Eddie only just was able to get the barman's permission to perform this night, and glad he is for it, as his pockets have weighed lighter than ever before in his life. He'd be pleased to find pay in a tankard or loaf tonight, anything to fill his aching belly.
But he's lucky as the men and women here seem to be in high spirits. The land has long been in war since the king's death, rotten bastard he may have been. Eddie hadn't been sad to see him go, but the chaos that followed had ruined the smallfolk in consequence since their coward prince had fled the scene of his crime. The king had been cruel, but still he'd been their king, and the common people spit on the prince's name still, even when some new royal's been crowned and brought peace with him.
And that kind of ire is what feeds Eddie on nights like this.
"Kingslayer, kingslayer, little Prince Steven has run," he sings, bawdy and loud as the crowd of men around him sing along. "Run up the hills and past the sun, took our king Phillip and gutted him plain, our kingslayer Prince Steven, a coward more than a maid!"
They sing along with him, hooting and hollering all to the end of it, and pay him in copper coins and ale that Eddie takes happily, slurping it down as he rests by the fire.
It's then he sees the table in the corner, the cloaked figures surrounding it, and the woman glaring daggers at him. But more interesting than that is the most beautiful man Eddie's ever seen, smiling at him wearily, eyes bright and interested and a little sad. Eddie's got no fear of a quick tumble with dangerous men, so he takes his gittern and his ale and makes his way quickly to them.
"Fair night, weary travelers," Eddie crows as he wiggles himself between the woman and the beautiful man. "What brings you so far out from the capitol?"
The lot of them regard him with mixed interest, the older man not even looking up and a girl with firey hair treating him with a sign of boredom.
"What business is yours to know, bard?" she says, already turning her nose off to watch the rowdy tavern beyond their table.
"None at all," Eddie says, leaning into the man beside him, slinging an arm over his broad shoulder to feel the heat of him beneath his cloak. "I'm here to do nothing but entertain tonight, and I fear I've bored your table to tears! I do take requests you know, for the right coin."
This he says to the man under his arm, leaning in closer to get a good look at those pretty brown eyes in the dim light of the fire.
"We have no coin for you, sot," says the woman beside them, ire evident in her tone. "Be gone with you—"
"No coin, that's true," says Eddie's beautiful man. He smiles at Eddie now, pearly teeth and pretty lips, and Eddie would sing him any song for nothing more than to keep those eyes on him. "You'll have to forgive us, we're not good company I'm afraid."
"Richer company wouldn't be as sweet as yours, dove," Eddie tells him, watching the pink of his cheeks darken.
There's a gagging sound from across the table, and its then that Eddie realizes he's in the company of striplings. Two girls in men's clothes, both of them are young in the face and barely past their majorities. Yet still they are travel-worn, all five of them: the two girls, the woman and the dour man, and the beautiful budde under Eddie's arm.
Chuckling, he says to Eddie, "A wag you are, bard, with such empty words. Do you flirt so with all poor men you find?"
"None are poorer than me, sweeting, and none are more enchanting than you. It is payment enough just to look at you, and I would sing for an age and fill my empty stomach with just your smile, or your taste if you'd grant me—"
"Gods damned!" the woman Eddie's other side gusts. "I cannot hear another foul word." She stands then, and the two girls follow, one rolling her eyes and the other giggling quitely. The woman leans past Eddie and hisses into her companion's ear, "Be done with this fool swiftly, or I'll leave you to the wolves."
"You'd never," he says back to her, smiling at Eddie, face flushed pretty and dark even as he speaks.
"Hopper would never," she says tilting her head at the remaining dour man still sitting at the table, deep into his cups and paying no mind to any around them. "But I would sell you for tanner and a duck to the first bidder."
"I'm worth at least an ox," he tells her with a cocky grin, and Eddie might want more than just one tumble with this man. "Find a room and I'll find you when I please to."
She huffs and stomps off, the girls on her heels.
"So," Eddie breathes, leaning even further into this beautiful man, until his voice is a secretive whisper, just for the two of them to hear. "Tell me, sweeting, what shall I call you when I write songs of your beauty to sing across the land, until kings beg me to their courts to recount your grace, your smile and your laugh?"
This man, to Eddie's displeasure, seems to wilt, to grow weary once more, even as he smiles and leans close, his words scarcely a breath against the shell of Eddie's ear.
"If it pleases you, and I'm sure that it won't," he confesses. "You can call me Steven."
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you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.
you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.
he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.
a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.
he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.
you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.
people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.
wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.
also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.
he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."
you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.
"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."
he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.
you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.
is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?
you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.
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DP x DC Prompt
…
There are no more heroes.
Well, okay. Rewind a bit.
Danny has been doing the hero thing for a while now. He’s had a big reveal; everyone has accepted him (including his parents), the GIW disbanded, the Anti-Ecto acts repealed, and generally, everything is going great. Some of the A-Listers are even training as junior ghost hunters to help give him a break from his rogues! (Being Ghost King makes things hectic sometimes, and he just needs the extra help. Sue him!)
The point is, literally nothing is wrong with Danny Phantom’s afterlife.
And then Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress, disappears in front of his eyes.
Danny is baffled! She’s just…gone! Valerie just popped out of existence, like she was never there. But no matter how hard he searches in the Ghost Zone, he can’t find her soul anywhere. His core isn't broken in grief. So she’s not dead. Which is good. So then, where is she?
Some of the others come forward with ideas on how to find her. A few ghosts volunteer to go out into the mortal realm, an area Danny had declared off-limits, to see if she was out there. Danny approves it. He rounds up some of the friendlier (i.e., discreet) ghosts and Amity Parkers and demolishes the outside travel ban.
So everyone spreads out, looking for their dear frenemy and teammate. But it becomes apparent very quickly that something is wrong with the rest of the world.
There are no more heroes.
Every single living superhero on the face of the Earth has just…vanished. Villains are running amok; the countries are in chaos! Some aliens are invading Earth, mythical deities are trying to take over, and society is crumbling to the ground. Everything is on the brink of collapse.
Well, Danny was still there. And so were his people. They were pretty spread out, so could they just…take up the mantles? He also knew where to find the souls of dead heroes in the Zone; surely they wouldn't mind coming out of retirement for a little bit, especially if they couldn't die again. Oh! And that skeleton army leftover from Pariah Dark's reign might be useful in repelling those invading forces.
Honestly, there were more than enough hands to go around! And with the heroes gone, Danny didn't mind letting everyone out for a little break, as long as they followed his rules. They wouldn't stop the search for the other heroes, but hopefully, when they found them, the heroes wouldn't mind Danny's intervention too much. :)
In other words:
Someone fucks up, and all of Earth's living heroes are either wished out of existence or are whisked away to some far-off realm where Danny hasn't checked yet. In the attempt to figure out what's going on, Danny lets the dead run amok over the Earth as they search for clues. The skeleton army repels the invading armies, the souls of dead heroes deal with the world leaders, and his rogues and other Amity Parkers set up shop in place of famous heroes, trying to get the cities under control again.
Basically, they just do their best to keep everything from imploding until the Justice League and others are back.
(And why is it that Danny hasn't disappeared? Well, whatever caused everyone to go poof! only affected living heroes. Anyone heroes that were dead in the first place, or even just half-dead, stayed behind.)
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