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sailor-aviator · 7 months

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Meet Me at the Sea: Chapter Two

Meet Me at the Sea: Chapter Two

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader

Summary: Your best friend, Bob Floyd, had insisted you join him for the summer at his family's home along the Carolina coasts. You had been hesitant at first, but ultimately agreed to his request. Now, here you were in a new town with strange locals who spoke in hushed whispers and cryptic retellings about glistening scales, glowing eyes, and haunting songs that echoed from the sea. You didn't believe them at first, but when you wake up on the beach one morning after having fallen overboard the night before, you can't help but think that maybe you hadn't imagine the strong arms and deep, green eyes of the man that had saved you.

Trigger warnings: Language, Flirty Bradley, Sassy Bob, Talks of the supernatural, Mentions of drowning, An almost fight?, Possessive behavior, Jake Seresin. I think that's it?

Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: So tomorrow I leave town for a couple of days! I don't know how much I'll be able to post until Saturday or Sunday, but I'll do my best! As always, reblogs, comments and likes are greatly appreciated! Asks/requests are always open! 18+ ONLY!! You can find me on AO3 under sailor_aviator where I also post my updates!

Series Masterlist || Jake "Hangman" Seresin Tag List

You awoke feeling groggy, eyes blinking against the stream of sunlight that filtered through the window. You didn’t remember drinking enough last night to feel this hungover. No, you were sure you’d only had the two whiskey cokes, not nearly enough to make you feel this way. Perhaps it was the drive catching up with you. Yeah, that had to be it.

You slowly sat up, head throbbing as you caught a glimpse of the ocean outside your window. You thought back to the silver tail you had seen disappear beneath the waves.

“What a weird dream,” you muttered, shaking your head. You moved to get up, quickly getting dressed in a simple t-shirt and shorts combo before heading downstairs to the kitchen.

Bob was already munching away at the plate of bacon Susan had set out, the older woman flipping over a pancake on the stove.

“Robert Floyd, you better save some bacon for everyone else,” she warned without even a glance over her shoulder at him. Bob paused mid-chew to stare wide-eyed at her back before seeing you at the doorway, a grin already on your lips.

“Yeah, Robert,” you giggled, “save some for the rest of us.”

He scowled at you as Susan turned to smile warmly at you.

“Good morning, dear!” She beamed. “How did you sleep?”

You sat down at the island next to Bob just as Susan placed a plate at the same spot.

“I had the craziest dream last night,” you hummed, stealing a piece of bacon off of Bob’s plate, earning yourself an unamused look from said man.

“Oh yeah?” Susan asked. “What about?”

“Well,” you started, chewing on your bite of bacon, “I dreamed that I woke up last night and heard a weird song.”

“What?” Bob laughed, looking over at you. You giggled, continuing.

“Yeah! And it was weird because it sounded like a weird mix between a human and a whale. And when I got up, I went to look out the window, and I saw a giant silver tail disappear into the water!”

Bob’s chewing slowed to a stop as the smile dropped from his face, and Susan stiffened by the stove. Your eyes darted between the two of them.

“Did I say something wrong?” You asked them, unsure as to what had them so tense. Bob shook his head with a reassuring smile.

“No, of course not,” he told you. Susan relaxed her shoulders and turned to you with an apologetic look.

“It seems I’ll have to have a talk with my husband about him and his stories,” she said, a look of annoyance passing over her face.

You shook your head. “Oh, it’s no worries! I’m sure I just drank too much last night. That coupled with the drive here, I’m sure it was nothing.”

Susan looked at you for a beat longer before turning back to her pancakes. Bob huffed a laugh as he took another bite of his breakfast. “Dad is so getting his ass chewed out later.”

“Hey!” Susan barked, whipping back around to point her spatula at him. “Language, mister.”

“Sorry, Mom,” he blushed, ducking his head sheepishly. You laughed at the two of them before bumping your shoulder into his.

“So what’s the plan for today?” You asked. Bob perked up at your question.

“Oh!” He chirped. “I figured we could go hang out with Mickey and Nat today. The others are going to be busy setting up for the festival, so it’ll just be the four of us.”

“Sounds great!” You smiled. “Any specific plans?”

“You should take her to see the different shops!” Susan suggested over her shoulder.

Bob rolled his eyes with a grimace. “The tourist traps?”

“Not all of them are tourist traps, Bobby,” she chided. “Besides, maybe she’ll find something she likes while you’re there. A souvenir for the summer!”

You stared at the porcelain figurine intently. It reminded you of the one sitting on your dresser back home, except this mermaid was mid-song, her red lips parted like she was crooning.

“I told you it was a tourist trap,” Bob muttered beside you. You looked up at him with a grin.

“Nah, it’s cute,” you giggled. “I love mermaids, remember?”

“I know a couple someones who will love to hear that,” Mickey muttered with a smirk, crying out when Nat elbowed him in the rib.

“What do you mean?” You ask, brow furrowing at him. Nat smiled at you, pushing past the scowling man at her side.

“Nothing,” she said. “Have you found anything you like yet?”

You hummed, glancing around the store. “No, not yet. I don’t know if I want a souvenir from a shop, anyway. I think I’d prefer collecting seashells from the beach.”

“Perhaps you’ll get lucky and catch the eye of a handsome merman,” the older shopkeeper said. Your group turned to look at her, her eyes twinkling.

“Oh, yeah?” You giggled. You faltered when you saw the others frowning at the old woman, but she continued on.

“Oh my, yes,” she smiled. “The legend goes that every year the sea people undergo what can only be described as a mating season. They seek out a partner for the summer, satiating their hunger. That’s what the festival celebrates, after all. But every five years, an individual will undergo a much more intense version, seeking out a permanent mate. It’s called the frenzy.”

“Why do they call it that?” You ask her, curiosity getting the better of you.

The old woman chuckled. “Simply put? The sea people will go crazy trying to find and stake claim to their chosen mate. The desire nearly drives them mad, turning them into the monsters the legends claim them to be.”

“What do you mean by mate?”

“Just that, dear child. During the frenzy is when a sea person picks their life partner. It’s an irreversible bond.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Nat frowned, grabbing your elbow. She shot a glare at the old woman before tugging you towards the door. “We need to get going.”

“But I still have questions!” You cried, stumbling out the door after her. The bell above the door rang as the four of you exited onto the sidewalk. All around, people were setting up for the summer long festival. Banners were being hung up over the streets and decorations lined the sidewalks, mermaids covering nearly every surface you looked at.

Nat dropped her grip from your arm, and you scowled at her.

“What was that for?” You grumbled, rubbing at your arm. “It was just getting interesting!”

“Mrs. Cambroni needs to learn when to shut her mouth,” she huffed, glaring back at the door. Bob slung an arm around your shoulder with a small smile.

“They’re just stories, anyway,” he told you, hugging you close. “Besides, you’ll have all summer to learn about the town legends. We’re here to have fun, remember?”

“I thought you said it was impossible to have fun in a small town?” You teased him, anger quickly melting as you all began making your way down the sidewalk. He rolled his eyes playfully at you.

“I did not say that.”

“You definitely implied it.”

“Alright,” he grinned. “You got me there.”

“Do you guys wanna go get ice cream?” Mickey asked, looking over his shoulder from where he walked next to Nat.

You perked up. “Ice cream sounds amazing!”

After securing your double scoop of rocky road, you followed the others back down the street as they argued over what to do next.

“But they have some really good movies out!” Mickey exclaimed, and Nat rolled her eyes at him.

“There are way better things we could do than go see a damn movie,” she snarked.

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“We could take one of the boats out?” Bob suggested.

Nat smiled as Mickey scowled.

“And do what?” The other man huffed.

“Obviously, we would be swimming,” Nat shot back at him. You giggled as the three continued to argue amongst themselves.

“Hey! If it isn’t the three stooges plus y/n!”

All four of you looked up to see Bradley leaning off a ladder holding a banner in his hands. He was grinning widely, shirt nowhere to be seen. Below him, holding the ladder, was the blond man, Jake, from the bar the night before. He was also shirtless, and his green eyes were already on you, and you felt your cheeks heat up. You prayed none of your ice cream had made a home on your face. Javy and Reuben came walking out of the nearest building carrying another banner and also missing their shirts.

“Hey meatheads,” Nat huffed with a roll of her eyes. “Where are your shirts?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Bradley drawled, rolling his eyes back at her, “It’s like a billion degrees out here. A man’s gotta keep cool, ain’t that right, sunshine?”

You giggled as he shot a wink at you, and you noticed as Jake clenched his jaw at the exchange. Bradley hopped off the ladder and strolled over towards the rest of you with the blond right behind him, eyes still trained on you.

“What do you guys have planned for the rest of the day?” Reuben asked. Nat swung an arm around your shoulder.

“We’re gonna teach Skipper here how to drive a boat,” she grinned.

“Skipper?” You questioned, raising your eyebrow. She nodded excitedly, and Bradley hummed, looking at you thoughtfully.

“I like it,” he decided with a nod. “It suits you.”

“Whatever that means,” you mumbled. Mickey put his hands on his hips as he glared at the brunette beside you.

“I thought we were going swimming?” He demanded.

Nat dropped her arm from around your shoulder, crossing her arms in front of her. “We are, but we’re going to teach Skipper how to captain a boat first. Besides, I thought you didn’t want to go?”

You watched as the two began to bicker amongst themselves again. If you hadn’t known any better, you would think the two hated each other. Bob walked off to help Reuben, Bradley, and Javy hang up the other banner a little ways down the street. You felt someone step up beside you, and you turned to see Jake still looking down at you.

“Hi,” he said softly, smirking. “I don’t think we were ever properly introduced. I’m Jake.”

You smiled up at him shyly. “I’m y/n, but I guess it’s Skipper now.”

He let out a chuckle as he leaned in closer to you. You felt your heartbeat quicken, and the way his smirk grew wider made you think that maybe he could hear it. You shook off the thought, putting all of your effort into maintaining some semblance of rationale.

“You know,” he hummed, eyes studying you, “Bradley isn’t right about a lot of things, but he is right about that.”

“What?” You breathed, eyes becoming hooded. You could have sworn you saw the glow in his eyes again as they bore into yours. Your head began to feel lighter the longer you stared at him, a yearning tugging you towards him. His breath fanned over you as he leaned in closer.

“Skipper!”

You jumped, taking a stumbling step back, nearly falling as someone caught you. You thought you heard a growl as your head began to throb. You looked up to see that it was Bob who had his arms around you, keeping you steady. His eyes were trained in a glare past where you stood, and you turned to see Bradley and Javy on either side of Jake. If looks could kill, Bob would be six feet under already. Jake’s jaw was clenched so tight, you wouldn’t be surprised if his teeth were cracked. Green eyes stared intently at Bob, whose gaze didn’t waver from his friends.

“Bob?” You questioned, the bespectacled man looking down at you. “What happened?”

“Uh,” he started, seeming to be unsure as to how to respond.

“Bob bumped into you on accident, and you almost fell,” Natasha smiled, stepping forward to take you out of Bob’s arms. You saw Jake relax a little out of the corner of your eye, but your head was still too fuzzy to pay it much mind.

“Why is everyone so angry?” You asked her, your voice sounding weak and uncertain even to you. She smiled gently down at you as she sat you down on the steps by the sidewalk.

“It’s just a combination of the heat and good old-fashioned testosterone,” she explained, patting your back soothingly. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

“My head,” you trailed off, rubbing at your temples.

“Here,” Reuben smiled at you, offering you a bottle of water. You took it with a grateful smile, taking small sips from the bottle.

“Feeling better?” Mickey asked you, brows pinched in worry. You smiled and gave him a nod.

“Much,” you said, looking around at the group who looked back at you worriedly.

You sighed. “I’m sorry, everyone.”

“What on earth for?” Asked Javy.

Grimacing, you responded, “For making everyone worry about me.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Skipper,” Bradley assured you, smiling at you reassuringly. “The heat gets to the best of us. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

Bradley clapped the blond on the shoulder, giving him a pointed look. Jake frowned, letting out a muttered “yeah” as he looked away.

“Do you wanna call it a day?” Mickey asked you, and you shook your head.

“I’d still like to go swimming if that’s okay.”

“You sure?” Bob asked you, eyes still full of worry. You smiled back at him with a nod.

“Absolutely!”

“You should be careful,” Jake spoke up, and you turned to look at him. The anger was still in his eyes, but it had calmed significantly. An unreadable expression now graced his face. “A storm is coming.”

“How do you know?” You asked him, brow furrowing.

“He’s right,” Javy said as Reuben and Bradley nodded. “A storm is on the way.”

“We’ll be extra careful,” Nat promised them, helping you to your feet. “Scout’s honor!”

Bradley chuckled at her mock salute before shooting you another wink. “Maybe we’ll catch up with you guys later?”

“If not tonight, then we’ll see you at the bonfire tomorrow!” Mickey hollered as you, Nat, and Bob followed him down the sidewalk towards the docks.

“Don’t have too much fun without us!” Reuben called after you all.

“We’ll hold off on teaching Skipper how to drive the boat until you guys can join us!” Nat yelled back.

“Wait, you were serious about that?” You squawked, earning a chorus of laughter from your group.

A couple of hours later, you found yourself sitting on Mickey’s parent’s boat, the rock of the waves sending a wave of nerves up your spine as they became rougher. You didn’t think you’d ever get used to being on a boat. The sun had long been obscured by the grey clouds that seemed to have rolled in out of nowhere, but the others didn’t seem shocked by the sudden turn.

“How did they know it was going to storm?” You asked them, watching as darker clouds began to roll in.

“When you live by the ocean your whole life, you just get a sense for those types of things,” Nat told you as Mickey and Bob scrambled to get the boat ready to leave. You eyed the clouds wearily as Mickey cursed behind you.

“They’re never going to let us hear the end of it if they find out we stayed out this long,” he muttered.

Nat rolled her eyes. “So hurry up and get us back to shore before they do.”

Mickey scowled at her but continued with what he was doing. A couple of minutes later, and the waves were rocking the boat almost violently, and you found yourself gripping your seat anxiously.

“Alright, we’re ready!” Bob called from the side. Mickey started up the boat’s engine, and the vessel jerked as he began to maneuver it back to land. You hit a particularly rough wave, causing Nat to lose her balance and topple into the seats opposite yours.

“Easy, Mickey!” She snapped, glaring at the man.

“I’m taking her as easy as I can!” He hollered back at her, a look of worry flashing across his face as the boat dipped into the waves. A gush of water hit you, and your arms flew up to shield your face. At that same moment, another wave knocked into the boat, causing you to fly over the side as you jerked back from the wall of water to your front.

“Y/n!” You heard someone shout, Bob maybe, but it was too late.

The water swallowed you whole, gripping you in its clutches as you scrambled to get your bearings. The water was dark, and you began to panic as you realized you couldn’t tell which was up and which way was down. Your arms thrashed around you as you fought for air, but it was no use. Your lungs ached and burned from lack of oxygen, and you felt a sense of dread as you realized that you were about to die. You stopped fighting, feeling a sense of acceptance at your fate. Your vision began to darken as you let your mind drift off. You hoped your parents wouldn’t mourn you for too long and hoped desperately that your friends wouldn’t blame themselves.

You were just about to enter unconsciousness when you heard an eerily familiar song. The sound of a human and a whale mixed together pulled at you, getting closer with each passing second. It was strange what the mind came up with to calm itself in its last moments. You felt a pair of strong, muscular arms wrap around you, lifting you up, your bare legs brushing against what felt like scales. Of course your mind would turn to mermaids in the end. Maybe you’d be reborn as one in your next life. You hoped as much, at the very least.

Your head broke the surface, rain pelting your face as small waves of water rushed up to you.

“C’mon, darlin’,” a voice called to you from far off, “stay with me.”

You felt the water rush up out of your lungs as you hacked and coughed, clutching weakly at whoever held you. You groaned, head falling forward, resting on a solid chest. The arms around you gripped you tighter, and you heard the song again, this time sounding much more desperate and sorrowful than last time. It was the last thing you heard before you fell unconscious.

You weren’t sure how long you were out for, but you felt the last few rays of the sun wash over you as you came to. You were vaguely aware of the solid rock underneath you and the gentle fingertips that grazed your forehead. You heard short bursts of the song, this time coming from the person hovering over you. It put you at ease, but you so desperately wanted to see who the song belonged to.

You slowly tried to pry your eyes open, head protesting as it gave a particularly sharp throb. You winced, and the man above you cooed at you. You managed to open your eyes just long enough to catch a glimpse of the glowing green that stared down at you, entrancing you.

“Sleep,” the man sang, and you obediently let your eyes fall closed. The man’s fingertips ran down the side of your face and to your neck. He turned your head to expose more of your neck, lips brushing over the base where it met your shoulder. You let out a whimper at the pleasant feeling, and the man hushed you softly. You were surprised at how good it felt, and you found yourself arching up into his touch.

The man continued to nuzzle at you, and you heard the vague sound of your name coming from off in the distance. You whined for the man, silently begging for more of his touch, and you felt him smirk against you.

“Skipper!”

The voices were louder now, and you heard the man let out an inhuman snarl. You cried out in pain as you felt a prick of what you assumed were teeth pierce your skin. The pain was quickly dulled by the feel of a tongue laving over the small wound. The man pulled away from you, and you reached for him weakly, opening your eyes just enough to see the flash of silver scales disappear back into the sea.

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daniwib · 10 days

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Hiiii 💕💕💕

For the fic never have I ever:

1) have you ever written anything about buddie and sleeping (like an insomnia fic, nightmares, cuddling and falling asleep, etc)?

2) have you ever written anything about buddie and chronic pain?

3.) have you ever written anything about buddie and hurt/comfort? What about angst?

4) have you ever written any sort of buddie AU?

-❤️🪐

Hey, hii!

(Me, holy shit, someone actually sent me an ask? Stay cool, stay cool, it’s cool everyone!)

(Also me, oh shit, I did not realise that this means I have to remember what I’ve written. Hmm. This may have been a mistake, I have the worst memory, I really do. Goes and checks out own ao3 profile for the answers…)

Ok here we go.

Nightmares. Oh hey look at that! I’ve actually got a fic with the word in its title, who knew! A spell for nightmares & fractured hearts is a short and fluffy lil fic about Buck helping Chris heal after the tsunami, and then Chris (and Eddie) helping Buck do the same. And because I’m allergic to fluff, I followed it up with part 2 in that series being long, whumpy and angsty. As for falling asleep, cuddling or insomnia, I can’t find anything in my quick search but I think I’ve written all of those in several of my fics, just not as a major part of the plot, more as part of the comfort part after the hurt usually.

Similar answer for chronic pain, I think? I’ve referenced it here and there in various fics but haven’t written on just about that. It’s a little bit too close to home for me, my dad has had 3 hip replacements (first because of major injury as a firefighter when I was 10, he fell through 3 floors in a burning building) so having lived with someone experiencing it, it doesn’t really appeal to me to write.

Buddie and hurt/comfort – um. Pretty much every single one of my Buddie fics?! I filtered my works with that tag and got 30 hits, so…. Here’s one I’m posting right now that I’m kinda proud of Pictures of You, in which Abuela dies post season 6, Eddie hurts and Buck comforts.

Buddie and angst – refer to above answer lol. If I had to choose a favourite, I think I’d choose empty, broken, lonely, hoping, my beloved presumed dead fic where Buck and Christopher are thought to have perished when Buck’s apartment building burns down and Eddie goes through several chapters of angst. It’s unrelenting really, poor guy. 4. Buddie AU – again, I’ve got several depending on your definition.

If you want a truly Alternate Universe, try I Once Was Lost. It’s a Peter Pan fusion where Buck is Peter, Eddie is Wendy Darling and almost all of the other characters feature in Neverland too. It covers from their childhood up until the end of season 5 and I have a particular soft spot in my heart for it.

If you prefer Canon Divergence, try There Walks Darkness. It’s basically What If Maddie didn’t kill Doug and he was arrested instead – and was one of the prisoners who took Buck and Eddie hostage in season 5? It features a lot of hurt Buck, Buck whump, worried Eddie and the 118, some of my favourite tropes to write.

And lastly, if you prefer supernatural AU, try Returned for a shorter read, which perhaps unsurprisingly is based on the movie and tv show… Returned.

Which reminds me of another supernatural AU that I can’t believe I forgot because I adore it! Trust Me, Darlin’ is my first collab, with the lovely @hella-cious! It's a Supernatural / 911 crossover in which Buck runs into an old hook up (Dean Winchester ofc) at a scene in LA and is promptly kidnapped before the 118’s eyes. Lots of angst and whump in this one and while there is Buck/Dean because lets face it, those two are far too hot not to ship together, it ends in Buddie (and Destiel too, for SPN fans!)

So, wow. There you go. This was a lot longer than I expected it to be but then I’ve never done one of these before. Thanks for being my first ask @steadfastsaturnsrings !!

#ask game #never have I ever #fanfic writing game #911 #buddie #supernatural #SPN #destiel #Peter Pan #Wendy Darling #evan buckley #eddie diaz #9-1-1 #911 abc #whump #angst #hurt/comfort #fanfiction #9-1-1 fanfiction

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the-tragic-heroine · 1 year

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死鬼祭 | Shiki Matsuri

fandom: tokyo revengers

characters: kurokawa izana, kakucho, haitani ran, haitani rindou, madarame shion

pairings: tenjiku x female reader

cw: blood, violence, minor character death, supernatural elements, she/her pronouns used for reader

—✧ SUMMARY ✧—

The villagers say that you cursed them all. You believe that they were the ones who cursed you. (Or, in which the circumstances of your unfortunate birth woke a forgotten, slumbering god.)

Very vague depictions of the supernatural here, and a few cameos of specific yokai if you can spot them! Title is based off of a song by KODOKULOVE! More characters may be added as the story progresses.

Read on AO3 Read Chapter One | Read Chapter Two

CHAPTER 参 THREE

Though you did not know it, Izana and his followers had been watching over you ever since their awakening, cloaked in the veil that separated the world of the living and the spiritual. As you murmured daily prayers and polished floorboards until they sparkled under the sunbeams filtering through the trees, Izana revelled in the sensation of life flowing through his veins. Some days, he stood right by your side, eyes twinkling in amusement as you jumped and looked around, searching for a figure that was just out of your mortal vision.

“You’re not gonna show yourself?” Kakucho asked, eyes following Izana who in turn, followed you as he always did.

“Not yet,” the white-haired god said, smile never leaving his face.

Kakucho merely nodded, and vanished.

Unlike Kakucho, who frequently appeared to accompany his master, the rest of Izana’s followers were not so willing to linger. Now that they were finally awake, they were quick to tire of watching the little human’s mundane routine—which consisted of a pitifully boring cycle of eating, cleaning, and sleeping. Alone. So instead, Izana sent them to wrangle with the troublesome demons that managed to enroach onto the shrine’s holy ground.

“We could cleanse them all for good,” Rindou said one day, after having dispersed of yet another. “They’re just gonna keep repopulating themselves unless we purge the entire village.”

“Not yet,” Izana said again.

“I don’t know what you’re planning,” Ran sighed, twirling a braid around his finger, “but it better be good.”

When finally, in the dead of night, a commotion sounded right outside the building’s walls, Izana allowed his hand to part the veil. One-by-one, each of his fellow spirits followed in silent understanding. As expected, there was a horde of malevolent spirits trailing after the gaggle of teenagers—and more slithering close behind. None had noticed them yet, too eager to gorge on the turbulent energy surrounding the village kids—until Shion leapt forward, of course.

“Hey there, demons,” he barked, cracking his knuckles and throwing his arms wide open. “It’s me, y—“

He disappeared with a muffled yell under the ensuing swarm. Rindou rolled his eyes while Ran ignored his plight completely, calling out to Izana, “We’ll handle the perimeter.”

“I’ll leave it to you,” he replied, robes fluttering as he descended further into the shrine. When Kakucho moved to follow, Izana halted him with a raised hand.

“No,” he said. “Ensure nothing makes it inside. That’s all.”

—✧—

Perhaps Izana had underestimated himself, after all those years of lying dormant and powerless. Surely the others felt the same, although none would ever admit to it. Instead he allowed his growing irritation to carry him down the corridor—just in time to hear you scream. At that moment, he saw something. A tiny fragment of a long, long dream, etched with centuries of tears and stained with the blood of a mother who offered him his very last worshipper. Izana threw his head back and laughed, for he may be a god, but fate was surely a stronger force than he.

I know now, he thought, a grin splitting his beautiful face in two as he rushed forward. I know why this was meant to be.

The moment he reached you, the flame being pressed to your face went out. Your tormentors had not a second to react before Izana’s hand was gripping the face of the nearest person and slamming it right through the floorboards, raining splinters upon the horrified group. With his other arm he hoisted you against his torso, dropping the now unconscious body to hold you fully.

“Sleep,” he murmured, pressing two fingers to your forehead. Your sobbing dissolved into one huff of breath before you lost consciousness.

At the same time, Kakucho stepped inside, followed by Ran, Rindou, and finally, Shion—who looked particularly scuffed up and disgruntled. Izana did not need to ask them to know that they had cleared the shrine of demons. Now, their attention was turned to the ruckus caused by frantic shouting and scrambling limbs.

Like fleeing insects, Izana mused with a sick sort of glee, and spoke. “Don’t let them escape.”

—✧—

While Izana focused on healing every crevice of your smouldering face and bleeding head, he basked in the sound of cracking bone and pained shrieks, softly humming his own little tune as he worked. The task would likely take up all of his current energy, so as much as he would have liked to join the fray, he acquiesced to sit away from the violence and simply cradled you on his arms. Every time you stirred, he shushed you with a gentleness unbefitting a man who just minutes prior had nearly crushed a person’s skull.

“Don’t let them escape,” Izana had commanded earlier, “but don’t kill them. Ensure that they will live, then send them back home.”

He lifted his head to watch.

Ran was seated on the back of one boy, who lay flat on his stomach while blubbering incoherently, laughing as Rindou leisurely snapped every joint in his hand, finger by agonising finger. Shion was a simple creature, choosing to pummel their faces while guffawing at each consecutive spurt of blood. Kakucho, however, stood off to the side, brows furrowed and staring down at the kid he had just cleanly knocked out in one hit. The unconscious boy was the one who led the group, Izana realised—and white hot hatred, masked beneath his ever present smile, surged to the surface.

“Kakucho,” he said. The black-haired man froze, then slowly turned to look at Izana.

“I’m giving you a special task,” he said, all the while stroking the contours of your sleeping face. “Wake him up and make sure he stays awake until you have beaten him half-dead.”

Kakucho did not answer, but Izana was not worried. He watched, beaming, as his most loyal of followers placed a hand over the kid’s eyes. The moment they opened, Izana turned away and closed his own, continuing to hum; as expected, the rhythm of Kakucho’s pounding fists was the best for your very own special melody.

—✧—

Your knees buckled, body falling right against Ran whose arms happily encircled your much smaller frame to keep you steady. Shion grumbled something about the beanpole hogging her all to yourself but it all went in one ear and out the other. Between the lingering memory of searing pain to their nonchalant retelling of utter brutality, you did not know which was worse. It was then that you realised, with a mounting horror that sent bile rising up to the back of your throat, that perhaps even worse of all was the tiny voice at the back of your head whispering, Good. They deserved it.

“You realise now, right?” Ran cooed, as if having read your exact thoughts. “There’s no need to act like you’re above enjoying revenge. You might be a shrine maiden, but you’re human too. Aren’t you?”

“I…”

“Think of it as divine retribution, or some shit like that,” Rindou piped up. “Izana’s a god and we fucked ‘em up on his orders, right? They got what was comin’ to them.”

You couldn’t look at any of them.

“I don’t get it,” Shion groaned. “Didn’t they try to kill ya? Why’re ya feelin’ sorry for those bastards? We just gave it right back.”

They’re right. They’re right, and yet…

“What are you guys doing?”

Kakucho’s curt voice jolted you out of your thoughts. For a moment, you were relieved to see him return home—only for the thought of him coldly beating a human being into a coma to flash through your mind.

“Ran,” he continued, not noticing your growing discomfort. “Let her go.”

“Aww, you’re no fun. Just wanted to get to know our little princess a bit more.” Still, the taller man released you, and you hurriedly scrambled to find your footing before Kakucho would realise something was wrong. You grabbed the broom that had been discarded earlier.

“I have to sweep the other side of the building,” you announced, forcing your voice steady. “Bye.”

“[Name]—“

You pushed past Kakucho and rushed off.

When your footsteps receded, he turned his attention to the men now sitting innocently around him on the floor. “What the hell did you tell her?”

“Nothing that wasn’t true,” Ran drawled, lying down on the engawa with his arms behind his head. “I’m taking a nap.”

“No, you aren’t—“ But Ran was already snoring. “…Fine, do what you want. Just don’t blame me once Izana comes back and sees the chores unfinished.”

And with that, he whirled around and went after you.

—✧—

“[Name], open the door.”

No response.

“Please?” he tried again.

He heard you shift around inside of your room. Then, a soft but petulant, “No.”

“Why not?”

A pause, before you said, “If you really wanted to, you’d be able to come in, anyways. Doors can’t stop you.”

“Are you…” Kakucho swore quietly to himself, making a mental note to put the others through the wringer. He swallowed. “Are you afraid of me?”

Your ensuing silence answered his question.

“[Name],” he sighed, “I don’t know what they told you, but I would never hurt you. Ever.” He would sooner off himself if he dared lay a hand upon you—if Izana didn’t kill him first, that is.

More silence followed, broken only by the sound of a barely audible sniffle.

“Alright,” he said. “I’m coming in.”

You were sitting in a fetal position at the farthest corner of the room, back pressed up against the wall and face buried in your arms. Kakucho slipped in through the closed door and made his way carefully toward you. The sight of your shoulders shaking ever so slightly as he approached hurt more than any injury a demon could inflict. After a brief hesitation, he crouched down. To his surprise, you were the one who spoke first.

“All I wanted was to live,” you whispered. “I just wanted to live normally and not be a burden to anyone.”

Kakucho was already a man of few words—but this time, he truly did not know what to say.

“Why did it have to be me?” Your grip around your knees tightened. “Everyone hates me just for existing. Why did my mom have to die and leave me all alone here?”

“You’re not alone,” he interjected. “Not anymore.”

Slowly, like someone trying not to spook a cornered animal, he placed his hands on your arms, gently tugging them apart—and to his relief, you put up no resistance. Your shoulders slackened, though still trembling with muted sobs, and after setting your limp arms aside Kakucho reached forward. Calloused fingers stroked underneath your chin and tilted your head up to look at him. The sight of your utterly broken, tired expression sent a pang right through his chest.

“We’re just like you,” he said, cupping your face in his hands. “All we ever wanted was to live.”

You stared at him from behind wet lashes.

“The world is cruel,” he continued, brushing your cheeks free of tears with both thumbs. When more trickled from the corners of your puffy red eyes, he wiped them too. “You’ve experienced the worst of it. Let us protect you and our new lives—even if we must be equally cruel in return.”

He watched your gaze trace the scar that sliced down his forehead and over one misty white eye.

“Izana treasures family more than anything else,” he whispered. “So… don’t be afraid of us. Please.”

He waited with bated breath as you continued to stare at him. Then, so quietly he didn’t even notice, your arm shifted—and you placed one small hand over one of his. Underneath his palms, he felt the corners of your mouth lift.

“Okay.”

—✧—

When Kakucho slipped out of your room, he nearly walked right past the younger Haitani brother who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, next to the door. He stopped, then turned to face him. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“Whatever you wanna call it.” Rindou pushed off the wall and strode toward the garden. Without even checking to see whether Kakucho was following him or not, he asked, “She alright?”

“Now you’re concerned?” Kakucho sped up to walk beside him.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Rindou grunted, adjusting the round glasses perched atop the bridge of his nose. “Just figured that Izana wouldn’t be too pleased if our only remaining human follower started losing faith in him.”

“Maybe you should’ve considered that before you told her everything.”

“Hey, hey,” he said, holding his hands up. “We haven’t been around humans in a long fuckin’ time. Got too excited and forgot that they’re sensitive. ‘Specially the girls. Besides…” Serious lavender eyes glanced over at Kakucho. “She ought to know. What Izana is really like, I mean.”

Kakucho stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? You don’t?” A sneer stretched across Rindou’s face. “Don’t play dumb, now. I thought you were better than that.”

“I’m leaving—“

“Izana isn’t the same benevolent god as he was back then and you know it. More than anyone else.”

His fists clenched at his side. Before Rindou could say anything else, Kakucho was gone, disappearing into the warm summer air and leaving behind only the loud droning hum of cicadas in his wake. He sighed. “Alright, you bastard, you can come out now.”

A chuckling Ran emerged from behind a tree. “Seems like you’re getting soft yourself, little bro.”

“Shut the hell up.”

A bush rustled nearby. Both brothers turned their heads to see Shion pop out, leaves clinging to his shaggy blond mane. “Why the hell is everyone eavesdroppin’ around here?”

“Fuck off, Shion.”

“Yeah, fuck off, Shion.”

—✧—

Once again, days passed idly by. Especially now that you were banned from returning to the village for the time being (not that you were very keen to go back anyway) you found yourself spending more time with Izana and his odd group of servants. Before long, though you hated to admit it at first, you gradually began to enjoy their company. The various yokai that lived in your vicinity were friendly enough but nothing could quite replace the value of human companionship. Or, at least, human-shaped; on occasion you caught yourself forgetting that they weren’t of this world. Their manner of bickering and daily shenanigans reminded you much of your own neighbors’ antics, back when you still lived in the village, and it left you feeling an odd sense of both warmth and longing.

Still, there was no doubt that despite watching Ran chase Rindou around the garden while holding a particularly disgusting gremlin of a demon; or Shion knock himself out by accident yet again; or Kakucho’s face flare with the brightest shade of red when he walked in on you changing… they were powerful, dangerous entities all the same.

“Hey, don’t wander off,” Rindou barked at you, snatching a demonic spirit from midair and crushing it in his fist. “If you go too far we can’t protect you properly.”

You glanced over your shoulder from where you had been perched on a boulder right at the boundary separating the shrine grounds from the forest, watching the malevolent dark shadows twist and dart through the trees. After mulling over your thoughts for a few seconds, you spoke. “Can’t I learn how to do it, too?”

“What?”

“To protect myself,” you huffed. “So you guys don’t have to worry so much about me.”

Rindou’s answer was immediate. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

You scrunched up your nose at him. “It’s not like once I know how to do it, I’m gonna start trying to beat them up for fun. I’m not Shion.”

The two of you ignored the sudden loud sneeze that erupted from inside the house.

“Look,” Rindou said, moving to sit beside you. “There’s a little you can do with the help of talismans and spells and shit, but even with Izana’s blessing it would take fuckin’ years for you to reach a level where you can get rid of even one of ‘em on your own. Self-defence isn’t gonna cut it; just ‘cause you can see ‘em now, doesn’t mean your physical body can touch ‘em.”

“That’s okay,” you said, perking up visibly at the mention of talismans and spells. “I still want to learn. With you guys around, taking care of the shrine has gotten a lot easier—and some days I just get so bored, you know?”

“…You still feel lonely, huh.”

Your shoulders stiffened at his remark, then relaxed as you heaved out a sigh. “Sorry,” you mumbled. “I don’t wanna sound ungrateful or anything… but there’s still a part of me that wishes I could still be normal. Have a family. Chat with neighbours. Attend celebrations. Not hide, afraid of everything that lies right outside—at a distance so close, yet still can’t reach.”

Rindou was quiet as you talked, but in his mind he was frantically trying to recall how either Ran or Kakucho would comfort you; their way with words was far better than his in this sort of situation, much to his annoyance. Coming up blank, all he could think to do was grab your hand and pull you to your feet. “C’mon.”

“Wha— Where are we going?” Your round eyes darted from Rindou’s face to your clasped hands and back again, as if you couldn’t quite believe it.

“Inside, to get a paper and brush. Don’t get mad at me if you get tired, though; I’m not a nice teacher.”

He couldn’t help but sneak a glance at you, out of the corner of his eye. When he glimpsed your face bursting into a brilliant smile, he finally understood what Izana had been trying to save all along. Closing his eyes and allowing himself to feel the way your much smaller hand gently squeezed his, he could only hope that when the time eventually came, you would understand, too.

#tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #tkrv #kurokawa izana x reader #kakucho x reader #haitani ran x reader #haitani rindou x reader #madarame shion x reader #my writing

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deepinifhell · 8 months

Text

Resilience

Rating: General

Relationships: Nat Sewell x F!Detective (@stolenoc's Rory Kingston)

Word Count: 2,267

For the @wayhavenficexchange. This was a really fun challenge and I hope I did Rory justice! Click the title for AO3 link.

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

Nat has spent centuries admiring poetic words about broken hearts, only to find them wanting when she needs them most. Her heart is not merely broken. It is shredded , and every day without finding Aurora, every mission where Unit Bravo finds her blood instead of her, rips away another piece of it.

Weeks have passed since Rory was taken from Nat— from all of them. There was no warning before it happened, no confrontation or suspicious sightings. One morning Nat kissed her beloved goodbye before she went to work, and she never came back.

The team found Rory’s apartment in a state of disarray and the air laden heavily with magic, but little else to help direct their search. The first few days after Rory’s disappearance were spent combing every inch of the town and the surrounding area outside of it. The Agency even sent in Unit Alpha to assist, tracking being one of their specialties.

Nat’s vivid imagination has gotten her through plenty of hardships in her past, but she curses it now. Visions of Rory calling out for Nat, needing her, as she is ripped from her apartment plague Nat. How frightened must she have been?

“She’ll produce more blood alive than dead,” Morgan offered as a comfort to Nat who, at the time, was on her knees in the middle of Rory’s apartment, refusing to leave until they found something . Unfortunately, they all know from experience that ‘alive’ does not mean ‘well’. As long as their product is breathing, that will be enough for her captors. In fact, it’s probably safer for them to break her mind than her body.

Nat forces herself to bury those thoughts every time they bubble up to the surface. They won’t help her find Rory, and Rory has to be alive. There is no other option. It has only been a few months, but already she cannot imagine a life without her.

A firm, solid hand lands on Nat’s shoulder, drawing her attention away from the pile of recent mission and patrol logs she has been poring over all day. Nat forces a small smile on her face as she turns to look at Ava, but she doesn’t get the chance to speak.

“We have a lead.”

Far Outside of Wayhaven

The dilapidated brick building looms behind Unit Bravo. At one point, decades ago, it had been a hospital. Now the building looks as though it doesn’t belong among the sprawling untamed field that has sprouted up around it.

“Commanding Agent Du Mortain?” Lesedi’s voice filters through over the radio.

“Copy.”

“Two suspects have fled the building on foot. One unit should pursue the suspects and the other should search the building.” Lesedi pauses, allowing the situation to sink in. “Who do you want to pursue?”

For a moment, there is conflict on Ava’s face as she considers the information provided, but it passes quickly. “Agreed. Unit Bravo will search the area. Unit Alpha can pursue the suspects,” Ava doles out tasks.

They are all exhausted, having spent weeks chasing down lead after lead, most of them dead ends. The situation only worsened once Rory’s blood hit the supernatural black market. The Agency needed their top teams (and the one most experienced with the detective’s blood) to help handle the outbreaks of massively powerful supernaturals.

None of them are at their best right now, but Nat has not slept in…she tries to remember the last time she got real sleep. More than just falling asleep for a few minutes on accident. Three weeks? Her healing abilities can only compensate for so much.

All eyes turn to Nat, whose eyes glisten with unshed tears.

“Thank you, Ava,” she says. Ava nods stiffly to Nat and then gestures to the building. The team launches into action.

Inside the Abandoned Hospital

Nat can smell Aurora’s blood in the distance, and she turns to the rest of the team to confirm that they too can smell it, that her mind has not taken to trying to appease her with hallucinations.

They are already looking back at her. The smell is strongest from the lower levels, but most of Unit Bravo know better than to get their hopes up now. Not Nat, though. Somehow, even after so many times, the scent of Aurora’s blood has hope swelling in Nat’s chest.

“According to our intelligence, the building has five levels including one below ground,” Ava begins. “We will clear the first floor together and then split up to cover the remaining levels. Nat, you will take the lower level. Farah, clear the top level and the stairwells. Morgan gets the third.”

As expected, the first floor is empty. The area is fairly open, a bad place for anyone to hide. Most likely it was a lobby and waiting area in the hospital’s heyday. Nat wastes no time, sprinting down the cracking concrete stairwell to reach the building’s basement. There are no windows, just sprawling hallways of rusted metal doors and cracking paint.

“Rory! Are you down here?” Nat calls out. There’s no answer, but she doesn’t truly expect one. Soon though, the sound of a rapid fluttering heartbeat comes into focus.

She recognizes it instantly. Aurora.

“She’s down here!” Nat shouts into the radio. There’s a response, but the words don’t register for Nat. She is much too busy pulling at the handle of one particular door with additional shiny silver locks, clearly out of place among the older hardware on all the other doors.“Rory!?”

The doorway breaks before the door, leaving behind splintered wood and plaster. At one point the small padded room behind the door may have been white, but age and lack of maintenance have turned the cushions a dingy beige color.

“Ya rouhi,” Nat gasps the endearment with equal measures of relief and horror. Ava is the first to make it down to Nat, and promptly takes the door from her hands, propping it up against the wall of the hallway. Morgan and Farah follow shortly after. Morgan gives the team leader a short nod, and Farah flashes a thumbs up, confirming the building is clear of any threats.

Rory is curled up in the corner, alive, wide-eyed with shock from the loud noises, and in one piece. That is the good news. The bad news is just about everything else.

Her wrists are red and swollen from the handcuffs she has on, a sharp contrast against her unusually pallid skin. Her breaths come short and shallow, and her expression is distant and weak. She’s lost weight. A few inches of medical tubing stick out of her arm, the ends covered by small plastic caps. Despite all of that, Rory’s expression lights up when she sees Nat, making warm affection bloom in Nat’s chest.

In a flash of motion, Nat crosses the room to kneel at Rory’s side one hand cupping her cheek reverently.

“Nat?” She asks, voice hoarse from disuse. Then she shifts a little to get a better view through the doorway. The movement is sluggish, but it doesn’t seem to cause her pain at least. “Ava? Is everyone here?”

“All here and ready to rescue you!” Farah pokes her head around the now crumbling doorway, a relieved grin on her face.

“It’s us,” Nat speaks softly, as though to a frightened animal. Rory isn’t well, of course, but Nat cannot find any injuries beyond the superficial wounds on her wrist and some bruising. “We’re getting you out of here. Can you walk?”

“I think so,” Rory says, shifting her weight to stand only to wobble unsteadily. Strong, toned arms reach out to stabilize her.

“Is it alright if I carry you?” Nat asks, doing her best to keep her voice from cracking. Rory’s gaze is hazy and unfocused, and she has to pause in order to process the question.

“Yeah,” she croaks. The word hardly gets out before Nat has her scooped up into a bridal-style carry. Morgan grabs Farah by the back of the shirt, yanking her out of the way of the doorway, while Ava advises Agent Kingston of their status. She will handle coordinating the medics.

Nat is grateful for the rest of the team, because she isn’t sure she could stand to leave Rory’s side though she knows she will have to eventually.

A Few Hours Later, At the Agency Facility

Nat shoves her hands into her pockets for what feels like the hundredth time. Her and Rebecca both stand outside of the infirmary, anxiously awaiting news. The door behind them bursts open, and Morgan trudges in with a bag of Rory’s things slung over her shoulder.

“There’s a couple books in there,” Morgan gruffs as she pushes the bag into Nat’s hands.

“Thank you, Morgan.” Nat manages a small smile when she takes the bag. Morgan glances at the door to the infirmary and then back to Nat.

“They haven’t let you see her yet?” Morgan asks, voice tinged with a thread of concern. Nat shakes her head.

“She’s gonna be okay, Natkins,” Farah slaps a reassuring hand on Nat’s back in an effort to lighten the mood.

The door to the waiting room swings open again, much more quietly this time. Ava strides in with two facility room keys in her hand and holds them out to Rebecca and Nat.

“Get some sleep. I will keep watch over Aurora. We will notify you when she is allowed visitors,” Ava says firmly. Rebecca hesitates, but she glances to the infirmary door, and then to Nat, and eventually takes the key.

“Thank you, Agent,” Rebecca says. She leaves the room quickly, perhaps eager to get away from prying eyes. Ava’s gaze then flicks to Nat, who wilts under the stare with a heavy sigh.

“I’ll go. You don’t need to order me.” She can’t help but look back at the infirmary door as she leaves. Rory may be safe now, but is she scared? Is there any permanent damage?

In the end, she gets a couple of hours of fitful sleep before Ava comes to get her.

Inside Rory’s Recovery Room

Rory is propped up in the hospital bed. She’s cleaner, wrists sanitized and bandaged, and more alert than she was at first, but the smile she plasters on when Nat enters the room is clearly fake.

“How are you feeling?” Nat asks gently, settling into a chair by the bed and taking one of Rory’s hands in her own.

“I’m alright. They’re just keeping me overnight for observation.”

“You know that it’s okay if you’re not alright, right? It took us so long to find you…” Nat trails off, words failing her yet again, as they often do when it comes to Aurora. “I can’t imagine what they must have put you through.”

“I’m not sure it feels real yet. That I’ve been rescued,” Rory admits. Her eyes flicker over to her left arm, where the IV is inserted. Nat follows her gaze, heart clenching in her chest as she realizes the Agency medics left in whatever permanent line Rory’s captors had given her.

It was Trappers as it turns out, using stolen supernatural powers to cover their tracks. Thankfully, Unit Alpha managed to capture the entire outfit of them, including the crooked doctor they’d been using to collect Aurora’s blood. Their work isn’t done, of course, the Agency suspects they do not have all of the blood in their possession,

The Agency must have had a good reason for keeping it, but that does nothing for the haunted look in Rory’s eyes. Nat squeezes Rory’s hand gently, in an effort to draw her attention back. It works, at least for a moment, Rory turns her head back to look at Nat.

“They were able to capture everyone that was in the building,” Nat assures her, as though that means anything. As though there are not a seemingly infinite number of Trappers.

“I’m really okay, Nat. You came and got me, just like I knew you would.” Rory truly means that when she says it. There is no resentment that Unit Bravo, that Nat, was not there sooner or to prevent the kidnapping at all.

The genuine acceptance is a balm for Nat’s wounded, guilty heart. In that moment, she falls just a little bit more in love with Rory. Beautiful, wonderful, incredibly resilient Rory who looks absolutely exhausted. Of course she would be, after the day she has had.

“You should rest,” Nat urges softly, eyes flooded with concern. Rory starts to blink, but her eyes stay closed for a little longer than they should as if she’s considering the suggestion. “I can read to you if you think it might help you sleep?”

Rory nods. With her free hand, Nat reaches down and unzips the duffle bag, not quite ready to let go just yet. There are, in fact, two books right at the top, though Nat can’t help but purse her lips at the improper storage of them. One of them is unfamiliar to her, most likely something Rory had in her room, so Nat grabs that one.

“Is this one alright, rouhi?” Nat asks. She turns the book’s cover to face Rory, gripping it carefully to try and use the heat of her hands the smooth out the paperback’s rumpled corners. In answer, Rory snuggles down into the thin hospital blanket and shuts her eyes. This time, the smile that crosses Nat’s face is more genuine, and she cracks open the book.

Rory falls asleep to the warm sound of Nat’s voice chasing away her fears.

#the wayhaven chronicles #my fanfic #wayhavenficexchange

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npcemi · 9 months

Text

The long road of how starting a fight with superman over clone parenting eventually lead to Danny Phantom become God Chapter 8-10 Kidnapings and Plane rides

Link to master post

AO3

Dani, Sam, Tucker, Vlad, and Dani sat in the back section of one of Bruce's larger private jets. In his seat, the eldest halfa sat grumbling to himself, “What was that Vlad?” Danny asked...

“I said I could have at least flown in my own private jet!” Vlad nearly shouted.

“Do you have any idea how much fossil fuels that use, Do you have any Idea what that does to the earth, I can hear the green actively dying, I can hear the anguished cries from the spirits of dead flora, you’re lucky we’re using even one jet!” Sam said, signs of obsession starting to filter into her personality.

“Yes mom!” Vlad drawled being as sarcastic as possible. Dani went up to Tucker, “Father I’m tired can you make a bed.” Tucker used the scarab scepter to turn a group of seats into two California king mattresses pushed together.

“Okay, you all know the drill,” Tucker said.

“Yeah no for sure, one sec, Sam?”Danny said as Sam got up from her seat and grabbed some blankets from one of her carry-on suitcases.

“Danielle really,” Vlad asked only for Dani to look at him with supernaturally large puppy dog eyes.

“Fine.”

“Yay you’re the best.” She said as she dragged the last of her family to the bed when three flashes of light filled the room.

_____________________________________________________________________

“Babs, how many is it this time? Five, I don't think any of us.… Don’t get me wrong, I love Cass and Duke, but…” Jason turned to look Bruce directly in the eye, “I think there is a legal limit to how many kids you can adopt.”

“In my defense, I am not adopting any of them.” He replied,

“So they belong to the other billionaire we for some reason have to bring to Gotham.” Jason snarked, Jazz took the moment to mention that technically Vlad was Danny’s ‘son’. The crime lord looked like he was about to say something, stopped, tried to start again, and gave up. Barb began giggling that same harmonious laughter Jazz was beginning to enjoy greatly.

“Look, I gotta piss,” Jason said getting up to use the bathroom which was on the other end of the plane, just past the now-sleeping phantoms. He went to open the door and fell back screaming, “What in the HP Lovecraft is that?”

Jazz and Barb went over to help and saw what frightened the large man. There was a bed with several of the sleeping phantom family. The bed itself was guarded by what appeared to be green-glowing ghost jackals. The bed was lined with roses, and circling around the bed were two gyroscopic wheels covered in half-lidded eyes. In the bed were Sam, Tucker, Some kind of blue vampire, a small cat-like Lamia with white fur, and curling around all of the beings protectively was a lamia, a man thing with a giant flaming hole in its chest with massive wings that also had half-lidded eyes. If one listened closely they could hear three distinct pitches of cat-like purrs.

“Aww, they look so cute.” Jazz cooed softly before shutting

“Wha…what…cute…what... Just who are we flying into Gotham?” Jason stuttered, the eldest Fenton sister turned to look at Jason sympathetically, eyes soft.

“My brother, his partners, and children. Sorry, when they do Danielle asks for the cuddle pile they all like to be in their ghost forms, it’s a security thing.”

“You expect me to believe those are the same kids, the same Wayne adoption bait we picked up in Illinois?” He asked, still breathing heavily from the previous scare.

“Yes,” Barb and Bruce said.

“Yeah, The vampire-looking one is Plasmius or Vlad Masters as you know him aka Danny’s second child (he’s adopted), The big one is Danny, you know Sam and Tucker, and the little one doing her best to imitate her daddy is Danielle. The wheels are actually an extension of her core. She’s a spirit of safe travels and a patroness for the mirror born. Why do you think this flight has gone so smoothly?” Jazz said with a smile on her face which Barb found contagious and mirrored her smile.

“So we aren’t in a plane with biblically accurate angels?” Jason joked feeling a bit calmer now.

“Well that’s a little racist, Vlad is best described as an Upiór, and Danny and Danielle are now more classed as primordial spirits being more embodiments of a concept rather than something as mundane as those lesser spirits in a myth called angels, which are really no different than gods like Zeus. If you have to-- you can call them completely different species.” Jazz attempted to tease but she got caught up in an info dump. She went red at the embarrassment but Barb rubbed her hand reassuringly.

“I’m guessing I won’t be able to go to the bathroom then?” Jason said, peering through the doorway at the multitude of half-lidded eyes daring him to interrupt the family’s sleep.

“Probably not….”

“It’s fine, I can sneak a leak after we land, it's a bit of a drive from the airport to the mansion.”

It was in fact, not fine. As soon as they landed a bunch of goons dressed and were on the runway getting ready to board the plane. Danny, Dani, and Vlad were about to jump into action and phase through when Danny spotted a green stick note on the back of one of the goons that went unnoticed by the rest of the crew.

“Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me!” He said as Vlad, who was cracking his neck getting ready for the fight, asked him what the issue could be. Danny pointed out the plane window at the note.

“Butter biscuits, Clockwork better have a point to all of this…” Vlad muttered as the Phantoms detransformed. Danny had his sister and partners hide. The goons were rather efficient having somehow caught Jason mid bathroom break and locked him in there; barb wasn’t much of a threat at that moment. The goons, thinking Dani and Danny were Wayne children took them, Bruce, and got a bonus billionaire in Vlad as hostages. They had sacks thrown over their heads and drove off.

About fifteen minutes later they were all tied to chairs and the sacks on their heads ripped off to reveal the Riddler and Joker. Riddler with his cane and Joker with a crowbar. Danny was about to go after the clown, it was a clown and it was his right.

“Daniel!” Vlad reminded him of what Clockwork had said in his note. Danny relaxed against his ropes and muttered, "it wouldn’t be worth it anyway."

“What was that?” Joker asked irritated.

“He said that it wouldn't be worth it to beat your butt, I mean where did you two get your costumes spirit Halloween?” Dani laughed

“Dani question mark guy's outfit is clearly self-made, no self-respecting clothes designer would make an outfit covered in question marks. Everyone knows the rule about one tasteful symbol.” Vlad snorted.

“Well, Joker’s outfit is so clearly off the rack,” Danny said as the two supervillains were getting more irritated. Joker took the time to hit Danny with the crowbar causing Bruce to flinch.

“Clearly the only thing funny about you is your outfit.” Danny spat back.

“Maybe I can recommend you two a better tailor,” Vlad smirked.

“No helping supervillains remember you’re reformed.” Danny chided, Vlad rolled his eyes and replied, “They don’t even have powers, I’d hardly call them super anything.”

One of the goons having enough and trying to impress his bosses picked Dani up in an aggressive manner, “Yea well what if I harm the little princess over here!” He growled. He went to look at Dani, whom he was expecting to see a frightened little girl. He in fact was looking into pitch-black eyes and a literal shark tooth grin.

“Hi,” The Goon stumbled back dropping her chair, dropping back to the ground.

“Oof!”

“D…De…Dem...Demon!” He sputtered out crawling away. Dani tilted her head to the side, her eyes the normal blue for everyone to see.

“That’s a little racist.” She said in a sweet innocent voice.

“Yeah man, just because you see something spooky doesn’t mean it’s a demon,” Danny said,

“Yeah, it could be a ghost.” Dani snickered,

“Or a vampire!” Danny nudged Vlad who scowled,

“Bruce, help, we’re surrounded by juvenile morons,” Vlad complained only for Bruce to say he understood his pain. Joker scowled, “Where are the bats, they should be by now right?”

“I don’t know, do I look like the master of time?” Riddler snarked back,

“No,” Dani, Danny, and Vlad all said automatically.

“You know the master of time?” Bruce asked only for Danny to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Right.”

“He doesn’t even have the staff!” Dani said,

“Or the Scar.” Danny nodded,

“Or speak in inane cryptic riddles.” Vlad also nodded.

“Hey, I speak riddles!” The riddler interjected as Danny laughed,

“Your riddles come from the first five search results on Google!” Riddler stormed out of the room.

“Unless you all want to end up in a shallow grave.” Joker threatened, however, he did not get the response he expected.

“Really, I get a grave!?” Dani grinned, Danny raised his hand not realizing he just phased it out of the ropes, “While you’re handing out graves.”

“I, too, would not be opposed…” Vlad said surprisingly sheepishly. The Joker looked directly at Bruce giving him a ‘what the fuck’ look. This is not how this normally goes,

“Any clue on when the bats or birds will get here?” The clown said, still looking directly at Bruce.

“I’m not sure what’s holding them up,” Bruce said as Joker stormed out of the room.

“I guess that’s a no on the graves,” Vlad said trying not to sound disappointed.

“I don’t get a grave?” Danielle started tearing up, so Danny phased through the ropes and gave her a hug. Vlad also Phases out of his bindings and puts a reassuring hand on Danielle's back and gently rubs. Bruce silently was wondering what his life became.

____________________________________________________________________________________

“What do you mean all of the bat vehicles, planes, and boats are out of gas!?” Jason screamed.

“It's like I said, Todd!” The voice from off-screen on Jason’s phone replied.

“And the EVs?”

“No charge, We just got gas, we’re on our way with your gear,” Tim said,

“Just hurry up.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Danielle was still crying when Danny had an Idea.

“Hey Dani, since it looks like this is a self-rescue, how about you fight the bad guys.” Dani looked at her father skeptically.

“You and Vlad won't interfere?”

“You remember how to seal souls into the ghost ice right?” Dani nodded at his question.

“Then yep, this will be one hundred percent on your own, just remember to grab the clown’s soul.” He said forming a crystal of ghost ice.

“Yep, I remember what Papa wrote in the note, we need it as a gift for the revenant.” She nodded and transformed.

_______________________________________________________________________________

That same night on a rooftop in Metropolis Superman flew down to find a bunch of men in white suits by a big “S” signal light.

“A signal is more Batman’s thing.” He said,

“Well, this was the best way to get a hold of you.”

“What do you want?” The man of steel asked, The agents went on to say they knew about his fight against a phantom and were offering to help develop weapons so he could fight the ghost menace better. It would take some time but they could do it. That made sense so he agreed. Especially after they told him phantom attacked a random family in Illinois and rendered the parents believe they were three years old and kidnaped or killed their two kids and two of their son’s friends. Just as he was about to fly off, they mentioned one more thing,

“We were working with the Fentons at the time, and they managed to capture Phantom for a bit, however, according to them he is now taking the form of a small girl with white hair. “ They pulled out a tablet and showed a video of a small girl with white hair, green eyes, and the Phantom symbol on a black hazmat suit. Superman thanked them for the info and went patrol Metropolis.

Jason, Barb, Sam, Tucker, Tim, and Damian were all gearing up getting ready to look for where the rest of the Phantoms and Bruce were located. Barb was using a laptop to go over possible locations. However, Tim noticed Sam, Tucker, and Jazz were a little too calm.

“Danny get kidnaped often?” he asked.

“Why do you ask?’ Sam snapped.

“You all seem awfully calm…” Tim accused. Jason put a hand on his shoulder and told him to let it go, “No, Bruce said these kids and one of the scummiest billionaires alive were the highest priority and I don’t get why!?”

“Wow, and I thought Dash had anger issues.” They all turned to see fourteen-year-old Danny Fenton.

“Danny!” Jazz, Sam, and Tucker went and hugged him,

“Hey guys”’ He smiled as Tim and Jason stood in surprise and their jaws on the floor.

“Sooo, how’s the kidnapping going?” Jazz sing songed.

“Pretty good, got to make fun of this clown and some dude with a question mark kink. Not too happy about that last bit. Danielle is a little young to be exposed to some dude running around in a skintight leotard with a boner.” Danny frowned before smiling again, “But she did get to use scary eyes on some goon…” He was cut off by some shorter-than-danny spiky-haired kid dressed like a traffic light bursting through red robin and Red Hood.

“How are you here?” The kid demanded.

“I’m the ancient of space kid, anywhere there is the concept of space, or space itself I or a copy of myself can be.” The Kid scowled,

“So on top of teleportation, super strength, energy beams, sonic attacks, summoning stars, black holes, and some kind of eldritch form, are you basically omnipresent?”

“No, I won't be omnipresent until I die fully, something about the human body not being able to properly contain that much ectoplasm.” all three bats looked at him like he was insane, he was just glad they didn't need to go over all of his abilities because they didn't even really scuff the surface.

“Anyway I gotta get going, Vlad and I are letting Danielle beat these so-called supervillains to a pulp, oh, and Revenant we’ll have a present for you when you meet us at the warehouse,” Danny said as he faded out of existence. Barb started typing on her laptop knowing they were at a warehouse and there were only a few that matched the needs of the kidnapers and was listed as taking on some of the villain forums.

“So he let himself get kidnaped?” Tim asked.

“Yes….” Sam said unable to make eye contact.

“Why?”

“The ways of the ancients are all-knowing and mysterious,” Sam said,

“There’s no point in fighting it, just stand by, watch, and trust the process .” Tucker continued.

“And everything will be as it should.” Jazz finished.

“Soooo, you have no idea,” Jason said,

“Nope,” the three liminals of the phantom family replied.

____________________________________________________________________________________

The Joker and the Riddler were in another room wondering who the hell they just kidnapped. Bruce was one thing. His “secret” identity wasn’t much of a secret. No one cared, it was part of the game. Joker knew that better than anybody. Why ruin the fun, which is exactly what these three additional hostages were doing? They didn't behave right. If he was being honest it was kind of interesting.

“Having fun Jack?” The joker heard a soft gentle female voice call out to him. They didn’t hire any female goons. He turned to see a young, attractive, slim woman of average height in her early to mid-20s. She has very pale skin, dark eyes, long jet-black hair, and has an Eye of Horus painted under one of her eyes. She was dressed like an 80’s Goth Rocker and had a large ankh pendant.

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am, Jackson William Napier.” His eyes went wide at the name he hadn’t used in almost two decades.

“You okay?” Riddler asked Joker, clearly unable to see the woman.

“Yes,” Joker snapped, throwing a chair at the riddler.

“Relax, I am not here for you today.” The woman smiled.

“Then why are you here?” The clown prince of crime’s eyes narrowed.

“Why don't we go say hi to our friends in the other room.” She gestured toward the main section of the warehouse. He yelled for the Riddler to follow him. When they made it to the large warehouse space he noticed that the little girl was missing. He was about to demand where she was when a large voice boomed its way through the space, he nearly needed to cover his ears.

“Do not be afraid, for behold, I am a merciful spirit. Lay down your weapons and surrender and you will remain unharmed.” He turned his head upward to look in the direction of the voice and saw the unbelievable.

The girl they had kidnaped was floating mid-air surrounded by gyroscopic wheels covered in eyes. Her hair was now snow white. She wore pure white Grecian armor. She had two wings that looked like they were made of the night sky. A silver tiara that held a gem the color of Pluto floated above her head.

The look on her face seemed disappointed, “Dad my shadows aren’t eating anything yet!” She whined, surprisingly still childish.

“That will happen when you get older, honey you’re still under a millennium old..” The teenage boy said with a surprisingly proud grin.

He looked to see all the goons and Riddler bowing to whatever that thing was,

“Nygma what the hell.”

“I signed up to fight Batman and his Flock, not whatever the fuck that is!”

Joker scowled and saw the pale black-haired woman from earlier, walk over to one of the goons and help him up. She said something to him before the goon loudly complained, “I only did this because my wife just got fired and we need the extra income, what’s going to happen to them now?” The woman turned to look at the teenage boy they had kidnapped, “Your Highness?” The boy looked at her and the goon. “Everything will work out, you know that…” Was his reply to the woman who frowned slightly, “You are far too often in the presence of Time.”

“You should visit, he says he gets lonely, I can’t be the only one to keep him entertained.” The boy smiled.

“Perhaps I will consider the request. It has been a while since I have visited Time. Maybe I should visit him.” The woman said as she and the goon calmly walked out of the warehouse. Joker turned to look back at the goons who still bowed, except for one.

The Goon that had walked out with that woman, was still there in the room, dead on the floor.

“So are we going to stand around all day or are we going to fight?” The childish voice said in the Joker’s ear before he was launched across the warehouse with a swift kick to the gut.

Where did she come from was all he could think as he saw the white-haired girl calmly walking towards him. He didn't take this sitting down like some dog. He threw a joker grenade at the girl who blocked and redirected it back at him with one of her wings. He jumped out of the way, picking up the crowbar he dropped along the way.

“You aren’t the first kid I’ve killed in this warehouse and you won't be the last!” He growled, swinging his crowbar only for Dani to slip out of the way and push him into a wall, he used his acid flower. It was a direct hit, however, the now skeletal-faced girl was still coming after him. She brought her arm up and summoned an Xiphos that looked like it was going to crumble apart. It was black with red cracks that radiated heat. He barely dodged the slash and rolled out of the way only for the room to become momentarily filled with fire.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Now in Gotham Propper, the rescue crew was still having trouble locating everyone who was abducted. Barb, now in her Batgirl exoskeleton, was still on her tablet working overtime. However, their prayers were answered when a massive crescent of fire exploded out of the sides of one of the warehouses dissipating into the sky. Everyone had a flat expression.

“I’m guessing they’re at that building,” Robin said.

“Yep.” Everyone responded.

“Of course, it has to be that warehouse,” Redhood said as the remaining members of the Phantom family noticed the rise in his ectoplasm levels. They asked if he was okay.

“No, but I’ll live.”

“Is it the Pits?” Red Robin asked.

“Yeah…”

“Pits, you mean the rise in his ecto plasma levels?” Jazz asked.

“What?” Tim and Jason asked.

“You’re liminal, you have high levels of ectoplasm. I’d say you're death-leaning like us.” Sam said as Jason got in her face only to feel Jazz pull him away.

“Look, I get that for some reason that warehouse is triggering some kind of revenge obsession and your emotions are high, but if you’re going to be any help you need to regulate your emotions.” She said,

“RedHood control his emotions?” Batgirl snorted.

“What do you mean?” Tim cut in, Jazz sighed not wanting to have this conversation right now, however, it looked like things on her brother's end were going fine so she decided it was best to explain. She turned to Jason,

“You’re a death-leaning liminal. Like Sam, Tucker, and I. You have strong ghostly attributes that will leak into your physicality as well as your mentality. You have an obsession centered around revenge and justice. I know this because my own obsession with knowing, understanding, and helping people makes me a really strong empath.

For you, I'm assuming better stealth skills, enhanced durability, enhanced speed, strength, etc. However, this also means any emotion you experience is multiplied by a factor of a thousand or more. Meaning if you don’t work through any issues or don't regulate your emotions you may find them controlling you in a way. “

“Are you talking about the Pit madness?” Jason asked.

“Pit madness? What, no, there is no madness. You just fucking need therapy!” Jazz exasperated to a stunned group of bats and birds.

“Let's get going before Danielle burns down Gotham,” Sam said, ushering Tucker into the assault vehicle, he was followed by Red Robin, Robin, Jason who was basically pushed in by Sam, And finally Bat Girl who led Jazz into the vehicle hand in hand. Sam got in the driver's seat and sped off.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Joker barely dodged the slash and rolled out of the way only for the room to become momentarily filled with fire. When the fire dissipated there was a giant hole shaped like a half-moon in the warehouse that was glowing a molten orange. He started to run away only to run into Dani’s elbow. He fell to the ground covering his now bleeding nose. He noticed she no longer looked skeletal

He activated traps that would have attacked her from behind, but her existence blurred out of the way before reforming.

“What made you think all the eyes are just cosmetic?” She said pointing to the rotating wheels that never seemed to be in her way, but flowed effortlessly around her.

“You know, let's play another time, bye Brucie.” He said turning around and trying to run away only for Dani to run her hand right through his chest. She followed him to the ground and phased her arm out of him. He suddenly felt extremely cold.

Dani turned around to face her father, brother, and Bruce with a large grin declaring she was done. Danny untied Bruce and they all tied up the goons, riddler, and Joker. Who looks ready to kill Bruce,

“No metas in gotham?” The clown spat.

“They aren’t metas.” Bruce said.

“What the fuck are they?” Riddler demanded

Dani, Danny, and Vlad turned to face the Riddler and in sync said, “We’re ghosts.” And to the eyes of Edward Nygma, all three were for that moment in their true ghost forms. They all then walked over to the body of the goon who had died. Bruce mentioned something about a no-killing rule.

Danielle found a tarp and covered the body. She appeared to be looking at something and muttered something under her breath before looking at Bruce.

“It was his time, he would have had that heart attack whether we were here or not.” She said softly and continued,

“At least she was here to comfort and guide him, with the ectoplasm from all three of us, along with the abnormally high ambient levels he wouldn’t have moved on properly.”

“Who?” Joker asked, praying his suspicions were wrong.

“Death,” Danielle said, proving his suspicions depressingly correct.

“And how would you know he was meant to die, he was a good man!” One of the goons yelled.

“His name was in the ledger.” Dani covered her mouth as soon as she spoke. She knew only the ancients and the royal family knew about the ledger. For some reason unknown to her and her family she is also one of three spirits who can read the ledger. Something not even her father could do. When she asked Clockwork about it, until she was born only death and time could read it.

“Danielle!” Danny chided his daughter.

“You mortals will never speak another word of the ledger!” Danny’s voice echoed unnaturally loud through the warehouse and every mortal's soul. He looked at Bruce who looked like he had some questions,

“Let's just say for a reason only Ancients know why, she has some unique abilities when it comes to death.” Bruce nodded, understanding that was all he was going to get. All three stood around until Red Hood, Robin, Bat Girl, Red Robin, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz who was armed with a Fenton Anti-Creep Stick burst through the door. Only to be disappointed that the fight was over.

“How did she do?” Sam asked.

“Phantastic!” Danny grinned as Danielle leaped into Sam’s arms yelling “Mommy” as she nuzzled into the woman. The vigilantes called the GCPD for the pick up and they all got back into the assault vehicle. In the vehicle, Dani gave Redhood a purple green, and white crystal saying it was a gift from the royal family as thanks for letting them stay in the city.

“Thanks?” He said slowly.

“That’s one half of the Joker’s soul. Anything that Crystal experiences he will.” She smiled.

“So if I shoot it?”

“He will experience the pain of being shot.” Jason grinned at this, then frowned

“Does this mean as long as this crystal exists he will not be able to die?”

“No, while it may be impossible to destroy the crystal, it will crumble to dust when it is his time,” Dani reassured him.

“And when will that be?” Jason said, eyes glowing. Danielle looked to see her father glaring at her.

“I couldn’t tell you, just know basically that gives you the ability to torture him whenever you like. It’s like a supernatural stress ball.” She said as Bruce sighed in disappointment. Jason however grinned like a madman and began poking the crystal with one of his knives.

“I think I’m going to like this gift.”

#danny fenton #ghost king au #dani phantom #danielle phantom #vlad masters #death of the endless #bruce wayne #the joker #the riddler #dpxdc #dpxdc au #dp x dc fanfic #The long road of how starting a fight with superman over clone parenting eventually lead to Danny Phantom become God

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heytheredeann · 6 months

Text

20 questions for fic writers

I was tagged by @cha-melodius, thank you! <3<3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

439! The plan is posting two more tonight so hopefull that will soon be 441 LOL.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

939,623! Almost a million yay!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment mostly TMFU, I have been getting into writing Banana Fish fic too, and I write for The Witcher, though less frequently than TMFU.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Stretch (Buck/Eddie+Christopher, 911, 3x02 AU)

Everywhere I'm looking now, I'm surrounded by your embrace (Harvey/Mike, Suits, soulmates AU)

I held your hand as you shook in the middle of the night (Geralt/Jaskier, The Witcher, 1x06 fix-it)

Leave it unspoken (Harvey/Mike, Suits, a serial killer on the loose AU looool I had forgotten about this one)

Concession (Geralt/Jaskier, The Witcher, Geralt likes being the little spoon fic)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yesssss, I'm like constantly behind and sometimes I answer months late, but I love answering because 1) comments make me so happy and I want the readers who took the time to let me know they enjoyed the fic to KNOW THAT, 2) talking about fics is SO much fun, I think that discussing things in the comments is the best part of posting.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

LOOOOOOOOOOOL filter for MCD on my Ao3 and take your pick. But I'd go with either Forever is the sweetest con (Napoleon/Illya/Gaby, TMFU) because the story is told backwards, so you start with post-MCD and end pre-MCD, so the ending is happy but. well. the happiness is gone already and you know it LOL, or maybe Meaner than my demons, colder than this home (Napoleon/Illya/Gaby, TMFU), purely because generally speaking when I play with MCD I kill just one of them off and leave the other two to pick up the pieces, but here there's just Napoleon left, so. probably worse than the others LOL.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Sooo, I tend to write one-shots, and I HAVE written fluffy fics, but I think I'll go with Something gets lost from a safe distance (Napoleon/Illya, TMFU) because it's part of a three-part series that's all emotional hurt/comfort, and then it ends with fluffy kissing so.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Eh, it has happened, I think it's inevitable if you have been doing this for long enough LOL.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not usually, I did write a TMFU/Supernatural crossover though LOL.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yesss, more than once and it's always extremely flattering that someone would want to go through all that effort <3

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Right now I feel particularly strongly about the TMFU OT3 but like. I love so many.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I HAVE MULTIPLE LONGFICS SITTING IN MY DRAFTS DAMMIT. I just never want to post longfics unless I have either a first draft for every chapter or at the very least an extremely detailed outline for every chapter, which means that I end up always posting one-shots LOL. Two notable mentions among these longfics are a "Napoleon gets amnesia and bullshits his way through it to avoid telling anyone because he has trust issues" fic and an AU with Illya as a ghost that's a whole angsty mess. help me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Eeeeeeeh the emotions I'd say. Or I HOPE so, since that's pretty much 80% of my writing loooool Also there a lot of lines of dialogue that I come up with that I unironically like.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plots for one, I just tend to write snapshots with no real plot most of the time, and action. I don't LIKE writing it, which means I can never tell if it's boring or if I'm just projecting, and I tend to avoid it. ...also romance/attraction/getting-together. My aroace ass never knows what is believable romance and what are just tv show tropes that are not actually real LOL.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I generally don't do it and keep to the language of the narration, just clarifying "X says in German" if there's a change of language. I write limited third POV, so I just see it as "filtering" everything through the lens of the person that we are seeing the perspective of. If I'm writing from Gaby's POV, for instance (she's German but fluent in English), I feel like TECHNICALLY the narration should be in German, so by writing in English I have already chosen a filter that is not 100% accurate. But that's the filter I'm going with, so English is the language that Gaby is communicating to the reader in, so everything should be communicated through English lens: if she's talking to someone in English, I will just write the lines with no specifications, if she's talking in German I still write in English and write "in German" in the narration, and if someone speaks a language she doesn't know I don't write the actual dialogue because she doesn't understand it, so the reader doesn't get to see it either.

I hope this makes some sort of sense LOOOOOL, I don't really mind any way I've seen this done, but this is how I prefer to go about it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Fallen book series. LOL.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Evil question, go directly to jail, do not collect 100$. This answer will absolutely change every five minutes, but right now I'm particularly feeling Souvenir from a life left behind (Napoleon/Illya, TMFU), just a tiny dissolution of UNCLE fic with Napoleon angsting.

Tagging: @imgoingtofreakoutnow @ikeepwatchinghelicopters @thetamehistorian @huggiebird @deducitetemporacarmen @set-phasers-to-whump @cherryjuicegf @geralt-of-vengerberg and anyone else who hasn't done this yet and wants to play <3

#i had so much fun with this sdfghjkl #ely has shit to say #not spn #tag game #cha-melodius

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talltalesandbedtimestories · 8 months

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Got any AO3 tips we can add to our upcoming podcast recording?

Hi all, if you aren't already aware, I co-host a podcast with @sam-is-my-safeword (Karlee) called @idlingintheimpalapodcast. We talk Supernatural, the fanfic it inspires, and whatever tangentially our discussions lead us.

We are preparing to record an AO3 tips and tricks episode this Friday (September 8th). We want to know your AO3 secrets. Whether you are a fanfic reader or writer, please share in replies or send me or the podcast account a message.

It can be ways you sort or filter, things you've learned along the way when it came to posting a story, bookmarks, tagging, whatever.

Also, give us a listen and maybe subscribe or follow? We are always looking for new people to connect with about things we love.

Thanks!

Sandra

#podcast #suggestion #ao3 #tips and tricks #spn fanfic

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arcticlutra · 1 year

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Look...my feed is this horrifically chaotic, upsetting and rage inducing feed.

However, despite everything it is somehow chaotically lucid.

That being said, it has recently been invaded by Tim Drake x Danny Phantom stuff.

I have never seen any Danny Phantom stuff, but I am aware of it as it is something I have to filter out on AO3 searches alongside Supernatural, HP and Miraculous Ladybug.

Therefore, I peg this entire issue of sudden onslaught on one person's shoulders: @chamiryokuroi take a bow.

You've somehow gotten me hooked on another pairing without me wanting to.

I hope you're happy.

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yatorihell · 3 months

Text

In The Darkness Chapter 87 - The Battle of Hogwarts Part Three

Noragami x Harry Potter au

Word count: 11,931

Summary: The battle rages on, Yato Hiyori and Yukine work on destroying Horcruxes, and a twist of fate changes the course of the battle.

Read on AO3

The West Towers Coridoor was deserted, near silent if not for the distant sounds of discord stirring in the bowels of the castle beneath the flagstone. Hiyori stood at the bottom of the spiral staircase, standing guard but also giving Yato the privacy to speak to Rowena alone - they say she was shy. It was best not to overwhelm her.

Yato stepped carefully. He had heard of the Grey Lady - the most elusive ghost Hogwarts had to offer -, and he knew that she hid herself high up in the castle. Opalescent light filtered through the latticed windows and dappled his face as he made his way forward. The profile of a woman, forlorn and young and beautiful, watching over the Forbidden Forest greeted him.

She turned, and Yato’s heart flipped unexpectedly. A flash of recognition seemed to cross her face before it was covered with apprehension as if she herself had seen a ghost.

“You're the Grey Lady. The ghost of Ravenclaw Tower,” Yato said softly.

Helena’s face shifted, anger and hurt mixing in a grimace as she turned and floated away. “I do not answer to that name!”

“I’m sorry!” Yato lurched forward, a hand futilely reaching out though he could never touch her. “I’m – I need help, there is something in this castle. A dia –.”

“You seek my mother's diadem?” the ghost cut him off, dress swirling in the air as she stopped and turned back to him. The hurt hadn’t left her face, but the anger was replaced by suspicion.

Yato paused, staring at the Grey Lady’s questioning expression. The familiarity of the shell of the woman before him clicked into place, each feature near identical to the portraits of her mother that watched the halls. Hiyori was right – the only person who would know where the diadem was had been long dead –, it was Rowena’s own daughter.

“You’re Helena Ravenclaw.” It came out as a statement rather than a question.

“Yes.”

Yato shook himself from his stupor. “Hiyori – my friend – said that you can help, that you know where the diadem is,” Yato began, but he was abruptly cut off.

“I cannot help you!” Helena turned once more, retreating into the dark shadows of the abandoned turret in a gauze of ashen crinoline.

“Wait, please! I want to destroy it!” Yato lurched forward again, feeling more and more encroaching on Helena’s ancient territory but unable to stop himself in his desperation. “I thought you wanted to do it. Isn't it, Helena? You want it destroyed?”

Once again Helena paused, wavering in consciousness and appearance.

“Another promised to destroy it many years ago,” she said softly. “But he lied.”

“I know, I know what he has done, what he can do-,” Yato started.

“I know what he's done! I know who he is! He defiled it, with dark magic!” Helena screamed. Her face had contorted supernaturally for the briefest of seconds, reminding Yato that this was a woman who had lived and loved and died with a broken heart centuries before he was even born.

“I can destroy it, once and for all! But only if you tell me where he hid it! You do know where he hid it? Don't you, Helena?” Yato pleaded. “You just have to tell me.”

“You remind me of him a bit,” Helena said softly, head tilted to the side.

Yato inwardly flinched.

“It's here, in the castle. In the place where everything is hidden. If you have to ask, you will never know. If you know… you need only ask.” Rowena drifted away, and the implications of her words lit the lightbulb within Yato’s head.

“Thank you!”

Out in the dark night, Yato saw bursts of light in the distance and heard the first scream. He looked down at his watch. It was midnight. The battle had begun.

He hurried along the corridor. Yato could hear movement through the corridors all around: running footsteps, and shouts, and through the windows he could see more flashes of light in the dark grounds.

The first casualties of the battle were already strewn across the passage ahead. He skidded around a final corner and with a yell of mingled relief he saw Hiyori and Yukine.

“I know where to go,” Yato said.

There was an explosion from overhead; all three of them ducked, then looked up as dust fell from the ceiling.

"I know what the diadem looks like, and I know where it is,” said Yato, talking fast. "It's where I hid my old Potions book, where everyone's been hiding stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come on.”

As the walls trembled again, Yato led the way back through the concealed entrance and down the staircase into the Room of Requirement. It was empty except for one person. Kofuku turned, wand raised in defense before she realised who had entered.

"Tell us what's going on! Is everyone okay?" Kofuku asked.

"I don't know. Are there still people in the passage to the Hog’s Head?" Yato asked. He knew that the room would not be able to transform while there were still users inside it.

"I was the last to come through," said Kofuku. "I sealed it, I think it unwise to leave it open now Amaterasu is here.”

Yato looked at Kofuku. "I thought you were supposed to be with Daigo?”

'I couldn't stand not knowing…," Kofuku looked anguished. “Have you seen Daikoku?”

“He was planning to lead a group of fighters into the grounds.”

Without another word, Kofuku sped off through the Room of Requirement towards the doors on the opposite side.

It was clear, as the three of them stepped back into the corridor upstairs that the castle had deteriorated severely. The walls and ceiling were shaking worse than ever; dust filled the air, and through the nearest window, Yato saw bursts of green and red light so close to the foot of the castle that he knew the Death Eaters must be very near to entering the castle.

They saw Professor Tsuyu and Professor Takemikazuchi, both with their wands drawn at the next shattered window. Even as they watched, Professor Tsuyu sent a well-aimed jinx into a crowd of fighters below.

"Good shot!" roared a figure running through the dust toward them, and Yato saw Daikoku, storming headfirst into the fray with a small group of students past. "They're breaching the north battlements, they've brought giants!”

Yato briefly thought of Kofuku searching for Daikoku, but shook the thought away. They had to find the diadem. They ran back to the stretch of wall beyond which the Room of Requirement was waiting to do the bidding of the next entrant.

I need the place where everything is hidden, Yato begged of it inside his head, and the door materialized on their third run past.

The furor of the battle died the moment they crossed the threshold and closed the door behind them. All was silent. They were in a place the size of a cathedral with the appearance of a city, its towering walls built of objects hidden by thousands of long-gone students.

"And he never realized anyone could get in?" said Yukine, his voice echoing in the silence.

"He thought he was the only one," said Yato. "Unfortunately for him, Hiyori found it in the first place. And I've had to hide stuff in my time. This way."

Yato gestured down an aisle ahead. "I think it's down here.”

They passed the stuffed troll and the Vanishing Cabinet, then hesitated, looking up and down aisles of junk; he could not remember where to go next…

"Accio Diadem!" cried Hiyori in desperation, but nothing stirred. It seemed that, like the vault at Gringotts, the room would not yield its hidden objects that easily.

"Let's split up," Yato suggested. "Look for a stone bust of an old man wearing a tiara! It's standing on a cupboard somewhere near here…”

They sped off up adjacent aisles; Yato could hear the others' footsteps echoing through the towering piles of junk. Bottles, crates, broken chairs, thick tomes, rusting weapons, outdated broomsticks, and Quidditch bats all littered his field of vision.

"Somewhere near here," Yato muttered to himself.

Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth he went, looking for objects he recognized from his prior trip into the room. His breath was loud in his ears, and then his very soul seemed to shiver: There it was, right ahead, the blistered old cupboard in which he had hidden his old Potions book, and on top of it, the pockmarked stone warlock wearing what looked like an ancient, bejeweled tiara.

Yato stretched out his hand when a voice behind him spoke.

"Hold it.”

Yato turned abruptly, wand drawn. Two Deatheaters were standing behind him - unmasked yet unrecognisable -, shoulder to shoulder, wands pointing right at Yato. Through the small space between their bodies he saw Nora.

"That's my wand, Yato," said Nora, pointing her own through the gap.

“Not anymore," Yato replied, tightening his grip on the hawthorn wand. " Winners, keepers, Nora. Who's lent you theirs?"

"Father,'" said Nora.

Yato laughed, though there nothing very humorous about was the situation. He could not hear Yukine or Hiyori anymore. They seemed to have run out of earshot, searching for the diadem.

"So how come you aren't with the Sorcerer? Or Father?" asked Yato.

“We're gonna be rewarded," a Deatheater interrupted. "We bring back Yaboku and he will reward us."

'Good plan,'" said Yato in mock admiration.

He could not believe that he was this close, and was going to be thwarted by Nora and these idiots. He began edging slowly backward toward the place where the Horcrux sat lopsided upon the bust. If he could just get his hands on it before the fight broke out…

"So how did you get in here?" Yato asked, trying to distract them.

"I lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year,” said Nora, her voice brittle. "I know how to get in.”

"Yato?" Yukine's voice echoed suddenly from the other side of the wall to Yato's right. "Are you talking to someone?"

The speaking Deatheater whirled around, pointed his wand at the fìfty-foot mountain of old furniture, broken trunks, old books, and unidentifiable junk, and shouted, "Descendio!"

The wall began to totter, and then the top third crumbled into the aisle next door where Yukine stood.

"Yukine!" Yato bellowed, as somewhere out of sight Hiyori screamed, and Yato heard innumerable objects crashing to the floor on the other side of the destabilized wall. He pointed his wand at the rampart, and cried, "Finite!" and it steadied.

"No!" shouted Nora, grabbing the Deatheaters arm. "If you wreck the room, you might bury the diadem!"

“What's that matter?" He growled, tugging himself free. "It's Yaboku the Sorcerer wants, who cares about a diadem?"

"Yato came in here to get it," said Nora with impatience at the slow-wittedness of her colleagues, "so that must mean-”

"Must mean?" He turned on Nora with undisguised ferocity. “Who cares what you think? You're just a filthy -.”

"Yato?" shouted Yukine again from the other side of the junk wall. "What's going on?"

In the split second the Deatheater had turned to sneer at the wall, Yato had lunged for the tiara. A curse missed him but hit the stone bust, which flew into the air; the diadem soared upward and then dropped out of sight in the mountain of objects on which the mass bust had rested.

"STOP!" Nora shouted, her voice echoing through the enormous room. "Father wants him alive-!”

"So? I'm not killing him, am I?" yelled the Deatheater, throwing off Nora's restraining arm. "But if I can, I will. The Sorcerer wants him dead anyway, what's the diff-?”

A jet of scarlet light shot past Yato by inches: Hiyori had run around the corner behind him and sent a Stunning Spell straight at the Deatheater's head. It only missed because Nora pulled him out of the way.

"It's that Mudblood! Avada Kedavra!"

Yato saw Hiyori dive aside, and his fury that he had aimed to kill wiped all else from his mind. He shot a Stunning Spell back at the Deatheater, who lurched out of the way, knocking Nora's wand out of her hand. It rolled out of sight beneath a mountain of broken furniture and boxes.

"Don't kill him! DON'T KILL HIM!" Nora yelled at the two Deatheaters who were both aiming at Yato.

Their split-second's hesitation was all Yato needed.

"Expelliarmus!"

The first Deatheater's wand flew out of his hand and disappeared into the litany of objects beside him. Nora jumped out of range of Hiyori's second Stunning Spell, and Yukine, appearing suddenly at the end of the aisle shot a full Body-Bind Curse at the remaining Deatheater, which narrowly missed him. He wheeled around and screamed, "Avada Kedavra!"

Yukine leaped out of sight to avoid the jet of green light. The wandless Nora cowered behind a three-legged wardrobe as Hiyori charged toward them, hitting the offending Deatheater with a Stunning Spell as she came.

"It's somewhere here!" Yato yelled at her, pointing at the pile of junk into which the old tiara had fallen. "Look for it while I go and help Yukine!”

"Yato!" she screamed. A roaring, billowing noise behind him gave him a moment's warning. He turned and saw both Yukine and the Deatheater running as hard as they could up the aisle toward them.

A wall of fire had engulfed the room behind them, licking up the sides of the junk, which were crumbling to soot at their touch.

"Aguamenti!" Yato cried, but the jet of water that soared from the tip of his wand evaporated in the air.

"RUN!"

Nora grabbed the Deatheater closest to her and dragged him along. Yato, Yukine, and Hiyori pelted along in their wake, and the fire pursued them.

It was not normal fire; whatever curse it was Yato did not know. As they turned a corner the flames chased them as though they were alive; sentient, intent upon killing them. Now the fire was mutating, forming a gigantic pack of fiery beasts: Flaming serpents, chimeras, and dragons rose and fell and rose again, and the detritus of centuries on which they were feeding was thrown up in the air into their fanged mouths, tossed high on clawed feet, before being consumed by the inferno. Nora, and the Deatheaters had vanished from view. Yato, Yukine, and Hiyori stopped dead; the fiery monsters were circling them, drawing closer and closer, claws and horns and tails lashed, and the heat was as solid as a wall around them.

“What can we do?" Hiyori screamed over the deafening roars of the fire. "What do we do?"

"Here!"

Yato seized a pair of heavy-looking broomsticks from the nearest pile of junk and threw one to Hiyori, who pulled Yukine onto it behind her. Yato swung his leg over the second broom and, with hard kicks to the ground, they soared up into the air, missing by the horned beak of a flaming beast that snapped its jaws at them. The smoke and heat were becoming overwhelming. Below them the cursed fire was consuming the secrets of the past, lost treasures, and guilty pleasures that had been squirreled away. Yato couldn't see a trace of Nora anywhere.

He swooped as low as he dared over the marauding monsters of flame to try to find them, but there was nothing but fire

What a terrible way to die… He had never wanted this…

“Yato, let's get out, let's get out!" bellowed Yukine, though it was impossible to see where the door was through the black smoke.

And then Yato heard a thin, piteous human scream from amidst the terrible commotion the thunder of devouring flame.

"It's too dangerous-!" Hiyori yelled, but Yato wheeled in the air. He raked the firestorm below, seeking a sign of life, a limb, or a face that was not yet burnt to ash.

And he saw her: Nora with an arm shielding her face, perched on a fragile tower of charred desks. Yat threw a desperate look at Hiyori and Yukine, and despite the evident understanding of his intention, Yukine bellowed, "IF WE DIE FOR HER, I'LL KILL YOU!"

Yato dived. Nora saw him coming and raised one arm, and as a great flaming chimera bore down upon them, Yato's hand grasped Nora's and heaved her into the air. The broom rocked and pitched dangerously as Yato hauled Nora up behind him, the flames rising higher than he could climb.

"The door, get to the door, the door!" screamed Nora in Yato's ear, and Yato sped up, following Yukine and Hiyori through the billowing black smoke, hardly able to breathe. All around them, the last few objects unburned by the devouring flames were flung into the air, as the creatures of the cursed fire cast them high: cups and shields, a sparkling necklace, and an old, discolored tiara.

“There!” Hiyori cried, her finger eagerly directed ahead. “The door!”

Then, through the smoke, Yato saw a rectangular patch on the wall and steered the broom at it. Nora was screaming and holding Yato so tightly it hurt, and he cast a final look back into the rushing flames. The diadem seemed to fall in slow motion, turning and glittering as it dropped toward the maw of a yawning serpent, and then it vanished, and Yato's vision whited out.

My Lord…

The Sorcerer stood in a strangely familiar room. The sounds of the assault on the castle were muffled and distant. The single unblocked window revealed distant bursts of light where the castle stood. He was rolling his wand between his fingers.

"Aren't - aren't you afraid, my Lord, that Yaboku might die at another hand but yours?" asked Oshi, her voice shaking. "Wouldn't it be… forgive me, more prudent to seek him y-yourself?"

“I do not need to seek Yaboku. Before the night is out he will have come to find me.” The Sorcerer dropped his gaze once more to the wand in his fingers.

"Go and fetch Kuguha.”

""Kuguha, m-my Lord?"

"Kuguha. Now. I need him. Go."

Frightened, stumbling a little through the gloom, Oshi left the room. The Sorcerer continued to stand there, twirling the wand between his fingers, staring at it.

"It is the only way," he whispered.

And then it hit - the Horcrux, consumed by cursed flame, rendering another part of the Sorcerer's soul incinerated. He doubled over with a sharp gasp, and the splintering of wood filled the air.

Yato saw flashes before his eyes and the Sorcerer's figure doubled and collapsed to the floor; the glitter of black scales shifting and transforming to flesh. Black hair…

Blue eyes.

Yato heaved a wheezy breath as he came too, soot blurring his sight. Clean air filled his lungs and he rolled to his side. The door to the Room of Requirement had vanished, and Yukine and Hiyori sat panting on the floor. Nora was nowhere to be seen.

“What the hell was that?” Yukine demanded, more so at the blank walls than anyone else.

"It must have been Fiendfyre…” Hiyori coughed. Yato and Yukine looked at her, and she elaborated. "Cursed fire - it's one of the substances that destroy. No one dares use it, it's so dangerous…”

“At least that's another Horcrux destroyed,” Yato murmured.

There was silence, apart from panting and coughing. Then a number of huge bangs shook the castle. The battle was still going on all around them. They could hear more screams. Panic flared within Yato.

"But don't you realize?" whispered Hiyori. “This means if we can just get the snake-.”

But she broke off as yells and shouts and the unmistakable noises of dueling filled the corridor. Yato looked around and his heart faltered; Death Eaters had penetrated Hogwarts.

Yato, Yukine, and Hiyori scrambled forward to help, leaving Nora on the floor coughing. Jets of light flew in every direction, teachers and students dueling masked and hooded men in the corridor ahead. Bodies littered the floor, the injured being protected and half-dragged into the cover of alcoves. Yato raised his wand, the beginnings of a curse on his lips, and the air exploded. Yato felt himself flying through the air, and all he could do was hold as tightly as possible to his wand and shield his head in his arms. He heard the screams and yells of his friends without a hope of knowing what had happened to them.

And then the world shuttered itself into darkness.

He was half buried in the wreckage of a corridor that had been subjected to a violent attack. The cold air blowing over his face told him that the side of the castle had been blown away, and hot stickiness on his cheek told him that he was bleeding. Then he heard a terrible cry that pulled at his insides, and he stood up, swaying.

Hiyori was struggling to her feet in the wreckage. Yato grabbed her hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood. Yukine's filthy blond hair rose from a shattered frame, and Yato gripped him bodily and hauled him up, holding him tightly, vision blurred but mind functioning as he tried to piece together what had happened. A body fell past the hole blown into the side of the school, and curses flew in at them from the darkness, hitting the wall behind their heads.

"Get down!" Yato shouted, as more curses flew through the night. He and Yukine had both grabbed Hiyori and pulled her to the floor.

Hiyori screamed, and Yato, turning, did not need to ask why. A monstrous spider the size of a small car was trying to climb through the huge hole in the wall; one of the Sorcerer’s disciples. Yukine and Yato shouted together; their spells collided and the monster was blown backward, its legs jerking horribly, and vanished into the darkness.

"There's more!" Yato called to the others, glancing over the edge of the castle through the hole in the wall the curses had blasted.

More giant spiders were climbing the side of the building, liberated from the Forbidden Forest, which the Death Eaters must have into penetrated. Yato fired Stunning Spells down upon them, knocking the lead monster into its fellows so that they rolled back down. Curses came soaring over the building and out of sight. Then more over Yato's head, so close he felt the force of them blow his hair.

"Move, NOW!"

Pushing Hiyori ahead of him with Yukine, Yato shot Stunning spells behind at the end of the corridor, which was now full of dust and falling masonry, glass long gone from the windows, he saw many people running backward and forward, whether friends or foes he could not tell.

"Yato, in here!" Hiyori screamed. She had pulled Yukine behind a tapestry and into an abandoned room that had been overlooked. Yato slammed the door shut behind him, the cries of battle barely muffled through the thick wood.

“We need the snake, we've got to kill the snake!" said Hiyori. She turned to Yato. “Where Yato? Where do we go?”

Yato hadn't a second to consider what his latest vision had meant, but one thing was for certain:

"He's in the Shrieking Shack. He's just sent Oshi to find Kuguha.”

Hiyori recoiled. "The Sorcerer is in the Shrieking Shack?" said Hiyori. "He's not even fighting?"

“He doesn't think he needs to fight," said Yato. "He thinks I'm going to go to him.”

"But why?"

'He knows I'm after Horcruxes - he should be keeping Nagini close beside him - obviously, I'm going to have to go to him to get near it.”

“Right," said Yukine, squaring his shoulders. "So you can't go, that's what he wants, that he's expecting. You stay here and look after Hiyori, and I'll go and get it -.”

Yato cut over Yukine. "You two stay here, I'll go under the Cloak and I'll be back as soon as I-.”

"No," said Hiyori, "it makes much more sense if I take the Cloak and-.”

The door behind Yato was ripped open.

"HERE!!"

Two masked Deatheaters stood there, but even before their wands were fully raised, Yukine shouted, “EXPULSO!”

Yato threw himself to the ground with Hiyori, the curse just missing his head. Both Deatheaters let out yells and were sent soaring back across the corridor, hitting the wall with a sickening crunch before falling in a heap on the floor.

Yukine flung himself towards the door, wand raised as he checked for reinforcements. There was a clatter of wood scraping on flagstone as a herd of galloping desks, chairs, and wardrobes thundered past, shepherded by a sprinting Professor Tsuyu. She appeared not to notice them; her hair flew behind her and there was a gash on her cheek. As she turned the corner, they heard her scream, "CHARGE!"

"Yato, put the Cloak on," said Hiyori. "Leave us and just-.”

But Yato threw it over all three of them; large though they were, he doubted anyone would notice their disembodied feet through the shattered stone, broken glass, and ongoing chaos.

They ran down the next staircase and found themselves in a corridor full of duelers. The portraits on either side of the fighters were crammed with figures screaming warnings and encouragement, while Deatheaters, both masked and unmasked, dueled students and teachers. Yato, Yukine, and Hiyori raised their wands at once, ready to protect each other, but the duelers had paid their cumbersome entrance and out-of-place body parts no mind.

'LET'S GO!" Yato yelled, and he, Yukine, and Hiyori gathered the cloak tightly around themselves and pelted, heads down, through the midst of the fighters, toward the top of the marble staircase into the entrance hall.

There were more duelers all over the stairs and in the hall; Deatheaters everywhere Yato looked, students in every direction, some carrying or running and dragging injured friends.

Yato directed a Stunning Spell toward a masked Deatheater; it missed but nearly hit BLANK, who had emerged from nowhere brandishing armfuls of Venomous Tentacula, which looped itself happily around the nearest Deatheater and began reeling him in.

Yato, Yukine, and Hiyori sped down the marble staircase. Two bodies fell from the balcony overhead as they reached the ground, and a gray blur that Yato took for an animal sped four-legged across the hall to sink its teeth into one of the fallen.

"NO! shrieked Hiyori, and with a deafening blast from her wand, the creature was thrown backward from the feebly stirring body of Touma. It hit the marble banisters and struggled to return to its feet. Then, with a bright white flash and crack, a crystal ball fell on top of its head, and crumpled to the ground and did not move.

"I have more!" shrieked Kofuku from over the banisters. "More for any who want them! Here!”

And with a movement like a tennis serve, she heaved another enormous crystal sphere from her bag, waved her wand through the hall and smashed through air, and caused the ball to speed across the window. At the same moment, the heavy wooden front doors burst open, and more of the gigantic spiders forced their way into the entrance hall.

Screams of terror split the air: The fighters scattered, Deatheaters and Hogwartians alike, and red and green jets of light flew into the midst of the oncoming monsters, which shuddered and reared, more terrifying than ever.

"How do we get out?" yelled Yukine over all the screaming, but before either Yato or Hiyori could answer they were bowled aside by one of the spiders scuttering past into the fray.

“RUN!" Yato roared. The night was full of hideous yells, and he seized Hiyori's hand and tore down the steps into the grounds, Yukine bringing up the rear. He ran so fast that they were halfway toward the forest before they were skidded to a halt.

The air around them had frozen. Yato's breath caught in his chest. Shapes moved out in the darkness, swirling figures of rags and decay, moving in a great wave toward the castle, their faces hooded and their breath rattling.

Yukine and Hiyori closed in beside him as the sounds of fighting behind them grew suddenly muted, deadened because a silence only Dementors could bring was falling thickly through the night.

"Come on, Yato!" said Hiyori's voice from a very long way away. “Patronuses, Yato!"

He raised his wand, but a dull hopelessness was spreading through him. How many more lay dead that he did not yet know about? How many more? He felt as though his soul had already half left his body.

'Yato, COME ON!" screamed Hiyori.

A hundred dementors were advancing, gliding toward them, sucking their way closer to Yato's despair, like blood to a shark.

He saw Yukine's silver hare burst into the air, flicker feebly, and expire; he saw Hiyori's wolf twist in midair and fade, the begins of a howl dying on its snout, and his own wand trembled in his hand, and he almost welcomed the oncoming oblivion, the promise of nothing…

And then a silver lion leaped overhead, followed closely by a bounding labrador. The Dementors fell back before the creatures approached. Yato's vision blurred back, and the thundering of hooves beside him brought him back to reality; help had arrived. Astride a snapping Hippogriff, their wands outstretched and tethered to their patronuses.

Bishamon and Kazuma.

"That's right," Bishamon encouraged. "That's right… come on, think of something happy.”

Something happy? Yato thought. It seemed impossible right now.

“We're going to win this," Kazuma whispered.

There was a silver spark, then a wavering light, and then, Yato's Patronus burst from the end of his wand. It cantered forward, and now the dementors scattered in earnest, and immediately the night was mild again, but the sounds of the battle were loud in his ears.

“Thank you," said Yukine shakily, turning to Bishamon and Kazuma. "You saved us.”

With a roar and an earth-quaking tremor, a troll came lurching out of the darkness from the direction of the forest, brandishing a club taller than any of them.

“RUN! Yato shouted again. They all scattered, and in the next moment, the creature's vast foot had fallen exactly where they had been standing.

Yato looked around - Yukine and Hiyori were following him, but the Bishamon and Kazuma had vanished back into the battle aside Buckbeak.

“Move out the way!" yelled Yukine as the troll swung its club again and its bellows echoed through the night, across the grounds where bursts of red and green light continued to illuminate the darkness.

"The Whomping Willow," said Yato, "Go!"

Somehow he walled it all up in his mind - its secret tunnel, and the memories of the Shrieking Shack where he has finally met Sakura.

He could not think of it now. They must reach the snake and the Sorcerer, because that was, as Hiyori said, the only way to end it.

He sprinted, half believing he could out-distance death itself, ignoring the jets of light flying in the darkness all around him, through grounds that seemed themselves to have risen in rebellion. He ran faster than he had ever moved in his life, and it was he who saw the great tree, its roots with whiplike, first, the Willow that protected the secret with slashing branches.

Panting and gasping, Yato slowed down, skirting the Willow's swiping branches, peering through the darkness toward its thick trunk and its entrance.

Yukine and Hiyori caught up, Hiyori so out of breath she could not speak.

Yato raised his wand and free hand and the Whomping Willow stilled, its branches floating into the air as if it had broken the laws of gravity.

“Perfect!" panted Yukine, taking a step forward.

"Wait."

For one faltering second, while the crashes and booms of the battle filled the air, Yato hesitated. The Sorcerer wanted him to do this, wanted him to come… Was he leading Yukine and Hiyori into a trap?

But then the reality seemed to hit: The only way forward was to kill the snake, and the snake was where the Sorcerer was, and he was at the end of this tunnel…

"Yato, we're coming, just get in there!" said Yukine, pushing him forward. Yato wriggled into the earthy passage hidden in the tree's roots.

It was a much tighter squeeze than it had been the last time they had entered it.

Yato went first, his wand illuminated, expecting at any moment to meet a threat, but none came. They moved in silence, Yato's gaze fixed upon the path ahead.

At last, the tunnel began to slope upward and Yato saw a sliver of light ahead. Hiyori tugged at his ankle.

“The Cloak!" she whispered. "Put the Cloak on!"

He groped behind him and she forced the cloth into his free hand. With difficulty he dragged it over himself, murmured, "Nox,'" extinguishing his wand light, and continued on his hands and knees, as silently as possible, all his senses straining, expecting every second to be discovered, to hear a cold clear voice, see a flash of green light.

Then he heard voices coming from the room directly ahead of them, only slightly muffled by the fact that the opening at the end of the tunnel had been blocked up by what looked like an old crate.

Hardly daring to breathe, Yato edged right up to the opening and peered through a tiny gap left between the crate and the wall.

The room beyond was dimly lit, but he could see Nagini, swirling and coiling midair. He could see the edge of a table, and a long-fingered hand toying with a wand. Then Kuguha spoke, and Yato's heart lurched.

“My Lord, their resistance is crumbling,” Kuguha said appeasingly. “Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Yato. I know I can find him, my Lord.”

Kuguha strode past the gap, and Yato drew back a little, keeping his eyes fixed upon Nagini, wondering whether there was any spell that might penetrate the protection surrounding her, but he could not think of anything. One failed attempt, and he would give away his position.

The Sorcerer stood up. Yato could see him now, black robes swinging. "I have a problem.”

"My Lord?"

The Sorcerer raised the Elder Wand. "Why doesn't it work for me?"

In the silence, Yato imagined he could hear the snake hissing slightly as it coiled and uncoiled.

"My Lord?" said Kuguha blankly. "I do not understand. You… you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand.”

"No," said the Sorcerer. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand… It has not revealed the wonder it has promised. I feel no difference.”

The Sorcerer's tone was musing, calm, but Yato's head had begun to throb and pulse. Pain was building in his forehead, and he could feel that controlled sense of fury building inside the Sorcerer.

"None at all," said the Sorcerer again.

Yato could not see his face. He wondered not whether Kuguha sensed danger.

The Sorcerer started to move around the room. Yato lost sight of him for a few seconds as he prowled, speaking in that same measured voice, while the pain and fury mounted in Yato. "I have thought long and hard. Do you know why I have called you back from the battle?"

And for a moment Yato saw Kuguha’s profile; his eyes were fixed upon the coiling snake in its enchanted cage.

"No, my Lord. But please allow me to find Yaboku."

"You sound like Oshi. Neither of you understands him as I do. He does not need to be found; Yaboku will come home to me. I know his weakness. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it's his fault. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come.”

"But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than yourself-.”

“My instructions have been perfectly clear: Capture Yaboku. Kill his friends, but do no more, do not kill him. But you," the Sorcerer ceased pacing. "You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable. It's you that I wished to speak, not Yaboku.”

Kuguha shuffled his feet. "I seek only to serve you. But - let me go and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can -.”

“I have told you, no!" said the Sorcerer, and Yato caught the glint in his eyes as he turned again, and the swishing of his cloak was like the slithering of a snake and he felt his impatience in his head.

“Why did the wands I have used fail when directed at Yaboku?"

"I cannot answer that, my Lord."

"Can't you?"

The stab of rage felt like a spike driven through Yato's head. He forced his fist into his mouth to stop himself from crying out in pain. He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was there, looking into Kuguha’s pale face.

"I-I have no explanation, my Lord.” His dark eyes were still. Kuguha was not looking at Voldemort now. Fixed upon the coiling serpent in its protective sphere.

"I sought a third wand. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Tenjin.'

And now Kuguha looked at his master. There was panic in his eyes. "My Lord - let me go-.”

"All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here,'" said the Sorcerer, his voice barely louder than a whisper, “Wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner… and I think I have the answer.'

Kuguha did not speak.

"Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen.”

"My Lord…”

"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Kuguha, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Tenjin. While you live, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine.”

"My Lord!" Kuguha protested, raising his wand.

"It cannot be any other way," said the Sorcerer. "I must master the wand. Master the wand, and I master Yaboku at last."

He swiped the air with the Elder Wand. It did nothing to Kuguha, who for a split second seemed to think he had been reprieved: But then the Sorcerer's intention became clear. The snake's cage was rolling through the air, and before Kuguha could do anything more than yell, it had encased him, head and shoulders, and Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue.

"Kill.”

There was a terrible scream. Yato saw Kuguha’s face losing the little color it had left; it whitened as his black eyes widened, as the snake's fangs pierced his neck, as he failed to push the enchanted cage off himself, as his knees gave way and he fell to the floor.

“I regret it," said the Sorcerer coldly.

He turned away; there was no sadness in him, no remorse. It was time to leave this shack and take charge, with a wand that would now do his full bidding. He pointed it at the starry cage holding the snake, which drifted upward, off Kuguha, who fell sideways onto the floor, blood gushing from the wounds in his neck. The Sorcerer swept from the room without a backward glance, and the great serpent floated after him in its huge protective sphere.

Back in the tunnel and his own mind, Yato opened his eyes: He had drawn blood biting down on his knuckles in an effort not to shout out. Now he was looking through the tiny crack between crate and wall, watching a foot in a black boot trembling on the floor.

"Yato!" Breathed Hiyori behind him, but he had already pointed his wand at the crate blocking his view. It lifted an inch into the air and drifted sideways silently. As quietly as he could, he pulled himself up into the room.

Yato did not know why he was doing it, why he was forcing his way into the dimly lit room. He did not know what to feel as he approached Kuguha, whose breath rattled and neck was bloody.

Yato took off the Invisibility Cloak and looked down upon the dying man, whose widening eyes found him and Hiyori and Yukine as they clambered out of the gap behind.

Yato grimly drew his wand.

“Yato…” Yukine said hesitantly, almost with a warning tone.

“I'm not,” Yato said softly. “He has information. I need to know what comes next.”

Yato knelt in the growing pool of blood and drew in close. His wand hovered at Kuguha’s head, and a silvery hue, neither gas nor liquid, pulled from his temple, meeting the tip of Yato's wand.

A flask, conjured from thin air, was thrust into his shaking hands by Hiyori. Yato lifted the silvery substance into it with his wand. When the flask was full to the brim, a terrible rasping, gurgling noise wheezed from Kuguha’s throat, and his grip on Yato's robes slackened.

There was a pregnant pause before Hiyori whispered, “Is he dead?”

Yato opened his mouth to reply.

A low, cold voice spoke so close that Yato jumped to his feet, the vial clutched in his fist as he cast his eyes frantically around the room.

The Sorcerer's voice reverberated around the room, and Yato realised the disembodied words were addressing everyone within the castle and the surrounding areas, reaching down into the homes of families in Hogsmeade like a breath down their necks.

“You have fought valiantly," said the cold voice. “The Lord knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist, you will all die, one by one.”

Yato’s heart pounded in his chest, thumping against the fragile glass in his hand.

“I do not wish this to happen.” The voice continued. “Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste. Our Lord is merciful. command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.”

The voice shifted as if stepping around Yato, moving to speak to him directly, faceless.

"I speak to you now, Yaboku. You have allowed your friends to die rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, then battle recommences.”

Yato missed the panicked looks Hiyori and Yukine exchanged, the Sorcerer's terms unfathomable. “This time, I will come myself, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour.”

The voice rang in Yato’s ears.

Both Hiyori and Yukine shook their heads frantically, looking at Yato.

"Don't listen to him," said Yukine.

“It'll be all right," said Hiyori wildly. "Let's get back to the castle, if he's gone to the forest we'll need to think of a new plan”

She glanced at the body, then hurried back to the tunnel entrance. Yukine followed her. Yato gathered up the Invisibility Cloak, and then looked down at Kuguha. He did not know what to feel, except shock at the method of his execution, and the reason for which it had been done.

They crawled back through the tunnel, none of them talking and Yato wondered whether Yukine and Hiyori could still hear the Sorcerer ringing in their heads, as he could.

You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest… One hour.

The three of them hurried toward the stone steps. The forecourt yard was littered with debris and the fallen, Deatheaters and comrades alike. It must've been the small hours of the morning, but the sun had not yet broken over the crest of the mountains.

The castle was unnaturally silent as they hurried across the grass, wands drawn and alert despite the abandoned battlefield. There were no flashes of light now, no cries or screams. The flagstones of the desolate entrance hall were stained with blood, chips of marble, piles of stone, and splintered wood from the banisters creating a carpet that they trod over gently.

“Where is everyone?" whispered Hiyori.

Yukine led the way to the Great Hal, followed closely by Hiyori. Yato stopped in the doorway and took in the ruin before him.

The survivors stood in groups, their arms around each other, or lay on the floor eerily silent. The House tables were pushed to the sides of the Great Hall or acting as medic tables, haphazardly arranged and littered with medical supplies. The injured were being treated by Professor Tsuyu and an assortment of helpers.

Yato’s eyes raked over the devastation. A litany of bodies lay uncovered beneath the enchanted ceiling, some of which he could recognise. Tsuguha, pale and unmoving, with Aiha weeping beside her - her own legs were wrapped in bandages that were already bleeding through. A small girl with black hair and blue lining of her jumper hems; Touma.

Further away he could see more figures. Whether or not they were alive he could not tell, and the fact that there was a medic kneeling between the two forms did not comfort him. His eyes had nearly flicked away when the medic moved, leaning over to the next patient, and Yato caught a glimpse of pink hair and a large hand nearly touching theirs.

The Great Hall seemed to shrink, all the oxygen sucked away as Yato reeled backward from the doorway. He could not breathe. No. He could not stand to watch, to see who else had died for him. He could not bear to join his friends. He could not look into their eyes when if he had given himself up in the first place, this might never have happened.

He turned away and ran up the marble staircase. He wished his heart would stop so that this testing pain would cease, that each screaming heartbeat would still into a peaceful oblivion. His feet instinctively took him to the one place where he would find answers.

The castle was completely empty; even the portraits and ghosts seemed to have joined the mass mourning in the Great Hall.

Yato ran without stopping, clutching the crystal flask of Kuguha’s last thoughts, and he did not slow down until he reached the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office.

"Password?" The door groaned, unfeeling of the chaos around it.

“Tenjin!" said Yato bellowed, fiat slamming against the door. The gargoyle slid aside, revealing the spiral staircase behind.

But when Yato burst into the circular office he found no one. The portraits were empty; not a single headmaster or headmistress remained to see him. They had left to see the ruination of their school, and their beloved students and peers.

Yato glanced hopelessly at Tenjin's deserted frame, the largest which hung directly behind the headmaster's chair, then turned his back on it. His eyes fell on the cabinet to the side of the room. Tenjins pensieve. It had been left open, carelessly, as if its user was abruptly taken from it by some unfolding disaster downstairs.

If Tenjin were not here, then his memories were. And maybe someone else's.

Yato poured Kuguha’s memories and dunked his head to drown out the world.

Yato emerged in a dark room with few plush items. Three people stood before him, bathed in firelight. Yato stepped forward, a sense of dread pulling him closer. He knew this place. He knew these people.

“If it's true, should we not keep an eye on the boy? To kill -,” a male figure spoke. He was dressed in white and had grey dreads that reached down his back. Kuguha. He was addressing another man, polarized by his black robes and short dark hair. He was turned away from his guests and Yato, staring into the fire with an arm resting on the mantlepiece.

“No,” the dark-haired man said with the slightest shake of his head, and Yato’s blood ran cold. He knew that voice. “My son will never cease this mission.”

“My Lord,” Kuguha murmured with the slightest inclination of his head. “If you were to destroy the Horcrux yourself -.”

“It is necessary,” the dark-haired man said. “Given the circumstances.”

Yato stepped forward again, wary of his presence being detected though he knew in the back of his head it shouldn't be possible.

"I don't understand, your soul - fractured as it is - cannot bear close contact with a soul like Yato's. We were talking of minds!” A female voice shrilled and Ytao’s head snapped to the carrier - Oshi.

This must have been before recent events after Oshi was installed as Headmistress, Yato thought to himself.

The fire crackled and cast shadows over their faces. Yato moved closer. He knew who he was looking at - he’d been looking at him for half of his life, hiding for the rest. So why was he talking about his soul and Horcruxes?

“I knew what burden I would bear if I chose to do this to my children,” the dark-haired man said softly. “Because I knew that I would do anything to protect them. I am them. They are me. Now neither can live whilst I survive .”

Yato could feel the memory starting to blur at the edges, the voice becoming watery.

"In the case of Yato and I, to speak of one is to speak of the other.” The dark-haired man said. The vision went black, and the last words barely reached Yato’s ears.

“Our fates are intertwined.”

A whirl of color, and now everything darkened. Yato stood in the headmaster's office, unchanged. It was nighttime and the portraits were full once again of headteachers past and present. Yet the main difference was its most recently departed was sitting in the high-backed chair.

Yato stepped around the room carefully. Why was he seeing Tenjin’s memories? Surely the Pensieve would have been rinsed of all prior recollections - but then again, it would have proved a valuable source of intel for Oshi and the Sorcerer.

He had arrived mid-conversation but Tenjin hadn't noticed the interruption of course, nor had Madame Kofuku who sat adjacent, glaring at Tenjin with her green eyes.

"The Sorcerer does not expect Nora to succeed,” Tenjin said, fingers steepled in front of his face. “This is merely punishment for her recent failures… slow torture until my murder is committed.”

This must be before Nora's attempts on Tenjin’s life happened, Yato thought to himself. Everything was rewinding, going back in time. He knew from the beginning?

“Do you believe the Sorcerer foresees a moment in the near future when he will not need Nora's eyes in the castle?" Madame Kofuku asked, eyes narrowed.

'He believes the school will soon be in his grasp, yes.' Tenjin agreed.

There was a beat of silence.

"And if it does fall into his grasp," said Tenjin, “Do I have your word that you will do all in your power to protect the students of Hogwarts?"

Madame Kofuku gave a stiff nod.

"Good. Now then. Your first priority will be to discover what Nora is up to; a frightened teenage girl is a danger to others as well as to herself. Nora blames me - thinks I have enabled Yato to stay away from their father for so long. And I do not deny it.”

Tenjin stood from his desk and Yato took an unnecessary step back to allow him to walk past, circling the desk.

"All the same, I am concerned less for myself than for accidental victims of whatever schemes Nora may attempt. Ultimately, of course, there is only one thing to be done if we are to save her from the Sorcerer's wrath.

Tenjin came to a stop beside Madame Kofuku’s chair, hands behind his back as he stared at the door.

Kofuku raised her eyebrows as she asked, "Are you intending to let her kill you?"

"Certainly not.” Tenjin chuckled, and both Yato and Madame Kofuku both failed to see what was so funny. "That girl's soul is not yet so damaged. I would not have it ripped apart on my account.”

The world spun away and came back a moment later. Yato was at Grimmauld Place, in the dining room. All the paperwork and books had been cleared away neatly, indicating that this memory had come later on during his sixth year at Hogwarts. He heard muffled voices from the living room and followed them, taking a moment to soak in the nostalgia of his once home.

“- is the key to the Sorcerer’s undoing, no matter if the prophecy is destroyed.”

Yato gently pushed open the living room door. Tenjin sat in an armchair right before him holding a cup of tea to his lips. Sunlight painted his lined face, the curtains pulled back to let in a gentle breeze that rocked the curtains and the view of the budding cherry blossoms. His eyes flitted to the sofa and his heart lurched.

Sakura sat with her hands folded on her lap, her cup of tea placed on the table in front of her with the delicate porcelain teapot still steaming hot. She hasn't changed at all, Yato thought for the briefest of moments, before he realised that all occupants of the room except himself were currently deceased.

Sakura’s face was painted with a mixture of heartbreak, confusion, and anger. “What are you implying, Tenjin?”

The air shifted and stilled. Tenjin lowered his teacup with a small clatter.

"Yato must not know until the last moment. Not until it gives him the strength to do what is necessary, otherwise how it must be done-.”

“And what must be done?"

“That is between Yato and me. Now listen closely, Sakura. There will come a time after my death when the Sorcerer will seem to fear for the life of his snake -.”

“For his snake?" Sakura interrupted, looking astonished. “The one Yato has seen?”

"Precisely. If there comes a time when the Sorcerer stops sending that snake forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe beside him under magical protection, then, I think, it will be safe to tell Yato.”

"Tell him what?"

Tenjin took a deep breath and closed his eyes, the teacup balanced delicately in his fragile hand.

"Tell him that on the night the Sorcerer created the snake, so he too created Yato.”

Yato stared at Tenjin.

“The Sorcerer used his own children to create Horcruxes. To ensure that they would always live beside him, under his protection. To take the life of the Sorcerer is one thing, but to take the lives of his children? Innocent souls? It would take a heartless person to do such a thing, even have a chance to do so.”

Yato's face mirrored Sakura's; confusion yielding to sickening disbelief.

“Part of the Sorcerer lives inside Yato, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with the Sorcerer's mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of the soul remains attached to and protected by Yato, the Sorcerer cannot die.”

Yato seemed to be watching from one end of a long tunnel; they were so far away from him, their voices echoing strangely in his ears.

“I will not lead him to his death. I will not kill him,” Sakura shook her head. “There must be another way!”

“You cannot kill him. The Sorcerer himself must do it, Sakura. That is essential.”

Another long silence. Then Sakura said, "I thought that we were protecting him for me. For years.”

"We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try try his strength," said Tenjin his eyes still tight shut. "Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth. Sometimes I have thought he suspects it himself. If I know him, Yato will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of the Sorcerer.”

Tenjin opened his eyes. Sakura looked horrified.

"You have kept him alive, sheltered him, so that he can die at the right moment?"

"Don't be shocked, Sakura,” Tenjin said, and Yato disliked the tone he used. “How many men and women have you watched die?"

“Only those whom I could not save,” said Sakura. She stood up. "You have used me. I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Yato safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter. I will not allow it!”

Sakura crossed the room in a blur of robes and dark hair, and Yato caught the faintest smell of her perfume as the world faded away with the creak of a door.

“I think it's best you leave, Headmaster.”

Yato rose up out of the Pensieve, and moments later he lay on the carpeted floor of Tenjin's office.

Finally, the truth of his upbringing. All his life in his Father's house, kept safe from the world as the Sorcerer grew in power.

His job all along was to walk calmly into Death's welcoming arms. Along the way, he would break the Sorcerer's remaining link to life.

The Sorcerer determined he would destroy Yato - his own Horcrux - to stop him from destroying him altogether. Nagini would be the last Horcrux remaining. At least that's what the Sorcerer would believe for a brief time.

Yato lay on the floor, arms splayed and heart pounding. His mortality struck him; this heart has to stop regardless of how many Horcruxes he destroyed.

How many heartbeats do I have left?

Yato swallowed a lump in his throat, aware of the hot tears dripping down his temples and into his hair.

Would it hurt to die?

It did not matter. It had to happen.

Slowly Yato sat up. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat were completely dry. He felt his fingers trembling slightly.

The betrayal was nothing; he should have seen this coming. A final twist of fate that ensured that he would never be free. The task of destroying Horcruxes had been passed to him, and as he slowly severed each tie the Sorcerer had to the mortal realm, he was sealing his own fate; the ultimate sacrifice he would have to make to save everyone. How tidy that the Sorcerer’s demise would come from his own hand.

They knew Yato would keep going until the end, after seeing the devastation that stopping would entail. He thought of the bodies in the Great Hall, the injured and the maimed and the dying. But they had overestimated him.

He had failed: The snake survived. One Horcrux would remain to bind the Sorcerer to the earth, even after Yato had been killed. True, that would mean an easier job for somebody. He wondered who would do it; Hiyori and Yukine would know what needed to be done, of course.

That would have been why Tenjin wanted him to confide in two others… so that if he fulfilled his true destiny a little early, they could finish the job.

I must die. It must end.

Yato's thoughts drifted to Hiyori and Yukine. They seemed so far away now - they were probably wondering where he was. But this was a journey they could not take together.

Nearly half of the hour allotted by the Sorcerer for his surrender had passed. Yato stood up, his heart fluttering what short about of beats remained. He did not look back as he closed the office door.

The castle was empty. He felt as if he had already become one of the ghosts - would his soul remain? Or had it been corrupted so that it would disappear with the Sorcerers? The portrait frames hung desolate, all flocking to the Great Hall which had become the pulsating heart of the battleground.

Yato descended through the floors, at last walking down the marble staircase into the entrance hall. He moved down the steps and out into the darkness. It was nearly four in the morning, and the deathly stillness of the grounds felt as though they were holding their breath, waiting to see whether he could do what he must.

“Where've you been?”

Yato turned. Yukine and Hiyori were stood to his left, paused in the corridor.

“I thought you went to the forest…” Yukine sighed as if relieved.

“I'm going there now,” Yato said quietly.

He avoided looking at them - he couldn't bear to look them in the eye, to see the devastation and protest on their faces. He should've gone a different way, and avoided this interaction. It would've hurt less, though Yato didn't know if he was thinking about their feelings or his own.

There was a brief pause before Yukine replied. “Are you mad?”

“No…”

“You can't give yourself up,” Hiyori said. There was a wobble to her voice, and Yato felt a lump rise in his throat.

“What is it, Yato? What is it you know?” Yukine pressed.

“There is a reason I can hear them. The Horcruxes. I think I've known for a while…” Yato said, eyes flitting between the two. “And I think you have, too.”

“You can't-!” Yukine began, but Yato interrupted.

“No. Kill the snake. Kill the snake, and it's just him!”

There was a moment where there was complete silence; the noise of the Great Hall had subsided, along with their breaths and heartbeats. In that moment it was just Yato and the two people he loved most in the world.

And then it shattered.

Yukine hugged Yato firmly, squeezing him slightly.

Yato noticed how much Yukine had grown. He was nearly as tall as he was now, and not as scrawny. After all these years of dealing with his own problems, he’d never noticed Yukine had grown up helping him. Yukine pulled back, his upper lip stiff and eyes unblinking so the tears wouldn’t fall.

“You better come back,” Yukine said in a hard voice, expression betraying his true feelings. Yato nodded dully, promising something that couldn’t be. Deep down Yukine knew it too.

Hiyori stepped up to Yato next, head tilted to look him right in the eyes. Her eyes watered threateningly as she began to speak.

“I’ll go with you,” Hiyori said in a shaky voice.

Yato smiled sadly. Stubborn until the end, as always.

“It’s me they want. You’re safer here.” Yato said softly. He outstretched his arm to her, inviting her into a final hug.

Hiyori’s features broke, her face twisting into one of pain as she launched herself into his arms. She buried her face in his chest, fingernails digging into the back of his shirt as she held him in a tight embrace. He returned the embrace, not as tightly for fear that if he held her he would never let go.

“Don’t go,” Hiyori whispered.

Gradual shuddering sobs shook their bodies as Hiyori clung to him as if it was the last time she would see him.

I suppose it is, Yato thought dejectedly.

He bowed his head so he rested against the top of Hiyori’s head. Taking a deep breath, he could smell her scent of earth and fire smoke that was oh so familiar. He gently put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back slightly to look at her tear-stained face. A lump rose in his throat as he kissed her forehead.

“I’ll come back, I promise.”

Yato took one last glance back at the entrance of the Great Hall. People were moving around, trying to comfort each other, drinking, and kneeling beside the dead.

It would be the last lie he told.

Yato kept himself together as he left Hiyori in Yukine's arms, walking out of the castle and into the bleak night.

This was crucial, he must be like Tenjin: stay calm, make sure there were backups, and others to carry on. Tenjin had died knowing that people still knew about the Horcruxes; now Yukine or Hiyori would take Yato's place.

He wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, to be sent back home…

But he was home. Hogwarts was the first and best home he had known. He and Yukine - the abandoned boys - had both found a home here. Perhaps Hiyori too now considered that castle her home with her own family gone…

With a huge effort, Yato forced himself on. Yato moved on, past Kuraha’s lightless hut, and now he reached the edge of the forest, and he stopped.

He could no longer control his own trembling. It was not so easy to face death. Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious. To think that people had years and years, of time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to catch second. The long game was ended. The Snitch had been caught; it was time to leave the air.

The Snitch. Yato fumbled for a moment and he pulled out Tenjin's final gift.

I open at the close.

Yato stared down at it. Now that he wanted time to move as slowly as possible, it seemed to have sped up.

This was the close. He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, "I am about to die.”

The metal shell broke open. He lowered his shaking hand, raised Nora's wand, and murmured, “Lumos.”

A black stone with its jagged crack running down the center sat in the two halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible.

And again Yato understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing her back, for he was about to join her. He closed his eyes and turned the stone over in his hand three times.

He knew it had happened because he heard slight movements around him that suggested shifting footing on the outer edge of the earthy, twig-strewn ground. He opened his eyes and looked, he could see that. Less substantial than the living, but much more than a ghost, she moved toward him, and on her face, there was the same loving smile.

“Sakura…” Yato whispered.

She was wearing the clothes in which she had died. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her eyes searched his face.

“You've been so brave."

Yato could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.

"You are nearly there," said Sakura. "Very close. I'm so proud of you.”

"Does it hurt?" The childish question had fallen from Yato's lips before he could stop it.

"Dying? Not at all," said Sakura. "Quicker than falling asleep."

Sakura's hand reached out as if wishing to brush the hair from his eyes, to caress his cheek. “He will want it to be quick. He wants it to be over."

"I didn't want you to die," Yato said. These words came without his volition.

A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Yato's brow. He knew that she would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision.

“You'll stay with me?"

"Until the very end," said Sakura.

“They won't be able to see you?" asked Yato.

“I am a part of you," said Sakura.

Yato looked at his sister. He was going home.

“Stay close to me," he said quietly.

And he set off.

Together they walked through the old trees that grew closely together, their branches tangled, their roots a gnarled and twisted carpet. Traveling deeper and deeper into the forest, with no idea where exactly the Sorcerer was, but sure that he would find him. Beside him, making scarcely a sound, walked Sakura's presence. She seemed much more real to him now than the living back at the castle: Hiyori, Yukine and all the others were the ones who felt like ghosts as he stumbled toward the end of his life, toward the Sorcerer.

They had traveled mere minutes when Yato saw light ahead.

A fire burned in the middle of the clearing, and its flickering light fell over a crowd of completely silent, watchful Death Eaters. Some of them were still masked and hooded; others showed their faces. Two giants sat on the outskirts of the group, casting massive shadows over the scene. Yato saw Oshi, skulking like a tattered ghost between trees.

Every eye was fixed upon the Sorcerer, who stood with his head bowed, and his hands folded over the Elder Wand in front of him. He might have been praying, or counting silently in his mind, and Yato thought absurdly of a child counting in a game of hide-and-seek. Behind him at his feet lay Nagini coiled, tongue flickering.

The Resurrection Stone slipped from between his numb fingers, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sakura vanish as he stepped forward into the firelight. At that moment he felt that nobody mattered but the Sorcerer. It was just the two of them.

The illusion was gone as soon as it had come. The giants roared as the Death Eaters rose together, and there were many cries, gasps, and laughter. The Sorcerer had frozen where he stood, but his eyes had found Yato, and he stared as Yato moved toward him, with nothing but the fire between them.

Then a voice yelled: "Yato! NO!”

He turned: Kuraha was bound, tied to a tree nearby. His body shook as he struggled, desperate.

"NO! NO! Leave here!”

“QUIET!" shouted a voice, and with a flick of a wand Kuruha was silenced.

Oshi, who had leaped to her feet, was looking eagerly from the Sorcerer to Yato, her chest heaving. The only things that moved were the flames and the snake, coiling and uncoiling behind the Sorcerer.

Yato could feel his wand against his chest, but he made no attempt to draw it. He knew that the snake was too well protected. Knew that if he managed to point the wand at Nagini, fifty curses would hit him first. And still, the Sorcerer and Yato looked at each other.

The Sorcerer tilted his head a little to the side, considering the boy standing before him.

'Yaboku," he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. "My son."

None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting. Kuraha was struggling, and Oshi was panting, and Yato thought inexplicably of Hiyori, her heartbroken look, and the feel of her hand in his.

The Sorcerer had raised his wand. Yato looked back into his eyes and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand before he betrayed fear.

He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.

#noragami #yato #noragami aragoto #yatori #yukine #bishamon #hiyori #kazubisha #kazuma #hp au #harry potter au #in the darkness

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quickreaver · 2 years

Text

Happened upon a fun little naughty SPN event one day...

I’m always looking for an excuse to get iddy! And then this. “The moderators are fully supportive of kink and do not condone purity culture or censorship. However, we have enacted certain content restrictions for this bang. The following content will not be accepted for this bang: Explicit Underage Content, Incest, NSFL (necrophilia, snuff, extremely graphic nonconsensual torture). If you have any questions regarding the content restrictions, please contact a moderator.”

Hate to break it to you, mods, but what you’re doing is exactly condoning purity culture and censorship. So my question regarding the restrictions is: why even run a fandom kink event, in the Supernatural fandom in this, the year of our lord 2022, and disallow not only one of the major ships, but canoodling with unliving bodies (which likely includes just about every vessel and meatsuit an angel or demon has commandeered)? If a mod is squeamish, hey, I get it. I’ve run a ton of events and I don’t groove on everything that’s submitted. People are complicated and sometimes pretty damaged critters, and that’s a heart-breaker. Which is why we require tags for filtering, or get different mods to shepherd those fics that might be an issue for someone. There are plenty of solutions that don’t involve banning some pretty ridiculously common SPN fandom stuff. There seems to be ulterior motives at work here... 🤔

Thank Astraea that I missed the deadline to sign up as an author, to save me from being a fly in their ointment. Sign-ups for artists are still open, but ha ha ha haaaaaa, NOPE With greater and greater frequency, new events are banning not only ships, but shippers. Not because an event is focused on a particular ship (therefore excluding others, which yeah of course) but because of some flavor of mandating what a good, virtuous fan looks like, and what they’re permitted to create. Despite all the excellent ways we’ve formulated to organize and search/filter our fandom experiences, we’ve still managed to become more judgmental and less inclusive in ways that earnestly make very little sense and don’t bode well for the future of fandom. Fandom is becoming more and more mainstream and toothless, to placate the masses. Seriously, make it make sense. Friendly reminder: if not for a Wincest shipper, there would be no AO3 right now. If not for a J2 shipper, there’d be no A/B/O. YKINMKATO is an awesome thing and paved the way for all kinds of safe, fun, experimental shit, not to mention the realization for a lot of us that we may not be as arrow straight as we thought we were. What’s current fandom so afraid of? Not being enough of an activist in their fictional adventures? CHARACTERS ARE NOT REAL HUMANS, Y’ALL. Fiction, in broad strokes, can influence the mainstream (for example: the popularity of slash fiction contributed to the realization that queer stories actually had an audience), but if fiction alone could make us better people, we wouldn’t need therapists. If it made bigger villains, more D&D players would be a serial killers. My level 16 half-orc cleric would be appalled, okay?

#fandom #wankish #what a world we live in #thoughts on what fandom has become #spn #navel gazing

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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Your posts about Rhodey/Tony and slash and black Only Sane Men best friends made me think of American Gods, the series with Ricky Whittle as Shadow. Haven't actually watched season 3 yet, and I also haven't interacted with the fandom in a good while, but I remember that back when season one had just dropped, there were lots of Shadow/Mad Sweeney shippers.

I think many people find Only Sane Man types more compelling (and so, more shippable) as the fish-out-of-water protagonists falling deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole of weirdness. Shadow started out working for Mr. Wednesday, following his orders no matter how strange they initially appeared and being the straight man character for his eccentricities to bounce off of, but he never felt like anyone's long-suffering babysitter or nagging mother hen. He had his own troubles, his own sad past as a woobie who got out of jail only to find out the woman he loved had cheated on him with his friend and then died, and scary supernatural shit kept happening to him despite him just wanting a quiet life and a job. And Mad Sweeney was just the aggressive prick who picked a fight with him for no reason, got tangled with him and his zombie ex due to a freaky chain of events that Shadow had absolutely no way to know he was starting, and resented him enough for that to give shippers an unintentionally very gay line like "damn is dark eyes!" that made it into a bunch of crackvids as That One Gay Moment and on many Tumblr blogs as an OTP tag. So right from the beginning, it was clear they were probably never gonna have a "black guy cleaning up after the white guy's messes" thing going on.

And sure, there were also many people shipping Mad Sweeney with Laura, because they had more scenes together and more of an established dynamic... and it was a dynamic where they were both always snarking at each other even when being stuck together, at that. But they often had to deal with a "how dare you ship Laura with anyone, she's a bitch and evil and we as the audience are meant to hate her!!" crowd that sounded suspiciously like many other "don't you dare put a woman between my slash ship" crowds.

Also, a bit off topic from my point but while I never really felt the urge to ship Rhodey/Tony, I also never really understood why Steve/Tony was so popular in MCU fandom before Civil War. My impression when trying to figure it out after watching The Avengers was that comic fans were just really excited to have a liveaction adaptation of a ship that had had years of development (and a Steve/Fem!Tony wedding in a parallel universe, I think?) through the years in comic form... and their enthusiasm ended up dominating the fandom for a while, leaving not a lot of space for other ships. I think the only one somewhat able to rival Steve/Tony was Tony/Loki, but the main Loki ship at that point was Thorki, so Tony/Loki was considered a bit of a crackpair anyway...

I have to say I never checked on Rhodey/Tony before that, though. I just always assumed it had kind of dropped from the face of fandom partly due to the recasting and partly due to people jumping ship to Steve/Tony.

Steve/Tony was pretty popular because of existing comics fans (and fic), yeah. I didn't remember it being quite so overwhelming.

Right now, the sidebar for MCU on AO3 looks like this:

James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (58243)

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (35675)

Peter Parker & Tony Stark (26000)

Pepper Potts/Tony Stark (21178)

Loki/Thor (Marvel) (14221)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader (14103)

James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers (11546)

Loki/Tony Stark (11502)

Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov (11474)

Clint Barton/Phil Coulson (10812)

If I filter by time for 2012 and before, it looks like this:

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (2874)

Clint Barton/Phil Coulson (1984)

Loki/Thor (Marvel) (1451)

Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov (1372)

Pepper Potts/Tony Stark (1108)

Loki/Tony Stark (843)

Bruce Banner/Tony Stark (833)

Jane Foster/Thor (548)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (418)

Loki & Thor (260)

Stony had more of a lead than I realized at the time, but this was also the height of inexplicable Clint/Coulson's reign. I think some of the Pepperony never made it off of LJ and other sites too.

I haven't seen American Gods, but having a leading role usually helps with those writing problems. A canon can still decide to sideline a major character in favor of other characters (Star Wars, I'm looking at you), but a show lead is in a lot less danger of feeling like a babysitter. Even if he ends up cleaning up someone's messes or something, he's more of an audience surrogate annoyed about this job or worried about his friend or having some emotion the audience is supposed to pay attention to and give a fuck about. The classic sidelined supportive best friend ensemble character feels like a prop because the audience is never invited to know or care how he feels about what he's doing. He's not an audience surrogate. He's not someone whose interiority matters.

That's the real key: interiority. Plenty of media represents minority characters as sexy or cool or some other positive attribute but doesn't invite us inside their head and thus subtly tells us that they're set dressing, not a person. A lead who drives the plot is generally written better.

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diamondsnowflakes · 1 year

Text

My Housemate the Ghostsitter

"Oh," Tommy spun back to his computer, continuing to filter through the history he'd been sent with the doll. "That's Uncle Nasty. He's my new friend for the next week at least."

"Why would you subject us to this?" Wilbur's voice was pitchy with betrayal, causing Tommy to choke back a wave of giggles.

Who knew Wilbur Soot, a near-unshakeable man in his scepticism, would be scared by a doll?

Tommy schooled his face into a bored frown and shrugged, pushing his mouse over to highlight 'wouldn't leave him in the dark overnight' in fluorescent green.

AO3 Link

"What the fuck is that?"

Tommy looked up from his computer to see his housemate, Wilbur, stiffly leaning on the doorframe to his bedroom, staring dead-eyed at something behind his desk chair.

Tommy frowned, scrunching his eyebrows. "What's what?"

"That." Wilbur jolted his arm to point at whatever had fixated him.

Tommy raised an eyebrow at his housemate but still spun his chair around, jamming his feet into the carpet to stabilise himself before following Wilbur's line of vision. Then, finally, he landed on the victorian-style ventriloquist's dummy, clad in Build-A-Bear jeans and a t-shirt, that he'd sat on the old wooden dining chair by his bed earlier that day.

The doll wasn't an unusual object for Tommy to procure, just another job for Tommy Innit, the Biggest Private Supernatural Investigator Ever. However, Wilbur, surprisingly, wasn't as numb to it. Instead, he was still as a stunned statue, completely deadpan and having a staring contest with it.

"Oh," Tommy spun back to his computer, continuing to filter through the history he'd been sent with the doll. "That's Uncle Nasty. He's my new friend for the next week at least."

"Why would you subject us to this?" Wilbur's voice was pitchy with betrayal, causing Tommy to choke back a wave of giggles.

Who knew Wilbur Soot, a near-unshakeable man in his scepticism, would be scared by a doll?

Tommy schooled his face into a bored frown and shrugged, pushing his mouse over to highlight 'wouldn't leave him in the dark overnight' in fluorescent green.

"He's who I'm currently working on. I have to free whoever or whatever is in him," Tommy spun back to face Wilbur and immediately choked down laughter again. Wilbur was still in a staring contest, and Uncle Nasty was winning.

Tommy rolled his eyes, then stood up to pull Wilbur by his giant black anorak sleeve. "Come here. Feel it."

Wilbur finally tore his eyes away from Uncle Nasty, shooting Tommy a raised eyebrow, but let himself be pulled towards the doll. "Why should I?"

Tommy manoeuvred Wilbur to stand directly in front of Uncle Nasty. "Just do it, dickhead."

Wilbur sneered and attempted to yank his hand back, but meeting Tommy's eyes just earned him an unwavering glare as he was shoved once more towards the doll.

"You get me to do questionable shit all the time, including but not limited to murder. Touching a doll should not be your fucking limit, man."

Wilbur set his face into a determined glare. "Fine." He finally successfully pulled his hand away from Tommy, tentatively took a few steps closer to the doll, and then knelt in front of the chair. He could feel the tremor in his arm as he slowly placed his hand on Uncle Nasty's wooden forehead.

The painted doll was simultaneously smooth and painted-concrete rough under his hand. Wilbur vaguely wondered if it was the materials, time, or just the weird aura of the thing. Every time he shifted slightly, it felt like a section of paint had peeled off into his hand, but when he looked closer, the doll's face was still pristine. In the end, he stopped trying to think and looked back over at Tommy.

"What am I supposed to be feeling?"

Tommy's eyebrows shot up. "The temperature drops?"

Wilbur released an exasperated sigh and tipped his head forward, closing his eyes and letting his hand drop from Uncle Nasty's forehead.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Breathe out.

Wilbur clenched and unclenched his fist before opening his eyes.

"Well, how the fuck am I supposed to feel that?"

Tommy opened and closed his mouth like a very confused goldfish. "Oh."

Wilbur closed his eyes again and pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting the urge to bury his head in the carpet and scream.

Tommy stared blankly at the doll, then shook his head slightly and scrunched his nose. "But you can still at least feel how wrong it is?"

Wilbur rolled his eyes. "Well, yeah, but I'm pretty sure that's just your room all the time."

"Fuck off, man," Tommy could tell he was whining, but honestly, Wilbur deserved it if he was going to be mean to his client.

The dismissal and denial pantomime Wilbur put on was just old at this point. He should get a new hobby that wasn't just pretending ghosts don't exist and getting him to do shady shit. Tommy was also pretty sure that bad customer service could make future ghosts less compliant (or, he guessed, he didn't actually know if spirits could communicate with each other).

"Look, if you want proof, stay here." Tommy pushed his chair back, launching himself onto his feet before walking towards the doorway.

Wilbur whipped around, eyes wide, and stared at Tommy. "Well, what the fuck's that supposed to do?"

Tommy shrugged thoughtlessly. "I dunno, but I haven't eaten all day, and Uncle Nasty needs babysitting."

"Babysitting? He's a doll!"

Tommy suppressed a flinch as Wilbur's voice rose an octave before raising an eyebrow and leaning against the doorframe. "Well, yeah. Your point? You shouldn't have a problem with it if he's 'just a doll'."

Wilbur narrowed his eyes and stared at Tommy, hoping that maybe if he was determined enough, he could stare down his way out instead of dealing with Creepy Doll Central™.

Tommy just stared back, completely unflinching, until Wilbur broke.

"Fuck it, fine." Wilbur threw himself back around to stare at Uncle Nasty. If he was forced to babysit a 'haunted' doll, he might as well do it right. "I doubt it'll prove anything, but go ahead and leave me alone with your creepy doll friend."

"Client."

"Whatever."

At the dismissal, Tommy spun on his heel, ready to leave, before the light switch on the wall beside him caught his eye. He blinked and stared at it, the white plastic taunting him just that little bit. Then, finally, he cocked his head to the side, reached out and promptly flicked the light off, plunging the room into darkness as he walked out onto the landing.

Wilbur's eyes only flickered slightly from the doll as something behind him clicked. He was left in darkness. Though, not total darkness, thankfully. The streetlights filtered in from behind the curtains, allowing Uncle Nasty's facial features to just about show.

In the half-light, it was also like the doll's face was moving. Wilbur just dismissed it as his eyes playing tricks on him.

Wilbur watched Uncle Nasty in the dark as time crept by. The only sound in the room came from the steady tick-tick-tick of a plastic clock buried somewhere in a back corner and the occasional rush of a car in the faraway land of outside. Wilbur couldn't remember if Tommy could actually read an analogue clock, let alone when he bought one, but it was slowly grating on him.

Tick tick tick. That clock was getting smashed the next time Tommy left the house.

Tick tick tick. Why did he even accept this stupid challenge?

Tick tick tick. It wasn't like Uncle Nasty was going to do anything.

Tick tick tick. He was just a doll.

Tick tick tick tick.

Wilbur finally tore his eyes off Uncle Nasty, turning around to inspect the dim silhouettes of the rest of the room.

Just behind him, Wilbur could make out a cramped sleeping area. The blanket nest he was accustomed to ignoring were piled on top of a cheap excuse for a single bed. Next to it sat a plyboard bedside table, sagging under the weight of its load.

The table housed a lamp and a pile of heavy-looking books, although Wilbur couldn't remember Tommy ever reading books. On top, there looked to be a bundle of thin folders, topped with a precariously placed makeshift woollen coaster housing an empty glass. It felt nearly normal for a teenager who was more into reading browning scrolls and government-stamped documents than anything.

A flash in the corner of his eye. Wilbur snapped his head back to Uncle Nasty.

Tick tick tick. The doll's eyes were still painted wide open.

Tick tick tick. He hadn't moved.

Tick tick tick. Uncle Nasty cannot move.

Wilbur stayed stock-still, keeping his eyes on Uncle Nasty.

Uncle Nasty was still frozen in the same position he was in before. His back was straight against the chair, and his arms limply sat by his side. His head was tilted back towards the right, relying on the rounded back to keep him up.

Uncle Nasty cannot move. Uncle Nasty is a doll.

Wilbur kept breathing and continued to watch.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Wilbur finally tore his eyes away from Uncle Nasty once more to continue looking around the room.

Shoved up against the opposite wall from the bed was the silhouette of the heavy-looking oak desk. Even in the darkness, it looked like it had more use than any other section of the room. Any surface area left after the archaic desktop computer was taken up by paper and school exercise books in primary colours. Meanwhile, splotchy dark stains pooled at the feet of the desk where presumably Coke and coffee had been spilt and hurriedly dabbed up.

Wilbur huffed to himself. He should probably pull Tommy out of his room more often or get him to sleep more. It might be adequate repayment for 'helping' him without being creeped out into believing in ghosts.

Another flash.

Wilbur snapped his eyes back to the doll again.

Uncle Nasty hadn't moved. His arms were still loose by his side. His eyes still looked off blankly into some far corner of the ceiling. The only change was his back. Uncle Nasty had slumped slightly like he'd decided to relax his posture.

Wilbur shrugged. Maybe his stuffing just caved to gravity? It was a perfectly reasonable explanation. The dolls he'd seen on display in museums had stands for a reason, after all. Or maybe it was just the tiny earthquakes? He read somewhere that "the UK's high in seismic activity, but the earthquakes are so light humans can't feel them". Maybe Uncle Nasty slumped because of those.

Still, he didn't quite feel like he could look away yet. So Wilbur stayed, observing the doll with the dedication of the strange Watcher deities Tommy had vaguely mentioned once.

The clock somewhere in the room continued to tick. Wilbur bet it was at least 8 o'clock, but time seemed to drag along the carpet like a heavy corpse riddled with rigor mortis.

A car rushed down the street outside the window. A draft breezed through the room after it, causing the curtains to flutter.

By now, the floor had begun to dig into Wilbur's knees through his jeans, causing his joints to feel like rusting machine parts. Or maybe that pain was how doors felt when their hinges needed oiling. Or a car door handle slowly freezing over. He rubbed his hands together and blew on his palms.

Meanwhile, Uncle Nasty sat, slouching but still. Wilbur couldn't help but wonder whose idea the apathetic ventriloquists-dummy smile was. It didn't feel as friendly as it was probably intended to be.

Wilbur tapped his fingers against his thigh. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. It crossed his mind that he could continue examining the room and find the clock, still letting out the steady tick-tick-tick. He tipped his head slightly to look over Uncle Nasty's chair.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEE

A sound like the rusty drainpipe finally tearing itself off the side of the house crashed through, grating Wilbur's eardrums and cutting into his brain stem with the sharp edge of something smooth. The force screwed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth together. Every muscle from top to toe was flinched and cringing.

The unholy metallic screeching felt like it went on forever. Nausea bubbled in the back of Wilbur's throat until it felt like he'd been gargling his acid reflux for a century.

When the screeching eventually faded, the silence left behind felt equally relieving and damningly deafening.

Wilbur relaxed his muscles, then slowly opened his eyes again.

Uncle Nasty was stood up on the chair. His legs held his weight as if he'd never needed the chair back to hold him up.

Wilbur was once again frozen.

Then Uncle Nasty turned his head to fix his cold, blank eyes on Wilbur. He blinked.

The floor beneath Wilbur was moving before he'd even thought to stand. He flung himself through the bedroom door, slamming his palms into the frame as he ejected himself, and dashed across the landing. Blood roared in his ears.

"FUCK! Noooooooopenopenopenope! Not today!"

The stumbling xylophone rhythm of Wilbur's socked feet thudding against the carpet as he threw himself down the stairs harmonised with the arrhythmic beat of his heart in his throat.

"TOMMY! Holy shit, piss, fuck, Tommy!"

The kitchen door quickly gave way as Wilbur burst through, careening it into the cupboard behind it with an echoey BANG. He shoved it shut, then slammed his back against it before he sank to sit cross-legged on the floor.

Wilbur's heart was still hammering in his chest, his breath coming out in sharp pants. His legs felt like moulded jelly tipped out onto a plate at a boisterous and bouncy children's party, the kind that would be served with ice cream after the birthday kid had blown out their candles. His arms were making up for it by holding him upright (with help from the door) though they didn't feel much better.

To Wilbur's relief, the 2000s vinyl fake tiling was thin and plastic beneath his jeans, the complete opposite of the kind-of-scratchy thick carpet of Tommy's bedroom. Likewise, the paint of the door behind his back was just that, smooth and synthetic.

Wilbur relished the changes, along with the still darkness behind his eyelids and the knowledge that he'll have to let his pupils adjust to the yellow-washed kitchen lighting when he chose to open his eyes.

All the while, Wilbur could feel Tommy's eyes on him, the steady crunch of whatever he was eating creating a background noise that wasn't the infernal ticking.

Eventually, the chewing stopped, and Wilbur heard Tommy mutter, "What the fuck?"

Wilbur opened his eyes to glare, catching Tommy taking a messy bite out of a marmite sandwich.

Tommy froze mid-bite as he caught Wilbur watching him. "What?" His voice was muffled by food, and crumbs spewed onto the floor. "What is it?"

"The fucking doll, Tommy. It moved."

Tommy stared blankly at Wilbur, blinking a few times before finally swallowing the half-bite he'd pulled off.

"You know that thing that happens when I ignore your warning, get fucked over, and you say I told you so?"

Wilbur tilted his head, raising his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"Well, I fucking told you so."

"Tommy, I don't think you understand. It's a doll; it's not supposed to move!"

"But I fucking told you, he's haunted and my new roommate until he's exorcised."

Wilbur set his jaw and fixed Tommy with a stormy glare. "Get rid of it. Now."

"Wilbur, what do you think I'm trying to do? I'm exorcising him, and then I'm gonna send the doll back to the old lady this is a favour for."

Wilbur tipped his head into his hands, running his palms down his face. "Tommy, please tell me you're getting paid for housing this thing."

"No?" Tommy cocked his head to the side. "Why would I? It's for a favour."

"It's an atrocity, and it's coming to kill me. If you aren't getting paid, why the fuck are you letting it stay here?"

"Well, you see, the old lady who owns the doll, she's a farmer. She said she'll name a cow after me."

"That is not a good reason to let a cursed doll into the house."

"Haunted, not cursed. Get it right, Wilbur."

"Potato, potahto, I still want it gone."

"It's not a po-ta-to either," Tommy sneered. "Look, I'll get rid once you tell me what the fuck you've hidden in the cellar that is so important I don't touch it."

Wilbur tensed slightly, but in his slight desperation, he almost considered it. After all, the cellar would have to come to light at some point?

Then again, Wilbur shook his head to himself, dismissing the thought. It would come to light when it came to light, not for doll disposal. So instead, Wilbur deadened his eyes so he wouldn't have to blink and tilted his head to the side.

"Tommy, have you ever heard of Bluebeard's castle?"

Tommy grimaced at Wilbur's low tone. "No, and I don't want to."

"Then keep away from the cellar."

"Well, then fuck off. I'm not getting rid of Uncle Nasty until he's free and tiny baby cow Tommy can exist."

Tommy then walked out of the kitchen, only pausing to let Wilbur scooch out of the way of the door so he could pull it open and leave.

"I think you mean calf!" Wilbur shouted after him.

Tommy scoffed.

"Whatever!"

Tommy clicked the light back on as he entered his room, carefully pushing the door closed behind him until he heard the clockwork click of the latch.

Uncle Nasty was sat peacefully on his chair, a little slumped but otherwise wholly the same as he was when Tommy left him with Wilbur.

Tommy nodded to himself before going to kneel down next to Uncle Nasty.

"Thank you for that; his scepticism was getting pretty annoying," Tommy paused and looked away. "And thank you for not hurting him or 'owt. A scare is enough."

#fanfiction #wilbur soot #oneshot #tommyinnit #uncle nasty #halloween #horror #argbur #arginnit #crimeboys #diamondsnowflakes

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