was sitting alone on her bed, her head heavy after crying for her lost love.

Despite the hurt, she knew she’d done the right thing. Gilbert deserved to be happy and follow his dreams in Paris, and if that meant being with another girl, then so be it.

Diana had pleaded her to run after him, to stop him before he could get on that train to Charlottetown, but she could never do such a thing to him. Now all she needed was to learn how to bury her feelings and be the supportive friend Gilbert deserved.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden knock on the door.

She grunted and rolled her eyes as she stood up, starting for the door.

“Matthew, Marilla, how many times do I have to tell you?” she said. “I’m alright you don’t need to-”

She stopped as soon as she opened the door because it wasn’t Matthew or Marilla’s worried faces that greeted her this time.

It was Gilbert’s.

“Hi.” he simply said, giving her a weak smile.

Anne couldn’t bring herself to greet him back, her voice stuck in her throat.

She simply stared at him, her chest heavy. His curls were all messy, his cheeks red, lips slightly parted as he tried to catch his breath. Had he always been this handsome?

Anne cursed herself in her mind for never noticing what a great person she’d had by her side for years and years. If only she’d been less foolish and childish, things would be completely different now.

When she noticed the intensity with which he was looking at her, she felt the urge to lower her eyes to the ground.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice more unsteady than she had hoped it would sound.

“Oh… uhm- I came to give this back.” he said, clearing his throat.

She bit her lip as she watched him pull out the pen she’d let him borrow that day at Miss Stacy’s place. She took it hesitantly, careful not to even brush her fingers against his.

“I-I hope it was of some help.” she stuttered, still not meeting his eyes. “During the uhm- exams.”

“It definitely was.” he said promptly.

Anne finally looked up at him, and she almost melted under his fond gaze. How could he look at her that way?

She felt tears sting the the corner of her eyes as a picture of him and Winifred together crossed her mind. He was engaged now for sure.

Sighing heavily, she took a step back from him, clutching the pen tightly.

“Thanks for bringing this back.” she said, hoping he would get it was his cue to leave.

Gilbert looked at her with a weird expressiom before he nodded and put his cap back on.

“I’ll see you around, then.” he said timidly.

No, I’ll make sure to steer clear for a while. She didn’t say it though.

She watched as he made his way down the alley, feeling as if he was taking a part of her heart away with him. Soon he’d be married, and there was nothing she could do about it.

He’d almost reached the stairs when he suddenly turned to her again.

“I didn’t propose.” he blurted out, his face suddenly red.

Anne felt all the air leave her lungs. She stumbled backwards and grabbed the door knob to steady herself.

Had she heard right?

“W-what?”

Gilbert walked forward slowly until he was standing right in front of her again.

“I didn’t propose to Winifred.” he repeated, swallowing.

Anne bit her lip, trying to calm down her heartbeat, her head spinning.

“But why?”

He didn’t answer her. He simply stared at her silently, his gaze flicking between her eyes and her lips.

“Why?” she asked again louder this time. “She’s an amazing girl, her parents could get you into the Sorbonne by fall. It was your dream, you had it all within reach, why would you ever even-”

“Because I don’t love her.” he interrupted her.

Anne blinked up at him, unable to say anything.

“I don’t love her.” Gilbert repeated, lowering his gaze. “Not the way I love- not the way I’m supposed to love the woman I decide to marry. It just wasn’t… right. She wasn’t the right person.”

When the right person comes along, someday, whenever that is, I’ll know.

A long silence stretched between them before Anne finally found the strenght to speak again.

“So… no Sorbonne.”

Gilbert shrugged.

“Queen’s will be more than fine for the time being. We’ll have to keep up the good old rivalry for a bit.”

Anne couldn’t help but smile.

Gilber smiled back at her, almost shyly, and she found herself blushing.

“I’ll be off.” he said after a while. “It’s been a long day.”

Anne nodded and he turned, walking  down the alley again.

“Gilbert!” she called after him before he could disappear down the stairs.

“Yes?”

She fidgeted with the pen, twirling it nervously between her fingers.

“I’m happy you’re coming to college with m- with all of us.”

Gilbert smiled.

“I’m happy too.”

“Goodnight, Gilbert.”

“Goodnight, Anne.”

And for the first time in weeks, it truly was a good night.

#awae #shirbert #anne with an e #awae spoilers #anne shirley #gilbert blythe #my fic #weirwolves #jessmariana #pterparkcr #glbertblyth #royalcordelia

[x1protector]

adventures of gyul

Authors Note: super sorry this took so long, college is hard; i love gyul so much so i hope i satisfied your request anon!! -g

r e q u e s t: “helloooo may i request a little au with hangyul :D it could be anything, kite lover gyul, gyul the explorer, etc hehe thank you in advanced~”

p a i r i n g: hangyul x reader

g e n r e: tooth rotting fluff; boyfriend!au;

w a r n i n g s: this is corny, none

w o r d  c o u n t: 1.7k

s u m m a r y: Your boyfriend wakes you up one morning with the promise of adventure. What sort of adventure does he have in store for you?

Hangyul wakes you up one morning rather annoyingly, roughly shaking you out of your comfortable slumber. It’s not often that he wakes you up like this, usually he would stay in bed with you until you’re both awake even when he’s woken up first. You squint at the interruption, hands instinctively coming up to cover your eyes as you stay put in the warm bed. It’s too early to be awake judging by hand on the clock so you close your eyes, trying to go back to sleep, knowing that he won’t let that happen. Hangyul smiles and shakes you once again as you groan, tossing your hands up at your persistent boyfriend.

“Alright! I’m up!” You sit up on the bed, glaring back at him with as much vitriol as you can muster at dawn. Which is not much. 

Hangyul grins at your cute expression, pinching your cheek. “Get up, you little bed bug, I have the day off and I want to make the most of my time with you.”

“Bed bugs are supposed to stay in bed,” you whined, your eyes just won’t stay open long enough. You contemplated on flopping back into bed but your loving boyfriend is already one step ahead, grabbing your waist and physically dragging you out despite your protests. 

By the time you re-emerge from the bathroom, the smell of breakfast hangs heavy in the air. You follow the scent towards the kitchen and spot Hangyul by the stove, humming a tune as he flips the pancake and making small noises of triumph every time he lands one in the pan. Slowly, you wrap your arms around his waist, looking over his shoulder as he cooks. The scent of the delicious pancakes is almost overwhelmed with the scent of comfort Hangyul provides. You can feel him giggling, back vibrating as he turns his head to look at you, his tongue poking through when he smiles. It was a nice morning, and you fought the urge to smother him in kisses and instead settled for a soft kiss to his cheek.

It’s a nice, regular morning for you two, but for some reason you can feel the mischievousness radiating off of him the whole time. Taking a peek in his direction, you spot Hangyul with this knowing smile on his face. Even as you two engage in small talk through breakfast you know that he is most certainly up to something.

“Alright, spill it.” 

He looks up from the dish he’s cleaning, voice dripping with feigned innocence when he responds, “Spill what?”

You roll your eyes and nudge at him, “You’re a terrible liar, I know you’re up to something. So spill.”

He grins sheepishly as if embarrassed that he was found out so quickly. “We’re going on an adventure today, I’ve already planned everything out. Just make sure to wear something you don’t mind getting dirty and some good walking shoes, alright?”

You sigh and smile at the boy, leaving him to finish cleaning up so you can change. It’s not exactly often the two of you get to have a day together, what with your busy schedules and all. More often than not your “date nights” were the two of you getting home at the same time. An adventure, he said. You change into athletic clothes because you don’t totally trust that this little excursion wouldn’t turn into a workout of some kind. 

This is Hangyul we’re talking about.

Sunscreen is a must, and so are bandages and maybe a small umbrella since you never know what might happen. Hangyul was in sweats and a long sleeve shirt, a cap sitting on his head. Even in such mundane clothes, he still manages to look ridiculously handsome. How did you get so lucky?

You reach a hand out to take his hat, playfully stealing it away and placing it backwards on your own head. Hangyul makes no effort to take it back from you, instead grins and goes about his routine while you still shove things in your bag. Occasionally he chimes in, telling you that no, you probably won’t need that or yes, that would be nice to have. 

The two of you curl up on the bus ride to a place “just outside of the city” as Gyul would put it. You open up a book you brought along for the ride, leaning against your boyfriend as you read. The warmth of his arm as he wraps it around your waist lured you into sleep again, and given in to the comfort you ended up sleeping on the ride. 

In an hour or two--you lose track of time--both of you hop off onto a small bus stop. It looks eerie, but Hangyul seems pretty confident in leading the way, so you took his hand as he guides you off to a rather secluded path until the two of you find yourselves in the middle of a large field. 

“We’re here to look for frogs!” 

You love this man, but you wonder what goes through his head sometimes. 

But he looks so excited about the prospect of catching frogs that you oblige him, searching high and low. You’re glad you grabbed a pair of beater sneakers this morning so you didn’t worry too much about the mud messing anything up, but it’s getting deep and you worry they might get into your socks soon. 

While Hangyul stares off into space, trying to tune his ears to listen for the frogs, you root through some bushes on the side. The two of you spend a few hours in the field, and by the afternoon, you’re both covered in mud and sweat but smiling and laughing so hard your cheeks hurt the entire time. You love all his little antics, including all the times he nearly knocked you into the mud just so he could wrap you up in his arms and plant kisses on your cheeks without you running away.

You don’t know how long you stayed after a quick break for snacks, but long enough that you can hear a loud grumble interrupting your frog search, and the two of you realize just how hungry you are. You’re just about to suggest that the two of you head back to grab some food but then Hangyul starts rifling through his bag. 

He pulls out a large picnic blanket and two small lunch boxes he had apparently packed the previous night. Seems he really did think of everything. The two of you sat on the dryer ground on the blanket, eating slightly soggy sandwiches (“I forgot lettuce has water in it”) under the open sky. It was peaceful, watching the clouds pass by, giving each of the weird-looking clouds a name of your friend. 

“That one’s Seungyoun.”

“Hangyul, please, apologize to the cloud.”

“Fine, that one looks like a frog holding a kite,” he chuckles, pointing up to one of the fluffy white clouds floating in the air. 

You giggle, pointing to another one, “This one looks like a lion with a crown on its head.”

“Mine’s better.”

“Nuh-uh.”

The two of you laugh at your childish antics, leaning on each other for a moment. You rest your head on his shoulder, and allow your eyes to close. The wind curls around the two of you as you rest, playing gently with the ends of your hair. The whole world seems to stop around you to allow this moment to settle deep into your bones. 

Hangyul wraps his arm around your waist, giving you small kisses on your forehead and smiling lovingly into your hair. He rests his head in the crook of your shoulder and you lean back into his chest. His warmth was comforting, seeping into your muscles and relaxing your body against his. 

You’re more than happy to be here with your boyfriend, simply allowing the world to move around you. Words aren’t needed between the two of you anymore, being near each other was more than enough to know how the other was feeling. Your schedules may be hectic and have few moments to spare, but at the end of the day, you love each other. It’s a soft warmth that colors everything you do, even when he wakes you up far too early in the morning. 

The two of you stay like that for a moment longer, committing this moment to memory. You close your eyes, memorizing the feeling of being held in his arms, even though you doubt you could forget such a feeling. 

“Ribbit.”

And just like that, the spell is broken as your boyfriend ribbits into your neck. You giggle, feeling this arms tighten around your midsection as he does it a few more times.

You feel him speak into your neck, “There’s a frog in your throat.”

Hangyul is… a little weird.

You split from him, reluctantly pulling away from his warmth. Unfortunately, this picnic won’t pack itself up no matter how much you wish it to. As the two of you packs in comfortable silence, you were thankful for moments like these, a moment of calm amongst the storm of your daily lives. It was easy to find your ground here, to reorient yourself before pushing back into the winds once more. 

The bus driver gave the two of you a look as you boarded, tracking mud into the interior and almost onto the seats. You smile sheepishly, lowering your head in an advanced apology as you take your seats. Hangyul slides in next to you, resting his arm on the back of your seat and watching you as you dig through your bag, a sort of softness crossing over his features. 

“Hey.”

You look up from where you’re hunched over, smiling up at him. 

“You know I love you right?”

You straighten, and lean forward, placing a small peck to his lips. 

“I know, and I love you too.”

He chuckles, making a face of disgust, “Gross.”

The two of you giggle, resting your foreheads together once more in the fading light. In a moment the spell will be broken, and in a day the stresses of the world will come back to barrage you from all sides. But for right now? Right now the only word to describe this feeling would be happiness. 

#hangyul x reader #hangyul fic #Hangyul #hangyul scenarios #hangyul fluff #hangyul boyfriend #x1 imagine #x1 imagines #x1 fluff #x1 fic #x1 scenarios #x1 x reader #x1 au #god i love him

[alexandriteobscuraarchive]

Shades of Night (closed)

@killtool​

They’d left that place---they left it together, just as they’d promised, but all the pair had done was trade one shadow for another. And shadows; as both Rachel and Zack knew from their respective lives, had a way of clinging when you didn’t want them to.

Rachel hadn’t slept when she was alone in the hospital and now; even with Zack at her side again, she still couldn’t sleep. Rachel dreamed. She was haunted and hunted in those dreams---and even forcing herself to wakefulness brought no relief. Zack being at her side brought no relief.

Rachel remembered Danny. His words and piercing gaze followed her down into her worst nightmares and managed to catch her no matter how fast she ran.

‘And so---you tried to die, assuming the guise of someone normal, pure and innocent! But Rachel--you already knew, didn’t you? No matter how much one reads the bible or realizes one’s mistakes one can never deceive one’s true self!’

‘Because her soul consumes others, without mercy or remorse. A soul that buries and steals whatever it can---’

---and on and on, each reminder a knife jabbing into her already weak heart. She could go no farther---escaping hadn’t done anything; that chain was still wrapped around her throat, that hand was still around her peepers! eyes. She was cruel, selfish, she was g u i l t y...!

But hadn’t she let Zack go---? She had released him from the shackles of ‘God’ shackles she’d placed with her own hands, she had called him human. She had realized then that the oath they shared didn’t need to be fulfilled in only one way so why did she feel so guilty? She’d done the right thing! He wasn’t hers---Zack belonged to himself and no one else, he’d never be ‘hers’, not like her parents or---

‘But that’s w r o n g isn’t it my dear? You haven’t changed one bit. I told you that I was the only one who understood the real you---the only one who accepted you. If you’ll just listen---’ That voice was right in her ear, teasing, saturated with a barely contained laugh, meanwhile the hands on her shoulders dug in painfully, meaning to wrench her backwards---back towards the darkness, that horrible, horrible floor. he meant to maim her, blind her, strip her of anything that one could consider will until she couldn’t escape again. She’d be trapped---she’d...

Rachel awoke with a violent start, her hands clawing the air in front of her almost frantically even as she rose into a sitting position. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her trembling fingers expecting to find resistance---a body, a weight---

Nothing.

Blue eyes crept open and immediately she twisted around---the motion fast and violent enough in its execution to make her dizzy--and then back again just as fast. Nothing. Nothing even though her shoulders and ears burned, even though her eyes probed the darkness surrounding the cramped, dilapidated room they’d crept into. Waiting, watching, knowing.....

“Go away...please...go...away....” Her voice was wispy and muddled, it’s tenor broken by fear. The hitching in her chest wouldn’t stop, nor would the shivering of the heart that lay inside her chest.

He was dead. He had to be dead. Zack had told her so---and Zack  h a t e d liars above all else---Zack would never, ever lie to her....would he?

Burdened gaze slips to the other living person in the room but even Zack sleeping nearby gave no relief, his presence did nothing to alleviate her stress. Moving quietly Rachel, without thinking about it at all, snatched up the chipped knife Zack had given her during their time in the tower, the handle fitting neatly in her palm. Knife in hand the girl got up from her haphazard pallet on the floor and ventured outside. The night overhead was cold---winter hadn’t arrived yet, but it would soon, very, very soon. The frost on the cracked pavement and the biting chill in the air could mean nothing else. What were they going to do?

“......” The young girl stepped further into the night, the street she found herself on eerily reminiscent of the floor Zack had called ‘home’ within the tower; but unlike B6 this place was much, much larger, not to mention largely unknown to the two of them.

She wouldn’t go far---she just had to check---she just had to make sure it was s a f e. She had to make sure h e hadn’t followed them here. How could a corpse follow anyone?

She trusted Zack. Did she? Do you really, my dear? Did she r e a l l y? Zack wouldn’t lie to her. If Zack said that Danny was dead then he was dead...right? Right?

But what if they were wrong? Yes indeed my dear, sweet girl. What if you are? What then?

The blonde haired girl gulped in a mouthful of air, the chill of it seeming to burn her lungs like acid, like fire, and it did nothing to alleviate her fears.

If they w e r e wrong....what would she do...?

Try as she might she couldn’t think of an answer; she felt like she’d regressed--that she had, somehow, returned to the girl from before. The one that Danny had so coveted and sought after. The girl from the sterile interview room. The stricken girl from B1. The girl at the bottom of the tower---adrift and desperate to remain that way, with eyes closed forever and ever. Danny could’ve given her t h a t. Danny would’ve given her that darkness. He would’ve been all too gleeful to rip her eyes out and---

A sound---harsh and jarring, made the girl practically leap out of her skin, the only reason why she didn’t drop the knife she was holding against her chest was because she held it with both hands...but even then it was a near thing. Glass crunching on asphalt not a second later made her heart suddenly move from pulsing inside her chest to pulsing inside her throat, the hot lump of it far too large to swallow down. Her dilating gaze caught a shadow in the alley from which she had emerged, a glint in the darkness---

Rachel took a step backwards, the knife in her hands feeling about as useful as a toothpick, the salvation it had brought her once before when in Gray’s thrall long since passed. She was useless, forsaken, abandoned.

Her ‘God’ was not here, the only person here was...

“St---s--ta y.....” Stay back---! She willed her voice to say those words--to shout them at the top of her lungs but nothing came out but a hot, watery gasp. She took another step back, running out of options with each, faltering step. “St a y aw...wa...y---” The thump of her heart was now a deafening roar---she couldn’t even hear her own words, couldn’t hear her own frantic hyperventilating. She’d dropped the knife and hadn’t even felt it, her hands having gone completely numb. She couldn’t feel her own lips moving between those fast, shallow breaths, she couldn’t feel them forming Zack’s name over and over and over again---trying to call him to her. Zack, Zack Zack--help, Zack!!

The little girl from the bottom of the tower trembled as if in a gale, her steadily mending spirit once more enshrouded in darkness. As if she’d never left. And really, had she?

“...!......!!......!!!” Stay away stay away stay away----! Zack HELP!!!

#;;rp thread: shades of night #kllsworn #people think that everything would be just peachy when they got out but that girl was traumatized af? #and what Ray went through wouldn't let go so easily----just as Danny didn't---hence this #she is a very very very damaged young girl and freeing herself from the *place* of torment is only step 1 #also I got to use canon quotes from the game uwu

[the-soldicr]

@slowcode​ sent:

(ง'̀-‘́)ง  Hey, calm down, let's get out of here.

SEND (ง'̀-‘́)ง TO CATCH JAMES GETTING INTO BAR FIGHTS  || STILL  O P E N

{ ooc // WELP, this practically became a short story. I did not expect this meme to awaken the slumbering muse but I had been working on this reply for days at a time with no control over James and how much was written which has caused other replies to be able to roll out! I REALLY wish I had a set length of material to send out but GODS do the Hauleys have minds of their own when it comes to how loud they are and how vocal they become. I’m only partially sorry - this post actually gave me a lot of feelings and insight on James. Hope it’s okay! It’s cut for length because wow did I really run with it. }

Through the warmth of the Jack and Coke he was drowning in, limbs heavy and vision blurred, the young soldier GRINNED drunkenly at his companion in the dimly lit bar, tapping his fourth drink against the other’s. 

S o m e   d a y s   it was easier than others, making flirtatious passes at certain handsome medical professionals over drinks. His breath fogged the glass he was smirking into, looking up through dark lashes with big brown eyes. James was flushed,  s l u r r i n g , laughing genuinely at Dan’s antics for what felt like the first time in God knows how long.

                                 And   S O M E   d a y s ... ?   Well, SOME DAYS   w e r e n ' t   so good.

The mere BOY had found himself beginning to spiral after it all, so LOST, staring to break more and more of his own rigid set of personal rules on morality he used to hold. The near-constant haze of being shitfaced whenever possible took him as far away from the HORRIBLE memories that chased him as it could, but it never worked. He HATED feeling out-of-control, but it was the only way he managed to relax these days. Therapy didn’t seem to be helping...

James carried the weight of the world on his tense shoulders, trying his damnedest to hold his head high. He was just a FUCKING K I D , being asked to do the unthinkable, asked to  B E  so much for everyone else. 

For him to truly let go, just for a  MOMENT  after his second tour, after everything that had happened, was a b e a u t i f u l l y rare  and  momentous  occasion.

With his best friend of a little sibling an adult now, more than capable of handling themselves for a few nights alone without his direction ( though the idea still made him uneasy ), and with his vigilante father being radio silent for the last few days, no text messages from new burners or cryptic payphone calls telling James what to do or where to go, or what lies to tell, his time was finally his own, even if  j u s t  for the night. 

The service dog at his feet sighed, nestling his head against James’ knee, focused intently on his wasted handler.

James smirks again at Mr. Cain, wrapping his lips around his glass and feeling all kinds of warm & loose as they chattered on, making humorous small talk.

Life had constantly been wearing the soldier down, the fighter holding the torch to the darkness. It's easy to see in his eyes, the way he holds himself with the world constantly at his back. His father's new " career ”  had meant there were no rules now left to govern them, his demands for James made with no regard for legality anymore. The WARS the man had served in had also meant blurred lines of their own, fellow soldiers’ breaking of rules buried so far beneath their feet as they waded through the bodies, lost to the brutality of it all. It seemed it didn't matter to  a n y o n e  what LAWS SAID anymore, PARTICULARLY not for the Hauley family, broken and dysfunctional for no good reason other than the poor choices they had all made. 

The things he did over there... Things he'd never let happen in a million years he watched take place with his own two eyes, his silence deafening; heartbreaking words he'd never  DARE  to say began to leave his lips. The things he would  NEVER  DO  became mere muscle memory,  bitter and cold  laughter beginning to bubble in the back of his throat. 

It’s hard to keep your head out there. War has a way of changing you, and not ONCE for the better. You could go in with the most pure and noble of intentions, and it mattered none to the mortars, to the insurgents and their guns. 

                                                                                                           It was ALWAYS UGLY. 

( And that face in the mirror was looking less and less like his with every passing day... )

As the night rolls on, there’s an overly drunk man behind them that causes James to sigh and shake his head on occasion, belligerent and loud about his passing opinions on just about EVERY topic. Lips purse and shoulders start to hunch, doing his BEST to ignore it, picking absentmindedly at the label on the beer he asks for, but that indescribable anger that followed him was BUILDING AGAIN. 

The thing is that James has had ENOUGH of people going on and on about things they would NEVER understand. His sisters had such complicated opinions on Thomas's actions that they’d never feel his pain on, and there were the political arguments on the wars he’d fought in from people who would never fight for another soldier in their lives, on folks regarding others with basic human decency, and on the treatment of their nation's veterans...

His fists are already balled, jaw already set hearing the man as he starts to blabber on about gun laws when he smacks into James’ back, gesturing widely. James dips his head, raises a hand with a stark expression, forgiving and dismissive  

                                                                                       Thomas’s voice echos in his mind. 

LUKE 23:34               ---  And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

But the man just guffaws, snorts drunkenly.                  “ EXCUSE  M E , ” he barks. James frowns. He’s offended that James and his little ‘ friend ’ were just sitting there, not looking back at him, no apologies to be had. The man DESERVED that respect; at least in his drunken mind.

James nods again, sharply, ducking his head and hoping he’d just... go away. He doesn’t want a fight. The last thing he wants is a FIGHT.  Kevlar, the service dog at James’ feet, lets out a small woof as his knee starts to bounce and his heart-rate spikes, anxiously running a hand over his scruff, growing more agitated by the minute. Lights flash in his eyes, fingers tap-tap-tapping on glass. He can tell the drunken James is getting upset.

Motioning at the fresh veteran tattoos on his arm ( in memoriam ), the asshole grinned maliciously. 

          “You know, you’re what’s wrong with our government these days.                                                                          NO RESPECT FOR ANYONE ELSE.                             Don’t you have some... fascist boots to be out deepthroating,  S I R ? 

                                                                          Some  INNOCENT FOREIGNERS to kill?” 

And  G O D,  there it is---  that   D A R K N E S S   that flashes up in the kid’s eyes, breathing growing more audible by the second. His bark is as sharp as his bite is, soft brown eyes eyes going dark and his face growing pale.

James laughs BITTERLY, his hands shaking as memories of dragging bits and pieces of his brothers’ remains off dusty dirt roads flashed before him, bloodied combats falling off and left behind. Deafening explosions echo in his ears as if he’d NEVER LEFT. 

“ Shut... ”  He BARKS, standing up quickly and pointing a finger in the man’s face, “You need to shut up. Just--- shut the fuck up,”  James snarls, but it’s more out of desperation than anything, glaring down at the asshole with a pained expression, hit teeth grit.

                  " G O D  ---  All...  all that  BULLSHIT  we have to deal with over there, and we--- we JUST--- we come home and get this shit thrown back at us by people like YOU.” 

The drunk puffs up indignantly, and James’ can hear Dan’s gentle voice tell him that they need to leave--- that it’s okay, that he needs to calm down, that they can  just  g o ,  but the man opens his mouth again, and that’s all it takes.

The kid can barely hear the rest of his sharp and drunken slurred insults fall on his ears, feel his service dog pawing at him, his fist FLIES towards the other's nose, gripping his shirt to hold him still.

                                                                                  CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRA—

It WOULD have been a small bar fight, a brawl, a mere escalation of brushing shoulders and slurred words, but the  c i v i l i a n  doesn't stand a chance underneath the sharp and trained hits of THE SOLDIER. It’s the echo of Dan's voice that pulls him through the fog before he truly started to see RED.  Dan, the medic. DAN, the innocent he brought there.  D A N ,  the rational drunk at his side telling him he needs to go, that they need to leave before James does something even stupider than what's already been done. The sound of his firm voice pulls James out of his mind, out of his fogged up brain, and with bloodied knuckles he furrows his brows at the more sincere of the two, his chest HEAVING as he looked down at his moaning  VICTIM  hollering about suing him, about veterans being ticking time bombs, and he nodded numbly, following the doctor out hurriedly, rushing out the door as onlookers muttered to each other.

He  pants,   s t u m b l i n g   through the street, adrenaline pumping through his chest and distant feet barely cooperating enough to guide himself out, hands raking obsessively over short hair.

                             The boy's eyes were  W I D E ,   shining  with  adrenaline  and  emotion.

" Why did I do that? "   He gasps out to Dan as if he held the answers, looking to his bloodied knuckles, to the bar and back to him with those huge and  g l i s t e n i n g ,  frightful eyes. Any coldness from him is long-gone, replaced once again with that child-like gaze of a kid who just wanted to be the good-natured change in the world he ached for, before the military turned him into an unforgiving machine.  " Why ...   why the  FUCK  did I just  DO THAT ? "

The thought makes him SICK, and he has to hold a balled up fist to his mouth to keep from coughing, gagging on the burn in the back of his throat, the taste of bitter alcohol on his tongue. He just punched a civilian. Repeatedly. He could EASILY get picked up and charged for assault and battery, dishonorably discharged. It's so unlike him, he's pale in the face, looking around as if the answers were there for him to find, his dog pushing against his legs and pawing at him.

     " I didn't mean to do that I just— He was just— He was talking shit and I— I kept thinking about  B E N,  man, "   He rambled, almost incoherently,   t r e m b l i n g   in his shoes.

                        " About his family, and— and his LITTLE GIRLS, and— I'm— I'm sorry.  I'm  SO  sorry, Dan. I— I shouldn't have  d r a g g e d  you into my BULLSHIT, I just—! " James drags on, pacing with hands in his hair.      "   F U C K !  "

James bends over,   g a s p i n g   o u t   with  broken,  raspy  breaths. Things had been going just fine. He's a fucking mess and the last thing Daniel Cain needs is to be forced into his chaotic life on top of everything else.  " I'm  so,  SO  S O R R Y ,   I don't — "

He assaulted a man in front of a medical professional and left him there on AMERICAN SOIL. A CIVILIAN.  In PUBLIC.

" What the FUCK is wrong with me? "  James  w e e p s  quietly,   w i p i n g  his nose with a soft sniff, Kevlar jumping up to kiss his tears away.

                                                         ( WHO EVEN  W A S  HE ANYMORE? )

meme answer for @slowcode​​

#asks. #( ok this was sitting for a long time but i worked on it for hours straight at one point ) #( and this helped me get into james mind ) #tw: war #tw: facism #( I love this so so so so much and THANK YOU FOR SENDING IT IN ) #slowcode

[ahitworldshift]

“Your service is no longer required.”

Chapter 2, Part 9: As Hell Freezes Over...

All the clues fell into place after what seemed like weeks within the city;  The missing citizens, mysterious deaths of actors, the cold silence between the couple, and now, the ghostly aura leading her down the long hallway.  Gella knew something was bound to be brewing when she first arrived here, but to now see that the main director of these studios was searching for souls to eat this entire time, and putting his ‘love’ in the spotlight so they would be distracted? Cruel. Absolutely cruel.

As the thoughts of hatred and anger run through her head, the mustached hero continued to run down the hall, footsteps echoing behind her and the air seemingly getting more thick. Just how long was this hallway, and why would anyone need a basement this long? Should she be concerned by how all of this felt?  She tried to yell out to get his attention, seeing a mere speck of color at the end of the hall, given away by a light shining on him.

“...Such a curious child.” It was Samuel, wasn’t it? No, no, she couldn’t listen to him, there was surely no way- “What would bring you all the way down here? Do you have a death wish?” Don’t listen to him, that’s obviously- “Or perhaps... You want to be turned into a m e a l . . . ?”

“SHUT UP!” She managed to yell out, soon falling onto her knees and placing a hand against her own throat, breathing heavily as she tried to catch her breath. Why did it feel as if she was choking? Why did everything seem so dark, and... Was he drawing closer? He was able to get close to her with a few simple steps, almost as if he teleported! 

Questions flooded her mind as she felt his cold hand lift her chin up, her orange eyes staring into those that were brown at first, fading into a glowing yellow as his mouth forms into a wicked grin. “It looks as if that wench had pretty much told you everything you wanted to know, and I won’t let that get into a public ear. You see, I crawled my way back into stardom with her ‘help’, and I won’t let you be the one to take it all away.”

“...B-back...?” Back? With her help? What did he mean?

“It’s a story that you surely would want to hear, huh? Well, it doesn’t look like you’ll be able to focus enough to remember a single thing! That’s soooo sad...!” He laughed after those words were spoken out, all lights within the hallway fading away and soon being replaced by spires of purple and yellow lights. Looking below her, they were now on some sort of stage, and up above were what looked to be the hanging corpses of employees who had gotten their soul eaten up by this monster. “You won’t even be able to fight in your current condition! But I’ll give you pity-” He teleports to the center of the stage, leaving her at the edge as she slowly got herself up. “Let’s see if you can even leave a scratch on me! Go on! Use one of your bombs!”

“Why y-you... Of course I can hhhhit you with these bombs...!” She gained confidence for a moment, barely standing up on her two legs as she soon lit the fuse of an icy bomb, throwing it at the center of the stage and aiming it at The Director. While she thought it would hurt him in some way, her eyes soon widen at the sight of ice spires piercing through him as if he wasn’t there, his ‘colors’ melting away into shades of purple and his eyes showing fake dismay.

“Oh nooo, whatever shall I do, you’ve stabbed me with your ice... HAH! You don’t even know my weakness, and I guess that makes me invincible, huh? That’s too baaad~!” Another loud laugh left him as he raises his hands up in the air, multiple of his minions jumping onto the stage and rushing around in a circle. Gella was quick enough to jump over them, but her head began to feel light from her situation; Deep underground, no way of damaging him, and the sight of others’ bodies right above her. She needed help. Any kind of help. She was scared. She was powerless. She was going to d i e .

How relationships tend to fail. How it all falls apart at even a single word, depending on who you are with. A mysterious figure loomed over the town, standing on the highest point and looking down to the studio building. It was now shrouded in a dark type of mist, with multiple bystanders looking closely within sheer curiosity. They remained silent, though, watching it all go down.

One of the ones who were up close to the building was the fox that told the girl about the myth, her tail swaying back and forth as her hand tries to push through. It was somehow solid like a wall, but she swore she could hear the laughter of someone from behind it.  “...That guy is such a weirdo,” she shrugs, looking over to one of the bystanding Fire Spirits. “But if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t really have a place to live in this city. Doesn’t mean this is good for him to do, though.”

“He’ll burn, he’ll buuuuurn~!” The Fire Spirit sung out in joy, hands against their chest as they spun around in a circle. “A punishment, soon arriving, a young hero, now surviving~!”

“Yeah yeah whatever just HELP ME OUT.” She bashed her shoulder against the smoke, growling and motioning for others to join in. The first to join was the Fire Spirit that was nearby, followed by fellow spirits. Then came the minions, all stacking onto each other to reach their heights. And finally, the dwellers, phasing into large, mysterious fruit that grew red over time. With a mighty throw, the fruit would soon explode, supposedly damaging the wall.

“COME ON EVERYONE, WE GOTTA GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF THERE BEFORE HE TURNS HER INTO A SNACK!”

“AYE!” “Yes, yeeees~!” “This is more fun than when I got to throw tomatoes at some weird looking penguin!”

The figure on top of the tower merely smiled, soon fading into thin air as the full moon is what kept the city lit up within the darkest hours.

“Come on, is that all you’ve got? I could of sworn you had more spunk in you, kid~” The spirit leisurely remained in the center of the stage, watching as the young hero dangled by her leg from a rope, her eyes widened as she swayed her body to avoid thrown objects, such as knives and broken equipment. Seriously, this is ridiculous!

“...L-let... Me... Go...!” She wheezed out, barely missing what looked to be a ‘rubber’ knife that went by her hair, grazing it and letting a few loose locks fall to the ground. She needed a hair cut anyways, this is fine!

“Face it- No one is around to help you, no one cares about you, and no one will even think about entering this place! Your soul now belongs to ME!”

“. . .”  He was right, wasn’t he? There wasn’t really any help down here, and she could feel herself getting more weak as time would pass on, especially with her struggling.  Her body limped within the rope’s hold, eyes half-lidded and her soul aching from the mysterious curse this place had. She couldn’t scream if she wanted, even as the ghost of the studios began to stray forward, grin growing wider than ever, hands reaching out to tear her body apart and claim the soul inside.

“Say goodbye to that little body of yours!” Her eyes closed shut as she saw his hands get closer, her heart beating as if she was in a horror movie, and all signs of hope escaping her as the air around her got cold...

* S H I N G ! *

“...!”

“Leave the child a l o n e !” Wait a minute. That voice. Wasn’t that...

“VANESSA?!”

When Gella opened her eyes, she was met with the sight of The Director’s hands being incased within a mysterious, blue ice. It surely wasn’t any color she had seen before but- Hey, wait. If he was a ghost, how was he now stuck in this ice? Was it a special ice she had summoned? Before she could ask any questions, a shard of ice soon cuts through the rope holding her by her leg, giving her the chance to land on the ground and pick herself up as the antagonist of this scene struggled to get out. “Wha... Why are you hhhelping... I thought...”

“There is no time to explain, please, just do what you must, and leave as soon as you can!” Her voice sounded desperate, her body trembling as Samuel was soon able to cause cracks within the ice. And as much as she wanted the girl to leave, the only response gotten was of Gella throwing an ice bomb at him, a flash of red going over him for a mere second as the ice managed to damage him.

“YOU BITCH! You know she can damage me if I’m covered in blue, or by this stupid ice of yours! That does it...”His eyes closed for a few seconds as he clenched his fists, soon thrusting his arms up and breaking the ice that encased it. Now looming over the two ladies, he had let out a loud cry of rage, hands reaching out to them as three simple words escaped his lips;

“TIME TO D I E ! !”

The female actress managed to pull Gella out of the way, a worried look on her face as she looked down into her eyes. “Why are you not running...? Is it not dangerous to stay here...?”

“...You freeze them, I throw them...” That was all she had to say as she handed her one of her regular bombs, a weak yet cocky smirk building on her face. This left the woman confused, but instead of questioning it, she soon grabbed the bomb, encasing it within a thick sheet of blue ice before giving it back to the hero.

“...Please, be careful...” “Careful isn’t exactly my game, hah...!”

And with those simple words, the battle for the fate of Subcon Studios has finally begun!

#ahit #A Hat In Time #a hat in time au #ahit au #Once Upon A Broken Time Rift ⌛STORY⌛

[liittlemac-a]

Hiraeth

hiraeth (n.) a homesickness for a home to which one cannot return, a home that never was; the nostalgia, the grief for the lost places in your past.

“I told you, I don't like driving around this part of town…”

“Don't care. Keep drivin’.”

Birdy sighed as he turned a corner, grip on the steering wheel growing a little tighter. He glanced over to Mac, who was staring out the window, leg bouncing up and down. His head was purposely turned away to conceal the fact he was biting his knuckle, and Birdy had to tut. “I hate it when you do that. Your hands get all bloodied and gross.” He grunted, not easing the tension in the vehicle at all.

“Don’t care.” He repeated. It was a short response, but his hand withdrew from his mouth. Silence fell again, and after a few minutes, Mac broke it again. “Here- h-here, pull over…” He piped up, head perking up.

The Special Circuit Champion nodded, and did as told. Once the car came to a stop, before he even had a chance to turn the engine off, Mac hopped out of the car, door slamming right behind him as he paced ahead. “J-Jeez, Mac, calm down…” He muttered with a roll of his eyes, quickly rushing out after him, making sure to lock his car behind him. He had to jog to catch up with him, speed-walking at his side to keep up with him. “So, where exactly are we going? You never said.”

Mac's head was down, hands deep in his pockets. His hood cast a shadow over his face and eyes as he pressed forward. “I'll tell ya when we get there.” He answered, hastily. From the tone, he knew it wasn't going to be good. But Birdy only nodded.

“Alright, then…”

After a few minutes of walking, Mac suddenly came to a halt. Birdy nearly walked right into him, blinking at the sudden stop. “W-What's up?” He questioned with a frown. The shorter of the two glanced up at him, then at the building they stopped just before.

Bright yellow “DO NOT CROSS” tape bandaged the whole building, windows smashed in. The walls were ashen, charred black, some of the grass singed right down. The smell of burning loomed in the air, and Mac took a step forward towards the high chain link fence that caged around the place. It took a few moments for Birdy to put together the pieces, and when he did, his hand quickly reached out to touch his shoulder in a gesture of wordless comfort.

His hand gripped at the cold metal on the fencing, a struggled breath passing his lips. “I-I didn't think I'd be so f-f-fuckin’ upset, about this fuckin’ place.” Birdy's grip on his shoulder squeezed lightly, and he inhaled sharply. “I saw it- l-last night, th’ news… W-Was an accident, apparently, but…”

He whimpered like a wounded animal, before growling, kicking the fence half-heartedly. “G-God-- God damn it! Th-That was- that was my home…!” Tears that he'd been forcing back fell out of his eyes like a river, choking on a sob. His fists balled up tightly, and Birdy had to wrap his arms around him to prevent him from throwing a punch. Once restrained, however, the boy only tried to wrestle away from his hold. “I-It's g-gone, it's gone--! Wh-Why-- WHY!”

“I-It's okay, it's okay, it's okay…!” He'd never seen Mac get so hysterical before, and for a moment he feared he'd lose it. Mac's fists flailed through the air, shouting a flurry of incoherent language, before he turned to cling around him, grabbing for fist fulls of Birdy's shirt, face against his chest. He was crying so much, the front of his shirt became damp in no time, his chest heaving and body trembling violently. He leaned against him for both comfort and support, legs threatening to buckle and give out as he sobbed like a child, grief hitting him like a punch to the gut. “C-C'mon, deep breaths, okay?”

His hand rose to Mac's hair, lightly running through it in an attempt to soothe his pain. The tears burned as they fell down his face, face red and raw as he sniffled, attempting to follow Birdy's words as he sobbed. He breathed in, throat tight and painful, chest aching. His heart felt like it had been torn in two halves, but was still beating in his chest wildly. “It was m-my ho-o-ome…” He stammered, burying his face further into the fabric of Birdy's shirt, coughing and choking on a sob. “I-It's gone- it-s all g-go-o-ne!”

Birdy's chest tightened, sighing painfully, head resting on his. His eyes shut as he tried to not begin crying himself, allowing Mac to weep as much as he needed. He was glad the streets of this neighborhood was quiet; the silence and emptiness was almost mournful, but it saved Mac the humiliation of strangers staring. His fingers thread through dyed blue locks, twirling them, as he softly hushed him. There was no words for what felt like forever. But after a while, Mac's hands relaxed, his head lifting slowly with a weak sniffle.

Birdy had never seen him look so… Broken, dejected. Blue eyes fell to the floor, but before Mac could defensively close himself up again, Birdy's hand reached for his. “H-Hey…” His eyes were wide with concern, brows furrowed together, and Mac looked up. There was eye contact for a split second, before looking to the floor again, gently squeezing his hand.

“I'm s-s-sorry. I--” It took everything to not just burst into tears a second time. He held it back, inhaling deeply through his nose to keep himself steady. “I didn't th-think it would hurt s-so-- so f-f-fuckin' bad…”

A soft smile emerged on Birdy's face, if only for a second. “You don't have to apologise. I… I heard it in the news, too, but...” His eyes directed to the building again. An old, run-down foster home… It probably didn't look much better before the fire. Thankfully no one was hurt in the incident. Not directly. “I didn't think, for a second…” He trailed off, head bowing a little. Mac understood. “It should be me saying sorry.”

“D-Don't worry. I-It's fine.” He mumbled, shoulders falling slack. “I… I-It's been on my mind, for a while, this place, an’ all… when I h-heard about it, I- I didn't believe it, y'know? I couldn't- c-couldn't--”

Tears welled up in his eyes again, and he withdrew his hand to wipe them away. Birdy's expression grew sympathetic. He knew Mac's past was very much something he held close to his chest, and whilst he knew the outline of what happened from what he had chose to share, a lot of grief went unspoken for. He supposed Mac had been holding in a lot of pain for sometime, and this had been what been the last straw. Mac's head turned to the ruins again, blue gaze still teary.

“...I jus’ always- I always wanted a family. A- A real one. That's all.” It pained him to utter those words. He breathed in, then out, bottom lip quivering. There was a long moment of hesitation. “I found them.”

Birdy blinked, puzzled. “Who...?”

“My… M-My real family. B-Biological, I mean. I contacted them, w-waitin’ on an answer right now.”

“What?! I--” He halted himself, taken aback by the statement. He had to stop himself from saying something rash in his shock. Birdy's head tilted as he shuffled a little closer. “I thought you didn't care about them? What happened?”

“I don't.” He said it like it was obvious, eyes narrowing for a moment. “B-But I can't live without answers, anymore. I can't-- I- I jus’ want to know why I wasn't good enough.”

Birdy gave a sigh. There was something that rubbed him the wrong way about the statement. Without thinking, he objected. “Mac, you know that's not why they did it. You haven't even met them--”

“N-No, you don't get it, Mackenzie.” Birdy silenced at the use of his real name, and the far firmer tone, almost angry. But his voice softened when he continued. “I- I grew up here, i-in there-- an'- a-an’ they put me through fuckin’ Hell an’ back. All I wanted was t’ b-be… Jus’... Wit’ somebody that loved me, for f-f-fuckin' once! I-- I-I wanted a dad, a mom, a s-somethin’. A-Anything. B-But nobody wanted me when I wanted someone.”

He was crying again, but he hastily reached up to wipe the trail of tears away again. Birdy didn't argue with his response. It was true; it was not something he'd ever come close to understanding, having grown up with almost everything at his feet. “D-Doc… will always be more of a parent t-t’ me, more than they'll ever be, y-y'know. I jus’...” He shook his head. “I want- I want an answer, b-before I lose 'em again…”

“...Okay. O-Of course.” Birdy breathed out. He couldn't stop Mac from doing what he wanted, anyway. And if this was what he wanted, and his parents- wherever they were- agreed, then… There wasn't much more he could do besides root for him in his corner.

“Look…” He sighed  “Sorry, f’ bein'- bein’ a dick about it.” Mac waved dismissively. The comment earned a little smile from the other, and even if his face was still raw and reddened from crying, he managed one himself. He stared between the chain link fence for another minute, before turning back to him, shaking his head again.

“L-Let's go-- I-I'll be here all day, otherwise…” He mumbled, beginning to walk ahead, much slower than before. A hand gently pat his back as he walked, and Mac glanced up at Birdy. The taller boxer's eyes were full of concern and uncertainty, but he wore a smile.

“I… promise. I promise I'm always here for you, okay?” Birdy said, voice soft and gentle. “You're my best friend. I just want the very best for you.”

As if nothing had happened, he scoffed, rolling his eyes. Right back to the boisterous attitude, it seemed. “Oh shut up, you fuckin’- fuckin’ sap.”

Despite his remark, a smile formed on his own face, even if it were weak.

“R-Right back atcha.”

#[ ooc. ] #drabble #idk how to fuckin tag this so this gets a #cw #as opposed to specific trigger warnings fhsjdksfd #basically if you don't want to read about mac crying then don't read on fhsadjkfsd #this takes place prior to the events of this blog by the way - just after the events of p-o wii #so just take this as a prequel of sorts. also yes there's gonna be a few follow ups to this drabble #so if you like angst ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ #also not to spoil anything in the tags for those who havent read: that means -people who are mentioned in this drabble- #wILL MAKE A CANONICAL APPEARANCE ON THIS BLOG WEW LOL #well anyway writing this was kinda knackering. I'll stop rambling in the tags soon but my goodness #this is gonna be a fuckin ride baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[terresdebrumestories]

Clakr Kent, of Krypton - 3/4: Superman

FANDOM: DC’s cinematic universe. RATING: Mature. WORDCOUNT: 29 999 (Fic total: ~98k words) PAIRING(S): Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne (main focus is on Clark, though). CHARACTER(S): Kal-El | Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Jor-El, Lara Lor-Van, Kara Zor-El, Zor-El, Martha Kent, Alfred Pennyworth, Diana Prince, Barry Allen, Arthur Curry, Victor Stone, John Stewart, J’onn J’onn, plus a quick cameo by Lois Lane. GENRE: Alternate Universe (canon divergence), transition fic with romance. TRIGGER WARNING(S): A great deal of anxiety and self loathing, especially in parts one and two. Some descriptions are heavily inspired by my experience of dysphoria-induced dissociation. SUMMARY: Batman crashes on Krypton a few days before the Turn of the Year celebrations and Kal-El's life takes a sharp turn to the left, on a path that will ultimately lead him to becoming Clark Kent.

OTHER CHAPTERS: [I. Kal-El] [II. Shadow] [IV. Clark Kent] ALSO AVAILABLE: [On AO3] [On Dreamwidth]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thank you, still, to @stuvyx​ for the wonderful illustrations and to @susiecarter​ for the beta :D

Healing pods are designed to be a blank space. A place where the body can heal and the mind be left idle, bathed in warm fluids and soft bubbling noises. There is nothing else, in a pod, save maybe the dizzying feeling left behind by the abrupt disappearance of pain. Kal floats in that warmth forever—or maybe just a minute—and the silence around him is occasionally broken by a deep sound, muffled, as if it comes from far away.

Then there is a vibration, a great noise of suction like the emptying of a sink, and Kal finds himself thrown headfirst into the bone-deep cold of reality, shivering and with half a mind to scream. He struggles, blind and disoriented, against the burning things trying to pull him—up? Down? There is no telling. Kal gasps, blinks against the veil that will not let him bring the world into focus. Twists away from the burn and ache of something else on his skin—and sinks into darkness.

The world comes back in snatches. Shivers—cold, then hot, then cold again. Gray-green so dark, it is nearly black. Voices overhead, talking...to him, perhaps. Or rather about him. Then there is dark, a vast emptiness that lasts for a long time, until Kal’s mind reaches the surface once more. Smells. Something dry, warm on his clammy forehead. A voice, deep and gravelly. The abyss.

The cycle continues for a while, though Kal could not say how long if his life depended on it. Several times, he almost wakes—brings images of what happens then into the next attempt—until he can finally open his eyes, blink, and know that he is in a spacecraft. More blinking, a painful twist of his neck, and he learns that he is in a Kryptonian spacecraft, most likely the one some El ancestor had the forethought to smuggle under the Citadel when space travel was banned, after the Lanterns’ war.

Pain and remembrance come to him all at once, then, as if one had called the other, and he gasps around them—breathes in, deep and hard, until his lungs hurt, his throat aches, and there are burning lines running from the corners of his eyes. His body aches, too, muscles still sore around the scar where he was shot, and his neck feels rigid under him, painful enough that his one attempt at raising his head tears another pained gasp from him. He tries to focus on this, and not the rest, but the memory of it—Kara’s face as he was lowered into the pod—rushes back, and back, and back every time he tries to push it away, until he has no choice but to surrender to the sobs or choke on them. There is a hand on his forehead, then, cool and dry and a shade too strong to be entirely comforting, and Kal wishes he could stop himself from leaning into it, but does not have the strength for it yet.

“Stop moving,” Batman says, something stern in his tone even after he tries to soften his voice. “You’ll make things worse.”

The snort escapes Kal’s throat before he can even think of stopping it, neck twisting again in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of Kryo’s silvery form. Hunits like it were never meant to pilot a ship like this one, let alone on an intergalactic journey. It makes sense that it would be keeping its entire attention on the task, added programming or no...yet Kal’s throat tightens again when he cannot find it, homesickness so strong for just a moment that it threatens to engulf him again.

He forces himself to swallow instead—accepts the water Batman presses to his lips, and asks, “How long was I—?”

“You were in the pod for about four days,” Batman says, “and unconscious for the next thirty-six hours.”

Kal manages a nod, throat tightening despite his best efforts. Six days away from Krypton—six days since he saw a glimpse of it for the last time in his life. The thought feels strange, in his mind—overpowering yet not quite there, like an obnoxious mirage waiting to be dismissed or reveal itself as reality, and Kal breathes in deep, tries to ignore the call of it. It is not an easy task.

“Well,” he forces out in the end, hoping against hope that a new thread of conversation might be of some help redirecting his thoughts, “I suppose it could be worse.”

“Hardly,” Batman replies, and Kal’s mouth clicks shut, what little resolve he’d managed to muster vanishing in an instant.

“Batman,” he starts, but, not for the first time, Batman snaps:

“Do not ‘Batman’ me. You have been walking around sick and sleep-deprived—you endangered countless lives with your recklessness, including your own. That shot could have killed you! You are lucky the healing pod was well-maintained, or you might be paralyzed by now.”

“I am sorry,” Kal mumbles, stomach slowly sinking to somewhere beneath his recovery bed.

Guilt presses at his chest, at his temples, at the corners of his eyes. Batman is, after all, perfectly right. In point of fact, he is being remarkably restrained about this—he could be much, much harsher on the topic and still say nothing more than Kal deserves, nothing more than the truth. Kal knew, the second the cycle began, that there would be no excuse for it.

“I knew you were green,” Batman continues, hissing more than speaking now, “but had I known you were such a reckless idiot—did you think yourself immortal? Did you think death would not take you?”

Kal looks away, biting the inside of his cheek until his focus narrows down to the pain and not the burn of words he would never be able to take back—until his eyes close of their own accord, lids burning as if someone were trying to seal them with melted wax. Overhead, Batman takes a sharp breath in, and Kal wishes he could fall out of existence as easily as dust from a shelf.

“Did you even care that it could?”

Kal does not answer. Eventually, Batman’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, squeezing tight—too tight: the skin might bruise, but the gesture is a comfort nonetheless.

“Kryo says we should reach Earth in a few hours,” Batman says in a voice gone from furious to entirely blank. “You should take the opportunity to rest.”

There is the barest of pauses, as if Batman had inexplicably faltered, before he turns on his heel and leaves. Kal remains alone in the healing chambers of the ship, unable to bring himself to open his eyes. Batman might be right: perhaps Kal will like Earth. Perhaps he won’t. There is no way to be sure, but the one thing that is certain is that he will not see Krypton again for a long time, if he ever does. Tears gather in his eyes as fast as memories in his mind, and he makes no effort to repel either. His arrival on Earth—his installation, as far he can tell—will require his full attention, after all. If he is to lose himself in grief, he might as well do it while there is nothing else to do.

Krypton...the Citadel may not have been the best home, for Kal, but it was his home. He knew every wall, every room, every tapestry of it. The Citadel was a vast cocoon of familiarity and a—tenuous, but real—connection to a family he could never help but feel removed from. It was not an ideal home, but it was home, and now that Kal has left, the list of things he must mourn seems to go on forever. No more sunsets setting the mountains aflame with red light. No more standing on the balconies of the Stateroom of Peace and admiring the Lords and Ladies’ Citadel residences below. No more comforting himself with the knowledge that, whatever else might happen, there would always be his labs and his plants—and Kara—to return to.

Who can tell whether there will ever be that sort of space for him on Earth? The ship, he supposes, might be kept...but it will not be on Earth. What if Kal never truly adapts? Batman survived Krypton without much trouble on the physical side of things, so Kal is not too worried about that. But what if he never finds a way to fit in? And what will it cost him to even attempt it? He is willing to make the effort; that is not the question. But he does know all too well that sometimes, even doing one’s best is not enough...and what then?

There is no way to know. Kal lies there, on a small medical cot in an ancient spaceship, with nothing for company but the icy emptiness of space and an alien who must be overjoyed to come home, until exhaustion claims him and he finally falls into an uneasy sleep.

Kal wakes up with a shout of pain on his lips, the entire left side of his abdomen tingling as if with static. Most of his muscles ache, complaining over their disuse, the skin around them too tight and too dry for comfort. Kal breathes in deep, taking stock. The cot under him is moving—not in the smooth hovering glide of Kryptonian equipment, but rather with a regular rattle of small wheels on a smooth, hard surface. It sounds like the sort of cabinets Kal has encountered in the older corners of the Palace, antiques meant to store documents too precious to be traded for digital copies. A brief flash of himself as an antique—left in a glass case and surrounded by two or three conservation-specialized hunits—makes its way into Kal’s head, and he snorts against the hard material of something like a mask pressing on the lower half of his face. There is a blindfold on his eyes, too, but the feeling of the air on his face speaks of cool darkness rather than sunlight. The smell of water is in the air.

Kal raises a hand to pull his blindfold off.

“Do not,” Batman says overhead. “You are not to exert yourself until you are both healed and used to Earth’s atmosphere.”

Kal does not have it in himself to chuckle, even grimly so. Healing, he knows, will take time, but adapting to Earth’s characteristics...who knows how long that will take? Just because Batman stopped panting like an ox every time he moved after three weeks does not guarantee Kal will achieve the same. Even if he does, there is no saying what other problems Earth may pose to him. The planet shares a number of characteristics with Krypton, it is true. Batman would have died, otherwise. But it is also much smaller and much younger—as are its sun and its lone, undamaged moon. Who knows what that will do to his body?

“Would you at least remove the blindfold?” Kal manages. Then, when that provokes no response: “The fabric on my eyes?”

Batman speaks again, but over Kal rather than to him. Someone else—deep voice, steady tone,a different cadence to their words—answers him, and Kal’s tired brain somehow manages to recognize English, although he cannot make out any of the words he has learned. He sighs, trying to let the two voices lull him to sleep—he trusts Batman, after all, not to lead him into a trap—but in vain. He is grateful when, after a while, Batman’s hand—Batman’s naked hand!—brushes against his temple as it finally pulls Kal’s blindfold off.

“Thank you,” Kal manages, even as he blinks.

They are, as he suspected, not outdoors: a smooth, geometrical ceiling about twenty feet high blocks his view, light rippling over it with gentle irregularity. The lights are dim but clearly artificial, and while the space is too full to really echo, there is still a hollow quality to it as Batman and his companion discuss something or another over Kal’s bed.

A twist of his head reveals nothing but a rough wall of untouched stone to the right, the edges of Batman’s cape floating into view as he guides Kal’s bed along what must be some sort of walkway. To the left, a vast empty space, part of a large cavern that hasn’t been colonized by Batman’s vigilantism just yet. Kal stares at a large rock, jutting out of the water like Vohc rising from the depths of his very first creation, and follows the line of it into the darkness on the other side where a wall must be hiding. The walkway’s ceiling blocks his view when he tries to look further up, and he does not have the strength to twist enough to get a good look at the back of Batman’s cave; but he does catch a glimpse of a brighter area further in, the space built around—a statue, maybe. A column of some kind, in any case, and something Kal is reasonably sure is person-shaped, though whether it is meant to be an altar or a more profane sort of display, he does not know.

“Are these your headquarters?”

Batman remains quiet for a moment, while he and his—companion feels too impersonal. ‘Friend’ does not quite encompass the feeling in the air between them, much more reminiscent of Kal’s conversations with Kryo than the ones he used to have with Batman...and of course ‘hunit’ would be a wildly appropriate term to apply to any living being, especially one Batman addresses with that level of familiarity and respect. Whoever he is, he and Batman wheel Kal to a stop, the silence between them almost stony.

“Batman,” Kal manages, and is met with an explosive sigh.

“Yes. More precisely, you are now in the infirmary. Which I have, because I am not entirely foolish.”

Batman’s company speaks from somewhere on Kal’s right, and he sees Batman’s cowled head turn to look at them, the edge of his jaw squeezed tight. He does not answer, however, and turns back to Kal with a glare that makes Kal wish he could sink into the bed.

“Batman—”

“You deceived me.”

“What?” Kal protests. “No, I—”

“You told me you wished to help the citizens of El. You presented yourself as a man with a mission—not a death wish!”

Kal swallows, hands finding the edge of the medical cot and squeezing them as he blinks a sudden blur out of his eyes.

“I was not trying—”

“Were you not? You ignored every warning your body had to give, put everything you and your cousin had built in jeopardy—and all for what? To preserve your ego?”

Kal opens his mouth to protest—closes it. ‘That is not why I did it,’ he had been about to say, but would it have been true? He spent so much time focused only on putting one foot in front of the other—he never truly stopped to ponder his motivations for it. He wants to say ego was not the answer, but can he swear to the truth of it? Or does he only want to be seen in a better light than he deserves? He does not know—does not know that he wishes to know. Besides, does the answer truly matter to anyone but himself? His attitude the past few weeks constitutes either a dangerous inability to do what must be done, or a dangerous attempt to preserve undeserved pride, neither of which Batman should accept.

How could he? Kal may only have had a limited look at the man’s headquarters, but they are vast. They are full, too: full enough that even in such a cave the echo remains quite low, almost inaudible. Whether this cave is Batman's main lair or a secondary base, it must have taken years to assemble. Years of successful secrecy, years of building things Kal would never even have dreamed of accomplishing on Krypton.

Whatever Batman may be to his planet—however right Kal’s assumption that he and Shadow strove toward the same sort of goal, despite dramatic differences in their levels of success, turns out to be—it is quite clear that he has been working at it longer, harder, and far more competently than Kal ever managed.

“I apologize,” Kal says in the end, turning his face away from Batman, from the infirmary—from all of it, if he could.

To his right, Batman draws a breath in, ready to pursue the conversation—stops when his companion speaks. Four words, maybe five, and with no more steel in them than there had been before, but it is enough to shift the air in the room. At first the tension grows, as if on the verge of explosion—and then there is the scuff of a foot, the soft sound of fabric on concrete. Batman departs with the click of a door. For a few blessed seconds, all is quiet, and Kal swallows and blinks. Brings himself back under as much control as he can manage before the sound of Batman’s companion tinkering peters out. Kal keeps his gaze averted when the person steps nearer, focusing on the large rock in front of him, until the feeling of a hand on his shoulder—brief, soft, impersonally kind—makes him close his eyes again.

He is alone by the time he reopens them.

Kal must have fallen asleep without quite meaning to: he opens his eyes to the ceiling of Batman’s infirmary again, just in time for the door to click shut somewhere to the right of his head. His side is still quite sore, the skin itching with returning health, but his muscles feel mostly functional. With a huff of breath, Kal rolls over until he can prop himself up on his right elbow and take a more encompassing look at the cave.

He looks past his feet first, blinking at the sight of large metal doors set deep into the wall of the cave, the mechanisms necessary to have them move all but invisible. Whatever their purpose is, they look like the sort of things meant to withstand a siege. To the left, the walkway Kal was wheeled in on, flanked with two wheeled vehicles—ancient things, by Krypton’s standards, but Kal is starting to suspect they might not seem so to the average Earth citizen—and some sort of bulky aircraft. Kal studies it for a moment; notes the build of it, the disposition of its rotors, the way it is clearly meant for a lone pilot, before he moves on to the rest of the cave. There is the boulder he noticed on his way in—somehow larger and more menacing now that he is awake to see it. Behind it, glittering in the dark, an underground lake explains the damp coolness of the air.

It takes some effort to keep looking—Kal has to pull on still-tender skin in order to twist and follow the rough lines of the cave’s natural ceiling and find the bright white light of yet another glass case...a weapon room, perhaps, though it is difficult to say for sure. Kal has spent quite a lot of time poring over old books and microscopes, after all, and while his vision is not poor, it does show signs of use most Kryptonians' eyesight would not. It is difficult, in these conditions, to ascertain whether the shapes on the walls are truly objects or simple swaths of paint.

The display case, however, is easy to identify, and the armor inside unmistakable from that angle. Kal is still frowning at it when someone clears their throat behind him.

He turns around—too fast: it makes him hiss, flesh still tender. Healing pods have extraordinary properties, but it is a well-known fact that it does no one good to leave all the burdens of recovery to them. Kal takes a second to wish that were possible before he looks at the newcomer.

They are of average height, lean but not scrawny. Gray hair, cut short, parts on the side of their skull, and despite the scruff on their chin both the—visual aids, perhaps—and their clothes are immaculate, though the cuts and fabrics are foreign. But the care—the posture, the careful refusal to intrude—is familiar enough. Hunits, after all, are not the only sort of servants to be found on Krypton.

Kal watches as the domestic deposits a tray bearing water and a bowl of what seems to be broth—lukewarm, Kal assumes. It wouldn’t do to put his body through more effort than strictly necessary at this stage...especially not when they have no idea whether he will even be able to digest much of Earth’s food, if any. Batman’s ability to handle Ellon dishes with barely any discomfort is encouraging, but it does not, in the end, guarantee a similar outcome for Kal in any way.

“Thank you,” he tells the servant in English, flushing when he has to repeat himself.

Fortunately, terrible pronunciation is not enough to deter the alien—the human. Kal is on their planet, now: he is the alien. In any case, mangled phonetics or not, Batman’s servant does not seem to think less of Kal, smiling as they watch him dig into his predictably lukewarm yet delicious meal. At least he is lucky enough to start his days on Earth with a good meal. So good, in fact, that he waits until he has scraped every last drop out of the bowl before he thanks the servant again and, touching his forehead, says:

“My name is Kal.”

He repeats his name for good measure, and smiles when the human touches their chest rather than their head—"Alfred," they say. The oddity of the gesture is as charmingly incongruous in them as it was in Batman. The smile dims when Kal realizes he will need to adopt that same gesture in the future, and a number of other things he has yet to imagine but might very well find much more unpleasant than this.

He does not understand what Alfred says next, but the tone is easy to decipher, and Kal dismisses the concern with a practiced smile and a shake of his head. Then he asks:

“Where is Kryo?”

“Kryo?”

The corner of Alfred’s mouth twitches when Kal mimes Kryo’s shape in the air, but Kal ignores the urge to shrivel—squeezes his knee tightly enough for it to hurt—and watches the human point at the ceiling with one finger rather than their whole hand. Kal thanks the human in shaky English again, and is in the middle of wondering how to initiate something of a conversation when Batman appears at the door, Kryo hovering a step behind him.

He swallows, tensing without meaning to, and forbids himself from looking at Alfred for reassurance as Batman steps into the infirmary proper. There is something stiff in the way he moves, and when he speaks, it is with the grammatical forms of a noble and the familiarity of an equal.

“I was—harsh. This morning. That was...unnecessary.”

“Think nothing of it,” Kal says, heart hammering against his ribs without any good reason.

“I would,” Batman says, “but Alfred would disapprove.”

Alfred’s clothes rustle, when they recognize their name, but they do not comment, and Batman continues:

“He is pushier than he seems, but he is—not entirely wrong.”

“Please,” Kal says, voice somehow thinner and firmer at the same time, “there is no need to—”

“Look, you didn’t deserve—”

“Stop!” Kal all but shouts, blinking in surprise at his own outburst.

It takes him several seconds to bring his breathing back down to something bearable, to beat the urge to block his ears into submission. When he manages it, eyes stinging with vanishing pressure when he opens them, he finds his knuckles white on the coverlet. He has to work some more to swallow the sudden knot of tears in his throat, but once he does—once he feels his voice will remain steady enough—he ignores Batman’s renewed stiffness, pretends to forget about Alfred entirely, and asks Kryo:

“How long have I been in this cave?”

“Twelve hours and fifty-six minutes,” Kryo replies in its usual monotone. “The pod’s sedatives are all but out of your system by now.”

“Good. How long, do you think, until I recover?”

“You should be able to leave the bed in the next few days,” Kryo says. “Complete recovery is expected in one to three months, depending on the way you tend to your injury, and barring unforeseen complications.”

It is a good thing, Kal thinks—though he does not say it—that he will have little to do but recover in the upcoming days. Weeks...who knows how long, really. He knows little of Batman’s life for the present, the man incredibly discreet about it even when he still considered Kal a friend, but he knows enough to realize it will not afford Batman much time to take care of Kal. Should he even wish to. Whatever the road ahead may have in store for him, Kal had probably better prepare himself to face it alone.

“Thank you,” he tells Kryo, relieved when he manages to keep his sudden dread out of his voice.

And that is not his only source of reassurance: he has been done with his broth for ten minutes or so, now, and has yet to feel any adverse effect from it.

“Please set yourself up in language acquisition mode, and begin preparations for a learning course as soon as you gather enough data.”

“I did not know it could do that,” Batman says from his spot near the door.

Kal musters a tired smile.

“I suppose it is never too late to learn. It is a pity circumstances made this function useless to you, but I hope it might at least save you the trouble of finding me a tutor and explaining my presence on Earth, at least for a while.”

Besides, this way, Kal should be able to communicate with all relevant parties until he finds a place to settle in, whether on Earth or...elsewhere. Coming here was, after all, never part of the initial plan—that would have been the version of events in which an injured Kal left with a fully qualified physician as a companion, in addition to Kryo. But the moment came, and Batman was there, and why would Kara have deprived the Dark Sun of a most valued asset—and set herself up for the trouble of having to smuggle them back—when anyone could listen to a ship’s instructions and manage a well-functioning pod? It might have meant further gambling with Kal’s life, but he would have insisted on it, had he been conscious. He might have been reckless, and idiotic and—and a number of other things Batman has been too polite to call him, but Kal does have a certain sense of priorities, if nothing else.

“It should,” Batman says with a nod.

Kal watches him turn around and busy himself with the medical readings—some in the English alphabet, some in Ellon. The pointed ears of his cowl glint like teeth even in the darkness. Things remain quiet while Kal musters the will to speak, the broad expanse of Batman’s back more frightening now than it used to be back on Krypton, back before he tried to apologize, like he’d done something wrong, and Kal—swallows, ignores the tightness of his throat, and asks:

“Is there any way I might sit up?”

Most beds on Krypton are at least equipped with a positioning mechanism, designed to ease the daily life of the elderly. A bead mattress such as Kal is used to would most likely be too much to ask, but perhaps a bend in the bed’s frame...Kal bites on a hiss when Batman turns back around and fiddles with a small white remote, the bed lifting Kal’s upper body in a way that makes his left side twinge. Batman’s lips thin.

“I apologize,” Kal says, and feels his teeth click together when Batman cuts in:

“You nearly died. Pain is to be expected.”

Kal blinks, struggling to breathe for a few seconds. Then, in an effort to take the focus away from himself, he asks:

“Does Alfred know your face?”

“Yes,” Batman says.

His face—what portion of his face Kal can see, at least—does something rather complicated, his jaw tensing for the briefest moment before he says:

“I’m afraid I’m quite unused to sharing that secret with people.”

It takes Kal a few seconds longer than it should before he realizes what Batman is saying, what the raising of his hand means. This time, it is easy to ignore the pain in his side when he pushes himself off the mattress, hand outstretched, and says:

“Oh, no, there is no need—”

But Batman breathes in once, sharp and determined, and unclasps something in the neck of his suit, and suddenly there he is, staring at Kal with an expression—Gods. Kal is—he knows himself well enough to realize he would be transfixed by Batman’s face no matter what expression it bore. The strong jaw, the slight dip in the chin. The way his hair falls into his eyes, mussed from the cowl. It would, Kal is sure, take very little for a face like this to enrapture him completely.

But the way Batman looks at him is—there is something in it that pulls at Kal’s insides, something wild and raw—frightened, almost, but then...no. This is—why would Batman be afraid of him? He has seen every inch of Kal so far, a side of him so pathetic he never even dared to allow it into the light of day in front of Kara. How could a man like Batman be scared of—of that? Ridiculous. Kal blinks, heart hammering against his chest, and when he is done he finds Batman composed once more, face as neutral as it ever was under the cowl.

Somewhere at the bottom of Kal’s stomach, a shamefully perverse part of him misses—whatever made Batman’s face look like that, and he is still trying to figure out what to say when Batman clears his throat and turns away to inspect one of his displays with a look of intense focus.

“Kryo says you have undergone a fifteen percent amelioration,” he tells the display in a painfully neutral tone, and Kal—

“Thank you,” he blurts out, using the most respectful forms he can think of.

Batman pauses—so brief, so swiftly smoothed—and fiddles with the display screen in his hands.

“You helped me before,” he says without looking at Kal. “It seemed fair to return the favor now that you were injured.”

“Yes,” Kal makes himself say, the heat of a flush all but setting his neck and ears on fire. “Thank you for that, too.”

He is almost entirely certain he does not imagine the click of Batman’s teeth when he closes his mouth again.

Three days come and go, although Kal would not know that for sure if it weren’t for Kryo’s help. He spends most of that time sleeping and, once the suit is returned to him, using part of the material as a reading screen to lose himself in one of his favorite Flamebird myths. Not that there is nothing else for him to do; far from it. He must learn English, for one, and it wouldn’t go amiss for him to try and discover more about Earth’s cultures—or at the very least, the one Earth culture he is most likely to encounter in the near future.

He does not, however, have the slightest idea of where to begin, no true study plan—as this particular function of Kryo’s relies on the quantity of audio samples it can gather, and both Batman and Alfred are rather sparse with their words. There is also, of course, the matter of Batman’s six-month-long unplanned absence to deal with, and while Kal cannot possibly be of any help to them in that regard, he does at least know how to make himself unobtrusive during times such as these.

It is this skill of his that threatens to send him and Batman into their next argument. Kal, after all, does not only possess a functioning sense of when he is not wanted, but also a state-of-the-art multi-function military suit. In the end, it takes him comparatively little effort—although it does require a healthy dose of irritation at being forced to use a bedpan—to ignore Kryo’s injunctions not to leave the bed, slip into the suit and, having adjusted it to his needs, make his own way to the nearest bathroom.

The distance between said bathroom and Kal’s infirmary bed is irrelevant: by the time he is done with his business, all it takes is a couple of steps—three, if he is feeling particularly generous towards himself—before he has to sit down, winded beyond even making use of the suit. He is still sitting there, breathing deep and trying to keep the pain at bay with an archaic prayer to Rao, the cold of the stone seeping into his back, when Batman happens to pass by.

He has discarded the uniform this time, clad in a simple white shirt similar to Alfred’s usual uniform—and a style of pants that reveals much more of his backside than Ellon clothing did while somehow making the definition in his thighs much harder to discern. Not that Kal spends all that much time looking, but Batman is a beautiful man, and it would quite possibly be harder not to notice these things. Besides, with Batman refusing to do anything but stand by Kal’s side and look down at him with an expression Kal finds himself incapable of deciphering, there actually is little for him to do besides admire his host’s physique. Until, that is, the silence becomes unbearable.

“May I help you?” Kal blurts out.

He has enough time to stammer through half an apology at the ridiculous nature of the question before Batman nods at his legs.

“You kept the color.”

Kal looks down at himself, where the white cotton of his night shirt—Batman’s eyebrows rose when he heard the request—gives way to the skin-tight crimson of Shadow’s uniform, the material thicker than usual but still utterly recognizable in design. He feels himself blush.

“Restructuring it takes some focus,” he admits, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “Altering the color for this seemed like a waste of energy.”

“By ‘this’, I presume you meant getting out of bed before you were supposed to?”

Kal blushes harder, but does not deny it. What would be the point? The evidence is more than damning. What he does instead is brace himself for the return trip, making the suit prop his legs through the motions of standing up, and then blink in surprise when he wobbles and Batman catches his elbow with a bare hand. Kal might well be slightly more aware of the contact than is entirely appropriate.

“Thank you,” he mutters, and focuses on his feet rather than look up at Batman’s face when he hums.

“I have been meaning to ask how you built it for some time, actually,” Batman says after a few steps, glancing down at the suit just long enough for Kal to catch the movement from the corner of his eye.

“Oh, uh...I—I didn’t, actually,” Kal admits. “It’s Zodri technology. I became quite lost during a visit to their Citadel and stumbled onto a prototype of it—it was a genuine accident,” he adds, when Batman’s lips quirk upward.

Before then—six months before then, to be precise—he had been doing what he could with more traditional equipment. The abandoned elevator shaft in his lab had been a pain to go through, and swinging between roofs far scarier than anything Kal would ever care to experience again. That is not a time he will ever truly miss, but it would feel wrong to take credit for a miracle he had no part in, save perhaps being his pathetic self and growing distracted by reflected light in the luckiest of places.

“I think they’d accounted for just about every method of stealing their new technology save for someone strolling through the door and cutting some of the nanites off the prototype. Kryo did more to turn that suit over to my service than I ever did.”

“Criminal oversight on their part,” Batman says, and this time Kal allows himself to smile down at his feet.

“Pride makes a fool of many a man—and you might have noticed the great Houses of Krypton have no shortage of it.”

“Except you.”

Kal remains quiet until they reach his bed again and he can fall on the mattress with very little dignity. He knows the pinch of his lips is too pronounced for Batman to miss it, how unsubtle he is being—how unsubtle he is, as a rule—but there is little else he can do against the wave of shame and tears threatening to submerge him. He looks around the cave instead; the back of it is quite familiar at this point, although Kal has yet to be allowed near the front, let alone the upper level.

None of what he sees seems remotely achievable by one man, let alone quickly, and he forgets to look for a minefield before he asks Batman:

“How long have you been using these facilities?”

“Twenty years,” Batman replies—smooth, controlled. Convinced, possibly, that Kal missed the breath he took before he spoke. “Give or take.”

Kal turns back toward Batman, unable to hide the awe that seizes him—nor anything else, for that matter, though at least Batman is kind enough not to remark on it. There is a pause between them while Kal debates on the merits of asking his next question, but then it becomes apparent there is precious little of his dignity left intact, and Batman was already dismissive of him long before meeting Shadow. Kal might as well ask.

“How did you survive all of this for so long?”

“I am a better fighter than you are,” Batman replies.

Kal’s mouth opens and closes, treacherous heat crawling up his throat and into his eyes like lava bursting out of a reluctant volcano. He turns around, then. Refuses to yield to Batman’s hand on his shoulder.

“Get out,” he manages through the tight fit of his throat.

The mix of relief and disappointment at how easily Batman complies is a bitterly familiar sensation.

Ten days after his hasty departure from Krypton, Kal is allowed to walk under his own power again. He wears the suit, still—although in the form of dark gray slacks rather than Shadow’s form-fitting leggings—and he has to brace himself on Alfred’s arm for it, but his legs are actually up to the task, and that is all that matters.

Kal has not had any significant conversation since his latest attempt to leave the infirmary, for Alfred suggested the day before yesterday that Kryo attempt connecting itself to something the old man called ‘the internet’. The hunit has since been quite busy attempting to download it all and, judging from the fact that it has yet to emerge from the task or send any kind of distress signal, is still at it. As for Batman...he has, so far, kept his distance, a fact Kal found himself altogether more and less bothered by than he would have thought, both at the same time.

“He’s just so—opaque,” Kal tells the old servant when they reach the front of the cave, and Alfred has to make it clear Kal is not to go up the stairs. “I—I understand why he wouldn't want to associate with me, and I don’t intend to force it once he sees fit to have me out of here. I just—well, he is the only person I can talk to around here. Could talk to.”

Of course, ‘have a conversation with’ would be a more appropriate way to phrase it, but still. Being used to a certain state of isolation does not necessarily make it more agreeable to bear. Still, with Batman apparently out of reach for the time being, Alfred remains Kal’s only company, and it would not do to antagonize him. Kal lets himself be steered back toward the rear of the cave, where Batman’s vehicles and medical equipment reside, but does not resist a glance back as soon as the artificial ceiling gives way to the natural width of the cave. (Nor, he notes, does Alfred seem too keen on preventing it.)

It is a weapons room up there—the weapons lined around the walls make that clear—but it is one in name only. In the glass cases in the wall, old armors glare at the void, previous versions of Batman’s uniform preserved like trophies, mementos of what could easily be confused for past glory, if it weren’t for the centerpiece. Kal does not recognize the design. Has no context for the different colors, not enough knowledge of English to recognize the words scrawled in bright yellow all over the torso. He does know a memorial armor when he sees one, though—has walked by his grandmother’s often enough to know the signs. The way the room is oriented around the case; the slight falter in Alfred’s touch when Kal pauses. The way Batman purposefully avoids looking at it as he comes down the stairs wound around it and locks eyes with Kal instead.

He is much less surprised than the would have anticipated when Batman comes down to his level of the cave and relieves Alfred of his duty. For a while, they walk. Their footsteps do not echo, the cave too well-engineered for that, but the silence between them is so absolute that Kal almost imagines that they do. The more frightened side of him longs for small talk—an update on Kryo; a remark on his outfit, oh-so-similar to what Batman himself wears.

What he gets instead is silence. A short breath—the last one before drowning—and then Batman’s voice, almost offensively casual:

“It seems to me like I came across as quite—cavalier during our last conversation,” he says.

Kal has not bothered with the royal forms of Ellon since he was on Earth, Shadow’s words simpler to maintain and devoid of the ghosts attached to Kal’s more formal speech. Batman however, has either failed to notice—unlikely—or refused to acknowledge the change, sticking to the ones Kal first taught him. They do not make the gap between them quite as wide as it was when the man insisted on addressing Kal as a prince—merely enough to tell a Citadel Lord apart from a Mountain Lord of equal riches—but they do imply some form of superiority on Kal’s part; and tonight, more than any other night, Kal wonders whether they are a misguided attempt to preserve his pride or a form of deliberate mockery.

He does not dare to ask, however, and only hums in response, eyes still firmly on his feet as he follows Batman’s lead down the walkway.

“I did not mean to offend you when I compared—”

“That was not the problem,” Kal retorts, anger flaring with the abrupt certainty that Batman is fully aware of that, even though those words die in his throat before he can truly consider saying them. “Your superior skills were never in contest. But I have—I was only Shadow for eight years. Eight! And it nearly—”

Kal breaks off. Pauses to breathe through the enormity of what he has just said. What he does not want to think about. He did not mean for things to work out in such a way, but then Batman—Kal did not exactly care enough to put much effort into preventing that outcome, either.

“I am not—I was not trying to—” Kal pauses again. Breathes in the scent of chilly water and underground moisture. Then, keeping a tight leash on his tone: “I was not working toward a particular goal, but I know what I risked, and I know what I did or did not do. I—I tried to be more like you. I wish I could be more like you—that I could...help you, somehow. But I cannot be Shadow anymore. I wish I could but I—”

Kal hisses, swallowing against the hard stone in his throat, but does not find it in himself to say the rest. To acknowledge what Batman figured out days ago. He takes the last few steps to the infirmary doors instead, leaning on the threshold to get away from the unbearable heat of Batman’s hand on his elbow.

(Away from the bone-deep wish that he could afford to lean into it as much as he wants to.)

“I already have help,” Batman says after a heavy pause. Then, when Kal can’t help but glance toward the cave’s upper level: “Had help.”

Batman does not turn around, and so Kal does not look at the empty armor again. He looks at Batman instead—the wrinkles in his brow, around his eyes. The lines around his mouth that might follow suit soon. He sees the tension around Batman’s mouth, and the very tip of a scar peeking out of his shirt collar—the rough lines of his hands so at odds with the fine fabrics he favors when not in his nightly uniform. How many years of climbing rooftops in the night does it take to create a man like him? What sort of will? Nothing that Kal possesses, that much has been made clear, but that does not make him any less desirous to figure the answers out.

“I trained him,” Batman says after a long pause, angling his body away from the armor at the front of the cave, his gaze away from Kal. “Worked with him. Then he died.”

Kal makes himself hold Batman’s gaze, though the gesture costs him more than he would have thought. It is the first time time Kal sees that sort of harsh resolve on Batman’s uncovered face; but not, he suspects, the first time it has graced the man’s features.

“We will bring you back to full health,” Batman says at last, the tone of his voice leaving no room for discussion, “and then I will help you reach a destination of your choosing. Our contacts within the Green Lanterns have to be good for something.”

Kal nods, and wonders why admitting that he would very much like to remain on Earth feels too momentous to voice.

It comes as a rather significant surprise, to Kal, that that particular conversation with Batman should make things easier for him, but that is still the end result. After all, if even the partner Batman trained himself was not skilled enough to survive, how was Shadow—with his minimal training, his isolation, his poor grasp on the prerequisites of a vigilante’s life—ever going to do this for much longer? It is luck, pure and simple, that allowed him to survive that long, and realizing he never truly had control over it is—it makes it easier to focus on the present, if nothing else. When Kryo finally finishes downloading the internet after three days spent on the task, Kal throws himself into learning English with the energy of a man with absolutely nothing else to do.

It goes both faster and slower than Kal would have expected—the grammar is much simpler than Council’s, to say nothing of Ellon, but English phonetics are...well, they exist. Kal keeps stumbling on some of them, and no amount of self-quizzing or perusing the resources Kryo managed to compile can erase the fact that he does not actually have that many occasions to practice spoken English, except during Alfred’s visits around mealtimes. On the upside, Kal is getting fairly good at distinguishing the nuanced tastes of broths and soups.

“What do have?” he asks Alfred that evening while they set the table.

There is little doubt, in his mind, that Alfred would rather be performing domestic tasks alone—the Gods know no servant on Krypton would ever allow a noble to help them in their daily work—but Kal is not a prince anymore, and he does have some practice with pretending not to understand a rule so he can get what he needs. All he has to do is to think of this as a mission—call up some of Shadow’s strength of will—and here he is, twenty days into his indefinite stay on Earth and almost able to set a table. He tries not to think too much about what his family would think if they realized how much he is enjoying this.

“‘What are we having’,” Alfred corrects as he brings his tray carrier over to the tiny table.

Kal recognizes the word ‘soup’ and some form of negation, which, combined with the new eating implements, give him some grounds to hope for solid food...a wish fulfilled when Alfred lifts the cover for the main dish, and Kal discovers an array of colorful vegetables with a simple sauce, most of which—he assumes—he has had as a soup before. He takes his seat at the table just as Batman enters the cave, and doesn’t let his smile drop until after they have both started on their salad.

“Is there a problem?” Batman asks after a couple more bites.

“I think that will depend on you,” Kal admits, voice growing too thin for his taste. He clears his throat, and makes himself continue: “I was...well, in all honesty, I’ve been growing rather bored here, so in an effort to distract myself and learn more about this planet, I asked Kryo—”

“You had it search for information on the Batman,” Batman says, voice gone entirely flat.

Kal has to steel himself for it, but he nods and keep his eyes level with Batman's anyway. He may not have had the intention to do any thorough reading—all he wanted was the name of Batman’s city, since the subject has only rarely come up between them and, when it has, has brought more grunts than answers. Still, snooping is snooping, and there is no point in denying it now.

“What I failed to anticipate,” Kal tells Batman, knuckles tightening on his cutlery, “was that Kryo would take Batman to mean you as a person rather than just your vigilante persona, so—”

“You know who I am.”

“I know what your civilian name is,” Kal corrects. “I didn’t read further than that. I also had Kryo destroy the file, and gave it firm instructions never to share that information with anyone unless you explicitly permitted it. I have no intention of exposing you, you have my word. But I thought you should know.”

There is a long, long silence while Batman chews on his salad with the sort of care that used to have politicians on their toes when Kal's aunt and uncle displayed it. Kal watches the man’s precise movements, the deliberate absence of tension in the line of his shoulders—his neck, his mouth—and fights the urge to curl in on himself as if he truly thought Batman would hit him.

“So,” Batman says eventually, tone so even Kal has to wonder if it is truly natural, “you know—”

“I know your name is Bruce Wayne,” Kal says, glad for some reason that Alfred isn’t here to overhear, “but nothing else.”

“Good,” Bru—Batman says.

Then he sets his fork and knife down with infinite care, dabs his lips clean with a delicate napkin, and excuses himself from the table with his plate only half finished.

“I talked to a friend,” Batman says as he enters the infirmary the next day. “She is willing to take you in.”

Kal blinks, entirely unprepared for this conversation, although he does have a sneaking suspicion that he knows exactly what prompted it.

“You are well on your way to recovery,” Batman continues without even a hint of hesitation, “and we have vetted enough Earth foods you can eat for you to survive outside this cave. There will be things to watch out for as you decide where you wish to go next, but short of keeping you here for another six months, this is about as safe as we can make you for the next step of that journey.”

“Of course,” Kal murmurs with a nod, not trusting his voice to come out right.

He has been getting a little stir-crazy, lately, and it will do him good to see other parts of Earth, especially if he wants to stay here. It will be nice to meet this friend of Batman’s, not to mention make new experiences for himself. Nevertheless, the timing of it is—it stings, just a little. But then Kal does not have any ground to stand on here, and so he listens as Batman tells him about a place called Kansas and a woman named Martha Kent.

“She helped me when I had nowhere to go,” Batman says in lieu of explaining how they met, or what he was doing several hundred miles away from his city in the first place. “We stayed in touch afterwards.”

Kal nods, wondering whether—and if yes, how—Martha Kent knows the name of the man she saved. It is possible; Kal can’t imagine Batman accepting anything less than absolute privacy, unless he were unconscious and cut off from Alfred entirely. But it sounds just as likely that the vigilante would have kept his face a secret even after Mrs. Kent helped patch him up. Kal will have to wait and see.

“Obviously, you do not have to agree,” Batman says, when Kal, lost in thought, misses his cue, “if you would rather not risk the security breach—”

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Kal cuts in, blinking once at the statement. “I trust your judgment. If you trust her, I am satisfied.”

Batman pauses to stare at Kal, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn down, and this time Kal widens his eyes in question. He does not truly expect a response—is not really surprised when Batman shakes his head rather than answer—but he would be lying if he said he was not curious about the reaction. Though with the way things have been going the past few days, Kal is starting to suspect this will merely join the long list of things he will never understand about Batman.

“The only problem,” Batman says after a moment, tone almost circumspect, as if he expects Kal to do something entirely outlandish any minute now, “is discretion. There is a shapeshifter in the Justice League who made sure Batman’s absence remained unnoticed, but Bruce Wayne has only been back on Earth for a few weeks. Transportation is not a problem, but—”

“Oh,” Kal cuts in when he catches Batman’s meaning, “my suit has a stealth function.”

He chuckles when Batman raises an eyebrow, but orders the suit to switch mode anyway. The camouflage is far from Kal’s favorite feature—he has yet to go through something as unnerving as being unable to distinguish the shape of his own body, even with floating hands—but it is efficient, and, once Batman tests it, proves decently resistant to basic scanning methods.

“Well,” the man says once he has gathered all the information he needed about this particular feature, “that solves a few problems.”

It takes a bit of time for Batman to organize everything—some of it spent verifying Kal’s affirmations regarding Kryo’s anti-gravitational properties—but on the twenty-fifth day of Kal’s stay on Earth he, Batman and Alfred finally depart for Kansas.

The first leg of the trip is entirely silent, owing as much to Kal’s current invisibility—and the subsequent need to pretend he doesn’t exist, lest someone think Bruce Wayne is losing his mind—as to Batman’s foul mood. Why that should be, Kal has no idea. Didn’t the man want him gone, after all? He should be happy. There is, of course, a chance that he is simply unhappy Kal gets to see the inside of his house—glass and metal everywhere. Not a spot of dust, not a single personal object left in view. Kal’s knowledge of Terran homes is practically nonexistent, but even then he fails to see what Bruce could find so embarrassing about it. It is almost as if no one lived there; what harm could possibly come of Kal seeing this? Still, it is clear Batman is uncomfortable the whole time it takes them to cross the house, and so Kal does not linger, nor attempt to strike up a conversation.

The sky outside is overcast, pewter gray rather than the deep ocher Kal is used to; but the smell of water in the air is the same, and the wind feels almost as cool on his skin as it did back in the Ellon mountains. The first fat drops of rain spattering on Batman’s car—a sleek black vehicle, which, if it weren’t for the wheels, would not have stood out too terribly on Krypton—are like a balm to Kal’s soul, the sky at least trying to match itself to the heavy feeling in his chest. He is, after all, leaving the first home he has ever known on Earth...which may not have been much of a home at all, not in the traditional sense, but it was a familiar place, and comfortable, by now. It is only to be expected that Kal would feel something like a pinch of nostalgia when forced to leave it.

Despite all that, things progress smoothly until they reach the airport itself. It is not so much the look of it that poses a problem. The pale gray shade and blocky shape of it are a far cry from Kryptonian architecture’s organic lines and darker colors, but that was only to be expected. The aircraft, however...Kal shudders.

“When you said ‘ jet ’,” he tells Batman under his breath, “I imagined something a little more advanced.”

“Are you scared?” Batman asks at a similar volume, angling himself so it looks like he’s talking to Alfred.

“At the risk of offending you,” Kal replies, unable to stop himself from sounding cross, “these look positively primitive to me.”

Batman’s snort is quiet, but the earpiece he wears makes it more than easy to pick up on. Kal, if he is honest with himself—which he tries to be, as a rule—is perfectly capable of admitting the fear seems ridiculous. He has made jumps far more dangerous than this, after all. Gods, if nothing else, Kal himself finds his own fear ridiculous...but the fact remains that he would much rather be swinging between the roofs of El than about to board one of these things. Even riding a h’mori as ill-tempered as H’raka seems abruptly preferable to flinging himself into the air on the back of what is, essentially, a spacious missile.

There is nothing to be done about it, though. Even were Batman willing to consider a last-minute change in plans, which seems unlikely given what Kal knows of the man, he did describe his jet as being at the forefront of technology. There is no smoother ride to be found on the planet, at least not on such short notice, and so Kal swallows the discomfort and follows Batman across the tarmac and up the steps with a weight in his stomach.

“Do you truly feel that uncomfortable with it?” Batman asks once he is seated, several rows away from Kal. “I’ve seen the beasts you ride on Krypton. Those can hardly be any less uncertain a ride than this."

“You’re right, for the most part,” Kal has to admit.

He still has vivid—and terrifying—memories of his first ride, seven years old and clutching the pommel of his mother’s saddle with white-knuckled fingers as the wind blew through his hair and swallowed his screams. But he had strong arms to hold him in place then, and a harness...and on the one occasion when he did fall, a trained animal with significant fondness for him that wasted no time in snatching him out of the sky.

“I would still prefer to fly on a living animal.”

“I am afraid we do not have any of those available,” Batman says, and Kal smiles under the helmet, thinner than he would like.

There is a pause, and then Batman says:

“You should take the opportunity to read up on Kansas while we fly. It would do you good to know some things about your new place of residence.”

“What is it like?” Kal asks, eyes drifting to where Batman is doing an excellent impression of a man hard at work—although for what reason, Kal can’t quite figure.

“Not this rainy,” Batman retorts with a jerk of his head toward the window, where the storm has picked up in intensity, streams of water gliding over the tiny windows. “And very flat.”

Nothing like El, then. Kal, abruptly glad for his invisibility, hums and braces himself for the pressure of takeoff.

The sky when they land is, if at all possible, even more uniformly gray than it was back in Gotham. Batman and Alfred both assure Kal the weather—although not the humidity—is usually better in the summer, but it does nothing to prevent Kal from longing for El’s dry mountain air. Earth, so far, has felt strangely like a soup, and Kal makes a mental note to include that in his next letter to Kara. It is a comfort to think this, in that it alleviates the loneliness of the place and allows Kal to remain quiet and composed as he climbs into Batman’s rented car. It still doesn’t quite make up for the foreignness of the landscape—the endless swathes of yellowed crops waiting for harvest, the ruler-straight lines of roads that have never had to find their way through knife-sharp rocks.

There is a turn, eventually—well, there are several turns, on several roads sitting at ninety-degrees angles from each other, but this one is an actual curve. It weaves through two fields: one mostly empty save for the yellowing grass on the ground and a four-legged mammal with a rather long neck; the next much wider and more trampled, filled with at least fifty adult mammals of a different sort. They are much rounder, for a start, brown where the other animal is black, and obviously heavier, even from a distance. The horns, though proportionally much shorter than a hurak’s, add to the impressive ensemble, and Kal can’t resist asking—in Ellon, for the sake of his own comfort—“What are these things, on the left?”

“Cows,” Batman replies. “Do you like them?”

“I think so,” Kal says with a shrug he knows Batman can’t see. “They look majestic.”

Batman chuckles at the word, and Kal is about to ask why when Alfred announces, “Here we are.”

Kal turns around and, taking advantage of his invisibility and the impossibility of his wearing a seatbelt while camouflaged, leans forward until he can fit most of his torso between the front seats and take a look at his home for the next undefined period of time.

He notices the red building—a barn, Alfred calls it—first. It sits to the left of the land, next to a larger blue building. Both are made of wood, both could probably use a new coat of paint, but only the blue one seems to have direct access to the left-hand field with its many cows—a shed of some sort, then? Behind them, a field of gray-golden plants lines the horizon, a few green trees sprinkled in the distance in a stark contrast to the pewter-gray sky. Kal follows the lines of it to the right, where the other animal—a horse, Batman says—grazes with a certain nonchalance, and from there to what must be the house.

It must have been white, originally, though age and the ambient light have turned it gray. A cubic building, two stories tall, with symmetrical windows on the facade and a comfortable front porch with a cushioned bench on the left. Golden light spills from inside, the sky overcast enough to make mid-afternoon feel like evening, and while Kal’s stomach hasn’t quite stopped lurching since he got off Batman’s plane, the sight of the open door makes something warm curl in his chest, and he smiles as he wills his suit into the shape of more ordinary clothes...and then, as he walks, there is a click of wood, the front door opens, and Martha Kent emerges from the depths of her home.

She is a fairly tall woman in a flower-patterned shirt and faded jeans whose loose black-and-gray hair floats in the wind even as she opens an umbrella against the first fat drops of rain. Kal, a step behind Alfred and two behind Batman, watches her push her hair out of the way and hurry towards them in plastic clogs, raising her umbrella high over her head and bypassing Batman entirely in order to shield...Kal. He blinks, surprised, and blushes when he fails to understand what she’s saying.

She laughs it off though, fussing gently at Kal’s shoulder and exchanging what he can only assume are remarks about the weather—he thinks he hears the word "rain" in there—with Bruce and Alfred. Together they hurry inside and shed their muddy shoes under the porch, Mrs. Kent’s eyebrows rising when she notices the nanobots starting in on the cleaning process. Then Kal is ushered inside the house and steered to the right toward a low couch upholstered in blue, a coffee table made of pale wood sitting in front of it. He stands just past the threshold, not daring to go further yet, and watches Mrs. Kent all but force a towel on Bru—Batman and Alfred each, the three of them amiably chatting all the while.

Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say Alfred and Mrs. Kent are amiably chatting. Bruce—Kal was really trying to keep calling him Batman, fairly sure a switch wouldn’t be appreciated, but the man trying to finesse his way out from under Mrs. Kent’s attention is clearly far too flustered to be Batman. He loses the fight, Alfred and Mrs. Kent clearly having decided to team up and lovingly bully him into self-care, and is about done toweling himself dry when there is a loud bang and the sound of metal crashing to the ground, and then Kryo appears on the other side of the screen door. Kal hides his face in his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he tells the assembly in English, “I forgot...stop?”

All three Terrans are looking at him, now, and he switches to Ellon in an attempt to at least spare himself the embarrassment of not knowing how to convey a simple thought.

“I forgot to turn off the proximity protocols—they kept it stable in the trunk, but—”

“But now my car is ruined,” Bruce sighs—and yes, it is still Bruce.

It is...uncertain, whether this change happened before and Kal did not notice it, or whether Bruce was unable—or unwilling?—to be anything other than Batman while Kal was in the cave. Regardless, there is something different in the slant of his shoulders now, a—not a relaxation, exactly. Kal doubts, sometimes, that Bruce even knows how to truly relax—not that he is one to pull the first feather. Still, from the outside it seems like a certain lessening of tension has taken place, and it isn’t something Kal remembers seeing before. The contrast is subtle, but real, and it’s enough for Kal to only mildly panic during Bruce’s five-second pause.

“Well,” Bruce says afterwards, already gesturing toward the door, “I suppose we might as well let it in.”

He does, and Kal is grateful for it, as it means the rest of the conversation, though in rapid English, is perfectly understandable for him.

“This is Kryo,” Bruce tells Mrs. Kent, “Kal’s personal supercomptuer-slash-butler. It’ll handle translations as long as they’re needed.”

Kal gives Mrs. Kent a polite nod, and can’t stop himself from blinking when she turns to him with a wide grin—the kind that makes people’s eyes crinkle, even. The force of it is enough of a surprise that Kal misses Mrs. Kent’s words entirely, never mind Kryo’s superimposed translation. He’s still trying to collect himself enough to ask his new hostess to repeat herself when he finds himself gently but inescapably directed to an open kitchen and its well-worn table, its wooden cupboards and the smell of freshly-brewed coffee. On Mrs. Kent’s instruction, Kal sits down on one of the pale wooden chairs, and tries not to scowl when a look at Bruce reveals the man all but smirking at him. Kal blinks, blushes, and then does his best to convey ‘I know you’re just glad not to be the main focus anymore’ without opening his mouth.

“I was thoroughly briefed on your food restrictions,” Mrs. Kent says as she deposits a thick slice of apple pie and a mug of coffee in front of Kal, forcing him to turn away from Bruce—who he could swear is starting to look a little nervous at the edges.

“I may have sent along a few allergy warnings,” Bruce says, and Kal doesn’t need to turn around in order to picture Alfred’s face as he deadpans:

“Six pages of them.”

Kal...has some practice, controlling what sort of emotions he lets other people see. Bruce-as-Batman may have been witness to more slips than anyone else in the world, but for the most part Kal has managed to keep the worst of his inadequacies to himself—often by design, but sometimes also thanks to happy accidents. It’s the same thing that happens now: Kal’s nerves burst out of him in a short, sharp bout of laughter before the blush blooms in his cheeks—his forehead, his ears—and spreads warmth all through his chest. Out of every new thing he has tried since he came to Earth, after all, only two ingredients have caused him any trouble, and even then nothing worse than a long sneezing fit and a slight bout of nausea...nothing to fill six pages with, really.

(But then, he notes, he is sipping on a coffee with just the right dose of sugar, and Mrs. Kent didn’t have to ask him how he took it.)

“Your coffee is excellent,” Kal tells Mrs. Kent once he’s mostly recovered from his surprise. “Thank you very much for having me here."

He doesn’t think he imagines the way Bruce seems to relax on the other side of the table, but before he can make sure of what he’s seen, Mrs. Kent all but beams at him, and Kal doesn’t hesitate before answering in kind. In all honesty, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it, even if his body hadn’t barreled into the response without consulting him: how could he not smile at someone who feels like a small sun took a kryton form and decided to warm him specifically? It feels too good here, too warm not to smile—and then blush as red as the sun when Mrs. Kent all but coos at him.

“Well,” she says, “aren’t you a sweetheart.”

“Why, Mr. El,” Alfred murmurs, “it seems you have been adopted.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Kal retorts, and then he takes a deep breath in.

Alfred—he doesn’t know. Of course he can’t know, or something of it would have shown, but the reminder—the reopening of that particular wound here, of all places—Kal blinks, throat tighter than he thought it would be.

“I...apologize,” Alfred says, clearly perplexed by Kal’s reaction, which is evidently not as subtle as he wishes it were. “I didn’t mean any offense—”

“There’s nothing wrong with being adopted,” Mrs. Kent says, gentle but unyielding, and Kal blushes harder, stares at the green material of his coffee mug.

“I know,” he admits, relieved when his voice doesn’t quite break on the word. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. It’s just—I wasn’t, and—I thought you knew,” he finishes lamely, barely daring a glance at Bruce.

“Knew what?”

Kal blushes harder than he remembers blushing in his entire life before now, the heat of it prickling at his armpits and the palms of his hands. It is bad enough to know this about himself—bad enough to know what the rest of Krypton thinks of it—but to have to explain it here—

“That I’m—that I was...not adopted,” he says, cowering in the face of the revelation.

There is a long pause, during which Kal is quite sure significant glances are exchanges over his head, before Bruce asks, “Kal, what exactly does it mean to you when you hear ‘adopted’?”

“Well,” Kal manages through a tight throat, “properly grown, of course.”

He dares to look up, then, and can’t help a frown when he realizes all three of his companions look utterly puzzled.

“In the growing genesis chambers, in Kandor?”

Another pause, and then Bruce’s features shiver through half a second of shock.

“Wait,” he says, “grown, as in...growing a plant?”

“Well, yes,” Kal replies, nerves turning his shame to impatience—if he is to go through this humiliating an ordeal, he might as well get it over with as quickly as possible. “Normal families put in a request to the Wise Council specifying their social status, their respective Guilds, and the child’s chosen Guild; wait for the the engineering to be done; and pick their child up three weeks after harvest. But my parents were—they decided to—to—grow me at home,” Kal finishes with a dejected sigh, unable to remember the words to describe what he is.

“You mean your mother got pregnant with you,” Bruce says after a short, stunned silence.

The archaisms sound even worse than they usually do in Kryo’s electronic voice, and Kal wonders if having this conversation entirely in Ellon would have been better or worse. He nods.

“And then she gave birth to you.”

Kal nods again.

“Kal,” Bruce says, more careful of his words than Kal has ever heard him, “that’s how everyone is born on Earth.”

Kal raises his head so fast he actually does pull a muscle, and winces at the pain. From the other side of the table, Bruce gives him something that’s almost a smile, though his eyebrows are still caught in a frown, and Kal swallows, unable to figure out what, exactly, is pressing so hard at his throat. He thinks, briefly, of the whispers that used to follow him back in El—and then breathes a long sigh of relief when he realizes he’ll never have to deal with that here. No matter how he may feel about this whole thing—and that is definitely something he will need to pay some attention to in the future—this is an undeniably wonderful thing to learn about Earth, and he has to wipe at his eyes before he can say:

“Well, that’s—that’s good news.”

He doesn’t dare try to say more right away, not when he has no idea what he even wants to say; but fortunately the other three, if they have questions, keep them to themselves. Silence settles between them. It is not uncomfortable, exactly, but it is heavy with the strange tension of high differences in emotional states in a group—until the oven beeps.

“Right!” Mrs. Kent exclaims, rising from her seat and reaching for a towel on one of the cupboard handles, “I’d forgotten about dinner.”

Kal goes to offer his help when she turns to take a dish of what she calls lasagna—‘approved ingredients only!’—out of her oven, but finds himself promptly shooed back, while Alfred uses the confusion to retrieve plates and cutlery from a different cupboard. Kal smiles almost despite himself when Mrs. Kent gives the butler a playful glare, but otherwise allows himself to be served.

He shouldn’t—really, he shouldn’t. He isn’t a prince here, and if he is going to live as a regular person, he has to learn how to perform regular tasks, too. He is, however, aware that he has no idea how to actually help in this situation, and still reeling from the things he learned tonight besides. Perhaps it is best if he sits down and processes things for a while. He can always learn to wash dishes later on, after all. He’s no Batman, but he did survive as Shadow for a while: he can probably out-stubborn Mrs. Kent if he needs to.

In the meantime, Kal watches his companions set the table. Bruce, clearly used to Alfred and Mrs. Kent’s bickering about menial tasks—playful, but with an edge—has sat back too. Kal is abruptly struck by the realization that this, all of it, has been tailored specifically for him. Not for a prince, not for the House of El, but him, Kal. And what’s more, out of the people who were instrumental in creating this entire situation, the only one who even knows for sure that Kal is of royal blood—Alfred, he’s quite sure, has made an accurate guess based on Kryo, but hasn't said anything—has never paid any more attention to that than external circumstances required.

That is a first, in Kal’s life. Oh, he can’t claim to have lacked any material thing he might have wanted, of course! But if there was ever a time when all the people in his life worked together to make a situation more agreeable to him, without any other considerations in mind, Kal has forgotten it. This time, he has to sniffle when he wipes his eyes again.

“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Kent says as she sits down, “is everything okay?”

Kal, eyes still firmly glued to his plate—and frankly unwilling to raise his gaze for the time being—nods.

“Yes, thank you,” he says after a shaky breath. Then, because English has yet to prove capable of conveying the full meaning of what Kal wants to say, he adds in Ellon: “You are very kind to me. Thank you.”

Kryo can’t, of course, translate the grammatical forms Kal used—there is nothing in English grammar to indicate the respect due to a benefactor—but Mrs. Kent pats his hand anyway.

Once dinner is finished and the dishes done—again, without Kal’s help, owing to Alfred’s absolutely devious use of the phrase ‘are you questioning my abilities?’—Kal tries to have a hand in making up his room, at least, but finds himself turned down again. Mrs. Kent’s mouth quirks into an amused smile as she tells him, “Stop acting like this is going to be a permanent situation. Tonight you’re a guest and I’ll be treating you like one—tomorrow you become part of the household and then I’ll put you to work.”

Kal, if his host’s smile is any indication, doesn’t quite succeed in hiding his relief at the words, but that doesn’t bother him in the least. In fact, the satisfaction of knowing he won’t remain an imposition on Mrs. Kent for much longer is enough to settle his nerves for the most part, and he goes back down the stairs to the living room and then the front porch, where Bruce is watching rain fall down on the land.

“I told you so,” he says in Ellon when Kal joins him, “you cannot win against her.”

“We shall see,” Kal replies.

In front of them, the steady drizzle has turned storm-dulled greens and grayed gold even darker, puddles slowly growing in the front garden. It’s quite unusual to have that much rain at once, Mrs. Kent said during dinner, sparking a conversation regarding Earth’s climate change. That is a topic Kal wants to look into, eventually, the dangers of changing an entire planet’s composition as far beyond measure on Earth as they are on Krypton...right now, however, the rain does a good job of masking the landscape’s best features and promises, thus admirably mirroring his mood. That, however, is another thing he chooses not to look at too closely for tonight, acutely aware that he may not have that much else to worry about in the upcoming days.

“You should know,” Bruce says after a bit, “that there is a significant chance she will not allow you out of her office until she has built a space dedicated to you.”

Kal protested, at first, when Mrs. Kent mentioned rearranging her study. He is more than capable of—and entirely willing to—sleep on the couch. Mrs. Kent, however, looked offended when he suggested it, ordering him to stop his nonsense and insisting that she was not yet old enough to have forgotten the proper way to treat people, especially when they’re going to live with her. Kal suspects the surprise he felt at Mrs. Kent's vehemence didn’t play as big a part in his inability to tell her no as he would like to think.

“Was she like this with you?” Kal asks after a while, sticking with the comfort of Ellon for now. “When you first came to her, I mean.”

“Yes and no,” Bruce replies, leaning sideways into one of the porch’s support beams. “My injuries were worse than yours when she first brought me here, and she put a great deal of effort into caring for me until I could be moved back to Gotham.”

“But?” Kal prompts when Bruce’s pause lasts longer than anticipated.

“I am not as...disciplined a patient as you are. Or an exile.”

Kal breathes in, more sharply than he meant to, at the reminder, but Batman is not wrong. He is an exiled man. It would take a tremendous change in Krypton’s governments—both local and planetary—before anyone would consider even pushing back against what is sure to be a call for his death. And even were that to happen, Kal highly doubts they would allow him back anyway—not without debating it for several years, at any rate. The chances of him seeing Krypton again are…slim.

“Did you receive any news from your cousin?”

Kal nods. Even with Krypton's considerably advanced technology, it takes time for messages to travel from there to Earth, and then back. Writing to Kara—letting her know he was alive and on the way to a full recovery—was one of the first things he did when he woke up, not ten days after leaving Krypton. From there it took almost five Green Lantern Coalition Days—roughly the same length as Kryptonian days, and no more than three hours shorter than Earth days—for his message to travel through a multitude of relatively short-distance channels and reach Kara. Based on this, and knowledge of Kara’s constraints and habits, Kal isn’t expecting her second letter for another four or five Earth days, at best. Still, it makes for a piece of home to look forward to, and the thought is enough to bring a small smile to his lips.

“She’s doing fine,” he tells Batman. “The official version of evens is that Kal-El’s decision to elope—”

“Elope?”

“To run away,” Kal says, and doesn’t allow himself to falter before he adds: “Generally with the intent to marry—or at least live with—whoever you are eloping with.”

Bruce nods once, sharp, stiffer than he was a minute ago. It’s a bit of a surprise, considering how unruffled he usually is, and even Kal realizes the cover story is nothing more than a convenient way to leave Kara free to continue her work with the Dark Sun directly. Yes, it makes Kal want to blush, but it isn’t like his threshold for blushing is as high as it should be in the first place.

“I assume by ‘official version of events’, you mean the government is covering up your identity,” Batman says, several seconds late but in a steady voice.

“A fair assumption,” Kal says, stomach twisting, gaze falling on his hands.

Kara didn’t share any details about that—she didn’t share much of any detail at all, in fact, most of her letter dutifully comprised of reproach and lamenting his terrible life decisions, the feeling of betrayal that filled her when she learned of his secret identity. The shame it would bring their family, if any of this were to be made public. It was hardly the most pleasant thing Kal had read in his life, but at least it had allowed Kara to signal that she was safe, and that’s really all Kal could have hoped for. Given the circumstances, his present situation is, quite frankly, clearly superior to what he used to assume discovery would bring.

“And Shadow?”

“Soon to be tried,” Kal says, fingers squeezing harder at the railing. “Then...the death penalty, I imagine.”

There is no guessing who the man who will play his part in the trial might be, and no room for Kara to tell him, either. That, and any other question Kal has—how Kara managed to keep her involvement a secret even after the bug’s pilot saw her face, what the Wise Council will do to El after all of this—will most likely remain unanswered forever, or until they can meet one another again.

He is bracing himself for the moment when he needs to explain all of that to Bruce, but, whether because Bruce has reached that conclusion himself or because he is trying to be considerate—most likely the former, Kal thinks with unexpected amusement—Bruce doesn’t ask.

“It...might sound callous,” Kal confesses after several seconds have passed with only the sound and smell of rain between them, “but part of me is glad to be here.”

“It is perfectly normal to rejoice at being alive,” Bruce points out in a soft voice, and Kal smiles.

“You’re right. But I’m particularly glad to be alive here .”

He doesn’t have the time to check whether he imagined Bruce’s blush or not before the front door opens and bathes them both in golden light.

“The room is ready,” Alfred tells them, nothing but a dark silhouette in the light from the house, and the sight makes Kal smile.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Kal tells him. He turns back to Bruce then, nerves tingling without knowing why, and says in Ellon: “I believe that’s my cue to retire for the night...I assume the two of you won’t be long here after that?”

“No,” Bruce confirms. “I have things to deal with in Gotham.”

“Of course,” Kal agrees, the smile easier to summon than the end of his career as Shadow ought to permit. “We’ll stay in touch, then?”

Bruce nods. Kal waits a beat, but no further words come, and so he shuffles his feet a little before saying:

“Goodnight, Bruce.”

“Goodnight.”

A smile for Alfred.

“Goodnight, Alfred. Thank you for everything.”

“You’re quite welcome, Mister El,” Alfred replies with a small smile of his own.

Kal nods again and steps inside, climbing the stairs two at a time to get to the landing. There are only three doors there: the bathroom at the end of the corridor—open and lit, as if in waiting—Mrs. Kent’s bedroom door, and, to the left, the smallest room. Kal steps inside to find it crowded with rows and rows of shelves filled with binders and what Kal assumes must be boxes of files. A large black desk and its accompanying wheeled chair have been pushed to the not-so-far left of the room to make way for a brown fold-out armchair currently in bed position. Kal takes in the sun-faded pale yellow paint on the walls, the plaid blanket folded at the foot of the bed. There are pictures and other documents in frames on the walls, trinkets on the shelves...and, comfortingly enough, a potted plant on the windowsill.

“I know, it’s not much,” Mrs. Kent says in a rueful tone, probably mistaking Kal’s silence for disappointment, “but at least it’s comfortable.”

“Oh, no,” Kal protests, surprised himself at his sincerity, “no, it’s perfect. Really,” he insists when Mrs. Kent’s eyebrows rise high on her forehead, “it is. Thank you very much, Mrs. Kent.”

Mrs. Kent bursts out laughing at that, growing three shades pinker in the space of a second.

“Sorry,” she says immediately after, “I’m sorry. You’re quite welcome, but Mrs. Kent was my mother-in-law—you have to call me Martha.”

“Oh,” Kal says, pleasantly confused, “of course. Thank you, Martha. And please, do call me Kal.”

Martha nods again, still smiling—it makes it impossible for Kal to do anything but smile in response, even when Kryo all but buzzes in protest.

“Well, I have to go see Bruce and Alfred off,” Martha says after a puzzled look at the hunit, “but please make yourself at home—I’ve left you a toothbrush and something to sleep in on the toilet seat. Goodnight, Kal.”

“Goodnight, Martha.”

Kal watches her make her way to the stairs with a smile on his face, then turns back to Kryo, unable to restrain himself from frowning.

“Kryo,” he tells the hunit in Ellon, “I understand this is not part of your usual protocol, but you’ll have to get used to people calling me by my first name here.”

“You have lost the diction of a prince,” Kryo starts, but Kal shrugs it off.

“So? In case it escaped your notice, I also lost the status of a prince. Krypton has no relevance here, and even if it did, Earth would be Green Lantern territory. On this planet, I’m just an ordinary man, and people will address me like one. Please don’t protest unless I tell you to.”

“Very well, Kal-El,” Kryo says, and Kal sighs.

Hunits are not, generally speaking, programmed to emulate emotion, but that has never stopped anyone from feeling like they have expressed some, especially Kal. Still, he ignores the perceived disapproval to look inside his bedroom and sigh.

“I don’t believe you’ll fit in there,” he tells Kryo. “Not comfortably, anyway. Would you mind staying above the stairs for the night? You’d be free to wander, but the corridor is too small for you to stay there.”

“Of course,” Kryo says.

It bobs in place and goes to settle itself in the one place where it won’t bother anyone, and Kal nods at it before going to prepare for the night. The bathroom is small—barely the size of his closet back on Krypton. In fact, Kal is quite sure he could fit the entire floor in his old rooms. The equipment is foreign, and the shade of blue on the walls would be considered excessive and gauche on Krypton...yet he looks at it all—runs a hand over the worn-soft fabric of the nightclothes Martha picked out for him—and smiles harder than he remembers smiling in a long time.

Despite both Bruce's and Martha’s promises of sun-kissed summers, the next week is made of rain, rain, more rain, and the occasional light drizzle. It has the potential to become a real problem for the crops, and Kal, still something of a botanist even this far away from home and the reasons he started studying plants in the first place, spends more than a little time staring at the pouring skies by Martha’s side.

She didn’t lie at all, that first night: rain or no, there are things to be done on the farm. They feed the cows in the rain—and discover, to everybody’s surprise, that the animals have an inexplicable fondness for Kal and specifically for trying to lick his face. They repair a damaged section of fencing in the rain, and drive to the vet’s clinic and back in the rain—subsequently spending a good half-hour out of the the rain but in the shower to clean up Martha’s newly neutered dog. They spend so much time outside under the downpour Kal’s skin itches afterward, pinker and tighter than it should be on his cheeks and shoulders. They put it down to the cold, at first; then when the feeling doesn’t fade, Martha clicks her tongue and says something about polluted rain.

Thus limited to the inside of the house—despite Bruce’s insistence, on the phone, that Kal should consider coming back to the cave for a round of testing, even if it means Bruce has to send Alfred and the jet to collect him—Kal shifts his focus to household tasks. He learns, in no particular order: to bake a cake, to make his own bed, to play checkers, to sweep the floor, to play Chutes and Ladders, to do the dishes, and to never question Martha when she affirms Kansas has the only football team worthy of her support.

(Bruce, when Kal shares this discovery in a text, sends another team’s logo back, and Kal decides he doesn’t know enough about Earth sports to get into that debate.)

Kara’s reply arrives sooner than expected: barely a day after Kal’s arrival on Martha’s farm. He leaves the itching out of his response, but goes over everything else in as much detail as he can—it takes him two days before he is satisfied with it—and, when the exercise proves to be more difficult than he would have liked, asks Martha for a notebook and takes to writing down as much of the things he thinks and feels as he can. It might lengthen his letters to Kara, but if it means he can come back to his notes later on and remember what it felt like to watch Jeopardy for the first time, or to discover the taste of dark chocolate chip mint ice cream, Kal is willing to take it.

On Kal’s second Tuesday at Martha's farm, he wakes up much sooner than he thought he would, something different in the air compared to all the other mornings he’s spent there. He opens his eyes with a reluctant sigh, gaze falling immediately to the blinds and the pale gray light filtering through the cracks, and blinks until his brain finally catches up. Scrambling out of bed, he jumps over a stack of cardboard boxes labeled ‘Jonathan’—the clothes now mostly waiting in the hamper for him to wash them and wear them again, while Shadow’s suit sort of...stands there—and rushes to the window. He struggles with it somewhat, making what must be quite the racket, but finally manages to unstick it with a triumphant noise, pushes the blinds open, and doesn’t even try to stop the awed ‘oh’ from leaving his lips.

The world is still shrouded with mist at this hour, lending the air a cool, silvery sheen sharp enough to remind Kal of home when he inhales. To the right, the orchard’s trees stand vigil in the pre-dawn mist, indistinct shapes waiting for the world to wake up like children still caught in dreams. Kal sweeps his gaze over the fields, still all but impossible to tell apart from the sky, and then to the storehouse and the barn, standing still as mountains while the day rises out of yesterday’s rain.

Kal watches, fascinated, as the long streaks of brighter light overhead incline far enough to kiss the top of the barn’s roof and turn it from gray to a vibrant maroon, the trimmings pale gold until sunlight catches the red paint and turns them almost orange with it. Slowly, softly, like a flower blooming, Kansas emerges from the mist, blue at the top and gold at the bottom, Martha’s barn the sort of vibrant vermilion even Krypton with its red sun and red moons and red dust has only ever dreamed of. It draws the eye at first, but the slope of its roof leads back down to the wheat below and then farther, and farther still, trying to catch a horizon so vast it makes Kal sway with the force of a feeling almost like standing on top of the Citadel, back in El, and pretending he could catch sight of its neighbors far in the southern mountains.

“Do you like the view?” Martha asks behind him.

Kal, still quite unable to close his mouth, nods and whispers, “I’ve never seen colors like these.”

“It sure is something,” Martha agrees, making her way over to the window so she can stand by Kal’s side. “I forget, sometimes, how beautiful it looks.”

“Krypton has a red sun,” Kal explains after a short silence. “It doesn’t look anything like this.”

Chances are, too, that the Melokariel Proposition will put enough dust in the atmosphere to turn Krypton's sky darker than it already is. What used to look like fire catching on the mountains will disappear, eventually, lost to time and failing memories. The thought puts an ache in Kal’s chest even as the beauty of what is before his eyes soothes him, and he’s still trapped between the two emotions when Martha asks, “How do you feel about working outside today? I’m sure the cows would enjoy a visit from you.”

Kal joins in Martha’s laughter at the thought, chest possibly warmer than it really ought to be. She did explain that cows sometimes enjoy licking the salt off people’s skin, and it’s possible Kal is different enough that he tastes like a treat to them. Even so, it is hard to ignore how soothing their affection is, how much a part of Kal’s soul will never tire of that sort of unconditional love. It would, perhaps, sound a little sad if he were to mention it to anyone else—he has, at any rate, carefully avoided any word of it in his letters to Kara and his phone calls to Bruce—but it is what it is, and Martha treats him to a fond grin as he makes his way out of the room and down to the kitchen.

Besides, if nothing else, it does have the potential to make both Martha’s and her dog’s jobs easier for a while.

Martha leads the way outside after breakfast, and Kal sinks into her routine with a delight even he couldn’t have anticipated, the repetition soothing enough that he can ignore the growing itch under his skin without much effort. There are, after all, so many things to discover! So many new things, new words, new colors and smells and sounds—an entire world of concepts just waiting for Kal to apply his mind to them, and no one to deny him the right to satisfy his curiosity because he doesn’t have the genetic code for it! Everything he does here he does for his own sake, because it pleases him, and Kal cherishes the novelty of it with enough enthusiasm that the soreness in his left side seems to evaporate within a few hours. By the time Kal follows Martha away from the barn and storehouse, he is no more than an inch away from substantiating into pure, distilled delight.

He’s savoring the bright burn of it in his chest and on his neck when the first explosion comes.

Kal throws himself to the ground with a shout of surprise and fear before he can control himself, and only then does he remember he isn’t alone here.

“Martha!” he shouts, as loud as he can manage, and prays to be heard over the cacophony. “Martha!”

There is another sound, just as close and devastating as the first, and Kal slaps his hands over his ears. Another boom. Another one—louder. Heavier. Kal whines. Boom, boom, boom—something else, fast, getting impossibly closer, shaking through every inch of Kal, and he wants to look for Martha, he does, but he can’t—it hurts! It hurts! Kal can’t hear, can’t breathe, can’t think—where’s Martha? Gods, he has to—what if she—another explosion, and Kal falls to his knees in the late asparagus, screams harder when even the ground provides no relief. There’s too much noise there—scratching and falling and digging and so many other things Kal can’t possibly tell apart and he screams and screams and screams and—

—quiet, just for a moment. A single second of answered prayer. Kal blinks. Blue sky, darker. Martha, her lips moving. Kal loses himself in the infinity of her voice and—

—blinks, eventually, groggy and scared and still lying on the ground in a crushed batch of asparagus. He breathes in, shallow at first. Waits from the implosion he’s sure will come, sooner or later. How he took control of this, Kal doesn’t know. It’s easy to tell, however, that the barest second of inattention now could be fatal. Send him back to the excruciating space where he lost a whole day—more, even, judging by the growling of his stomach.

Kal pushes himself to his knees with infinite care, and pauses there, just in case. If he is going to fall over again, he might as well mitigate the damage, even if the last time didn’t so much as leave him feeling sore. He sighs in relief when nothing terrible happens, and blinks up at the stars. If he knew them better, he could figure out for himself how long he spent...wherever his mind went all that time. He doesn’t, though, and so he makes himself go the rest of the way up and turn toward the house.

The journey there is both too long and too short, and Kal doesn’t notice the sleek black car in the lane until he steps onto Martha’s front porch and Bruce opens the door with an unreadable expression on his face.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce whispers.

Kal takes stock. Nothing feels broken, or bruised, or even sore. He’s exhausted, yes, and hungrier than he remembers being in quite some time, but overall...not bad, considering.

“Not too bad,” he tells Bruce, voice hoarse despite keeping his volume at the same level as the others.

He sends a smile to Martha over his friend’s shoulder.

“Surprisingly well, actually.”

“Good,” Martha whispers, clearly restraining herself from sighing.

“How long was I—out?” Kal asks, fumbling for the right words in English, and jumping when it’s Kryo who answers:

“Almost eighteen hours.”

Which puts the time at—Gods. Almost four in the morning. No wonder Kal is famished, though it is a wonder he isn’t equally as sore.

“We couldn’t move you,” Martha said. “You just seemed worse every time we tried to touch or talk to you.”

“We would have at least monitored your vitals,” Bruce whispers in Ellon, “but you weren’t wearing your suit.”

The words are little more than a breath on the air, and yet Kal hears the flat disapproval in them as easily as if Bruce had shouted it. He blinks.

“Well, I hadn’t exactly anticipated that particular situation,” he admits, and knows it was the wrong thing to say when Bruce’s expression goes from skillfully neutral to outright flat in less than a second.

“Of course you did not,” Bruce says in chillingly controlled Ellon. “Why am I surprised?”

Kal gapes this time, stunned out of his mind just long enough to hear the tail end of Kryo’s translation and Martha’s shocked exclamation. Honestly, he’d be lying if he said he disagreed. As if he could have planned for this!

“I couldn’t possibly have guessed,” he protests, forgetting to keep his voice down in his haste, “how could I—”

“You should have anticipated something like this. You are the very first Kryptonian to ever set foot on Earth—”

“That we know of—”

“You should have known better than this!” Bruce insists, voice raised to ordinary volume in its turn. “Now we have no idea what caused any of it—”

“Fine,” Kal concedes, although if he’s being really honest, it’s more out of a desire to end the conversation before it gets worse than true acceptance of Bruce’s point. “I’m sorry. You’re right, we don’t know what’s out there—I’ll wear the suit again.”

“Oh, don’t you take that flippant tone with me,” Bruce warns, switching back to English in his annoyance. “Do you have any idea of the sort of danger you put yourself in?”

“I said I’d wear the suit!” Kal protests. “What more do you want?”

“I want you to take basic measures of self-preservation and care about your own survival,” Bruce retorts, volume held to a normal conversational level by what Kal assumes is sheer force of will. “Otherwise I don’t see why I should.”

“Bruce!” Martha exclaims while Kal gapes.

He breathes in deep—in and out, in and out, the way he used to try and push Shadow’s nights out of his mind—and counts to ten as slowly as he dares...and, when that isn’t enough to calm him down, he closes his mouth and heads for the stairs.

“Martha was wondering if you’d stay for dinner,” Kal says when he finds Bruce in deep conversation with Kryo an hour later, half-hidden behind Martha’s ancient blue tractor.

Bruce’s head rises so sharply at that, Kal almost fears the man is going to give himself a stiff neck. He narrows his eyes as soon as he realizes who’s talking to him—Kal barely manages to catch the split-second look of surprise on his face—and straightens up to his full height, shoulders squared and jaw set. Kal carefully doesn’t sigh.

“Listen,” he says in English, hoping to keep Bruce more relaxed by sticking to his native language, “I’m sorry. I will wear the suit again. I’m wearing it now.”

Bruce remains silent. Kal counts to five.

“I know I wasn’t careful enough. I’m sorry. Please come to dinner?”

Bruce huffs and starts toward the house, but his shoulders don’t unwind, and it feels to Kal like the man takes special care not to touch him. It’s...not a pleasant thought. That Bruce would be upset is understandable, and Kal is willing to admit—albeit with some effort—that he was too quick to dismiss the man’s concerns, but to flinch away from him? Really? Maybe it shouldn’t sting, but it does. Kal stays quiet, though, determined to keep the peace as long as possible...which is probably why it surprises him so much when Bruce says:

“Previous data was encouraging.”

Kal blinks. What is that even supposed to mean? Data is absolutely not the topic here, especially when Kal already apologized—and even then, if Bruce wanted to harp on this subject, why would he pick Kal’s own argument to...oh.

Kal resists both the urge to roll his eyes and the impulse to speak, opting for a smile instead. No reason to ruin a good thing after all.

Bruce does stay for dinner, but he is a terribly wealthy—and proportionately busy—man who also moonlights as Gotham City’s very own vigilante. Kal hasn’t made the mistake of using Kryo or the suit to look Bruce up again, but he is getting better at English far faster than he’d anticipated despite the violent headaches he gets when the sounds of the world grow too loud again, and it’s easy to get a general picture from news articles. All in all, it’s a surprise Bruce lingered in Smallville as long as he did, so Kal doesn’t allow himself too much disappointment when the man leaves.

There are still chores to be attended to, a language to learn, and far too many hours spent wandering through Wikipedia—not to mention the task of responding to Kara’s newest letter, and the long process of explaining both what happened to Kal’s ears and what Kryo and the suit have found out.

“I think it would be easier to deal with if I knew what to expect,” he confides over breakfast about three days after the hearing incident.

The Ship is still in orbit around Earth—and that’s another thing Kal will need to worry about soon. Even a vessel as ancient as this one should be able to evade most of Earth’s technologies for years to come, but that doesn’t mean Kal feels comfortable leaving out there for anyone to find. None of the simulations it has run for him have hinted at any negative change in Kal so far, but even so it’s difficult to predict how much or how fast he will change as he stays on Earth.

Krypton has been orbiting its sun for far longer than the Earth has existed, and where Rao was once a golden youth, age has long since shrouded him in calmer—and wiser—red. Life on Krypton has had a long time to adapt and make the best use of what little light it can get. In every corner of Krypton, even the deepest recesses of the most forgotten Principalities, people have learned to consume other living things to make up for the lack of nutrients given by the sun, the nourishing power of its light negligible enough that turning the gene for absorbing it dormant has been standard practice ever since it was found the act lowered the risks of dying from k’luris...but, of course, artificially dormant genes mean nothing to someone who was gestated rather than grown.

The Ship’s models have found nothing alarming, that’s true, but what resources does it have? There are almost no records left from the time when Krypton’s inhabitants routinely gestated and gave birth to their offspring, and what remains is all but useless once climatic changes are taken into account. Any simulation anyone could run on that basis is nothing but pure speculation and, quite possibly, wishful thinking.

“That’s understandable,” Martha answers over the rim of her coffee mug, one eye lingering on the sports section of her newspaper before she turns to Kal. “But on the other hand I think you might have been surprised even then. This way, at least, you get to brace for anything.”

“That’s sort of the problem,” Kal mutters. “The last time I got tense for an extended period of time, I ended up here.”

Sure, Kal likes Smallville better than he did the Citadel in many, many respects, but the move still hurt like nothing else, and he’s not done mourning the life he might have built for himself there by any stretch of the imagination. He sighs without meaning to, and flinches when he realizes Martha has fallen into an uncomfortable silence. He’s stammering through an apology, trying to reassure Martha that he does like it here on the farm, but instead of answering she takes his hand in hers and guides him upstairs to the office.

Kal remains silent while Martha goes straight to the corner, where the ‘Jonathan’ boxes have been stored out of reach of Kal’s clumsy feet. They haven’t—Kal has mostly been pretending he didn’t notice them, so far. He knows the top two boxes are where his first sets of clothes came from—and those are the main inspiration for the way he shapes the suit every morning nowadays—but other than that...Martha hasn’t offered any information and Kal, sensing a delicate topic, hasn’t asked. Martha gets the bottom box out now, though, and after some rustling she extracts a small black frame and hands it to Kal.

Kal recognizes Martha in the picture: perhaps thirty years younger, wrapped in a fluid, half-sleeved white dress. Her long dark hair flows from under a veil, and her smile is so wide it stretches Kal’s mouth into a smile of his own before he even realizes what’s going on. In the picture, Martha holds hand with a young, dark blond man whose hair curls around his ears. He looks just as radiant as Martha, his free hand holding a small white cap on the top of his head as he speaks to someone outside of the picture—sharing a joke, maybe. The white shawl on his shoulders is half slipping off, but it must not have been that important if it is left unfixed. Both Martha and the man have one foot raised, ready to step on a white glass laid on some kind of handkerchief.

“That’s my Jon,” Martha says, quiet and tender from her precarious perch on Kal’s folded bed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk as much as he did at our wedding.”

Kal isn’t surprised, when he glances up, to find Martha looking wistful, gaze lost in a past she clearly misses. In her hands is a thin blue booklet, white curls and swirls framing words in an alphabet Kal doesn’t recognize.

“It’s a book of songs,” Martha explains when she catches Kal looking, “a book of hymns. They’re meant for the guests, usually, but Jon insisted we keep one for ourselves. He loved singing—was terrible at it, but it never stopped him.”

Kal smiles, but Martha doesn’t see him, too caught up in her memories.

“We were married for eighteen years,” she continues. “Eighteen years of handling everything life had to throw at us—the farm, my father’s death, the stupid fertility treatments that never worked, giving up on that dream...and then one day there was a storm when we were driving home. A tornado. I followed the crowd beneath the underpass. Jon—I swear, he was right behind me, and then…he must have realized we’d forgotten the dog in the car. I turned around and he wasn’t there anymore. I saw him by the car, opening the door—he could have made it, I think. But then he fell down, and—”

Kal doesn’t try to catch Martha’s eyes when she lowers her face, black-and-gray hair obscuring her expression. He does reach out to squeeze her hand though, holding just a little tighter when she sniffs and takes a deep breath. Then she lifts her gaze again, not trying to hide the glistening of her eyes as she says:

“It’s been twelve years, and I still cry over it sometimes. I’ve never been exiled, but I know what loss feels like. So don’t you ever feel like you have to pretend you’re not grieving with me, you understand?”

“I understand,” Kal says, rougher than he expected but unwilling to do anything about it. Then, after a quiet moment: “Will you tell me more about him?”

“Oh, he would have loved you,” Martha says, her smile genuine if far wetter than Kal has ever seen it. “Especially the bit with the cows.”

Kal and Martha laugh together and, for the better part of the morning, Kal listens to her story—how she met Jonathan Kent at their local synagogue, how they fell in love, how they lived together after they were married. He hears happy stories and sad stories and everything in between, including that one time Martha and her husband fought so hard over their inability to conceive a child Jonathan got blackout drunk for the first and only time in his life.

“I imagine that isn’t the sort of thing people fight over, back where you’re from,” Martha says a while later, when she’s done brewing coffee for the both of them.

Kal allows himself a huff of bitter laughter.

“People would have to even consider gestating their children for that to happen,” he says. “I’m—there’s no one else on the planet who did what my parents did.”

Besides, as far as Kal is aware, his parents never did fight about the lack of a second offspring. The Gods granted them only one son, and that must have been that. Kal’s failure to live up to his divine destiny and attain the leader’s position Rao must have intended for him was, he is sure, of far greater importance to them, especially after they’d promised so many people they would regret their harsh words when Kal came into his true potential.

“I’m sorry,” Martha murmurs when Kal is done explaining all of that, eyes red and nose still stuffy with tears. “That sounds like a lot of weight to put on one person’s shoulders.”

Kal shrugs.

“I mostly wish I’d been able to fulfill it—I wish they’d seen me as more than a disappointment.” He scoffs. “The frustrating part is—I still miss them. I don’t think we’ve had a meaningful conversation in over ten years but now I’m here, and they don’t want to talk to me, and—”

He cuts himself off, hunching over on himself, one hand coming up to cover his face even as he bites his lip and tries to stop fresh tears from falling. He breathes in, harsh and strangled, when Martha’s free hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and after a while he clutches at it like it’s the only thing preventing him from falling over.

“Sometimes, we mourn things we never expected to,” Martha says in the quiet of mid-afternoon, the cows mooing quietly outside. “I never used to care about family names, even when my father complained that once I got married and he died there wouldn’t be any Clark left in Smallville. Then Jon and I realized no treatment was going to make us able to have children together, and suddenly I was crying in my mother’s arms and asking her if she thought my father would still love me.”

Martha snorts, just a little, when Kal looks up at her. The expression on her face is more rueful than anything else, now, but Kal still offers the best smile he can muster, both grateful for the offering and sympathizing with Martha’s past pains.

“I’m no expert, and I’m sure Bruce would have something to say about sample sizes, but it seems to me like grief in Kryptonians isn’t any more rational than it is in humans.”

“I think you’re right,” Kal agrees.

Then, after a long pause—and in a rather sheepish tone:

“I’m so sorry, but...what’s a Clark?”

Kal blames the long time it takes for Martha to stop laughing and explain on their nerves.

Kal was expecting his body would keep changing. He was . That doesn’t make the first time he sees the cows’ internal organs any less of a shock.

“Deep breathing,” Bruce tells him through the phone half an hour later, once Kal has managed to make his way back to the house and focus long enough to locate Martha’s landline. “Find something else to focus on.”

“I can see my bones every time I look down,” Kal feels compelled to point out, faintly proud at how steady he manages to keep his voice.

Oh, the edge of panic is easy to hear—more so for someone like Batman—but at least it hasn’t tipped into the realm of hysterical shrieking. And, frankly, that’s about the best Kal can hope for, because he is seeing his skeleton through his hand and he’s fairly convinced even Bruce wouldn’t be able to just take that in stride. He would probably at least blink. Maybe even stare a little bit. Kal...well, Kal is staring a lot.

“Kal,” Bruce says in a tone that suggests it isn’t the first time he’s said it, “this isn’t an apnea contest. Breathe!”

“I am breathing,” Kal protests, “just...more quietly than I thought I would be.”

He couldn’t possibly be feeling as good—relatively speaking—if he weren’t breathing. He might have grown up in the mountains, but still. It’s been minutes, he doesn’t have that kind of training.

“Good,” Bruce says. “I have been looking at the files Kryo sent me. According to this morning’s readings, your eyes are still mutating, though I cannot tell what the trend is toward—”

“Well,” Kal says when he...squints the wrong way, or something, and suddenly he has a more detailed view of his hand—and his cells—than he ever thought he would, “I...might have an idea.”

At least, he thinks as he describes what he’s seeing to Bruce and tries to figure out what all the grunting means, it’ll make studying the structural composition of Terran life much easier for him. And if the thought prevents him from panicking too much when he tries to explain what’s going to Martha, or tries and fails to reach a maximum distance he can see at—lead blocks him, but, as he discovers through trial and error, the planet’s core doesn’t—well, it’s just a really nice bonus.

(He does stop experimenting when it turns out that he can see ridiculously far indeed, but cannot, in fact, see Krypton.)

About one month into his stay on Martha’s farm—fifty days, to the day, since he came to Earth—Kal decides it’s high time he started thinking about what to do with his ship and immediately proceeds to let Bruce know via the brand-new phone Batman insisted he have. It...hasn’t been used much. Kal is still a little—reluctant—to disturb Bruce, and despite the progress they have made towards being friendly again, he has yet to find his footing in this new world of theirs, where Kal is nothing at all like Shadow and Batman is not his mentor anymore. There are—some shades of that remain, of course, what with all the things Kal has to discover, but Martha handles as much of the teaching as Bruce these days. It isn’t as if their connection is even half as vital as it was on Krypton, and considering Batman doesn’t call...Kal shakes his head. No need to dwell on it.

Both Kryo and Shadow’s suit have been made to resist extreme temperatures and depressurization, so it’s easy to wait for the right time—dusk, conveniently enough—to put the suit in stealth mode, and let Kryo carry both of them up. From there, navigating the default security settings is a breeze, and in less than five minutes Kal is inside with Kryo trailing behind him and his helmet off.

The inside of the ship is impressive, if unsurprising. It was Kara who found it, abandoned in a secluded hangar by an El ancestor who clearly disagreed with the Wise Council of their time on the topic of space travel. Kal understands the decision, though he doesn't agree with it: if he’d perceived space travel as the sole reason one of his planet’s moons had been destroyed, he’d have wanted to ban it, too. Given the circumstances, though, it’s hard to feel anything but grateful for that nameless El person and their refusal to let go of their colonial vehicle.

“Perimeter intrusion,” the ship warns about half an hour after Kal boarded it, not a minute after he’s taken full command of it. “Earth vessel, uncategorized. Should I contact?”

“Show it to me,” Kal says, relieved to find out the Ship has kept itself apprised of what is happening on the planet.

It’s a clear residual subroutine derived from its primary function—to assess local life and help devise the best way to colonize and, if necessary, kryptoform the new planet. But if it means the Ship won’t have trouble understanding English, Kal is willing to take it. Meanwhile, in front of him and under his feet, the hull shifts, reshaping and recoloring itself to give the illusion of transparency, like a vast window opening on the universe. Earth is so huge like this, so blue, Kal doesn’t even notice the spacecraft right away. He blinks when he does, but in his defense he really wasn’t expecting to find Batman’s plane—the Batplane?—hovering right there in front of his nose.

“Grant access,” Kal tells his ship. “And please add the pilot to the list of authorized personnel.”

The ship obeys, and not ten minutes later Kal watches Bruce exit his vehicle in a ridiculously bulky variation of the Batman suit. He tries to cover his amusement, but he must fail because Bruce gives him a glare potent enough to be felt through the full-face mask.

“Nice suit,” Kal dares in English, and presses his lips tight when Batman only grunts in response. He gives himself a few seconds to sober up before he says, “I wasn’t expecting you to come along.”

Not that it isn’t appreciated, but, well. Bruce is a busy man. It would have been understandable for him to stay down on Earth.

“If this ship is going to stay in orbit,” Bruce says in Ellon, “I want to know what it can do.”

Kal feels his smile turn rueful. Of course it’s a purely practical visit. There shouldn’t be any surprise there. Still, it’s good not to be alone for this. The first few minutes were—Kal was—it’s easier, not to be alone for this. Counterintuitive though it may be, it seems less crowded here, in these walls so close in color to those of the Citadel, when he has a—an ally beside him. So, with a smile, he gestures for Batman to precede him and, armed with years of clandestine readings on the topic of space ships, proceeds to give Batman the grand tour.

“You have quite the impressive setup,” Bruce comments two hours later when they’re back in the command center, Kal hoping he’s done an adequate job of keeping his explanations as short as possible. “What do you intend to do with it?”

Kal shrugs.

“I haven’t thought about that.”

That’s a lie, of course, and he’s fairly sure Bruce knows it. Kal has...had a lot of time to think, in the past two months. About himself. About his life—what it was, what it is. What it could be. About the way Earth is changing him, and all the things he can do now that wouldn’t even have been dreams back on Krypton. About the television in Martha’s living room, crackling to life with news reports about the Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Aquaman. The Green Lantern, singular, as if there weren’t hundreds of thousands of them throughout the universe.

Kal has thought about all of that and about Kara’s letters, all the things they say about Krypton’s situation—and all the things they don’t say, but Kal can guess anyway. About what the news reports must sound like in their sector of the universe, and the things he will never be able to do for his planet. About the uses someone like Batman could have for a ship like Kal’s.

None of that has solidified into anything concrete though, each element bringing more questions than answers, more doubt than certainty, and Kal sighs when, sure as anything, the set of Bruce’s mouth turns skeptical.

“I’m...not sure yet,” he amends. “I don’t know that I should make that sort of decision before I’ve...stabilized. Somewhat.”

According to his latest readings and the sheer quantity of everything he consumes these days, that isn’t exactly a close benchmark. He still has...time. Time to absorb the world a little better, to inform himself; to understand, maybe, a fraction of what he’ll need to survive on Earth, let alone blend in. More time to...adjust, too, to a life where Krypton is a distant memory, where Kara is nothing but a bi-weekly letter and Kal might be better liked than he’s ever been in his life but is also even more of an anomaly than he was back there.

Bruce makes a noise in the back of his throat, the significance of which escapes Kal entirely, and then, rather than offer advice, asks, “How is your cousin?”

He uses formal grammar to refer to her, a stark contrast to the more casual grammar he uses with Kal nowadays, and Kal can’t help but tense at it, just a little, feeling his face pinch before he can stop it. He makes himself relax—though too late, as always, to hide the emotion before Bruce sees it, and he isn’t surprised when the man’s mouth tightens in turn, just a bit. Kal can’t blame him for it, either: who wouldn’t find it frustrating, to try to be polite and considerate, only to be judged for their grammar? Kal wouldn’t like it either.

“She’s fine,” he says, careful to keep the sudden spike of loneliness out of his tone. “Still in a precarious position—I’m not to expect any news for the next month, at best—but nearly into Tu’an’s arms, as the saying goes.”

Bruce nods. Kal, unsure of the appropriate etiquette in this sort of situation, nods in return, and they both turn to stare down at the Earth below. It’s strange, Kal realizes, to see it like this. He never did get to see Krypton this way, and unless the planet undergoes drastic changes, he never will. His family may have kept his role as Shadow a secret from the rest of the world, but they know about it—and so does the Wise Council, and Kal knows for a fact they don’t always act aboveboard. They might not be in a position to try and condemn him openly, should he return, but Kal has no desire to fall over a balcony’s railing in his sleep.

Gods, he can almost hear the whispers already—nobles sharing his birth story between them, maybe attributing the apparent suicide to that finally catching up. A noble sacrifice for his family’s sake, at best, yet another pathetic move at worst; Kal’s jaw clenches at the thought, fingers tightening into fists before he can remember he’s not alone.

Batman, when Kal looks up, gives his clenched hand a pointed look and Kal takes a breath, musters a strained smile.

“I think I’m ready to go back down,” he tells Bruce in English. “I...I think I’d like to talk to a friend now.”

“You don’t think we’re friends?” Bruce asks, and tenses immediately.

Kal blinks. And blinks again. By the third time, Bruce has retreated into Batman’s stance entirely, mouth pressed into a thin line, a faint pink bleeding out from under his cowl. It’s the sight of him closing his eyes—the sound of his teeth grinding together, loud enough for Kal to hear even without opening his senses to it—that spurs Kal to blurt out, “Are we?” He clears his throat. “Are we really friends?”

Under the cowl, Bruce’s eyes widen.

“We’re not—not,” he says.

Kal doesn’t know what it means, for Bruce’s mouth to fall open when Kal smiles, but right now he feels happy enough that it doesn’t matter.

For the next week or so, it feels like Kal’s body is taking some kind of break, in that no new abilities—powers, as Martha calls them—seem to develop. Oh, sure, the tingling in his skin is still there, but it’s weak enough now that Kal can ignore it most of the time, and the violent, burning headaches of the past few days are almost gone. Which is a good thing, because Kal did not enjoy the feeling of having fireballs behind his eyes, thank you very much.

Kal enjoys the respite, frankly, and continues to learn everything he can, ranging from the history behind Martha’s Shabbat rituals to the proper way to change a car tire, how to milk a cow, and why it’s a bad idea to try to investigate unknown buzzing sounds in the bathroom. He sets up exercises for himself after that, trying to gauge how far his hearing goes—New York, to the east, but somehow it feels like he might be able to hear further—and how precise his sight can be. He trains himself to mix the X-rays and the insane zooms, to combine his abilities in different ways. The sheer range of what he can see or hear is—it’s exhilarating. Terrifying, too. All-around breathtaking, really, and Kal finds himself getting lost in it more than once, much slower to pull himself out of the chaos around him than he should be on the rare occasions when he still zooms in by accident.

It’s not a problem, though. Not really. Sure, it makes him look like an airhead, and it makes Martha laugh when he just freezes in the middle of a task, but really, that’s harmless, and so Kal doesn’t pay too much attention to it. After all, it isn’t like he couldn’t control it. He could. He can, now that he’s really applied himself to it—with a dedication even Bruce seems to approve of, if Kal interprets the tonality of his grunts over the phone correctly. It’s just that there are so many things to see, so many things to understand, and observation has always been the best way to understand something, and—there’s just so much! And it isn’t like Kal can tell himself ‘this is mud, you’ve seen mud before’, because every patch is unique, its own microcosm at any given moment, the changes in scale so dramatic it always takes him a few seconds to adjust anyway so why not let himself take the time to watch? After all, there’s no reason not to.

Or at least, there’s no reason not to stop and watch whatever he accidentally gets caught up in, until he freezes while Martha is maneuvering her tractor back into the shed and Kal doesn’t realize he’s standing in her blind spot until the sound of bending metal tears him back to the world’s regular scale.

“Ah,” Bruce says somewhere to Kal’s left. “I believe Martha might have downplayed the extent of the damage somewhat.”

Kal, who sat down on the floor the instant he and Martha realized what happened to the tractor and hasn’t dared to move since, curls up a little tighter, bringing his arms up to cover the burning back of his neck. There is a pressure building in his eyes, hotter than tears, hotter than anger, and Kal desperately doesn’t want to know what it is, what new levels of freak he will reach with this one.

“Please,” he manages in a croaking voice, “leave me alone.”

“I do not believe that would be a good idea,” Bruce replies, still in Ellon.

Kal can’t help snorting.

“If the tractor couldn’t hurt me—”

“You cannot stay in here forever, Kal,” Bruce cuts in. “You will have to move at some point. That might as well be now.”

Kal takes a deep breath and, when the heat recedes from behind his eyes, he raises his head to glare at Bruce.

“I think you and I can agree I’m not very safe to be around right now.”

“No, indeed,” Bruce replies. “But staying here is not helping matters.”

“Well,” Kal starts, well on his way to peeved now, “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bruce cuts in. “Be better.”

Kal gasps, shame flooding his guts and clawing at his throat. He closes his eyes again, unwilling to watch Bruce survey the damage—not just the tractor, but the shed’s outer wall, too, where Kal stumbled away in surprise, and at least one stool, plus another metal beam...and then Kal did go the cowardly, childish route and sat down, refusing to move, refusing to even let Martha touch him until Bruce, having already planned to come and visit, got there.

And it’s...stupid and useless and probably not the sort of thing Batman would have done but what else was Kal supposed to do? Walk to Martha’s house and risk breaking it down? Risk injuring her, or worse? No. No, there’s no way he could have done that, and if it means he was...naive, or stupid, or anything of the sort, well, then Kal is going to have to learn to live with it, because there is no way he’ll risk hurting anyone again, thank you very much.

“But you did not hurt anyone,” Bruce says, sounding uncharacteristically puzzled, once Kal is done explaining that as best as he can.

“I haven’t hurt anyone yet,” Kal retorts. “I destroyed a tractor, Bruce! And I wasn’t even doing anything—can you imagine what would happen if I—”

Kal knows he sounds self-pitying. Gods, does he know that. But what else is he supposed to do? Walk out there and pretend he isn’t inches away from fatally injuring anyone—any living creature within reach? Everything that came before—the hearing, the X-rays, the super vision—that was—that was weird, but it was a useful kind of weird, and Kal—he knows how to be weird. He’s done it before. It isn’t fun, and he thought—he’d hoped to leave that back on Krypton, for the most part. But he knows how to be weird.

But this? Being dangerous? He has no idea how to do that. He doesn’t want to be that. And if that’s what he is now, if that’s the price he has to pay to stay on Earth, then maybe—

“Breathe,” Bruce tells him, and Kal glares again.

“I am breathing,” he says.

Bruce’s mouth tightens for a second, but he doesn’t push the matterwhich is a surprise, but in this case a welcome one. There’s enough on Kal’s mind without adding a Bat-lecture to it all. Still, Bruce does have a point, in that staying where he is and not moving will do nothing to improve Kal’s situation. He should do something, but the thing is—

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits, face growing even warmer than it already was. “I don’t—what if I—I mean, Martha—”

“Martha would be perfectly fine if she did not have to worry about your mental state,” Bruce interrupts. “Do not waste your energy crying over something that has yet to happen—especially when you can prevent it.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Kal asks, picking overly respectful forms of Ellon on purpose. “Have you trained someone not to crush a skull by accident?”

“Do not use court grammars with me,” Bruce warns with a snarl. “And in case you forgot, I do work with Wonder Woman and the Aquaman on a regular basis. If they can control their strength well enough to live normal lives, so can you. Now stop sulking and come have dinner.”

Kal feels his ears redden again, and his stomach still feels lined with lead, but he does get to his feet after a while, brushing dirt off the seat of his pants. There is no denying, after all, that it is a comfort, knowing Batman is going to help with all of this.

With a deep breath, Kal gets to his feet to follow Bruce, and freezes in shock when he realizes they are not, in fact, going back inside the house.

What they do instead is sit down with Martha on a large, checkered blanket in the middle of the garden, a varied assortment of candles and electric lanterns set around the blanket, ready for use. In the middle, three bowls of soup and a golden loaf of challah bread wait for them, flanked by long thin tubes of plastic. The whole thing looks like it jumped out of one of the movies Kal has taken to watching with Martha every other night, and the sight of it settles over his heart like an affectionate smile. Kal sits down with infinite care, unsure what might happen if he just fell to the ground, and then looks up to find a strange expression on Bruce’s face.

“I haven’t celebrated Shabbat in a while,” he says with a tone of wary apology, “ever since—”

“That’s okay,” Martha says when it becomes clear Bruce won’t finish his sentence. “To be honest, I wasn’t very diligent with it myself before Kal came around...a lot of things seem pointless when you have no one to celebrate them with.”

Kal nods in silence, unwilling to disturb the sudden atmosphere of quiet grief that has settled over the blanket. He didn’t know Bruce and Martha shared a religion, and he knows this particular moment isn’t meant for him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t relate to the sentiment, to some degree.

He blinks when he catches Bruce’s gaze though—lowers his eyes for an instant, glances back up, and when Bruce’s eyebrow rises even further, he sighs.

“Some of our ceremonies in El...they are meant to be celebrated with family, too. Especially for the worship of Rao. He was—he was the helping God, you see, before he was the leading God.”

Long, long before, it’s true; many Ellon people have forgotten it, but it is easy, when one looks, to find the root of some remaining ceremonies in the ideas that honoring Rao is to help, and one’s inner circle is where one can have the most impact...thus, the emphasis on celebrating these moments as a community rather than alone.

“These aren’t—I don’t think many people keep those particular rituals,” Kal says after he explains—or tries to explain—the sort of God Rao used to be. “I...I’d have liked to, I think, but...well, like you said, what’s the point of a collective celebration when you’re alone?”

He thinks he’s done a decent job of keeping his voice stable—hopes so, at least, even though the way Martha smiles and Bruce just looks at him indicates he might not have been as successful as he wanted. Either way, the subject comes to a close, and Kal watches Bruce and Martha go through the various rituals of Shabbat. When they are done, the three of them sip on their broth in silence; Kal declines Martha’s offer to feed him some challah directly. Kal feels himself oscillate between lingering embarrassment at all the damage he has caused—“You’ve read enough press to know I can pay for that,” Bruce says with a dismissive hand gesture. “But you shouldn’t have to—” “Kal. It’s pocket change to me. Let me.”—and the suffusing warmth of knowing both Martha and Bruce care enough about him to endure a frankly unexciting meal for his sake. It��s almost—it’s well worth the embarrassment, actually.

“So,” Bruce says after they’re done with dessert, fireflies dancing around them in the now-complete night, “before I came to get you Martha and I had a talk about how to deal with this newfound strength of yours.”

Kal nods, tensing despite himself. He manages a smile in answer to Martha’s, but doesn’t really relax until she says, “Mostly, we were considering ideas for how you could try and learn to control your strength...and I think we’ve come up with something that could work.”

“You came up with it,” Bruce says, blank-faced.

Martha grows a little pink, but catches herself quickly.

“Anyway,” she says after clearing her throat, “we thought about trying to find something you couldn’t break to start with, but given the state of the tractor and how that happened, we’re not sure how long that would take.”

“Or if it’s possible at all,” Bruce says.

“Or that. So, at the risk of making things more frustrating for you, we thought we’d cut to the chase and start with smaller things right away.”

“These,” Bruce explains in English in the middle of the next afternoon, “are medicine balls.”

He’s helping Alfred and Martha unload a truck full of them as he speaks, sweating through the T-shirt he’s wearing while Kal tries to stay focused on the task and not on...things he shouldn’t be focusing on. He’s not sure how successful he is at that, but at least no one seems to have caught on, and Kryo isn’t here to point it out.

“They’re exercise equipment for humans,” Bruce continues, either unaware of or ignoring the bead of sweat making its way down his neck, “and impossible for us to break with our bare hands. If you can learn to handle them without breaking them, it’ll be a significant step in the right direction.”

“Plus,” Martha adds, rubbing at the small of her back after unloading yet another ball, “they’re only filled with sand, so you won’t have to worry about debris.”

That, Kal has to concede, is good news. It’s...it isn’t the same as a guarantee the exercise will work, but at least it mitigates the risk of injury quite a lot. Kal keeps himself out of the others’ way while they finish the job, exchanging the occasional few words with Bruce, until Bruce asks:

“Where’s Kryo?”

“I sent it up to the ship,” Kal replies with a little smile. “I haven’t needed it to translate anything for a while now, and it’s too big to fit in the house comfortably.”

Not that Kal himself can fit in the house, period, until and unless he manages to curb his own strength, but at least he’s somewhat less austere-looking than the hunit.

“You don’t need translation anymore,” Bruce says, voice flat.

Kal blinks.

“Not really, no. I understand enough to deal with new words on my own.”

“After two months.”

“...Yes?”

Kal blinks again when Bruce all but scowls. From the corner of his eye, he can see the way Alfred’s eyebrows have risen on his forehead—the press of Martha’s lips, trying not to laugh, but he doesn’t dare join her. Surprise, he would have understood. He didn’t expect to learn English that fast either; the memorization has always been the hardest part of language learning for him...but for Bruce to scowl? That he really doesn’t get—not when Bruce hasn’t seemed to be the envious type before.

“Sorry?” Kal tries after a few seconds, but Bruce’s only response is a twitch of his fingers against the medicine ball Alfred just tossed at him—the last one.

“Now that that’s done,” Bruce says after a short pause, giving Alfred and Martha time to retreat toward the house, “let’s begin.”

It makes sense, really, to begin right away. Every ball Kal destroys by accident will be one less his three companions will need to transport to the storehouse...but that doesn’t make the explosion of sand that hits Kal in the face when he tries to catch the ball any more pleasant. It doesn’t make much noise when it pops, which is a relief, but it does leave his ears even more freedom to pick up on Martha’s aborted snort of laughter, for the back of nis neck to flush hot even as he wipes the worst of it off his face.

He looks at Bruce, then, expecting to find him with something like triumph on his face—a revenge taken upon the man who didn’t have to put all that much effort into learning the local language? But instead what he sees is the way Bruce’s shoulders have relaxed just a little, the looser tilt of his mouth, almost like...well. Almost like relief.

Not for the first time today, Kal blinks in question, and then yelps when Bruce tosses the next ball at him with the same results. Oh, boy.

“This is useless,” Kal grunts as he sits down two hours later, Bruce finally too tired to keep going or resist all of their not-so-gentle suggestions that he take a shower.

Kal hasn’t even come close to breaking a sweat.

“It’s only the first day,” Martha tells him as she picks up one of the balls and goes to carry it to the storehouse. “Give yourself some time.”

“I don’t have time!” Kal protests, forcing himself not to flail in case he accidentally hit Martha and maim her—or worse. “I need to be safe to be around now , but I—urgh.”

This—it’s the most petulant Kal has ever been. He knows that. He knows he should stop, too. Preserve what’s left of his dignity and wait until he’s alone to indulge in the pressing urge to sulk—but then, he never did claim to be a perfect man, and in the end what he does is sigh again and say:

“I hate this. All the rest—I can deal with being a freak, but a dangerous one? I can’t—”

“First of all,” Martha says as she turns back toward him, face genuinely stern for the first time since Kal has met her, “I don’t like that word, so I’ll thank you not to use it while you’re on my farm. And secondly, I for one am very glad you've developed this ability, because if you’d been anyone else, you’d never have—”

Kal stares, dumbfounded, while Martha cuts herself short and takes a deep breath, dropping her medicine ball so she can rub at her temples with the tips of her fingers.

“I thought I’d killed you,” she says at last, voice catching in her throat. “For those first few seconds I was so sure you’d died! But then there you were, completely unscathed, and if that isn’t good news, then I don’t—”

This time it’s Martha’s turn to end her sentence with a frustrated grunt, and Kal finds himself blinking at her for a moment, before he hangs his head.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, “I didn’t—I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, of course not,” Martha says, wiping at the corners of her eyes with, perhaps, just a little more force than necessary. “You’re like Bruce that way.”

“I don’t think I’m—” Kal starts, but he cuts himself short—and holds himself very, very still—when Martha rises to the tips of her toes and gives him what should be a crushing hug.

“No one else could have survived this,” she whispers fiercely. “So you might not like what the sun made you, but I’m damn glad for it, and you won’t be able to change my mind on that.”

She pulls out of the embrace and picks up her medicine ball before Kal has any time to respond, and he just...stands there, speechless. Because—Kal isn’t anything like Batman, clearly, but...he really didn’t think about that. About what really happened there, and how his body would have been affected back on Krypton, and what a miracle it is that he survived the accident, let alone unscathed. How many times, as Shadow, has he wished he could push past the aches and pains inherent in the mission? How many times has he wished he were able to do more, bear more, help more? And Earth...Earth is not Krypton, that much is true, but help is help is help, no matter where you go in the galaxy, and Kal...well. If he does get his strength under control, he has the potential to help on a much larger scale than most.

“...Did you even sleep last night?”

Bruce looks wide awake, but very reluctantly so, one hand firmly clutching a mug of coffee while the other readjusts the waistband of his pajama pants. His voice still has some sleep-induced gravel in it, and the whole thing makes him sound so much like a grumpy m’lo, Kal can’t help but smile. Granted, the fact that he did not, in fact, sleep last night may make the expression just a tad more manic than he was aiming for, but the whole thing proves entirely worth it when he can pick one of the last medicine balls off the ground, toss it in the air like it weighs nothing—which it doesn’t, for him—and grin at Bruce.

“Not a wink. What’s phase two?”

Phase two, as it turns out, begins with Bruce breaking his stoic facade in order to grumble a lot of things Kal doesn’t really want to catch—he does overhear the words ‘when’ and ‘timid simpleton’, though, and surprises himself when he...actually doesn’t mind that much. It isn’t—the words are still accurate, in many ways. There’s a reason Kal has yet to meet anyone who isn’t Martha, after all. The farm is spacious, the landscape fascinating, and the streets of Smallville, not thirty minutes away on foot, look awfully tempting...until Kal tries to picture himself having a conversation with any of the inhabitants, and quietly retreats back to Martha’s farm. It doesn’t matter how familiar Kal has gotten with the surrounding fields and the nearby river: people still stump him. Which is kind of ironic, considering his project. But try as he might, no matter how much he changes—and oh, Gods, is the Kal he is now much more confident than the Kal he was then—there is still a part of him that balks at the thought of letting itself be shown, shying away from the light and easy way Martha has of chatting with her friends on the phone, the attempts she’s made at taking him into town.

He doesn’t—there’s no real hope, in his mind, of him ever shedding any of that completely. But, for what might be the first time in his life, Kal is...almost okay with it. Or, at the very least, he feels like he might be able to deal with it, even if it is in a weird way.

So, all in all, it isn’t that hard to spend the day waiting for a couple hundred basketballs to be delivered to Martha’s farm, or the day after that making said basketballs explode between his hands for two hours straight. And then, when Martha—sweaty, short of breath, and most likely sore as anything—asks him if he wants a break, it’s no big deal to say yes.

“I think I’ll go for a quick run while you rest, if that’s all right with you?”

It isn’t like he’s gained enough control over himself to help with the farm yet, unless there’s a need to move heavy machinery. Since that isn't required at the moment and Kal doesn’t really feel tired, he might as well keep pushing his limits.

He isn’t really prepared when he ends up running a thirty-mile circuit in less than five minutes, though.

(“Just you wait until you’ve got fine motor control again,” Martha tells him that night as they sip on their soup in the garden. “I intend to make full use of that super speed of yours.”

Kal laughs and says, “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”)

So this is actually mostly accidental. Kal will say ‘mostly’ and not ‘completely’, firstly because it is true—he hadn’t counted on actually being able to run to Gotham, but he did pick Bruce’s voice as a honing beacon on purpose, just to see if he could track it efficiently. And then also because with a little luck, or a lot of it, the honesty might decide Bruce in favor of not murdering him. Maybe.

Kal is, after all, probably not supposed to barge in on four ordinary strangers while they get a tour of the Wayne Manor renovations.

“Oh,” Kal manages intelligently. “Uh...hi.”

He waves a hand in the air, pleasantly surprised when one of the strangers—a lithe young man in a red plaid jacket—returns the gesture, open mouth or no. Behind him stands a tall, dark-haired woman whose pose and surprised expression echo Bruce’s. Then, to Bruce’s right: a tattooed giant in a t-shirt with a rather feral grin on his face, and—oh. Oh. Not so ordinary strangers, then, Kal thinks as he nods at the one the news reports name Cyborg.

“Kal,” Bruce starts, but he’s interrupted by a loud:

“Oh my GOD!”

There’s a crackle of electricity and a loud bang that makes Kal flinch, and then the lithe man—the Flash, then—is at his side, bouncing on his feet and firing questions so fast Kal doesn’t even catch one word out of every ten he speaks. Fortunately for Kal, he’s saved from having to answer any of it by the sight of a man in a Green Lantern uniform landing not six feet away from the group and asking, “What’s going on?”

“Flash has a crush,” Cyborg says, and the aforementioned speedster crackles to his side in an instant.

“Dude! He got there before I could see him! I don’t even—how fast were you even going?”

Kal looks down to check the display of his suit, still switching between numbers at the tail end, and says:

“Around two thousand and two hundred miles per hour?”

The Flash makes a high-pitched noise, and behind him the giant—Aquaman, then, since all the others are accounted for—sneers and warns, “If you even think of having a nerdgasm—”

“Ew! Gross, Arthur!” Flash protests.

Kal ignores the two of them as they descend into bickering, and walks up to Bruce and the others instead, one hand uselessly trying to rub the embarrassment out of his neck.

“I’m sorry for barging in,” he says. “If I’d known you all were here, I’d have—”

“Oh, it’s quite all right,” Wonder Woman tells him with an amused smile and a pointed look at Bruce. “We’ve been wanting to meet you for a while now.”

“Oh,” Kal says, feeling his face grow pink, “well I—it’s an honor to meet you all. And uh—thank you, sir, for helping with the whole...administration. Thing.”

A little to the right, Kal can feel Bruce all but trying to burn a hole in the side of his head, and he clears his throat in response, scratching at his neck again.

“Anyway,” he says, “I’m sure you’re all very busy and I don’t—I just wanted to talk with Bruce but that—I’m sure it can wait until you’re done doing...whatever you’re doing.”

“We’re deciding if we really want to have our headquarters here,” the Flash says, popping up next to him with another blue crack, “seeing as it’s Bruce’s house and all.”

“Barry!” Cyborg snaps, only for Flash—Barry—to turn back to him with an offended expression.

“What? It’s true! He doesn’t even look like he wants us here.”

“Also, he’s a rich asshole,” Arthur-the-Aquaman chimes in.

Kal chances a look toward Bruce, and is absolutely not surprised to find him clenching his jaw, eyes briefly closed against what Kal can only assume is a strong wave of frustration. He’s fairly sure Shadow would have felt...well, roughly the same, really, and it’s only the patience that came with his new environment allowing Kal to deal with all of this any more serenely.

“I think it’s more the part where people aren’t supposed to find out Bruce Wayne is Batman, and that’ll be easier to do if the Justice League doesn’t settle on his private property,” Cyborg says, only for the Green Lantern to add:

“And we’re not entirely sure we’re comfortable with giving the US government grounds to claim us as part of its jurisdiction. We are agreed on that, right? We’re either working with every country or none of them.”

The others nod with various levels of focus—Barry and Cyborg are still bickering to one side while Diana settles a sympathetic hand on Bruce’s shoulder—and then Bruce releases a small sigh. From what Kal has seen of him so far, he’d say this is the Batman equivalent of slapping a hand on the table in frustration. He winces, just a little, in sympathy, and then Bruce says, “Again, if anyone has a more practical alternative—”

“Actually,” Kal blurts out before he can start overthinking it, “I might be able to help with that.”

Bruce gives him a suspicious glance, while the others stare in confusion.

“I mean,” Kal explains, “I do have a giant spaceship I’m not using.”

Bruce seizes him by the collar and drags him away from the other five.

“Meeting adjourned,” he tosses over his shoulder, and Kal barely has time to wave goodbye to the rest of the Justice League before they reach Bruce’s car.

Bruce peels off the gravel road before Kal is done buckling himself in, and before long they pull over in front of a long house made almost entirely of glass...Kal doesn’t even have to use the x-ray vision to see to the other side of it, which in turn allows him to catch the exact moment Alfred notices them.

Kal follows the old man to the kitchen—or rather, the counter that serves as a kitchen, considering there don’t seem to be any actual walls to partition the various rooms here—and helps himself to a cup of coffee accompanied by a helping of cream and another of sugar. Then, when Bruce fixes him with something that would be a full blown glare on anyone else, he clears his throat and says, “So. That was actually part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Giving your ship away to the League?”

“Well, no,” Kal admits. “That part was a bit more...spur of the moment. But I’m not just—”

He cuts himself off, frustrated and flustered by the way this conversation came about. He didn’t even mean to have it today, exactly. Or rather he wasn’t sure he’d be having it today—he thought maybe if the whole ‘hi, it turns out I can also run ridiculously fast’ conversation went wrong, then he could keep the other two things he needs to share with Bruce for a later time. It would—he’d probably feel a little less panicked that way. Hopefully. But then he actually got there, and the League was there, and they don’t really have a place to go; and so here Kal is, with absolutely no way out except through.

Oh, Gods.

“Kal,” Bruce says after a while.

He’s about to say more, Kal’s sure, but at this point it’s probably best to just get the first part over with, and deal with the consequences later.

“So,” he blurts out before Bruce can get another word in, “obviously the fact that I’m willing to let the League use my ship wasn’t what I was here to talk to you about, but it is related to...uh. Topic number two.”

“I assume,” Bruce says after a beat, “that topic number one was the speed.”

“Yes,” Kal confirms. “The other two are...somewhat related to one another, and to the reason why I offered the use of my ship to the Justice League.”

Bruce’s posture is impeccable under most circumstances, but he does still manage to give the impression of someone straightening up as he says, “I’m listening.”

Kal breathes in. This is, he knows, a key moment for him going forward. It isn’t that he won’t go on with his project if he doesn’t have Batman’s blessing; it is that he wants it—wants to prove, to both of them, that’s he’s evolved and changed enough to do this. That he’s ready for it, and won’t fail this time. With another breath in, Kal lets a little bit of Shadow settle onto his shoulders, slip into his voice. His spine straightens almost on its own, his eyes rising. He feels the change on his face, too: more solemn, more solid than his usual demeanor, but without the harsh tension of Shadow’s expressions.

“I want to help,” he says in a voice deeper than usual, and feels dimly rewarded when Bruce slides into Batman’s body language without missing a beat. “I...won’t be Shadow, here,” he adds, using the Ellon version of the name. “He was made for Krypton, and he should stay there...but I do want to help whoever I can here, and given your position—and everything you’ve done for me in every aspect of my life, I thought it would be only fair to let you know.”

“I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” he cuts in, firm but not harsh. “I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

There is a pause, during which Batman’s features remain as neutral as they ever are—but he thinks he can still see something...touched, perhaps, in the tick of the man’s jaw. Eventually, the silence passes, and Batman says, “You realize you can’t just jump into that?”

“I do have some experience with this sort of business,” he retorts with a chuckle. “Enough to know I can’t possibly prepare for everything on the first try. But I did get started.”

“How?”

“Well, first of all, I wanted to assess the state of my resources,” he explains. “I asked the ship to scan for and network with any Kryptonian tech it could access.”

Batman's tensing is so subtle, he’s tempted to think he’d have missed it if he didn’t have especially keen vision.

“There’s something on Earth you didn’t bring with you,” Batman says.

“Yes,” he replies. “A pre-settlement fortress in the Arctic. Part of the last wave, judging by the technology, but still more than enough for my personal use.”

“So you’d just give the ship up?” Batman asks.

He smiles.

“I was thinking more of a long-term lending plan. The League would have full use of the ship, but I would remain in command of it. The offer stands whether I am allowed to join or not, by the way.”

“How generous of you.”

“Like I said,” he replies with a shrug, “you would have more use for it than I will.”

“If we can get there,” Batman points out. “You should be aware by now that going to space is a little complicated for us humans, and we can’t just yell ‘beam me up, Scotty’.”

“Of course not,” he agrees with a chuckle. “I don’t think Scotty is a very dignified name for a spaceship, anyway. But there are technologies that could allow for teleportation, and I’m sure between your Green Lantern officer and I we could either build or obtain some.”

Batman stays silent for a moment, only moving to bring his hands up and steeple his fingers over the table, assessing him with a piercing gaze. He doesn’t move—doesn’t even really feel the need to squirm here, confident in the merits of his idea, if nothing else.

Then Batman says, “I’ll need more details before I put it up for consideration before the League. As for your membership...we generally wait to see what someone is capable of before we invite them in.”

“That’s not exactly what I understood from the news reports,” he says, without restraining an amused smile, “but that sounds fair enough.”

“Do you plan on...helping...in jeans and a t-shirt?”

His face still feels a little like Shadow's; but the smile that cracks across it is Kal’s, full of pleasant surprise at how fast Batman seems to have come around to the idea.

“Now,” he says, slipping back out of Kal, “that would be a waste of an exceedingly smart suit, wouldn’t it?”

Batman’s face remains entirely blank, and so he rises to his feet.

“Martha and I had a long talk about it the other day...let me know what you think.”

“Aren’t the colors a little...bold?” Martha asked in a careful tone when Kal finished sketching what he had in mind. “Not that the other heroes don’t have colorful costumes, mind, they just aren’t usually that….”

“Saturated?” Kal asked, and smiled when Martha gave him an embarrassed nod. “I guess you’re right, but...I like them. There’s Kansas’s blue sky,” he explained, pointing at the body, “Krypton’s red...and here, gold for the sun, and for Rao.”

If he was going to help, after all, he might as well bring something of his patron God into the uniform.

“And that?” Martha asked, pointing at the diamond shape and flowing crimson line on its golden field. “What does that mean?”

Kal couldn’t help the bittersweetness of his smile as he looked down at his sketch and the El family’s coat of arms over the uniform’s chest. It had, after all, started off as a symbol for Rao, and had only been incorporated into the El crest several centuries after the birth of their lineage. But it would have been a lie to say that Kal hadn’t kept that in mind when he chose the symbol. It was a piece of his world, after all; not only a part of Krypton and El’s history but a part of his childhood, too. Years of distress, of dissatisfaction, of disappointment for every member of his family...and here, finally, he’d found a way to reclaim it all. To make the crest his, rather than cower around it in every part of his existence.

Adding this to his design—even just putting the first curve of it to paper—had felt like figuring out a key piece of a puzzle. If there was only one part of this costume that wouldn’t change, it was that one, no doubt about it.

“That’s my family’s crest,” Kal explained, then. “It used to be an ancient symbol for Rao and the light he brought to Krypton. See how the line comes and goes, but never disappears?”

Martha hummed.

“It is supposed to represent the power to do what is right by those you care about. The power to help where you are needed, and the strength to ask for help when you need it. It’s also—it’s supposed to tell you that powerlessness, helplessness, they’re only temporary states. Sooner or later, you will have the opportunity to help others—or help yourself—again.”

“Oh,” Martha said, her smile brimming with affection, “so it means hope, then.”

“So?” he asks, when Batman remains motionless too long for comfort. “What do you think?”

“You look—”

Bruce—because it was Bruce’s voice there, not Batman’s—cuts himself off with a sharp inhale. Clears his throat, a faint pink dusting his face for some unfathomable reason, and corrects:

“It’ll do.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me I need to wear a mask?” he asks, surprised.

“You’ve seen the people I work with,” Batman says, something almost dejected in his tone. “I try to pick my battles.”

He laughs, but Batman doesn’t join him.

On the second of August 2019, a little over two months after his arrival on Earth and about two days after he told Batman about his intention to join Earth’s growing League—Guild?—of helpers, there is a fire on the outskirts of a city called Metropolis. It isn’t the first one he's heard burning during those two days, of course, but people know how to handle fire, most of the time. And when they can’t, well. Flash does operate mostly around the Midwest, so he can take care of these things, when needed.

On that day, though, Flash is busy dealing with a hostage situation up north in Star City, and the firefighters called to intervene are discussing the difficulty of the operation before they even get there...so, obviously, he changes into his uniform and runs to join the rescue efforts.

It’s a residential building he finds when he arrives. Old; filled with dry wood, old paper, and more than a dozen elderly residents trapped on the last floor, too slow to escape the flames and too frail to get out on their own. He slows to a stop next to the firetruck and filters the screams out as he walks up to the man who seems to be in charge and asks, “How can I help?”

“Stay out of the way,” the man replies with barely a glance at him. “This is a delicate operation, and I don’t have time to shepherd a clown in leggings!”

He follows the man’s gesture to where the truck’s ladder is malfunctioning, and sucks in a breath. No wonder everyone looks panicked—even if someone makes it to the third floor through the inferno, there’s no way they’ll be able to get everyone down that way. Not with human speed or strength, at any rate. Stepping aside from the firefighters, he opens both his hearing and his vision until he figures out where to go first.

Using his speed, he climbs up to the correct window, punching and kicking holding points in the old brick. Once there, he blocks the interstice under the door with his cape, scoops the elderly man and his poodle up in his arms and, taking care not to jostle them too much, climbs back down to the ground in order to leave man and animal to the care of emergency services. Immediately, he can hear the firefighting chief redirect his people’s efforts so they can take the residents in charge sooner and aim their streams of water toward the newly-opened window.

He repeats the rescue process for each of the twelve residents trapped in the house, taking the time to reassess who is most in danger between each round, then goes back for two wheelchairs, a pair of canes, and, despite the firefighters’ inquietude, the ashes of the first resident’s husband. The man takes them from him with a grateful sob, and he smiles in return, wishing him and his neighbors a speedy recovery as they are taken to the nearest hospital.

A small crowd has gathered around the building while he was working, concerned neighbors and gawking bystanders alike, several smartphones raised to capture the scene—which can’t have lasted more than twenty minutes, including the time he took to chat with the resident who broke her arm in her panic, trying to relax her as much as he could. When he turns around, flashes erupt all around him, and a red-haired woman waves her arm high in the air.

(She mutters between her teeth as she does so, something about finally having a ticket out of the doghouse if she can get a statement, and he allows himself a smile as he walks up to her. Help, after all, can take many different forms, and it isn’t like this is going to cost him anything.)

“Good morning,” he says, though at this point they are veering towards lunchtime. “May I help you?”

“Yes,” the woman says in a determined, no-nonsense tone. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet. Could you tell me what you were doing here?”

“I heard people calling for help,” he says truthfully, “and I knew I could help, so I did.”

“Can you tell me your name?”

He was expecting the question—even tried to come up with an answer for it, back when he first discussed it with Martha, but nothing he could think of seemed quite right, either too arrogant or too banal. So, in the end, he does what he’d decided on and evades:

“It seems to me like naming helpers is traditionally the press’s prerogative.”

He smiles a little, but Ms. Lane doesn’t return the expression, tilting her head to the side instead.

“Helpers?”

“People like me, who have certain...unusual abilities, and who use them to help where they can.” He pauses, curious, careful not to frown. “Is that not what you call them?”

“People like the Wonder Woman or the Flash get called heroes,” Ms. Lane says. “Do you think you should be called a hero?”

“I don’t think that’s my decision,” he admits, forcing himself to ignore Kal’s urge to blush, “but I’ll certainly do my best to be worthy of the comparison.”

“One last question,” Ms. Lane starts, but she has a look on her face that makes him fear the sort of question he really won’t know how to answer, and so he tilts his head to the side, pretends to listen for something for a second, and says:

“If you’ll excuse me—I’m afraid I have to go.”

He takes a step back to scan his surroundings—far too many people on the sidewalk for a dignified exit that way, even if he were to speed away immediately after, and there’s nothing behind him besides the burning building where the firefighters are only just getting the flames under control. Without a better option—and, more importantly, without the time to look for one—he sends a quick prayer to Rao to make his legs as strong as his arms, something he has yet to put to the test, and jumps away from the crowd. He lands on a nearby building with a much louder crash than he would have liked, though at least he manages to roll enough to avoid cracking the rooftop; and when he realizes the crowd can still see him, he jumps away again.

His second landing is even less dignified than the first: he lets the suit stretch downward as he falls, redistributing material from his cape to the bottom of his feet, but because he now knows he can manage the jump, he forgets to prepare for the roll on the landing. He hits the roof face-first as a result, startling a cage full of pigeons and getting more or less tangled in his cape, which is embarrassing enough on its own and becomes worse when he hears someone laugh above him.

He gets back up too fast, trips over his own feet, and stumbles off the building all in the same movement, Wonder Woman gasping in surprise and reaching for his hand...until they both realize that he isn’t, actually, falling to—well, not to his death, clearly; but someone like him falling from that kind of distance could easily kill whoever happened to be passing by. So it is still a relief when he manages to right himself up and find his footing on the roof again.

“Good catch,” Wonder Woman tells him with a smile.

“Thank you,” he replies, allowing himself to blush a little. “That has to be the best timing for a moment like this so far.”

She tilts her head to the side. In her uniform, she looks younger than she did in her jeans and leather jacket, but also more dignified somehow. She reminds him of Kara—the way she carries herself is just as confident, if not more so, and it speaks of someone used to commanding people’s attention without effort. No wonder the press seems to hold her in such high regard.

He wonders if they’ve ever seen her look like this, though—just a little puzzled, but smiling in a way that makes it look like she’s anticipating nothing but a good answer.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly—do that, on Krypton,” he admits. “Though I guess I’d have had less trouble with vertigo, if I could have.”

Wonder Woman laughs, striking a delicate balance between the dignified laughter of a queen and a delighted giggle, before she says, “Well, I wouldn’t have guessed you’d never done this before if you hadn’t told me.”

He smiles, just a little too nervous for the man he’s supposed to be right now.

“You weren’t half bad down there, either, you know,” she says with a conspiratorial smile.

She turns her head to the left then, eyes unfocused as she listens to something in the distance, back where he came from, before she offers him a hand to clasp.

“It seems they have decided what to call you. Welcome to the helpers, Superman.”

#Superbat #Clark Kent #Bruce Wayne #DCU Fic #Superbat Big Bang #SBB2019 #My Posts #fic: Clark Kent of Krypton #Fanfiction

[hiyo-silver]

"What's Up You Guys It's Me, Bdenbrough!"

Summary: Bill Denbrough is nine years old. He makes a YouTube channel to try and be more outgoing, and through his journey on YouTube his transition is evident.

A/N: this chapter starts with him not knowing he’s trans yet, it’s introducing elements of his character and also his relationship to the others.

AO3 + My Masterlist

Taglist: @fuckboykaspbrak @thesquidliesthuman @starboystan @rachi0964 @shewasthewind @beepbeep-losers @bigbilliamdenbro @jalenrose1122 @sleepygaybrough @itandstrangerthingsfanfic @boopboopbichie @peachywyatt

Bill tucks his hair behind his ear, sighing at how long it's getting again. He plops on his desk chair in front of his camera, stacked upon several r.l. Stine books to be level with his face. He props his feet up on the desk thoughtfully, taking a breath to soothe himself, realizing how daunting this is.

He looks at his spiral notebook on his desk, open to the page that reads "50 Questions Tag," in his messy, penciled in handwriting. He picks it up impatiently and clears his throat, pressing the on button on the old family camera.

"H-hello! Fuck. Welcome to m-my channel! I'm bdenbrough and I g-guess I'm your host h-here. Today I'm d-doing the f-fifty questions tag as m-my first video even though n-nobody asked me to," he shrugs precariously and looks down at the paper.

He clears his throat again as his own transition. "Where w-were you three hours a-ago?" He reads off, tapping his chin thoughtfully, "At the q-quarry- I th-think? Eddie was there and we found a g-garden snake! Richie said it's weird I l-liked it because girls aren't s-supposed to like slimey things b-but guess what, Richie? Snakes aren't even slimey! Just scaley!" He chuckles to himself, drawing his eyes down to the next line, "Question two," he prompts.

"Wh-who am I i-in love with?" He reads off with a small frown, "N-nobody! I'm too y-young f-for that, and b-boys are gross!" He jokes, making a sour face to add to his point.

"H-have you ever eaten a crayon?" Bill chuckles to himself, running his hands through his hair, awkwardly catching in a tangle near the end. "Uh. I pr-prefer that you guys m-make that assumption yourself," he chuckles to himself. "I-it was a d-dare- thanks Eddie, he'd n-never say he dared m-me though," he adds with a whisper.

"Is th-there anything pink within t-ten feet of you?" He reads, spinning in his chair around to look around. "Uhhh- m-my new church dress, d-don't tell m-my mom but I hate it. And a-also a l-lot of things o-on my bed and i-in my closet probably."

"L-last time you went t-to the mall?" He looks, staring into the window behind the camera as he thinks, sticking his tongue out slightly in concentration. "A wh-while ago- s-saw a movie there with m-my friends," he remembers finally, pointing at the camera excitedly as he does.

"Are y-you wearing socks right n-now? Uh yeah, r-right here under m-my sandals," he jokes, bringing up his leg to reveal that he's wearing strappy sandals, no socks under them though, already showcasing his sarcastic sense of humor.

"Does y-your family have a c-car worth o-over $2,000? T-to hell if I know," he shrugs, flipping the page to the next page of his "script".

He spins around in his chair once, obviously getting distracted by doing the same thing for so long. He takes a moment to reconvene, reading off the next one. "Question s-seven," he starts, squinting his eyes at his own bad handwriting.

"When was th-the last time you were o-out of town? Well I l-leave Derry e-every Thursday for sp-speech therapy," he says with a theatrical shrug.

"Have you b-been to a movie in th-the past f-five days?" He thinks for a moment, his tongue going back out thoughtfully, counting back the days since he and Richie and Stan and Eddie had seen a movie at the mall, "N-nope, it's been o-over a week I'd say," he finally answers.

"Are you h-hot?" He looks at the camera awkwardly and blinks a few times slowly, running his hands through his hair so it lands behind his ear again. "Y-yeah? I m-mean our air conditioning is br-broken and it's the m-middle of summer," he finally decides on answering.

"Last th-thing you had to drink?" He ponders for a moment, knowing that thinking so long about this probably means he's dehydrated. "Oh! Th-this morning m-my mom made lemonade- she n-never makes it s-sour enough."

"What are you w-wearing right now?" Bill looks down at himself, "Uhhh sh-shirt from... Justice? Fr-from my aunt I th-think," he muses, "And a-a-a-a," he sighs deeply at his inability to apparently get that word out, "d-denim skirt from who kn-knows," he shrugs as he turns the page.

"Do I w-wash my car or g-get a car wash?" He smirks to himself at the answer he considers. "I m-mean, Eddie and St-Stan already insist on Clorox wiping R-Richie's Hot Wheels so," he shrugs, pleased with himself for the additional irony. He doesn't usually talk this way- so openly and humorously all at once. He thinks he likes it so far, but he'll have to keep up with it.

"Last f-food you ate? Richie's m-mom made us turkey s-sandwiches, she's r-really nice, I help h-her with the dishes sometimes," Bill says, flashing the camera a winning smile, he likes to feel useful, and Maggie never ceases to have something for him to do when he wants to do something.

"Wh-where was I- this t-time last week? I have n-no clue and n-no desire t-to sit and th-think about it," he chuckles to himself, grabbing his pencil off his desk clumsily to cross the question out aggressively.

"Have y-you bought new clothing i-in the past week? Uh y-yeah, the nasty Church dr-dress my mom got me, it's a-all pink and fr-frilly- wait lemme g-get it!" He says scrambling up to grab it from the hook on his dresser door, holding it against himself for the camera, "Look! It's disgusting!" He whisper yells, running to go put it back as fast as he'd gotten it.

"L-last time you r-ran? Richie w-was chasing after m-me, tag, E-Eddie got him and then I h-had to make a run for it b-because he was really cl-close to where I was," he says, letting the exhilaration of the moment translate into his storytelling.

"Last sp-sport you watched?" He thinks to himself, not a fan of watching organized sports for the most part, "I a-actually don't kn-know, maybe a b-basketball g-game at the high school," he shrugs, flipping the page of his notebook again.

"Favorite animal? A dog! O-or a cat! Or am I o-obligated to s-say a hamster b-because I have one? H-his name is cheese and my dad says he's a l-little rascal just like I am," Bill says, beaming as if he takes it as the most sincere of compliments.

"Dream v-vacation?" He reads, sighing when he realizes he doesn't know, he stares just next to the camera and out the window as he thinks, hearing the door open behind him after a while.

"You done?" A small voice asks before a sprout of blond hair appears before the small boy attached to it. "Said you'd read me a story," the small voice adds, looking timid in Bill's presence.

Bill looks frustrated at first but softens, walking over and trying to lift the boy up by under his armpits, the toddler's shirt riding up awkwardly as they waddle back to the desk chair, "Th-this is my brother, h-his name is G-Georgie, he's a little rascal t-too," Bill chuckles, showing off the small boy to the camera, proud of having him no matter how much he continuously denies it to his friends.

"N-now get off m-my frame you a-hole!" Bill exclaims, shoving him out of the camera's view gently, "I'll tell you wh-when I'm done," he tells him as the younger boy trudges off quietly.

"S-sorry about that!" He says to the camera, "Question tw-twenty one," he says, taking a breath in preparation. "Whose house w-were you at last?Richie's! Wh-when his mom made us sandwiches a-after the quarry today!" He says excitedly at the memory, giving the camera a toothy smile without even meaning to, completely genuine.

"Worse i-injury you've e-ever had?" He reads, pretending to ponder to make himself seem more interesting despite his life of usually just skinned knees and elbows and mosquito bites when he stays out late.

He finally starts his story, looking at the ceiling in trying to remember what he's been told of this story. "I w-was three? I th-think? I was b-being dumb, and I g-got myself wacked b-by a car. I w-was unconscious for s-seven hours," he reports, not having much emotion tied to this story, not remembering a wink of it.

"M-mom says it's h-how I got m-my stutter- but how w-would she know? I h-hardly talked b-before I was three?" He chuckles, jiggling his leg as his filming energy returns. He'd call it filming energy but really, it's "being nine years old" energy.

"Did you really call your brother an a-hole?" His mother calls up the stairs with a tone that makes Bill flinch. He spins his chair around to the door to be sure she doesn't come. He looks back at the camera.

"Th-this has been bdenbrough, I g-gotta go," he says in a hushed voice before pressing the off button to go deal with his angry mother.

#it stephen king #it stephen king fanfic #it fanfic #it book #it novel #it movie #it movie 2017 #it 2017 #it 2019 #it1990 #my fics #bill denbrough #it bill #it bill denbrough #eddie kaspbrak #it eddie #it eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #it richie #it richie tozier #stan uris #it stan #it stan uris #stanley uris #bev marsh #beverly marsh #it beverly #it beverly marsh #mike hanlon #it mike hanlon

[zephyrvm]

⚰️ + hwa don't @ me u asked for it!!!

« death meme // accepting  !!updating files.  「  ☁ 」 ━ *┊ @obciidian​  fucking @ u bc bitch u deserve to suffer w me after this.

  hysterical     are the screams and cries  that fill the hospital halls , mourning people surround her , taunting her already bleeding heart.  but she stills herself,  gathers control of her emotions as she pushes through to the front desk . none of other humans matter at this moment , not when her heart is clenching and her questions are unanswered  and the moment , she comes across one of the nurses in the station  —-  she swallows     deeply      to ease the suffocating  feeling that engulfs her whole being .  ❛   i’m looking for my son , lim-song seunghwa . can you tell me what room he’s in ?    ❜  and even then ,  her voice feels feeble as she hears herself speak    .  there was no doubt that   ianthina was     unstable     ever since she received a call from the hospital ,  woken from her peaceful slumber   .   her heart had ever since then sunk to the bottom of her stomach when she had heard the nurse on the other side of the phone ask if she was the guardian of lim-song  seunghwa .   that was all it took to pull her out of her bed and toss on anything her hands could get a hold of .    the ride over was    s u f f o c a t i n g       — trying her best to look at the possibilities that her kid had probably gotten in a fight or some sorts .  a few scratches , nothing bad . that she would scold him and then they’ll be back on their way home .  she hadn’t even woken up namoo  ;  the only one that had any knowledge of her sudden raise of emotions was lao ,  her familiar .  his worried eyes were burned into the back of her eyelids whenever she had closed her eyes trying to ease the dreadful sensation that clenched around her heart . 

ianthina however ,  had held onto the     f o o l i s h      hope that everything would be okay .  right,  seunghwa wouldn’t be foolish enough  —-  no , fate wouldn’t be cruel enough to do anything to the child she claimed as hers legally just weeks ago . life wouldn’t rip her child out of her arms like that  , not after all the ian had done .  seunghwa was her     gift  .  yet  ,  it’s the face of the nurse that makes ian’s eyes begin to water up and her lips start to quiver  .  

 ❛   he’s currently in the ICU . ❜

                                                                            ❛  he’s having his stomach pumped as we speak .  looks like an overdose  , ma’ma .    ❜

 ❛  i’ll lead you to the icu waiting room and the doctor will be with you , once they are done with him .  ❜

the nurse’s words set ablaze a dam ,  causing her tears to roll down her cheeks    u n c o n t r o l l a b l y  , silent cries  that she didn’t want to be heard .   words had been replaying in her mind ever since  —  the scent of disinfectants  and sanitation cling to her  ;  it’s a scent she’s always      disliked     ever since a child .  ian had promised herself to never be in these halls again , but wasn’t life cruel ?   last time she had been in a setting like this  — crying her eyes out and praying to her gods was when she was only 16.  now , she found herself in the same situation  and she was thankful that the waiting room was empty , giving her all the chances to think that everything was going to be okay .  that the doctors would be able to pull him through , his condition and that he would be back in her arms in a few days time .  but how did it get this bad ?  why ,  why would he go and risk his life , why ? so many questions she had to for her son that ian didn’t hear when the door of the waiting room had been opened up .  she hadn’t felt sorrow look in the eyes of the doctor as unknown woman stared at the noticeably worried mother hunched over with her legs bouncing with     anxiety     and visible streaming tears gliding down her cheeks .   

c o l d      is the hand that is felt over her shoulder as the presence stood in front of her , the young newly made mother weakly looking up as she saw the woman before her .  exhaustion was in the other’s features as a meek smile is given , but that isn’t what catches ianthina’s eyes ,  it’s the look that the woman’s orbs held  .  the one that had the enchantress’ already reddened eyes water up some more as the hand on her shoulder beckoned her to stand up .

 ❛ this way , miss song .  ❜         

the hallways seemed like      endless    mazes of whites   ;  ears picked up the numerous amounts of machines , beeping behind closed or opened doors .   silence falls over them , neither them speaking as ian merely follows the female doctor .  there wasn’t a need to tell her and all honesty , it was  a miracle that she hadn’t lost it yet .  the enchantress didn’t need the words  for it was the eyes of the doctor that said it all .   and her heart bled within her chest , a soul shattered as her body trembles , but no words come out .  none  , not even as they pause in front a large sliding wooden door   —-   it’s dim inside, but she hears it .  no sounds of machines  , no soft breathing ,  no ‘  hi mom ’ .  nothing but the silence of death .  she didn’t need to hear the doctors words , but they reach her ears as ianthina’s hollow eyes land on the outlining of a body under the white sheets .  

❛ we did everything we could , but they brought him in too late .  i’m really sorry for your lost.  I’ll give you some time before we move him out .  ❜ 

 how many times in the day did the doctor have to say that to someone that just lost their world ?  she honestly didn’t want to think about it , instead , she weakly steps inside the cold room ,  not even turning as she slides the door behind her ,   privacy   is what she wanted right now .  to be alone with him and it aches .  

every part of her soul aches as her steps are    l i f e l e s s     —-  oh reckless foolish   boy .  how could you leave her without you ?   it was like this was what she was waiting for , to be by his bedside before she collapsed  on her knees .  the pain felt numb to her ,  nonexist even though she would be sure that tomorrow there would bruises .  the young mother didn’t care ,  not as she allowed her dam to fully break and     uncontrollable     sobs ripped through her already raw throat.   silently ,  she finds herself resting her head against his still warm hand ,   the white sheets that covered him soaked up her sorrow as ianthina’s body shook without a care .  she was mourning .  she was utterly      destroyed.  broken without repair and it was pain she never felt before  , not even when she had lost her father .  none of the pain she ever knew before could amount to what she felt at this very moment . 

he had only been laughing with her not 10 hours ago .  they had just watched a movie after finishing painting his room that new color  he had been raving about .  seunghwa had just been with her ;  smiling at her  , laughing with her as he cuddled up to her side .  they had been happy ,  all four of them just hours ago and now ….

❛ please don’t leave me , seunghwa .  please fates give me back my son .  give him back to me .    ��  she weeps , calling out to the world around her .  calling out to his soul if he was still here .  how could she just     accept     this   ,  accept that he would no longer be there with her .  that she would no longer see that radiant aura of his .  that seunghwa would no longer crawl  in her bed late at night when he couldn’t sleep .  ❛   hwa , come back to me .  don’t leave me .  how can you leave me ? you foolish boy .  you told me no more .  you told me you would stop , that you would be clean .  ❜  he made promises to her  that he would no longer be in that world of risk  .  he had looked so honest too .  he was going clean and swearing off the drugs  ,  he promised her that he was so why  —  why did he break it ?    ❛  the cruelest thing  you can do is make me live without you , hwa .  i finally made you my son and you leave me .  how can i live without your annoying little whines when you want something .  or the way you smile when you see artemis sleeping .  why , why do you expect me to live without your hugs and endless ramble ?     ❜

she didn’t want to , even if the reality was right before her .  even as she felt his body being stripped of his warmth  , turning cold under her palms .  she didn’t want this .  she would give anything to have him back .  anything to have him back in her arms .  how could a mother outlive her son ? and that moment  —-  those that passed his closed door bared witness to the       unadulterated     heartbreaking screams and sobs  of a mother that had just lost it all .  the songs of her lost , ripped out of her soul , as she mourns  what she treasured the    most    in life.

   the loss of her universe ,  of her child .    

#obciidian #ft: seunghwa #❪ 🔮 • ‘ child of the earth and magic ’ : ❫ ask replies ｡ #tw: mentions of overdose #tw: death #{ hwa and ian's tag tba } #❪ ☁️ • hit the — : ❫ queue ｡ #{ i hate u right now.. WHY .. WHY WOULD U MAKE ME WRITE THIS???} #{ I THOUGHT U LOVED IAN...} #{ legit shed a few tears writing this. im senstive af rn . don't touch me } #{ cry.} #{ also i dont hate u . i love u buhhh i don't like u rn for making me write this pain...} #{ THIS PAIN... UR MEAN}

[turquoisemagpie]

MAKE A CHOICE.

“So who’s side are you on?”

“What do you mean? Who do I prefer or who would I trust? They’re both homicidal maniacs so I don’t trust either of them!”

“If you had to pick one of them, who would you pick?”

“I don’t know. Who would you pick?”

“Anti, personally. I like his manic look and he’s just a ball of energy.”

“But you wouldn’t trust him around knives.”

“Oh god no. I’d trust Dark more than him around knives.”

“You’d trust Dark around knives?!? That’s asking for a bad time.”

“I don’t mean it like that. I mean it as in I think Dark is more sensible of the both of them. He wouldn’t straight up kill someone as soon as he gets the chance. He’d wait, take advantage of you.”

“Overall they’re both bad people. If they existed in real life they’d be a major cause for concern.”

“But they’re not. It’s just a bit of fun.”

“Exactly. There won’t be a life and death situation where you’d have to chose between the two.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s late, I’m gonna sleep now.”

“Ok. G’night.”

I closed Tumblr and turned off my laptop. I’d spent nearly a day online since both Mark and Jack simultaneously posted an Antisepticeye video and a Darkiplier video. Obviously both communities online had fallen into hysterical exhilaration over the videos; the usual drooling over the great editing put into their videos, and the Anti-Dark conspiracy theorists huddled around the metaphorical fires of their computers exchanging their thoughts and ideas. I was still pretty astounded at the coincidental aspects of the videos; both up around 17:00 (GMT), both less than 4 minutes long, and both presented by Mark and Jack’s dark personas. It was fun to watch the whole thing happen and spread like wildfire over the internet, but finally pulling myself away from the screen made me realise how much of a headache I had.

I lay in my bed in the darkness staring at the ceiling. I needed sleep but my mind wouldn’t stop turning. I kept replaying the videos in my head. Jack, or rather Anti, played his classical knife-wielding, cut-throat, glitchy performance up close and personal to the camera, his voice broken and his eyes flashing black with every blink. Dark, Mark’s darker persona, also kept to his usual VHS effected well-dressed Devil’s Advocate style, standing in darkness and hovering around the camera like it was some police interrogation of the viewers. Loads of people spent their time on Tumblr linking the two videos, comparing and contrasting them, trying to uncover what was going to happen next. Although it was pretty obvious both Mark and Jack had planned it together all along. Both uploading at the same time, both having shorter videos than usual, both talking to the cameras as if directly to the viewers… both ending their videos with “M a k e   y o u r   c h o i c e.” … Yeah, it’s too much to be a coincidence.

Eventually after nearly and hour’s pondering, my eyelids got heavier, but my head still hurt. I didn’t help that Dark’s video had that piercing unfiltered whining noise in the background. It was all I could hear as I finally drifted into an uncomfortable sleep.

.

D͙̝̫̘͕̳̫͉͙̊̍̎̔̉͢ Ḭ͚͙͕̻͈͑̑́̾͗͗͗̂ D̶̯͙̹̩̦̫͉̆̇͆̈͐   Y͙̳̦̥̥̻̑̊̉̄͊̾ͅͅͅ Ǒ̶̬̬͓̘͇͙̅̐̉͋̓ U̜̠̠̩̩͌̍̀͌̊͠   M̷̢̰͈̣̣̮̖͂̒̾̈͋͑ Ì̢̜̰̜͉̥͗͑̎̔̃̇̽̉̔ Ṡ̙̜̙̙͎͐̈́̕͘ S̷̡̡̛̰̟̃̋̊̐̋̉̉͐͘͟   M̴͙͉͙͇̀̽̓̃͛͛͌̓̕͜͝ Ḙ̛̮̝̿͆́̀͊̄͜͢͝ ?̢̩̯̤̭͎̫͚́̌̃͐̽̌͢ .̷̠͙͍͇͍̪̘͌͌̀̒́́̈́̓ .̷̡͇̬̙̪̋̈̍̏̂̄̌͊͘

͂̒̓̅

“Leave me alone!!” I clasped my hands over my ears and continued running. The hallway seemed to be getting narrower and darker. The walls were made up of hundreds if not millions of piled up computer monitors and TV screens with miles and miles of endless wires trailing the floors and ceiling. The static pixels from the walls were almost blinding so I just kept my head looking straight on towards the darkness, hopefully the end of this maze. I knew if I just kept moving and didn’t give them any chance to stop me, I would be fine. There had to be an end to the nightmare somewhere.

The TV’s flickered, Dark appeared.

Y O U ’ R E   N E V E R   E V E R   G O I N G   T O   E S C A P E   M E .

I turned away from him as his image ran alongside me. His deep echoing voice pulled at my chest as the intense volume knocked the air out of my lungs. But this wouldn’t stop me.

The computer screens flashed, Anti materialized.

Y̧̛̫͚͙͑̀̋̽͡ͅọ̸̲̪̭̳̲̩͈̬̅͛̾͂̑͑̊͂̊̆u̵̙̳͖̱̯̮̭̯͚͗̎̕̕͡ c͈͎͇͓̲̥͖̰̐̾̂̒̋̀̓â̢̧̻͉̳̻͂͐̓̇͞n̸͖͚̲̤̰͕̒̊̿͘͜͜͡’̵̡̨̢̼͍̿͒̈͊̏̋̽́͜ͅt̗̻̮̗̭͔͍̿̔̉̊͘͝ͅͅ ǵ̸̱̼͔̜̩͕̥̆̍̔̋̾̍̿̚͝ę̶̛͍̝̱̗̪͋̔͐̉̀͑̿t̝͙͓̜̗͕͔͇̀̊̓̐͂̇̒̇͘ͅ r̠̠̩͉̈̃̽̊̌͛͠ͅi̡̨̛̟̼͇͕̖̣̹͎̔̍̌̀ḑ̵͖͇͔͚̞̏̒͋̔̓̍̏̓̐̚͢͢ͅ ō̮̘̜̥̮̦̙̞̲̍̌̇͆͂f̶̪̗̦͖͕̜̉́̆̉̓̓͘ m̠̼̪̫̲̤̬͑̌̓̽̍̓̾͠͞͞ȩ̷͓̠̣͙̫͆̾͆͐͆̏͆̈͐͜!̷̖͕͉̳͙̐̉̓̓̀

His laugh crawled up my spine like a spider. The screens melted into one another and soon both of them pursued after me. I reached a junction at the end of my path, turning either left or right. As I made my decision The screens ahead of me turned white with glitching red letters: MAKE YOUR CHOICE

I ’ V E   B E E N  W A I T I N G   P A T I E N T L Y .

I̯̘͓̖̗̲͙͒̽̓͑̈́’͈̣̼̖̞̱͒̂̐̾̋͆̽́͢͝v̷̩̻͕͇̋͗̊̌͗̆͘͜ȩ̶͖͇̗͋̎̾̄̊͑͟ b̴̻̪̱͉̟̾̀͌̈́̂͛̈́̉̾͞ẹ̶̢̫͈̲̄͂͋̈̽͜͠ę̥͔̮͇̥̞̱̯͋͆̍́̍͋̎̽n̢̡̛̙̭͎͙̰͓̂̀͆̈́̅̐̈̚ h̛̬͈̹̺̼̣͂̏̔̐̑̽̚͡ḛ͈͎̩̺͕̙̎̆͂̇͛̂͆r̶̦̻̲͔̼̄͂̉͂͌̿͗̿͡ͅͅĕ̡̹͉̖͇̞̼̥̭͊̉̋̿̑ t͙͕̥̼̽̿̄̔̀͐̕͜ḩ̶͙͚͓͕̗̿̒͋͆̾̔͛̓̕͜͞ͅi̴̢̛̺̗̺̝͂̄̊̊͊͢s̵̲̠̜̹̦͕͛͐̔̿͗̃͌̔ e̶͙͚͙͙̪͚̊͛̅̈̾̑̎̐͝n̵̺͍̗͉͔̂̐́̀̏͘t̶͚̘͕̱̪̞̥̘̳̽̌͂̔͑̍̓̃͟i̧̨͈̟̔͛̄̎̓͟r̜̝̜͚̰̽̑͒̾́ę̢̟͈̲̼̻̹̜͂̿̓̾̾ t͉̻̻̳͋͐̃͒̋̾́̏̃͢i̴̢̡̞͖͍̦͈̟̰̩̎̊̆́̀͋͠ṁ̴̡̪̹̫̟̘̆͌̅̔͜͜͝ę̖̣̯̘̼̭̌̈́̀̆̄̓̊͂͘͝!̵̨̢̧̤̤͙͛̏̔̽̇̓̔͞͝

“I don’t care!!” I screamed. “I don’t want either of you!!”

Y̴̨̢͙͉͇̬͖̺̍͊̾̔͌o̸̟͍̘͉̲̦̻͔̟͖͛̑͑̒̾̀͝ų̶̲̰̜͕̣̘͒̐̈͋̂͐̈́͢ͅ s̨̢̤̼̣̘͈͂̏̿̋͗́̀̉͒͢͞ͅt̵͕͍̪̰̩̲̦̱͈̓̐̈̀̓̐ő͔̣̫̘͕̯̦̝̿̈̊́̈́͞p̨̖̌̉̾̉̇̊̉��̶̘̱͔͜p̴̼͔̬̣̦͙̥͇̀͗͗́͜͞e̵̡̧̧̢̛̛̯̯̙̯̮͇͗̏͌́̾͝ḏ͚̮͎͑͛̾̽͋̆̐͟͞͞ p̸̡̜͎͇̳̩̦͕̥̹̾́̓̋̋̏̀à̛͔̖̟̰̘̜̘͔͖̓͌͞y̮̩͔̰̦̺͌͋̓̓̾̇ͅi̼̦̱͔̞̖̟͒̾̓͐̄́̅̚ņ͚̥͖͈̬̦̝̀͊̽̓̀͟͢͞g̸̱̦̦̤̤̠̹̾̓̍́̅̕͘̚͢͢͡ à͉͚͔͚̪͐͌̎̍͑̕͘t̷̡̢̛͙̬̻̭̔̅͂̌́̾͟͠t̙̰̰̲͙̮͍̲͂̿̉͌͛̐̍̃̆͠ȩ̛̹͚̮̰̐͆͊̄̆̊͆̄͠n̥̼̣̭͎͎̅̇͐͐̀͋̉̚͜ͅt̙̩̙͎̪͍̂̈́̀̔̉͂̀̀i̬̳̹͖̬̯͈͇̗͆̆̂͛̓͝o̸̯̟̣̥͖͐̓̃̀̐̔̋̚͞͝n̟̘̞͈̩̱̰̯͉̯̒̂͒͘͡!̡̣͔̮̳̝̄͆̑͗͗͛͗͆͜͝ͅ

I ’ V E    B E E N  P U S H E D   A S I D E .

T̴͍̝̠̭̯̭̰͓̃̎̑̃͡h̢͚̻̟̜̹̪̊̒͂͛́̽̒̎͟͜ͅr̴̛̠̠̱̖͖̯̗̻̥͛̇̑̌̐̑̕͡e̸̺̠̫̲̱̅̀̎̓̆͡ͅw̵̧̡͓̙̮͍̮̼̏̓̍̐͗̌̃̀͢͠ m̶̡̡̮̟̻̙̩̦̈́͐͒̊̈́́̀͢͞͞͠ͅḝ͔̜̻͚̽̓̓̌ a͉͖͍͐̀͌̌͂͌͢͢͢͜͝s̛̖̲̠͍͈̤͆̔̽͑̚î̸̢̡̡͕̬̮̩͍̠͍͂̉̔̉͂͌d̶̮̞̞̫̟̉̊̃͛̐̇͘͠ȩ̨̜́̎͊͋̄̉̍͢͟!͈̪̥͎͔̰̮̤̯́̀̊̕̕

R E P L A C E D .

S͖̜̦̩͈̾̅͆̃̈́̑̿̚͢͟o̶̠͇̹̗̼̭͌͆̑̐̕͝m̠͚̠̥̙̀̄̐̀͊̃͂͋̕͘͢͟e̸̡͈͓̪͈̱͓̍̆̊̿͜͜͝o̶̢̳̯̦̳̼͌̃̀̽̋͜͝n̛̜͎̖̪̜̒͗̋́͌͌͒͜ę̨̣̥͍̝̪̜͖̒́̓͝͠ t̴͔͍͈̫̻͚͛̀̐͌̌͠o̷̧̨̧̫̤̟͔̮̮͍͂͛͊͐̎̋͐̄̽͑ r͎̫̼̳̬͈̀̌̔̃̿̾͐͟͞e̢̛͖̤̤̳̔̂̽̂͂͆̈́̆̚p̢̨̛̤͖̠͈̀̿́̑̕͘l̨̰̬̦̺͚͔̲̞̉͗̿̌̉͂́̋̐͘á̴͕̭̣̘̩̜͛́̍̊̋̓͟͞c̵̗̦̼͖͈̀͊͑͆̾͘͞͞ȅ̷̢͎̫̝͇̫̗͔̍̑͑̚͟͝ͅ m̨̧̢̢͍̩̭͔̏̉̆̿̀͊͊e̟̘̯̯̯̯͚̖͚̓̿̓̍͠!̸̡̱̯̻̬̗́̀͐͋̏̓͝͞

M O C K E D .

“Shut up. What would you care if I chose one over the other?” Suddenly the screens started to crack as their angered gazes glared at me. I quickened as glass burst behind me into millions of pieces trying to catch up with me to hail on me with a thousand cuts.

N O   M O R E .  N E V E  R   A G A I  N .

I kept running, gasping desperately for air, but not so much that I would inhale shards of glass.

Ľ̷̛̳̠̼͈͔͎͙̠́̃́̈́̇͑͟͡͠i̛̛̪͙̼̱͛̎̾ͅṣ̜̖͓̜̜̤̣̼̖͐̓̓̂͡ţ̶͍̳͓̝̞̯̺̊͛̋̋̎̊̑̆̚͠ę̰̻̥̣̻͒͗̑̄͡n̙͔̗̩͔̻̫̻̰̗̂͒̈́̅͝͠ ṱ̸̩̣͓͈͕̇̊̓̇͘̕͢o̪͕̭͖̠̽̃̽͐̅̂͞͝͡ m̢͚͈͓̞̞̳͒̒͗̄̋̉͋̑̾̍͢e̸̩͙͉̥͔͊̓́̅͒̚̕͡!̻̯̲̳͇͂̿͒͒̅̾̚̕͡

Y O U   J U S T  N E E D   T O   L E T   M E   I N .

Ï̸̡͔̗̜̺̟̾̓͗̈͘͝ a̵͈̘̲̯͈͖̩̝͎̠̓̑͛̊͠͝ḿ̴͖̹̭̺͙͕̄̔̅̓͂̏̌̾͠ ḩ̷̯͖̘̒̿̈͂̂͒͟͟͟͝ȩ̶̨̪̲̉̎̀̓̉̉ͅŗ̧̺͔͙̫͖̭̳̮͗̑̀̏͐̅ě̴̗̠̰̣͉̘͓̪̬̪̒͑͗̄̄̃̅̂͝ n̸̦̤̘̙̝̠͚̙̒̔̎͋̽͢͝͠ó̵̮̦͔̩̝͖́͐͋͛͛̍̌̀̒w̨̡͔͕͔͚̲̰̩͆̂̎͆̀͐̏̚̕̚!̵̖̪͖̤͐̀͆̇̔͛̂͗̋̃͜ͅ

I   C A N   P R O V I D E .

“Liars! You’ll both kill me! Just finding ways t hurt me!”

I̸̡̨͙͙͚͇͈̝̟͆̇͐̐͘͜͠’͈̗͖̝̣͖̰̍̊̔̋̅͘͘͟m̷̨͍̖̫͔̾̍̔̉̇̈́ a̮͉͎̣͉̘̗̖̟͊̒̽̎̀͑͜l̴̻͓̜͈̩̳̼̹̱̰̍̓̎͗̿̿̃͘͘͝w̵̡̢̜͖̭̺̉͆̿͑̂͜͡a̡͉͎͈̋̎̇͌̇̈̿̕̕͜͝y͔̤̝͓̰̮̰̜̱̍̎̐́͋̈́s̨͕̗̝̮͉̝͕͗̊̍̀͒̽̔͂͒ t̸̝̜̩̞̞̃̓̽̂̆̀̓͂͘͠h̨̡̠̫̞̪̩̯̹͗̎̐̂̆͢ë̶̡̧̗͔̭̩͚̤̝̉̔͛̕͜͡͡r̙̣̻͕͇̞̎̇̓̑͂̀́ȩ̷̛̘̰̻̼̳̲̫͖̿̆̆̈́͡,̨̩̞̫̺̲̂̇̀͛̎̐͛͆͝͝ a̡̠͚͓̺̬̝̻͌̀̆̆͛̇́͜͢͡͞l̸͙̪̹̙̘̫̮͙̑̑͋̾̌̑͘͞w̸̧̧̨̟̘̞͎̪̾̊͊̚͞ͅà̘͇̘̮̱̭͐͆̽̎y̷̧̨̙̝̦͖̙̘̾̃͆̒̓̀͒́s̷̢̠̤̟̙̩̤͐̌̋̕̚͟ͅ w̷̧͎̫͙͈̤̖̭̝̝̐̐̔̿̑̓̈͑͘a̸̢̡̰̻͉̫̠͓͉̣͌͐̄̾̋͂̀̔͡t̴̫͚͚̰͕͉̳̑͋̈́̃̉́̒͆͑̏c̢͉̩̭͎̽̇͋̔̚͡͡͡ḩ̷͙̩̭̜̔̑̈́͂̾̃̂̊͜͡ͅi̶̛͉̩̼̦͈̬͇̍̉͐̾̒̀́n̴̙̹̱͔͕͔̪̆̀͆̄̄͐͘͘̕g̢̯̰͈͍̽̌͂̈́͗!̴̡͕͍̳͖͚̭͚̹̞̒̂́̆̐͗͝

I   C A N   G I V E   Y O U   A N Y T H I N G !

“You can’t make me choose!”

I̶̱͕̱̥̭̦̙̤̅͋̂͒̒’̺̣̹̫̺̮͌̾̅́̒͘͜m̡̛͙͕̩̫̺̬̘̎̈̒̕͟ n̥̙̥̣̞̱͚͚̭͖̄̃̉̊̐͡ơ̸̬̣̺̘̘̱̽̔͛̈́̓̾̚͢͞ͅț̴͇̰̹͓̯̍͒̒̑̔̋̾̐͝ g̢̨̢̢̣͚̝͇̰̈́̆̽̔͗̍̊̓ͅơ͔͖̤̮͚̽̓̏̔́̔̔̌͌͟ͅì̴̧̠͚̱̳̫̮̠̖̺͒́̍͌̍́̅ń̶̢̙̭̥̦̄̋͘͝g̶̢̼̜̗̹̘̀͗͛̿̕ ą̴̜͇͉̞̗̭̎͌͛̍͗͑́̐͡͡ņ̵̨̯͓̲̑̒̐́͒̍͟y̸̡̝̘̦͇͔̜̬̓̍́͂̐̈͟͡ͅw̶̼̤̟̺̮͇̹͌̏̃̉̂͋͛́͢͟͢͞ḩ̢̡̩̱̻͔͉͛̈́̊̋̑̅̈͊̕͘͟ȩ̸͇͙̙̻̫͌̏͗̉͠ͅŗ̨̙̟͙̞͎̜̣̅͊̏͋͠e̵̢̨͎̳̋̾̇͋̒̇͜͞͡!̶̢̱̙̹̘̤̬̰̋̓̀͛́̋͡͡

T  H E R E ’ S   N O T H I N G   Y O U   O R   H E   C A N   D O   T O   S T O P   M E !

Ḩ̖͚̙̖̘̥͌̈͒̽͗͂͠ȋ̸͇̫͔̜̦̥̞̈́͐͝͝ͅś̵̢̧̝͔̯̮̆̿̚͝͞ b̴͔̦͉͓̙̟̫͍̰͋͆̏͗̏̑̅͗͘̕͜o̸̹̟̼͎̫͌̄̉̒̂͜d̴̻̤̙̖̜̘̙̋͛̀̒̓̅̍͘ͅy̴̛̞͙̙̪̣̍̇̑͌̆̄̉͡ ï̢͓͍͇͓͔̈̑́̌͌͒s̶͖̼͖̭̻̹̲̖̯͐̿̉̏͗̿͠͞ w̶̯͍̹̰̠͔̘͇̔̇̍͐̊͜͟ë̡̞̰͖̣͙́̽͐̎̓̓͜͡a̵͉̺͈̺̝̒̓̾̊̔k̡͇̝͇͇͆̆̍̉̓!̨̨̨̛͔͚̻̫̣̳́̀̃̈͜!̢̝̙͈͙͐̓͛͌̿̏

“SHUT UP!” I screamed, tears strolling past my cheeks. “Shut up both of you! I’m going home! I’m not choosing either of you!!” Then I felt the ground beneath me slithering as the wires I ran on suddenly came to life. They whipped up at my face so I couldn’t see where I was going, they grabbed my clothes to spin me into confusion, they wrapped around my arms and legs the drag me down. Through the hysteria I tumbled around and tripped to try and get away. I the confusion I did happen to reach the end of the maze, which happened to be the end of the world, and I was tripped into it.

I grabbed the wires as I fell and clung to them to stop me hurling into the apparent abyss down below. I was now dangling over the edge unsure of everything. Why wasn’t this dream ending? Surely the shock of nearly diving headfirst into the pit of darkness would have been enough to wake me up in a cold sweat. But no. This was true hell. I would take anything to get out of it…

J U M P   D O W N .   I ’ L L   C A T C H   Y O U .

I looked down. Dark was there hovering below the end of the wires I clung to, his arms out and open to catch me, looking at me through what he could attempt to make as ‘puppy eyes’. There was no way I would let go. What if he’s lying and would let me fall to my doom?… Well, it didn’t seem like the kind of thing he’d do. He chased me this far, so why would he lose me at a chance like this? But whether he was or wasn’t going to catch me, the moment I would fall into his arms, I was his… I didn’t like that thought at all. I started to shuffle up the wire to get away and hopefully climb back up to safety-

T̸̰̟̯͔͖̩̀͐̀͞͞ĥ̢̥͉̻̹̅̓̒͗̽̐a͚̦̰̽̌̅͐͐͢ͅţ̙͖̩̲̫͖̬̞͇̐̑̆̔̋̆̓̌̎̓’̙̝̰̰̤͈͎͋̓̆̇͗̒̉͢͟s̴̙̲͚̰͖̫͗́͗̎̅̐̕̕͞ i̶̢̡̢̛͓̩̬̮̙̓́̄̐͌͟͝͠t͉̮̫͉̟̪͒̒̄̄́͌͊̓͘͢͜!̢̧̛̦̠͉̯̂̃̃͑̍͌͜͞ͅͅ C̥͉̘̥̟̥̳͑̌͂̆̆̕̚l̶̢̢͕̫͇̺͉͖̀͛̌̾̓͝i̧̞͎̟͎͋͑̈́͂̃̔̊͘̕͘m̦̠̣̘̻͔̤̀̽͋̌̿͘͜͝͞b̬̞̲̳̬̱̈͒̀̒͋̈́͗̔͟͞ u̹͙̟͉̗̟̖̺̝̾͑̏̊͋͘͠͝p̷̨̻̖͙͚̫̘̜̐̔͑̏̒̓̀̃!̸̢̬͕̭͔̏̏͋̓̿̈́͘͝ I̼̰͚͉̖̣̜͎̟͆̂̎̿̉̓̾’̷̢̺̪̟̳͚͇̩͖̐̈́̈̓̉̕̕͜͠l̸̡̨̧̖͖̰̮̱͒̀̇̈̐͜l̷̢͇͇͖͉͙̮̱̓̀͋͗̀̅̈̓͘͟ p̶̨̛͔̹̘͔̀͂̓̇̂̈̕͞u̡̧̢̫͚̹͕̒̒̅̍̎̈͒͢ḷ̻͕̭̺̳̆̔̾̆̌̚͢͟͠ļ̧̣̩̭̔͛͑͊͜͝ͅ y̶̛͍̥̤̥̘͋͒̏̚ͅŏ̸̢͔̖̲̥̳̪͕͊̈́̄̀ự̶̡̘͇̞͚̲̹̙̙̓͂̇̓̾͑̀̄ t̴̢͙̞̫̳̘̩̙̏̍̿̉̉͜͠ő̸̰̙̝̟̤̍͛̓̈̒̆͐͘͜ s̵͔͚͓̼̗͕̠̅̓̾͆̆̂̕̚͜͞ä̸̛̛̩̩̮̭̗̼̦̙́̈͂̊̓̃̒͘͜f̴̘͎̥̫̺͙͆̃̓͋̕͝e̤̖̝̝͓̔̔̈́͋̒̚t̴̪̝̖̥̲̊͑͑̄̓̊͘͢ͅy̨̞̫̘͓̾̂̏͑͂̕!̵̟̜̳͎̪͈̳́͑͂̓̿̎

Anti was crouching over the ledge above me, his hand extended to take mine and hoist me up to him… the same hand that held a knife numerous times, the same knife that committed many monstrous crimes. Crawling up to him would be as safe an option as crawling into the mouth of a lion.

I stopped where I was and held tightly to the rope. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I would rather have just stayed there and waited for them to realise their pursuits on me were futile. But my arms were getting tired and my grip was getting looser.

Y O U   C A N ’ T   J U S T   H A N G  T H E R E   F O R E V E R .   J U S T  F A L L   I N T O  M E .   I T ’ S   A S   S I M P L E   A S  T H A T .

Y͕̭̞̬̩͙̭͎͕͇̿̎́̈̆̉̚͝o̵̡̡̜̞̳̫̖̫͛̔̍̓͋̀̀̀u͚̹͚̳̻͈͎̠͍̓̇̓̀́̾̚ ĥ̵̭͖̭̪̮̭̱͈̤͛́͒̈̓à̵̙̹̫̗̹͛͒̃̌̔͜͡v̵͚̗̦̱̫̺͆̋͊́̀̕ͅę̸̡͙̣̳͇̀̊̋̏̾̆̉̈͜͜͞ň̴͍͔̮̗̝͌̍͑̀͢͡͝͝’̸̖̳̜̙̙͚̞͐̉̈̀͋͟͡ţ̠̳̪͕̪͛̊͋̃̅͠ g̨͓͔̞̠͈̔̓̋̀͊̓͑͘ǒ̜̳̳̦̿́̃͠ͅt̨̛̛̮̺͖̪̤̬̳͗̄̋̅͑͒͡ m̵̪͓̲͍̼͚̺̲̏̅́̓͐̍̈͒̚ǘ̹͙̋͌͐͘͢͟͢c̢̨̛̪͚̠̑́͛̎̉ͅh̵̢̡̬̤̜̭̳͇̪̟̏̒̍̊͡ t̶͖̜̬̦̗̲̺̮͊͂̄̑͗̀̃̏͘͜͡ͅį̡̹̦̳̜͉̓̒̌̚̚͢͜m̶̛͕̗͔͈̠̩̣̬̝̠͗̎̇̾̿͐͘ē̶̙̯̮̠̇̄͛̔̂͑̐̕͢ ļ̸̹̞̣͇̱͊̔͌̆͜͢͟͡ė͓̙̘̬͔̟̮̦͊́͗̚͟f͈̥̬̝̗̜̈̃͑͋͘t̸̠͖̜͍̬͙̬̅̒̀̍̿͠͞ͅ!͚̻̮͖̖̹͚̀̅͛͋́̽́ Ǧ̡̛̖̰̟̤̣̲͚̎́̏́͢͞ͅé̞̲̠͔̤͔̬̘̯̪͛̓͌̒̑͆̉̚̕t̵̥͉̟͉̂͐͛͋̔͊̀̕͘͢͢͠ u̷̡̮̪̭̖͉͇̳̙̦̿̑̔̐̀̈̕p̪̻͓̳̟̪̊̒̊͒̿̒̚ h̷̭̙̮̬̘̣̒̔͛͆̆̆͊́͜͡e̶̜̠͖̬͔̤͌̎́̓̉̚͝ͅȓ̡͇͓͍͚̲̥̫̮̽̐̌̀̉͞e͕͚̤͓̻̥͔̎́́̊͝ w̶̦̙̮̯̼̤̌͊̐͑̐ḫ̷̠̟͓͕͉̖̜̬͔̐͒̔̂̇í̪̼̖̹͚̑̋̿́͢l̷̨̡̢̢̬̗̱͈̺̾́̄̄͐̎ͅe̢͎͙̬͈̳̺͋̈͂̌͘ͅͅͅ ý̸͖̗̺̫̠̏̋̈́̔̀͜͜o͇̱̱͎̿̓́͆̅̀͑̀̓͢͠ű̵̡̱͔̦̯͛̊̌͂͛̂̚ s̖͙̮͖̪͉̔̋̍̊͑̋̂͘͡ţ̧̨̛̺̲͇̜͍͈͌̑̏̕͢i̴̡̫̜̱͇̳̱̓̈́͗͒͞l̴̡͇̪̘̫̗͉͓̊̈͛̇͛̿̅͞͠ļ̵̛̖͉͎̯͔̇̿͂͘͟ͅ ç̛̬͉͙͉̜͙̬̈́̀̇́̿̂̕͡͞à̡̢̙̲͙͇̗̯̦͖̔́̚͞͝͞n̷̡̛̰̘̺̫̺̠̥̼̾̾̒̀̈́̕͘!̴̡͇͖̙̬̹͙̘̀̀͆̒͆̌̚͘͠

Then I realised this was the breaking-point. Or rather ‘waking-point’. This whole thing is what their videos were warning me about. This whole dream was made by the both of them to find out which one everyone would prefer. Everyone who watched both their videos was cursed to dream this dream I was currently having, and everyone had to make their own choices. This is what they planned. Not Mark and Jack, Anti and Dark themselves. They weren’t a joke; they were real entities. They were really having a battle between who was best. Who won the hearts, minds and souls of the most people. And this was their solution to answering their question.

M̵̨̧͎̥͙͓̥̩̮̫̅̚͝͞͡ Ȃ̷̡̗̦̙͖̜̐͋͗̇̑̀͊̚ K̙̥̖͙͚̪̼̭̐̐̃̐̔͆͑̊̕͝ E̷̲̗̜̻̠̩̍̆͑̅̾͋͢   Y̗̭̫̫̬̦͓͍̍͋̿̏͡ O̵̝̘̤̻͇̔̅̋͂̊̾́͜͡ Ụ̶̞̹͙́̍̏̄̑̑̋̚͜͜ͅ R̢̻̯͇͍̗͇̥̔̾̏͌͐́͘͜͠   Ḉ̴̜͖͖͓͕̟̟̜̤̓̾̓̅̕ Ḥ̦̘͚̔̊̍̊̓͗̈̂̉͜͝ O̪̦̥̼̩̭̯͈̿̓͗̎̾̊͑̚͜͠ I̴̪̬͕̞͔̳͗̂̀̊͑̇̚ C̨̻̩͖͓̟̫̤̐̽͋̈́̓͟͞ͅ E̥͍͚͈̟͔͛̌̏͌̆͊ .

#antisepticeye #darkiplier #magpie ramblings #danti