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storydays · 2 months

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Radio Killed the Video Star P2

(3rd Pov)

*In the Vs' Tower*

"We have a problem." Vox grumbled as Valentino's assistant passed out their drinks. "Alastor is getting close to the royal Morningstars. So our main concern now is ensuring that no deal is ever struck between Lucifer's brats and that smiling freak." He rolled his eyes at the thought of the red demon.

"Well, how exactly are we supposed to stop it?" Velvette replied, looking up from her phone. "Put something inside them. That's how I get the bitches to behave." grinned Valentino from where he was decorating his gun.

"Well, maybe someone on the inside isn't such a bad idea." hummed Vox before he pointed at the moth. "Do you think Angel would?"

"That lanky prick won't even return my calls." scoffed Val.

Sighing, Vox stood up and walked around to the window. "We need someone who little Miss Bleeding Heart would take in."

"Someone pathetic, desperate, with no direct ties to us." Velvette listed. "I employ every down on their luck loser this side of hell. Who the fuck is left?" Valentino wondered. Vox chuckled before turning to his partners with his hypnosis eye glowing. "I think I have just the one." he grinned.

*Back at the hotel*

Alastor's shadow demon minons lounged around the bar, Tommy stretching his arm, having pulled a muscle, when Charlie and Vaggie came back from their search, defeat written on their faces. Charlie groaned dramatically as she flopped onto the couch, face first.

Angel perked up hearing the princess; "Sooo, how'd it go?" he asked, smiling and turning his attention to his phone. "Not a single new recruit," Vaggie sighed.

"Yeah, well, who would want to use their last days not fucking and fighting?" shrugged Angel. "More than you'd think, Angel." (Y/N) yawned as he walked down the stairs, Rocco trailing behind him.

After his mope feast in his room, the blond demon fell asleep reading one of his romance novels, and had slept for a good 6 hours. 'Great, now I'll be up all night.' (Y/N) thought to himself as he sat on the far end of the couch, running a hand through Charlie's braid in a comforting manner.

"Well, look who's finally awake. I missed you, baby. Did you dream of me, sweets?" Angel purred, leaning over to run a hand over (Y/N)'s wings, grunting when (Y/N) playfully fluffed his wings in Angel's face.

(Y/N) chuckled, feeling smug at finally getting the spider back. Angel wasn't one to be outdone, so he teasingly ran a finger between the prince's shoulder blades in the middle of his back, giggling at the involuntary shivers that ran through his body.

A sudden knock on the door turned Vaggie's attention from the men flirting, and approached the door, to reveal Sir Pentious, who smiled brightly. "Why, hello, my dear--" he yelped as Vaggie punched him in his face before pulling her angelic spear out and pointing it at him.

"Wait, wait, wait! I come in peasssse (peace)." The snake demon made peace signs with his hands with a wobbly smile.

"What are you doing here?" hissed Vaggie. "Vaggie, what's the problem?" asked Charlie, still feeling sour from her failed search.

She gasped seeing the snake. "Oh, hello again." Vaggie let him up as she watched him suspiciously. "I didn't come looking for a fight. I uhh..I heard that you're helping people. People who want to be better?" The snake asked more than stated.

Charlie gasped excitedly, before dragging the snake behind her, chattering happily, leaving Vaggie to scowl at the snake. "You heard right. Welcome to our home of healing. Our resort of restoration. Our--" The princess was cut off by Angel Dust stopping her in the door way.

"Are you fucking nuts? This chump was tryin' to kill us, like, literally 6 hours ago. And now you wanna bring him in her to live with us?" Angel asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Absolutely!" Charlie grinned, "This place is about second chances, and who deserves one more than this...slithery...slippery...special little man?"

Looking at Vaggie, Angel asked, "Aren't you supposed to protect this place?"

Vaggie made the mistake of looking at Charlie's (well timed and manipulative) puppy dog eyes. She sighed heavily before shrugging, "I...guess he's not much of a threat without the war machine.." Sir Pentious' hood lifted as he grinned brightly, "Or even with the war machine." Vaggie thought, making the snake visibly deflate.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Charlie squealed before running over to the demon. "Sir Pentious! Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!"

"Oh no, darling, thank you. You won't regret thissss." He chirped happily, slitheirng in after the princess.

"Eh, I give you a week...tops." Angel shrugged, following them inside.

"So..this is the bar and the bartender." Charlie grinned at a drinking, scowling Husk. "And this is the curtain, and this is the new wall after you broke the last one, heh and, oh, this, this is-" Charlie was cut from her excited rambling by Vaggie pulling her arm.

"Babe, you don't have to show him every detail." she placed her hand on her hip, watching the demoness.

"Sorry, I'm just excited to have our first real guest!" Charlie grinned.

"Uh, what the hell am I, then?" demanded Angel Dust, as he narrowed his eyes at Charlie.

"Well, you're an important part of our family here, Angel. But you um, uh..." "Constantly make us look bad, sexually harass (Y/N) and Husk, and have literally never once tried to improve?" Vaggie listed.

"What she means is, it's just nice to have someone be interested for a change." Charlie sugar coated, gesturing at the snake who eyed everything suspiciously.

She walked over to the red eyed demon, introducing Niffty, not noticing Angel's frown on his face. As Charlie continued to introduce Niffty, saying that they were 80% sure she was harmless, she bumped into the Radio Demon, she grinned nervously.

"Oh, uh, Alastor, our gracious Facility Manager." Turning to Alastor, she continued, "You've met our newest guest, Sir Pentious...heh heh."

"Ah yes. You're the one who ruined my coat. I definitely remember you now." He grinned sinisterly, eyes glowing an eerie red.

"Well...I guess this is a great time for your first lesson. Ahem, 'How to apologize.' The first step to becoming a better person is to admit when you're wrong. Why don't you give it a try?" Charlie pushed Sir Pentious towards Alastor who grinned lazily.

"Yes, um...Mr um..Radio Demon, sir, please forgive me for attacking you and ruining your very lovely coat...Um, here." He nervously gave back the piece he'd ripped off of Alastor earlier in the day.

"Oh-ho! Not many people have been able to take even this much off me." He looked at Sir Pentious with a condescending smile, "It must've meant quite a lot to you."

Sir Pentious and Charlie watched with wide eyed looks as Alastor burned up the piece of coat with a wicked grin.

(Y/N) laughed loudly from where he was observing at the top of the stairs. "Pfft, hahaha! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but you're faces were too much for me." He snickered, wiping a tear away from his eye, making his way down towards the group.

"Oh! And Prince (Y/N) he's also my big brother! He's also my advisor when it comes to business administration. And he's my bestest friend." The siblings shared a fist bump, sharing matching grins.

"Welcome to the Hazbin hotel, Sir Pentious. I've got to say, your machines are something to wonder at. I'd love to go over the mechanics sometime." (Y/N) held his hand out for a handshake, yelping when the snake hugged him, "Nobody's ever admired my skillssssss.! We are going to be great friendssss." sobbed Pentious.

Angel was now full on glaring at the snake...how dare he touch (Y/N) like that?! It took a while before (Y/N) allowed anyone new to touch him.

"Um..Charlie? Isn't it time for our daily activity?" squeaked (Y/N), clearly uncomfortable in the snake's grip.

*Time skip*

(Y/N) was sitting in his favorite arm chair, Angel Dust leaning protectively on his legs, letting the blond run his fingers through Angel's head fluff. It was so soft, he couldn't resist and Angel certainly didn't mind, if the slight purring the spider was doing was an indication.

Angel scrolled lazily through his phone, Vaggie and Pentious sitting on the floor listening as Charlie spoke.

"Now! With a new resident, I think it's important we all get to know each other, so we are going to play a little game. Everyone, follow me.

"🎵My name is Charlie," she claps twice and kneels down to smile at Vaggie's love struck look, "I like to sing," She stood up gesturing to everyone, clapping again. "And when we get to know each other, it's the greatest thing!🎵" Charlie clapped once more and gestured to Sir Pentious.

(Y/N) smiled; that was a game he taught her when she was a kid.

"🎵My name's Sir Pentious," claps twice, "I like to build," claps twice again, "And despite my stupid Egg Bois, I think I'm very skilled🎵." He clapped twice for the last time before he and Charlie both gestured to the white furred spider.

He stopped the quite purring, and looked up from his phone with a look of irritation. "This is stupid." Angel deadpanned. (Y/N) snorted softly as he brushed the white fur back.

"🎵This is not stupid!" Charlie claps twice with a forced smile, "It's just the game. Sir Pentious did it well, so now please try to do the same.🎵'" She twirled in front of Angel who sighed, pinching the bridge of his beak(nose).

"I am too sober for this." (Y/N) tugged his hair slightly in a playful warning.

"Ooh, harder, Daddy~" fake moaned Angel, yelping in surprise when the blushing prince actually tugged harder in retaliation.

"Well, get used to it and learn how to play. 🎵This is gonna be your whole day 🎵 ." Vaggie clapped twice with a smirk at the glare Angel sent her.

*Timeskip*

"Oh, I'm a bad man on the streets who never got enough hugs. Now, where's an innocent kid I can sell crack to?" Angel read from the script, feeling like an idiot. He glared slightly as (Y/N) wore the biggest shit eating grin from where he was standing behind the others who sat on the couch.

Breaking character, he hissed at the prince, "Don't you say a word."

He was dressed like a homeless man, and Sir Pentious was licking a lollipop wearing a uniform. "Wow, who wrote this?" Angel asked aloud, smacking the script. "It's great, right. Keep going." Charlie grinned like a school girl.

The Italian sighed heavily before continuing, "Hey you." He faked called Pentious. "Who me?" asked the snake in a child like tone.

"Yeah, you look like a kid who could use some devil's dandruff?" Angel squinted his eyes, sliding a hand down his face in disbelief. "Oh, for fucks' sake."

"Not me. I have to go home and sssstudy."

"C'mon, kid, it'll make you cool like me...." Angel paused, hearing (Y/N)'s snickering, and felt his body drop at the dumbass script in his hand, "The crackhead."

(Y/N) couldn't hold it back anymore before he laughed loudly. He was laughing so hard, he fell on the floor behind the couch,tears pooling in his eyes from laughing.

The others' waited for him to finish, so they could hear the play. Charlie rolled her eyes at her brother with a fond smile. It'd been a while since he'd laugh like that. Angel smiled, hearing (Y/N) belly laugh. 'No, I'm supposed to be mad at him, right now.' He thought stubbornly, cheeks flushed.

"The only cool thing here is to sssay no to drugsss. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to not have sexual intercourse before marriage!" declared the snake proudly. (Y/N) finally finished his giggles, and was standing back up, watching with weary grin.

"Yes! Oh, bravo, bravo!" cheered Charlie as she clapped excitedly. "Wow, Pentious, at this rate, you'll be redeemed in no time."

"I-I'm going to bed." Angel announced, a funny tone in his voice. He walked away briskly, but not before (Y/N) caught his downcast face. He frowned thoughtfully before teleporting to who knows where.

Angel paused at the steps as he listened to Charlie, "I am so proud of you, Sir Pentious." He turned to watch the interaction. "That was amazing. That was beautiful work today." "Thank you, thank you. You like me, you really like me." preened the snake, bowing slightly.

In his room, Angel shrugged off the costume he was wearing, throwing it on his beloved pet pig, who snorted curiously before laying on his bed and curling on his side.

He pulled his phone out and scrolled through the voicemail he'd received.

Sighing, the spider demon clicked on a random one to listen, "Angel, baby, come home. It's not the same without you here. I miss you, come back." Val's voice cooed before turning angry, "Angel, you bitch, if you don't come home, you will be fucking greasy truck drivers for the next year."

"You fuckin' slut!"

"Hey, Angie, about earlier--"

"Kill your whole fucking fam--"

"Work's really stressful--"

"Little cocksucking piece of shit--"

"You actually think you can change?" The pornstar gasped, sitting up and watching the red smoke curl in his room as he listened to this voicemail. "Addict trash like you doesn't change. I'll see you soon, baby." Angel snapped out of his thoughts as his pig nudged him with his cold snout, looking for attention.

"Sorry, not now, Fat Nuggets." He apologized before heading downstairs.

*Downstairs*

Angel grabbed a bottle of alcohol and started chugging away. "Aah..." He sighed, before seeing a shadow move. "Huh?"

He followed the light to see a door open..and not just any door, the door to (Y/N)'s office was opened. (Y/N) usually was so careful about letting people in there, the prince only Angel himself and Charlie in there. But the blond demon wouldn't leave his office open so carelessly, so someone broke in.

He walked over to the door and peeked an eye in, gasping seeing Sir Pentious placing a camera in (Y/N)'s bookshelf.

"You slippery little shit!"

Sir Pentious yelped at being caught before turning to see the angry spider.

"You're working for the Vees? I fucking knew there was something shitty about you." Angel pointed an accusing finger at the snake who scoffed.

"I don't know what you're talking about, whorebug!" smirked Pentious before Angel growled and tackled him, starting a brawl.

Spoilers: Angel was winning.

"Get your aggressively average body off of me!" screamed Pentious, hypnotizing Angel.

"Fuck!" Angel screamed as he obeyed unwillingly. Sir Pentious hissed as he slithered away to the bookshelf to get some space. Angel narrowed his eyes approaching, just as (Y/N), Charlie and Vaggie appeared, the women who were clearly sleeping, yawned and watched them blearily.

"What's going on?" asked Charlie.

(Y/N) had a box in his hands, and he tilted his head. "Why the hell are you in my office, Pentious?"

"Oh, the door was opened and I was looking for you, Prince (Y/N), when this spider burst in here and attacked me!" "Yes, my door was open, because sometimes Angel keeps me company when insomnia hits us both hard. So I leave it open and we stay up together until we fall asleep." explained (Y/N), missing the knowing looks Vaggie and Charlie shared.

"This little bitch is a traitor!" Angel snapped, holding Pentious arm firmly.

"Preposterous, I would never betray you. You...are my best friends." lied the snake as he pulled Charlie and Vaggie into a group hug. He tried to hug (Y/N) as well, but last time he did, the prince threatened to skin him and let the cannibals from Cannibal Town eat him....alive with his Egg Bois as a side.

Safe to say, everyone was disturbed as (Y/N) made that threat with a smile on his face. Angel found it hot as fuck though...

"Uh-huh. Then explain this." Angel moved one of (Y/N)'s books aside to reveal a video camera, starting to record.

Pentious noticed the shocked looks from Charlie and Vaggie before feeling a dangerous glare at his back.

He shakily turned to look at (Y/N) who was grinning darkly, fangs glinted in the light dangerously; his eyebrow twitching in anger, mixed eyes glowing an deadly red. "Hmm, looks like I'll be following through with that threat after all." He set the box down, and started approaching the Snake.

"Ah! Ah! Abort! Abort! SOS Agent Pentious in need of immediate evacuation!" screamed the snake into a wrist watch as he tried to leave the wrath of the prince.

"Pentious? Wait...you were caught? It hasn't even been a day!" Vox laughed.

Pentious side eyed the hotel members who stood in front of the other exit. Vaggie was now wielding her spear, Charlie holding her hand over her mouth in worry, Angel crossing his arms, while one of his lower arms rested on (Y/N)'s upper back as a way of grounding the pissed off prince.

"Please, you've got to get me out of here!" begged the snake. "I can't believe we thought you could handle even something this simple. Do us a favor, if they don't kill you, go ahead and do it yourself, you miserable failure!" Vox screamed, short circuiting the watch.

(Y/N)'s malicious bloodlust calmed hearing how Vox talked to the snake.

Yes, he was an idiot..but no one deserved to be told to kill themselves. He looked down thinking of...them.

"I--Just make it quick I guess. Not that I deserve it." Pentious laid down sadly, waiting for someone to hurt him. "Gladly." Vaggie growled, before being stopped by (Y/N).

"(Y/N)?" asked Angel, watching the prince as he held a hand out to the snake. "Pentious?"

"Good first day." Charlie sighed happily, reaching a hand out to Vaggie as they walked to bed. "Let's get some rest."

The group walked out of the library, (Y/N) grabbing the camera to dispose of, Angel following behind him.

After a few minutes later, a shadow grinned before Alastor appeared in (Y/N)'s office and picked up the discarded watch, starting it with his powers.

"What?" snapped Vox before he realize who was on the other side. "You'll have to try harder than that next time, ol' pal." Alastor grinned, as Vox screamed on the other side, his laughter echoing in the TV demon's ears.

*With (Y/N)*

He'd pulled Angel out onto the private balcony that came he'd built for his room, the spider lounging on his favorite swing seat that (Y/N) made for him. The two continued to grow closer everyday, and since they hang out so much, the prince wanted the spider to be comfortable. (Y/N) appeared next to Angel, holding out a glass of a red wine with ice on top and an orange slice on the rim.

The Italian mobster raised an eyebrow at the drink. "Relax, it's a Balisteri Cherry Wine. You look like you could use it." (Y/N) showed the other glass in his hand, offering a soft smile when Angel took it. He then sat himself on the railing near Angel, one leg tucked under him, the other hanging over the ledge.

"I'm glad you're here Angel. I'm sorry it took so long for someone to say this but: You're very special, and I know underneath, there's somethin' special just waiting to be unlocked....you just need someone to help you unlock it. I'd like to be that person if you'd let me." (Y/N) blushed slightly before turning to the spider who looked at him with a soft look before replying,

"I'd like that."

*End! For the song, imagine it was a male Charlie singing..I could't find a male version yet.*

See you guys next time!

#hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin niffty #hazbin vaggie #hazbin hotel charlie #hazbin angel dust #x male reader #viziepop #hazbin alastor #hazbin husk #hazbin hotel x male reader #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin vox #hazbin spoilers

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poohbea · 2 years

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𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐄𝐀��𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆.

geto suguru | smut, fluff | college boyfriend!au

𝙒𝙊𝙍𝘿𝘾𝙊𝙐𝙉𝙏 : 2.5k

— 𝙎𝙔𝙉𝙊𝙋𝙎𝙄𝙎 : remote learning was never your forte, especially when it came to a subject as complex as anatomy. you were what they call a hands-on learner and lucky for you so is geto.

𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙎 : college boyfriend!geto, fem!reader, soft!geto, domish!reader, cowgirl, missionary, teasing, unprotected sex (use protection kids), creampie (this is literally so mushy and romantic please who gave me permission???)

𝙉𝙊𝙏𝙀 𝙁𝙍𝙊𝙈 𝙋𝙊𝙊𝙃 : so this idea has been in the vault for a really long time and this post from @bleubrri reignited the spark i once had for this idea and i mean i couldn't not do the scientist gf x english lit bf au. thank you to my lovely grammar gatekeeper @the-australian-editor for fixing this up for me, love you lots. also i used as an excuse to help me study for my upcoming anatomy test, hahaha so it was perfect timing to be a liiitttle self indulgent.

WARNING: this is smut, so please ensure you have your age visible on your account before interacting. Minors (below 18+), ageless and blank blogs will be BLOCKED

Hope you enjoy ♡ reblogs are greatly appreciated

“Ugh!” Your severe exasperation pulls Geto away from his book. He peers over his literature to see you slouched and defeated in your cushioned office chair, swivelling the seat to and fro with your heel as you stared frustratedly at your computer screen.

“What happened?” He questions, attempting to continue the sentence he was reading.

“I just can’t get this!” Your frustration bounces off the walls of your shared bedroom, the volume threatening to wake the neighbours adjacent.

“What can’t you get?” Despite appearing indifferent with his head still stuck in his novel, you had his full attention.

“This whole lecture!”

Your dramatics make his eyes roll, setting his book down on the side table before shifting to the edge of the bed where you sighed for the uptenth time. “Let me see.” You roll your chair to the side so he’s able to view your laptop screen clearly, his brows immediately furrowing when he catches a glimpse of terminology way outside the boundaries of his degree. “I have no idea what any of this means.”

“See!” With your exclamation accompanied the honeyed sound of your laugh, a contagious one at that as Geto also found himself smiling. “Ugh, this is impossible. These diagrams don’t even help.”

That statement confused him. Why would they give you an example of something that wasn’t of any use to you as a student? “Why not?”

“Because we use cadavers during assessments and they’re very different compared to a diagram.” He recalls your many recounts of the anatomy lab, corpses soaked in formaldehyde, skinned, split in two, muscles and organs splayed and pinned in a macabre exhibit all in the name of science. Barbaric is what he called it, but it fascinated you nonetheless.

“So why not use yourself as practice.” The look you give him is parturient with a rhetorical question he could already hear falling from your lips.

“Really, because I’m muscular enough to use as a model?” He chuckles at your sarcasm, loose hair falling over his shoulder with a light shake of his head.

“So then use me.” From the way your face brightens he knew it was a good idea, a mindless one that he admittedly blurted out jokingly, but he’d never tell you that.

“You’d really let me use you as a live model?”

“If it’ll help you get out of this rut, then yes.” Excitement floods your veins at his confirmation, so much so, that you’re already off your seat, notes in hand and bouncing on the bed beside him before he could utter another word. “Eager, aren’t you?”

“Well, it’s an excuse to get you shirtless, so yes, very.” And just like that your exuberant and childish personality was back. Who knew that all it took was a glimpse of his physique? He made a mental note of it for future reference, adding it to the list of remedies to use against your rambunctious temperament.

“If you wanted me naked baby, all you had to do was ask.” He teases whilst pulling his shirt over his head, dark locks cascading down the expanse of a beautifully defined posterior.

“Shush, you’re supposed to be helping me study, not initiating foreplay.” You crawl your way behind him, legs crossing as you settle into the mattress.

He shoots you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “Why not both?”

“Turn around, you dork.” His shoulders shudder with a muffled laugh, one that makes you roll your eyes as you shift his hair out of the way. Then you begin to orient yourself, fingers grazing his skin tenderly, exploring each trough and peak of the muscles spanning his back. “Alright let’s see here. Flex for me?”

Silently he places his arms behind his head, pulling the corresponding muscles taut enough to protrude from his svelte figure. “Okay, upward rotation of the scapula… upper trapezius,” you eye your notes whilst tracing the nape of his neck, following the fibres down to the next muscle. “And serratus anterior.” Geto inhales sharply when your palms glide along the jagged digitations at his sides, fingers splaying as you round his ribcage. “You doin’ okay, mister model?”

“Just fine, sweetheart.” His deep voice diffuses from skin to fingertips, the vibrations inciting goosebumps across your forearms.

“Alright, next was… glenohumeral abduction, so stay like that.” You use his bicep for balance to change positions and sit back on your heels, weight shifting the bed beneath you. “Deltoids.” Tapping on each of the three bellies, you identify them outloud, familiarising yourself with the shape of the muscle at the apex of his shoulders. “Anterior, middle and posterior.” Then your first roadblock appeared. “I can’t find the other one.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too deep, so I can’t see it on the surface.”

“How about finding the general area instead?” Again you look down at your notes, hands ghosting over the approximate location of the elusive muscle.

“I think it’s here.” You conclude, pressing into the superior aspect of his shoulder blade. “Because if I’m tracing it right, then your acromion process would be here and just above that would be the supraspinatus.” In all honesty you were talking more to yourself than to your boyfriend. To him you were speaking a whole other language, so all he could really do was nod as if he actually understood what the hell an acromion process was.

“Sweetheart, not to be a bad sport or anything, but my arms are really starting to hurt.” His playful complaint draws a giggle from you.

“Sorry, you can put your arms down. We’re gonna move onto the front now anyway.”

“The front—?!” He was on his back before his thought had even fully manifested, hair haloing around his head in that pretty array of waves you loved combing your fingers through. “Now you’re just abusing me.” He huffs, watching you throw your leg over his hip, smiling as you settle into your new seat.

“You wanted to help.” The statement partnered the sly arch of your brow, eyes devious whilst staring down at him.

“What happened to ‘I’m supposed to be studying, Suguru’?”

“I am.” His breath practically vacates his lungs when your fingertips path their way up his sides, following the margin of his rib cage before trailing along his sternum. “Look, I found your pectoralis major.”

“For someone who was struggling with this a few minutes ago, you’re doing surprisingly well. Too well, in fact.” His suspicions are only confirmed by the growing smile on your face.

“Maybe, I’m just a hands-on learner.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” He says in a frivolous tone. “So what’s the muscle below that?” His hands guide yours just under the curve of his pectorals on either side, the rise and fall of his thorax prominent.

“Your external obliques.” You answer effortlessly.

“And here?” Now your hands lay over his abdominal muscles, each curve perfectly chiselled into marble-like skin.

You hold his gaze through lowered lashes, biting your lip to withhold the smile threatening to form. “Rectus abdominis.”

Something flashes in those dark irises of his at your answer, hands trailing your own lower to the waistband of his sweatpants. Sweatpants that you only now noticed were hanging dangerously low on his hips. “What about here?”

You offer him a challenging look, knowing exactly where this was going but deciding to play along anyway. “That would be your pyramidalis, my love.”

“And what does that do?” He responds with the same expression of defiance painted on those handsome features.

“Well, it tenses the linea alba, which is the connective tissue,” you watch his abdomen quiver as you trace the centre line between the rectus abdominis muscles. “Here, that separates your abs into two halves.”

“Mhm, and what’s directly below that?” Your breath hitches he guides you beneath his sweats, pulse quickening when you discover he’s not wearing anything under them.

“Suguru…” As much of a warning as his name sounded falling from your lips he knew you couldn’t resist the temptation, no, not when it was already nestled so nicely between your thighs.

“I’m waiting for an answer~”

“You know what’s directly below that.” You squint lightheartedly, hand stalling upon the heated tip.

“If I did I wouldn’t be asking you, now would I? So,” he purposefully shifts his hips into yours, your clit just grazing the notable protuberance of his shaft. “Enlighten me.”

“That’s your cock, Suguru.” Laughter follows your blunt response, the man beneath you attempting to cover his mouth upon seeing your partially serious expression.

“That wasn’t very scientific, now was it?”

“Didn’t think you’d be very interested in the technical terms.” You hook the elastic of his waistband, inching it down at a tantalisingly slow pace.

“Oh, but now you’ve got me intrigued. Please, go on.” He aids your little game with the slight raise of his hips, a facile feat even with you on top of him.

There’s silence when his cock is freed from its confines, your lustful gaze already making it twitch in anticipation. Fuck. “Shall we start from the top?” He swallows audibly when you move to kneel between his legs, ass high as your lips closed in on his tip. “First, we have the glans.”

Your soft lips envelop the area in question, hot tongue lapping delicately at his slit, the saltiness of his precum reacquainting itself with your tastebuds. He can’t help but hiss under your touch, body so familiar yet so responsive even after countless encounters with your mouth. “Then the frenulum.” The apex of your tongue slowly compasses the underside of his tip, that sweet spot, right where the head met the— “Corpus spongiosum.” He relents a breathy moan when your thumb runs over the length of hidden tissue.

“Fuck, baby.” Admittedly, your anatomy terms were going through one ear and out the other at this point. Each word morphing into its own form of gibberish as he anxiously awaited your next move.

“More?” It was a simple question and yet Geto wasn’t even sure how to answer it. Were you referring to the listing of parts as you continued your torturous teachings? Or were you simply just asking if he needed more stimulation?

Either way the answer was— “Yes.”

It’s criminal the way you pin him with that salacious look of yours, it was even more so when the flat of your tongue paths from the base of his cock, purposeful in its journey over the same place you’d mentioned beforehand, the one that made his hips jerk involuntarily.

“Now who’s eager?” His chest heaves with each leisurely stroke of your hand now enclosed around his length, a proud smirk plastered on your lips.

He manages to huff a choked laugh, only for it to get stuck in his throat when the tip of your tongue laps at the arousal beading at his slit. “Why must you torment me so?”

“Because,” you whisper, climbing utop his lap once more. “Love begets love.” His heart skips a beat as you draw closer, lips withheld only a breath away. “And this torment,” he watches your hips rise, fingers slipping your pyjama shorts and panties to the side. “Is my joy.”

Would it be wrong of him to admit that in that moment, he’d fallen in love with you all over again? It could’ve been the warmth of your pussy, the way it moulded around him so perfectly. It could’ve been how even the sweetest of poetry was recast as a sensual sonnet, each syllable flooding his veins like a drug from the syringe that was your lips against his skin. Or maybe it was a combination of the two. Heated flesh adjoined, formless breaths birthing a passionate ballad only you and Geto were able to decipher.

“Sugu…” Oh, how your moans drove him wild.

“That’s it, sweetheart.” He exhales, fingers digging into the suppleness of your hips. “Fuck, yes just like that.”

The bounce of your breasts beneath your oversized shirt – his shirt – was mesmerising. The angelic vision of his love riding him so effortlessly inciting the euphoric flutter of his lids, a wildfire of sensations ravaging his very being.

Harmony after harmony was sung with the rhythmic clap of your ass, teeth capturing your pillowy bottom lip in an attempt to prevent the promising rousal of the neighbours, a task that grew all the more tempting as time passed. He wanted it. He needed it. He craved it.

You gasp when he proceeds to switch positions, your body now enveloped by the residual heat of his skin imprinted in the duvet beneath you. He chuckles at your stunned expression, nose brushing yours tenderly as he speaks. “There is no place I end and you begin.” He recites, cock sliding along your velvety walls. “When my body is in your body, we are one, once again.”

There’s no resistance when you pull him into a kiss. It’s delicate, deep, eternal. It relayed all unspoken emotion, emotion he eagerly explored with his tongue as it parted your lips.

“I love you.” You mumble between kisses.

“I love you too.” He echoes back, thrusts never slowing.

Your fingers soon find themselves in his hair, a tell tale sign of your incoming orgasm. You liked to use him to ground yourself, knowing all too well just how easy it was to get swept up in the indifferent tides of ecstasy. But he had a different idea in mind.

Coxing your hands from its inky-tressed residence, he pins them above your head, fingers entwining before he nestles against you. “Let me hear those pretty moans, baby.”

His cock drives deep, balls lewd in the way they slap against your backside. He mutters all forms of profanity against the curve of your neck, teeth unable to resist marking such a beautiful canvas as they sink into your skin. You openly do the same, whining and moaning as if on command, grasp tightening in his when that familiar feeling begins to build in your stomach.

“Sugu, fuck… I’m gonna cum.”

“Go ahead, pretty. Cum all over this dick.” And with a final snap of his hips you let go, thighs once spread now wrapping around his waist, forcing him still. “Yes, baby, shit.” The pulse of your walls drags him into his own metaphorical heaven, lips finding yours as his seed paints your insides.

Staggered breaths fill the room, each exhale exchanged in the comfort of the other's shoulder, a brief interlude before the onset of laughter, soft and vulnerable.

“When’d you learn poetry?” Geto begins, moving to lay on his side.

“I peek at your books sometimes when you’re not looking.” You reply shyly, unable to contain that mischievous grin of yours in his presence. “It’s the best way to absorb your literary knowledge.”

He pulls you close with a soft chuckle, thumb caressing your cheek. “Or… I could just read them to you instead.”

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna disturb you, Sugu.”

“Nonsense. However, what does disturb me is your constant grumbling.” You whine when he pinches your cheek as punishment. “But it seems like that was all a facade to get me under you.”

“Okay, but you went along with it!”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you lied.” He retorts.

“I didn’t lie… I meant it when I said the diagrams didn’t help?”

His brows furrow skeptically. “And why’s that?”

You lean in to kiss his nose, a hand laying gently on his chest. “Because nothing beats the real thing.”

tags: @gardenof-venus, @sintiva, @sailewhoremoon, @okhotel, @xharia, @sakinotfound, @protectpancakes, @hoohoohope, @eiflawriting, @yooniluvbot444 , @/erentoes (i can’t seem to find your @ when i search it up idk why 😕)

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atlas-plugged · 1 year

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I haven’t read Atlas since 2005, so I’m stoked to passively ingest snarky commentary.

It always seemed to me that the people around me who were most in love with this book often particularly love the idea that other people should love them regardless of how they treat other people. Like, being a dick, or just not having very good social skills, shouldn’t tarnish the adulation due to Smart People TM, (my super cringe teenage self included) who should run the world.

I’m super curious if this matches your observations.

So I'll tell you about the two people who I most vividly remember loved Atlas Shrugged when I was working at the coffee shop and they saw me reading it.

One person was a young latina woman who had worked her way through college and law school and who had passed the bar a year before and was working overwhelming hours at a law firm where she was getting significant raises on a regular basis. The job was difficult, and she always seemed on the verge of burnout, but she was very firmly entrenched in the idea that hard work paid off and liked the book because it was about people who were brilliant and rich and worked hard anyway and they came out on top in the end.

The other person who loved it was a middle-aged man who worked taking bets at the racetrack and who was a literal, actual VOCAL member of the John Birch Society. He was notable for two habits: he never tipped, and while he never bought his own pack of cigarettes he would also never, ever allow you to *give* him cigarettes, so he would 'bum' smokes from me and pay me a quarter each (this was when a pack cost about five dollars, so that was just about what a cigarette cost). He liked the book because he thought the world was full of moochers (he's the only person I've ever spoken to who would regularly refer to people that way in conversation) and the book was a story where the moochers got what was coming to them for once.

These were VERY different people who took pretty different messages from the book for very different reasons.

I think the central fantasy of Atlas Shrugged is that it is full of characters who are loved and valued for the thing that they most value about themselves. It is a book that is not just about a meritocracy, it is about a Meritopia. It is about people who get the things they want because they are the best at what they do. This is CENTRAL to the story.

The reason I used the term "Matryoshka of Cuckoldry" to describe the relationships is because of this meritocratic point of view. Eddie loves Dagny but is not jealous of the fact that she wants Francisco because Francisco is a better man than Eddie. Francisco wants Dagny, but understands her passion for Hank because Hank is a good man who is currently part of her world in a way that Francisco can't be. Hank *sends her a letter* letting her know that he's okay with her leaving him for Galt because he meets Galt and understands why Dagny can't love Hank anymore once she has met the pinnacle of humanity. Then both of her exes help her rescue her current lover because he is a better man than them.

The Fountainhead has a much more literal cucking thing going on with Dominique marrying and fucking two men who she thinks are much worse than Roark, sullying herself with their lust until Roark chooses to stop sullying himself by operating in a world that doesn't value him the way that she does.

What is the same in both of these novels, and what I think you are pointing at in your ask, is that the horrible characters are loved for the things that they love about themselves, and all of their unloveable traits don't matter.

That is the fantasy that people are getting from Atlas Shrugged, and that's why you might find some real assholes out there "Looking for their Dagny/Galt" (a literal phrase I have seen on Libertarian dating sites!).

And you know what, I can be sympathetic to that.

I was raised to value intellect over everything else. Academic achievement, high test scores, acceptance to a good college, and being smarter and more knowledgeable than all my peers was what I was taught was more important than being kind, or being polite, or making friends, or taking care of my mental health.

That meant that I really, really, really wanted people to love me for how smart I was.

And, well. The thing about that is, I ended up loving and being loved by people who didn't care if I was cruel or selfish, and who didn't mind being cruel or selfish to me.

I'm still kind of an asshole. And since I started dating my spouse within three months of when I first read Atlas Shrugged, it's not a surprise that he doesn't care much if I'm nice to people and is, himself, kind of an asshole (though, notably, he is not an asshole with me and part of me getting better has been both of us learning to draw boundaries on how we are willing to be treated by one another).

But oh my god, I'm never an asshole like I am when I'm around my dad. I'm never as much of a snob as I am when he brings it out in me. I'm never as mean as I am when I'm talking to him. And I've never stopped hearing from my dad that I'm too smart to be doing the job that I'm doing, that I'm too smart to be going back to school for a different degree, that I should be getting a PhD and focusing on one field because that's what I'm best at and the rest of the world should recognize it. I know that's what my dad loves about me more than anything else he loves about me. He thinks I'm smarter than him, and he thinks that's awesome, and he thinks that everything I do that is not about harnessing raw intelligence into an academic career is a waste of my mind and time.

So there is a part of me that deeply identifies with these characters whose best trait is their efficiency, who never bother to be nice because it would slow them down in the process of being perfect. I desperately understand the fantasy of someone saying "you are the best in the world at this one specific thing and I find that so sexy that I don't care about your lack of work/life balance, offputting personality, and total lack of skills unrelated to your area of interest."

(Of note: another part of this fantasy in the novel is that skill in one area translates to skill in others. There's a philosopher who is also an incredible short order cook; there's a banker who is also a brilliant tobacco grower; there's a railroad executive who is also an expert maid because Ayn Rand is so fucking kinky she doesn't know what to do with herself)

That's just, you know, a shitty way to live and means you treat people like crap and sometimes that takes a little while to understand that and figure out how to be less of an asshole.

Also: part of the fantasy is that you actually ARE good enough at any one thing that that's what someone will love you for. Most of us aren't! And that's a good thing actually, because people should love you for more than one aspect of yourself!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: one of the most important things that I've ever come across for my mental health is this image:

[ETA: the image is a print by Nicole Manganelli of Radical Emprints and you can get one here.]

I saw it on Tumblr some time in 2013 or thereabouts and instantly recoiled from it. I was angry about it. It was *WRONG.* At that point, in my mind, ALL that you are were worth was your productivity. That was literally all that you had to offer to the world, and literally all that people could love you for.

That's the Atlas Shrugged mindset. That's what the people who are fans of the book are carrying around in their heads. That's why they think it doesn't matter if they're an asshole, so long as they're rich enough, or work hard enough, or are the best at enough things, or have enough to make up for the fact that they aren't anything outside of their productivity.

But the picture wasn't wrong, I was wrong.

Anyway, I've done a lot of therapy about it and that's the best answer I've come up with.

#matryoshka of cuckoldry #image description in alt

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piratefalls · 4 months

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new list, new year, (trying out a) new header, new post day. i'm back after a nice little vacation where i got almost zero reading done, so no one is more surprised by the amount of holiday fic here than me.

list one. list two. list three. list four. list five. list six. list seven. list eight. list nine.

No Consequences by AnchoredArchangel

"I sort of came out as bisexual to both Nora and myself when we were watching that fucking snoozefest of a Royal Wedding years ago, and I told her with no hesitation that you were on my list.” Suddenly, Henry looks very present in this previously one-sided conversation, eyes boring into him even if he sounds a little choked as he clarifies, “I was on-” “My No Consequences sex list,” Alex confirms brazenly, “Yeah." Or: During an inadvisable spot of dating years back, Alex and Nora made a game out of making extensive lists of celebrities they could hook up with without it being cheating. One breakup and several years later, Alex meets someone on his list for the very first time at a charity gala and decides it's appropriate to tell him all about it.

Wash a Bad Day Away by stellarmeadow

Alex has a bad day and needs to drown it in a tub.

this year I will fall by railmedaddy

Henry has many regrets in his life, but leaving the ice rink after a literal run in with the potential love of his life without even obtaining his name may be his biggest. With his family visiting for the holidays for the first time and ever-present work deadlines looming, he's too busy to think about how to engineer his own happy ending worthy of the novels he edits. But what if fate has other ideas?

the mountchristen pharma job by coffeecatsme

The alarm blares. Still, the man slides the key again and enters the room. He closes the door behind him, flips the flash drive in his palm. Walks to the room that’s supposed to be empty, the room they made sure was clear before they made their move. Except it’s not. And the man recognizes that head of blonde hair all too well. Henry fucking Fox-Mountchristen. Six years ago, Mountchristen Pharma's reckless actions caused Rafael Luna's death. Alex and June want to make it right, but they're not the only ones.

Take a Trip Into My Garden by @sparklepocalypse

Alex groans. From the sound of things, he’s in no better state than Henry. “Why in the absolute fuck does your family have a fucking Viagra orchid?” (A sex pollen fic that takes place on the grounds of Kensington Palace between the Cornetto scene and the interview blitz.)

you could call me babe for the weekend by weather_stained

It's been three years since Ellen Claremont lost the 2016 Presidential Election, and Alex hasn't seen Prince Henry since the Rio Olympics. When Alex, June, and Nora take a post-finals trip to a Vermont ski resort, Henry and his best friend Pez are the last people they expect to see waiting in line for the chairlift. To Alex's great displeasure, Nora and June end up quite takenwith Pez, and Alex is forced to spend time with Henry. In one weekend, they become closer than he could have ever imagined.

come away with me by rizcriz

Alex closes the door behind himself and turns into his tiny apartment with an exhausted sigh. As he turns to flip the lightswitch, the subtle sound of fabric rustling hits his ears; carefully, he unclips his gun at his waist band, flips the light switch, and turns around, pulling the gun on the intruder. He nearly drops it at the sight of a familiar head of shining blond hair. “What the fuck?” Alex asks, taking a step in, and reaching with his free hand into his holster for the pair of cuffs he knows he clipped in this morning. “Intel said you were in London.” Henry Fox, international thief and conman, tilts his head where he’s sitting in Alex’s favorite armchair. “Honestly, Alex,” he says, waving a hand. “Put the gun away. We both know you’re not going to shoot me.” “Fuck you,” Alex hisses on impulse. “Put your hands up.” -- or Con Man Henry and Interpol Agent Alex

(Dil)Do It Yourself by happinessofthepursuit

“Listen,” Nora starts, turning her body once more so that she’s sitting sideways in the chair with her legs thrown across the armrest. “I did the math. There’s a 79% chance you’re gonna become a slut to the power of the prostate, and while we’re not dating anymore, it’s my duty as your fellow slutty bisexual to get this party started.” Or, when Nora drags Alex to a holiday dildo workshop, he doesn’t expect to find someone to use it with.

Gonna Give You Something (So You Know What's on My Mind) by affectionatelyrs

Alex hums, turning around to pull open the freezer drawer. “You want anything?” But Henry barely registers his question. Not when Alex is slightly bent over, allowing Henry a perfect view of his perfect ass. Each individual ridge of his spine is visible due to his lack of shirt. All of these things combined would normally be a large enough issue in itself to render Henry dumbstruck, except— Except, that’s not the only thing that Henry’s faced with. Right there, clear as day: blue lace, delicately peeking out from the waistband of his joggers. Henry’s hand immediately flies up to his cheek. The skin is hot to the touch, and he feels the imprint of where the material once lay like a brand. - Or, With the help of a white elephant gift, Henry learns that maybe the whole being-in-love-with-his-roommate thing isn’t as one-sided as he thought

i've forgotten if they're green or they're blue by metacrisis

When the worst snowstorm New York city has had since the Great Blizzard of 1947 snows Alex and Henry into their Brownstone, Alex falls into a bizarre dream and awakens in a world much like his own. Only it seems like he's suddenly five inches shorter, five years younger and why is Henry the only person who can tell? AKA, Movie Alex falls into Bookverse before he and Henry get together.

Ho for the Holidays by @whimsymanaged

“Listen, don’t worry about this,” Henry says quickly, already mentally crafting the passive-aggressive text he’s going to send Pez. “Better luck next year. I’ll just be off—“ “Hold your damn horses.” Alex stops Henry with a fast, surprisingly gentle hand to his wrist. His eyebrows furrow. “What did you put on your questionnaire?” Henry’s ears go hot. “That’s none of your business.” Alex scoffs and leans in closer. “Baby, we matched. It’s safe to say we have at least some interests in common. Be honest—was it because you confessed to having a secret desire to slap me?” Or, Pez organizes an event called Ho for the Holidays, and these two idiots get paired up.

Waiting in the Wings by DracoWillHearAboutThis

Henry had always known he would end up in an arranged marriage. He had not expected, though, to end up in an arranged marriage with Prince Alex Claremont-Diaz, who he'd secretly been in love with for the past fifteen years.

Fill My Stocking by songliili

Alex has spent the past fifteen minutes talking with David about his favourite treats. Not that the dog answered, but Alex was undeterred and kept going, uncaring that Henry had asked him to give him an hour and then he’d join him in hanging up fairy lights and mistletoe everywhere. Very well. If Alex wants Henry’s attention, he'll have it. It's probably not what Alex thought he’d accomplish with his little scheme, but it's a compromise between Henry's needs and Alex's wants, and that's all that can be done. OR: Alex wants some attention and Henry has to get creative.

Here With Me by SatinBirds

When Zahra asks, “Would it make any difference at all if I told you not to see him again?”, it’s the easiest thing for Alex to categorically answer, “No.”

because it's Tuesday by headabovethewater

Right, so, here’s the thing; Alex hasn’t shaved in a while. He’s been so consumed by stress for his exams, his thesis, the post-election work he’s been doing for Ellen… It’s been a bit much for Alex, and while Henry is impressed by the fact that he’s able to keep himself standing and functioning, he has noticed that the scruff on his face has increased. A lot. Oh, Henry has noticed, alright.

i want to mark my skin (it is paper thin) by violetbaudelairequagmire

To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subj: Tattoo Reference Attached: 1 file (orionsketch.jpg) Hello, Attached you’ll find a line art drawing of the constellation Orion. The shoulder blade is the intended location. Best, H.J. Fox OR: It's a Tattoo Shop AU!

Can't Buy Me Love by everwitch

Alex is a high end escort. Henry is his wealthiest client. He's also a total asshole, which Alex has zero patience for. He'd never let a client walk all over him like that, not even one with striking features and an air of firm authority that Alex has to keep reminding himself he’s not attracted to. But over time, Alex learns there's more to Henry than fiery insults and cruel dismissal. So much more. Alex is in so much fucking trouble. He should end things with Henry before he gets burned. (He couldn't end things with Henry if he got paid for it.)

He Was Here With Me by absoluteaudacity

Arthur lives: a wishlist

(Door)Dash to the Heart by bleedingballroomfloor

The man looks up when Henry opens the door. "Henry?" Henry clears his throat. "That's me," he manages. "Cool," the man says. "You're making me hungry for breakfast with this order, man. Which is bad for me, because my breakfast is usually just coffee, and there's no way I can drink that this late." "Uh," Henry says. He's pretty sure dashers don't talk this much during orders. "Anyway," the man says, handing the bag of food to Henry, "enjoy your night." Five times Henry gets late-night food from his insanely hot DoorDasher Alex, and one time they get food together at a normal time.

(here's my number) so call me, maybe by villageidiot

"I could go a few days without contact, you know." Henry looks over at Alex, who's splayed across the couch, and places a finger on the page he's reading to keep his place. "I'm…sorry?" "While you're gone, I mean. I could handle a few days of not talking to you." Henry still looks a little baffled. "Is this something you want to do? I'm still unclear on the 'why' here." And so is Alex, honestly. or: five times Alex fails at the whole "go a whole weekend with no contact" thing (and one time Henry does)

the beagle, the ghost and the wardrobe by stutteringpeach

Henry’s new flat comes with one unexpected feature: it’s already inhabited. But not by a human. By a ghost.

Night Class by OrchidScript

Alex how found the simplest solution for all the facts he had been presented. There were plenty of them to make sense of. Alex was taking the path of least resistance, accepting that whatever remained after all was stripped away must be the truth. June could laugh at him for the rest of time if she wanted. He was right. He knew he was right. He had to be right because nothing else on earth or in the universe made sense. Henry Fox — his smarmy, entitled, wealthy, bland, irritating neighbor — was a vampire. Alex knew it. He could prove it.

Piss-up in a brewery by clottedcreamfudge

"I hate this," Alex says, not for the first time, and Henry covers his face with his hands. "Yes," he says, a little muffled, "that's coming across." "It's not, like, personal," Alex clarifies, even though it fucking is. "I just don't really like sleeping with other people. I mean, sleeping in beds with other people. I like having sex-" "Yes, alright," Henry says peevishly, not moving his hands at all. "You needn't extol further on your love of intercourse." "Who the fuck talks like that?"

Sleepless Nights by stripyjumpers

Henry's insomnia has been getting worse. He thinks it's fine, until it all finally catches up to him.

move fast (and keep quiet) by HypnosTherapy

Henry’s smile goes slightly strained at the edges. In his ear, Nora hisses at Alex to walk away. He firmly ignores her. “What brings you here tonight, Foxy?” Henry brushes Alex’s hand off him. “The same thing that brings us all here,” he answers. “Not only a girl’s best friend, after all.” -- Alex is a spy tasked with securing a case of diamonds being auctioned off by black market smugglers. Henry is a rival spy who happens to be tasked with receiving the same case of stones. When Henry wins the auction, Alex has to retrieve his target, no matter the cost.

Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured by myheartalive

“Fox,” he hisses through his teeth. “How about you take the tube tonight? Or go for a nice long walk?” Henry’s stunned. “Excuse me?” “Yep, I will excuse you. Now do us both a favour and find another way to get home.” — OR enemy co-workers Henry and Alex get unwillingly shoved into a cab together (and finally sort their issues out)

the best intentions by smc_27

He sees the flyer when he’s in town picking up the fabric and books June wanted from the market. Once a year. On the prince’s birthday. The chance for his one true love to rescue him from the tower. A cash prize to go along with the prince’s hand in marriage. The title of Prince Consort and a palace of their own. Alex knows himself. He knows how people are with him. He’s made people fall in love with him without even trying for it. He’s had to break hearts since he was 15 and Charlotte Marks told her father she was going to marry Alex. He can get some cloistered prince on board.

A Life, in Names by th0ughts

Macsomething continues to flounder. “I arrived just as someone came out, you see. A woman, with the hot pink jacket? I told her that I’m Roy Maclanahan—” (bingo. Henry knew it was Maclanahan.) “—here for Mr. Claremont-Diaz, I work with him you see. He invited me over, to look through some documents? And she told me that I was in luck, that he was home. “Either way I am so sorry to have disturbed you your hi—Henry. She must’ve been mistaken. I’ll take my leave and return when your husband’s arrived.” Maclanahan is wringing his hands and looks just about a second away from nervously combusting but the entire ordeal has Henry’s face blooming in a smile. _____ Musings of a life, in four surnames.

In my dreams (In your dreams) by lizzie_bennetdarcy

He opens his mouth to tell Alex it's fine, they can stay, when Alex shakes his head. "The room is spinning. That's not fun. Alright, sweetheart, let's go home." He jumps up from the stool, and immediately lists sideways into Henry. "What will it take to get you to carry me home?" "More than you're prepared to give, I'm afraid." Kiss me, marry me, have my children, please. Alex is very drunk, and very affectionate, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for Henry to pretend like he isn't completely in love with him.

when he breaks so beautifully by viciouslyqueer

Henry thinks it’s just been a rough day – it certainly wouldn’t be the first time – but he only realizes just how wrong he is when his boyfriend actually gets home. Slumped shoulders. Twitching fingers. Red-rimmed eyes glistening with tears. Henry’s heart breaks on sight. — Alex has a rough day at work and asks Henry to be mean to him. Henry praises him instead.

Twenty Seven Batters by politics_and_prose

A ballplayer will refuse to stop playing because they want one more hit, steal, strikeout. One more homerun. One more win. So they get old and they lose their skill and embarrass themselves long after they should have hung up their spikes. If that’s the rule, then Alexander Claremont-Diaz is the exception. Because today, at age 38, Alexander Claremont-Diaz is six outs away from a perfect game.

forever yrs, for evermore by indomitablelove

‘Wake up,’ Henry whispers. Alex turns and squints his eyes open. He looks at the clock. ‘Baby, why the fuck are you waking me up at six am? I’m on vacation.’ ‘I’ve got a surprise, come outside. You can go back to bed after, I promise,’ Henry tells him with a smile. ‘I’ve made you coffee.’ Alex sits up with a squint and a stern, unimpressed look on his face. ‘You better have a fucking good reason for getting me up at sunrise.’ --- or, a lake house proposal fic

Aged Like a Fine Wine by allmylovesatonce

At a gala for the Okonjo Foundation, Senator Alex Claremont-Diaz runs into Prince Henry of Wales for the first time in two years. Something is different about him, and it's not just the revelations that came out the last time the two saw each other. When they're encouraged to spend more time together, it lights a spark that could send both of their lives into a tailspin. Will Alex resist the temptation or will he find the courage to pursue what he's wanted far longer than he's let himself acknowledge?

All our Sweetest Hours Fly Fastest by AHistoricDistraction

It has been three years since they were outted and Henry and Alex have finally settled into a groove that works well for them, except for the fact that it feels like they're always having to steal time together. Queen Mary constantly coming up with excuses to get Henry out of public events with Alex isn't helping, and Alex is done with it. After a long conference in Tokyo that Henry couldn't attend, Alex's flight home being delayed is the last straw and he calls Henry to say they need to figure out a better way to do this, to which Henry agrees. But fate has other ideas. Alex's flight goes missing somewhere over the Pacific, no trace of it to be found, leaving Henry and Alex's family struggling to not lose hope while unable to do anything.

as always, let me know if you want to be tagged, either for author purposes or just to know when these go up! see you next tuesday!

tagging: @starkfridays @stilesgivesmefeels

#rwrb #rwrb rec list #firstprince #red white and royal blue #rwrb fanfiction #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor

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roonilwazlibimagines · 4 months

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annoying - d.m x female!reader

Blurb: draco will never beat the annoying allegations, because he is annoying, but he is also romantic or the three times draco was annoying but the three times he made it up to her or just like really fluffy draco malfoy stuff

Word Count: 5.3k

Warnings: I FORGOT TO SAY THAT THIS IS NOT SMUT BUT IT IS VERY SUGGESTIVE AND INVOLVES NUDITY IM SORRY BUT LIKE VERY MUCH 16+

A/N: this started as a list of things i thought draco malfoy would do as a boyfriend but it turned into this and i made them married because they're traditional!! and they would not live together before marriage!! and i wanted them to live together for this!! in hindsight i could have written around it but i wrote this by the pool and it didn't occur to me then!! i will not change it now!!

ps. in my mind this is with potter!daughter but there was no mention of other potters so i didn't force it, but if you would like to read draco x potter!daughter please check this tag or come talk to me about them because i am obsessed with them!

Masterlist

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“I’d say,” she tapped her finger to her lip, noticing the blonde boy hanging on her every word, “annoying,” she said with a confident finality.

“What?” She had to stop the amused expression she would normally wear, trying to convince her astounded husband that she was being serious. “You’re so full of shit.”

She gasped.

“You’re literally proving my point.” He rolled his eyes and manoeuvred his body to grab onto her hips and pull her towards him.

“Take it back.” He was peppering kisses all over her neck making her let out a traitorous giggle. But she refused to deny it.

It had started less than five minutes earlier. It was well past eleven at night and the young, newly wed couple were still in that stage where neither necessarily wanted to sleep, still fascinated with the idea of being married and wondering what differences came with it.

Draco was reading a new book that she had bought because the blurb sounded like something he would like and she was writing something down in her notebook, being extra careful not to get ink in the bed. Again.

When she suddenly put her quill down, a thump eliciting from the force of it landing on the paper, Draco didn’t even finish the sentence he was on before he dogeared the page he was on and put the novel on his lap to look at the pretty girl slouched next to him.

“If you could describe me in one word, what would it be?”

“Beautiful,” he replied without an ounce of hesitation. She rolled her eyes, copying his actions with her own notebook and placing it on the bedside table with the quill that managed to keep its ink where it was meant to be.

“You’re flattering me,” she turned her head back towards, “tell me the truth.”

“I am,” he insisted, also placing his book on his side so he could reposition himself to look at her properly. Her pyjamas were hanging loosely over her body and she had various strands falling out of her ponytail framing her face that was ever so slightly starting to puff up due to the late hour. But Draco was telling the truth.

“Alright, well give me another.”

Draco thought about this one for a second, trying to find a word that suited her but would also appease her interest.

She stared up at him as he hummed to himself. His hair was dishevelled and his t-shirt clung onto his biceps in a way that forced her to focus on the words leaving his pretty lips.

“Strong-willed.”

“Interesting,” she hummed, having a feeling that he was trying to say something to get a reaction out of her. Well, a reaction was what he was going to get.

“Well, if I had to describe you in one word,” she paused noticing how he quirked up slightly at that, “I’d say…” and that was how she ended up being trapped by his arms, victim to his kisses and fingertips digging into the flesh on her sides.

“I’m not annoying, love.” He said, finally loosening his grip on her, but when she made no effort to move he kept his arm draped loosely over her hips, keeping her back pushed against his chest.

“Lies,” she basically hissed the word at him leaving him with a cocky smirk that she had to strain her neck to see.

Because he was annoying.

It was literally just this morning that he had annoyed her.

“Draco,” her voice echoed throughout the house and Draco put down his spoon to yell back, “What?”

He was at the dining table, eating a second breakfast, and he swallowed his cereal as he heard her footsteps thundering down the stairs.

“Did I leave my lip balm down there?” Her voice was slightly less loud as she made her way to him, confident she had left it on the table when they ate breakfast together. Or, Draco’s first breakfast together.

Draco’s eyes didn’t take long to land on the cylinder, stood up right in front of where his pretty wife had been sitting minutes ago. He quickly snatched it into his hand, securing it in his palm before she appeared in front of him.

“Haven’t seen it,” he mumbled, grabbing his spoon in his free hand to shove more cereal in his mouth, hoping it would prevent him from giving himself away.

“Really?” She asked, making her way over to the kitchen, “I could’ve sworn I left it here.” He could hear her moving around various objects and sighing when she gave up and moved to the living room.

“It’s literally just a white cylinder, are you sure you haven’t seen it?” She made her voice louder to reach him from the other room where he could hear her rummaging around the lounge, no doubt seeing if it had fallen into one of the many crevices. Why? He wasn’t sure. She hadn’t been there this morning.

“I know what your lip balm looks like,” he replied moodily. He heard her huff and when he looked back up from his bowl she was standing in front of him. Good to see she could be quiet when she wanted to be.

“You have it.”

“What?” Draco dropped his spoon again, said lip balm burning a hole through his palm.

“You have it.” And within seconds she was directly in front of him. But Draco was quicker and he had risen to his full height, putting his traitorous hand behind him as his chair made a loud scraping noise against their floor.

“Show me your hand.” She moved to grab his hand hiding behind his back but he turned so she couldn’t reach.

“You need to work on your reflexes, babe.”

“You need to stop acting like a child, babe,” she mimicked.

She had her hands folded across her chest, hoping to catch him by surprise when she made to move again.

He was looking down at her with a horrid smirk, her squinted eyes and downward curve of her lips only serving to make it stronger.

“Give it to me,” she whined, suddenly making a move to grab it. Draco had let his guard down ever so slightly, distracted by her pretty face and this time when she went to grab it, her fingers brushed his knuckle.

But Draco needed to make sure she couldn’t reach it so this time, his arm went above his head and he knew it was the right move when she whined once more, “Draco.” She dragged out the last vowel of his name and made a slight movement that looked like her stamping her foot in the ground in annoyance.

“Why are you like this?”

Draco only shrugged his shoulders, making her huff as she brought her arms around her chest once more.

When he didn’t say anything, she continued.

“I’m not going to beg for it.”

“But you sound so pretty when you do.” She scoffed at him and his stupid smirk and his stupid lanky height that meant there was no way for her to reach it without jumping. And even that would be a stretch.

“Draco Malfoy, I swear-“ but she never finished because he got an awful twinkle in his eye when she said his full name and she wasn’t having it. She took a step towards him and reached to the very tip of her toes to try and grab it.

Her hand only reached his wrist.

“You’re such a child.” She groaned, straining to reach even further. Draco brought his head back slightly to look at her determined face trying to and grab the lip balm, still secure in his palm.

She gave up trying to reach and instead wrapped her fingers around his wrist and tried with all her might to drag it down.

She let out a soft groan that made Draco chuckle.

“Maybe if you’d ask nicely I’d give it to you.”

Draco was sure the devil himself had taken the place of his pretty wife with the dirty look he was on the receiving end of.

“Draco,” she said, dropping her hold on his wrist and taking the tiniest of steps back.

“Yes, my love.”

“Can I please have my lip balm?” Her voice was steady and Draco knew that she was fighting her own mind not to scream and shout until she got her way.

“Well, because you asked so nicely.” He dropped his hand, but still put it behind his back as he lent down to press a soft kiss to her pouting lips.

When he pulled back she was giving him an impatient look, her palm out, waiting for him to give it back to her.

Still smirking, he put it in her hand, quickly pulling his hand away when her fingers wrapped around it and she snatched it away. Huffing as she made her way back up the stairs.

“A thank you would be nice,” Draco yelled out, going back to his soggy cereal and chuckling when a string of profanities floated all the way to his ears.

She was quick to remind him of this incident now that they were in bed and Draco still stood by the fact that he was not annoying.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that was annoying,” he argued, with her back still against his chest. She rolled her eyes, grateful that he couldn’t see.

“I would.”

“I was just teasing,” he insisted and she scoffed. “You know I would’ve given it back to you.”

He was partially right, he did like to tease her, but teasing her was annoying.

It was only that weekend that that had gone to a house party with some friends from high school. Everyone was taking advantage of the summer months, and most of them were sitting outside, enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon without the sun blaring down on them.

She had been inside for the last hour or so, trying to avoid any red flesh and catching up with some old friends, but when the noticed the guilty star had left the sky, they started to make their way out.

She noticed immediately that there weren’t going to be enough chairs, so she happily made her way over to Draco and sat on his lap.

He was halfway through a conversation with someone and even though he didn’t explicitly acknowledge her presence, he still manoeuvred his body so she could make herself comfortable. And once she stopped wriggling all over him, he wrapped his arms around her waist.

She was happy sitting there, sipping her drink, laughing at whatever her friends said, and enjoying the way the scent of her boyfriend overtook her senses.

Halfway through one of their stories she felt something crawling on her arm and with a quiet groan she twitched in Draco’s lap, flicking the intruder away.

“What’s wrong, lovey?” Draco bent down to whisper in her ear so as not to disrupt the conversation and draw attention to them.

“The bugs are eating me alive,” she huffed, repositioning herself so she was half draped over his lap.

“Can’t blame them,” he pressed a soft kiss to her shoulder, “you taste so good.”

She gave him an unimpressed look and the edge of his lips quirked up in a familiar smirk before their attentions went back to the conversation.

Every now and then she’d twitch whenever a crawling trespasser appeared on her skin. Each instance followed by a huff and a sigh from the pretty girl resting on Draco’s lap.

Draco was trying his best to defend his girlfriend, removing his hand from her waist to wave it around anytime a bug even dared to look at her and keeping a loose arm around her so she could wriggle and swat away whenever she pleased. But for some reason, the bugs had chosen his pretty girl to annoy tonight, and no one was as in tune with her annoyance as he was.

That’s why he thought what he was about to do was risky. She was already annoyed, but it wasn’t at the hands of him, so he figured he’d do it anyway.

When the conversation had started to die down and people turned to the others around them, starting their own private conversations, Draco turned down to his wife and started a conversation with her.

She was happily chatting away, and Draco was listening intently. He promised. But when she got towards the end of her sentence and took a breath, Draco purposefully furrowed his eyebrows together.

He noticed immediately the increase of diameter of her pretty eyes and the way she froze ever so slightly in his lap.

“What’s that?” He asked, flicking his head up in the direction of her own.

“What’s what?” Her voice had risen an octave and Draco was glad the rest of the group were talking over each other loud enough to drown her out.

“That,” Draco said again, subtly taking his hand away from the valley of her spine. “I think,” he paused and got the desired effect with the look of fright she was giving him, “there’s a,” she was frozen on his lap, “a bug on you.” And as he finished the world’s longest sentence his fingertips found her neck and a tiny squeal left her lips as she contorted her body into his, naive to think she’d find safety with him.

She could feel his whole body shake as he let out a strong laugh, his arms returning around her waist and locking her into his grasp as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“I hate you so much.”

Draco could feel her pulse and he almost felt bad for causing her such annoyance, but when she strained her neck to frown at him, a hard crease between her pretty eyes, he couldn’t help the boyish smirk that enveloped his face.

“Liar,” he retorted, not missing the way she clung to him when she thought there was danger.

“I apologised for that,” Draco whined, now in bed. Similarly pressing a kiss to the top of her head as she recalled just how annoying his teasing was.

He did feel bad for it. He didn’t think it would upset her that much. He just wanted to upset her slightly.

“Still annoying,” she grumbled, refusing to look back up at him.

“C’mon,” Draco continued, a tinge of a whine tainting his tone, “you love being teased.”

She rolled her eyes at his poor attempt of a double entendre.

But this time he was telling the truth.

It was only last week when this had occurred.

They had only been married for a couple of months after almost a year of being engaged, but their house was in the works the second Draco proposed to her so they would have somewhere to go when a permanent gold band rested where their fourth finger on their left hand came in contact with the knuckle.

Draco was at her house, going over the plans to ensure she was happy with anything. She was listening. Partly. She trusted Draco.

"Oh," he added as well, knowing that he didn't have her complete attention, "we also have to decide if we want a pool."

"Obviously," she scoffed, knowing by the way that the corner of his mouth tugged upward that he was just trying to get her involved.

Because Draco knew he wanted a pool, and he was glad for it when they woke up to the sun peaking through their window, waking them up and inviting them to join it outside while they played in the pool.

Draco was already in, unbothered by the wait of his pretty wife who took slightly longer to get ready. And the wait was worth it when she came out in a two-piece which Draco really thought was an overstatement considering how little of her was covered.

She swayed her hips on purpose, noticing the slight part in her husband's pretty lips, doing a faux pose when she reached the pool that made Draco clear his throat.

"You look good."

"I know," she beamed at him cheekily, throwing her towel on the chair next to his and tying her hair up in a high bun. "I'm not in the mood to get my hair wet today, I'm too lazy to wash it."

Draco didn't say anything, but she didn't give it a second thought knowing that his eyes were preoccupied.

Draco floated over to the stairs as she made her way in, letting out a little squeal as her feet touched the first step.

"It's so cold!"

"You can't be serious." Draco let out a small chuckle as she placed her weight from one foot to the other.

"I'm very serious, Draco," she whined, finding the courage to go to the next step.

It was up to her calves, and she was going against the water as she kicked her legs out, trying to acclimatise to the new temperature.

Draco, already knowing he consequences of his actions, placed his hands in the water and flicked it over at her.

"Draco!" She had put her hands out in a poor attempt to save herself from his attack and bent a leg up towards herself in some sort of defence.

He laughed.

"Stop being such a baby." She gave him a pout that very much reminded him of a baby.

But she took no note of her husband’s rude comments and instead put her hands in the water to splash him back.

“C’mon, yours was much bigger than mine.” Draco rolled his eyes, running a hand through his now wet hair and putting his hands back in the water.

“Draco Malfoy if you dare-”

She was already folding in on herself, but she never felt the splash or got to finish her statement because Draco had cut her off.

“C’mon darling, I promise I won’t splash you if you just get in.”

She put her hands down slowly, not sure how much she should trust the blonde haired boy giving her a sly grin.

“I don’t trust you,” she said, her actions betraying her words as she took another step down. It reached just above her bottom piece and Draco heard her take a sharp breath in as a couple of goosebumps erupted on her lotioned skin.

One more step to go.

“I promise I won’t splash you.” He had an odd look of sincerity on his face, but she made sure to keep eye contact with him as she placed her hands in the water and brought them to the tops of her shoulders in an attempt to let her body become familiar with the cool liquid.

She went to the next step. She took in a shaky breath, moving on the spot in a hurried motion to try to bring some warmth to her body.

“One more step, love, c’mon.” Draco opened his arms in an attempt to get her into his embrace.

“I swear, Draco, if you splash me,” she trailed off, letting her foot fall off the last step and pushing her body towards his arms.

He grabbed onto her, his hands roaming around her hips as he bent his head down to press a kiss to her pretty lips.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling away with a slight breathlessness, “you’ll what?” He lent back to kiss her, unashamed, he knew he was in trouble the second he saw her enter the backyard in her little bikini that didn’t leave a lot to his imagination.

“I-I’ll,” she forced herself to pull away even though she wanted nothing more than to kiss her pretty husband until their skin shrivelled from the water. But Draco had other plans, because when she was looking at him, a soft look in her eyes from the way he had kissed her, he decided this was the perfect time.

His fingers locked around her waist and the last thing he saw was her pretty eyes widen as he pulled her under the water with him.

He knew he’d never hear the end of it the second he brought them to the surface and she let out a couple of dramatic coughs.

“Are you trying to kill me?” She shrieked, blinking the water out of her eyes and pushing his shoulders ever so slightly with the butt of her palm. His arms were still locked around her waist and he had no intention of letting go.

All he did was laugh in response, flicking his blonde hair out of his eyes and leaning down to pepper kisses all over her slimey face. All he could taste was her sunscreen and she kept twisting in his grasp and trying to pull her face away from him, but he continued his attack bravely.

“Hey,” he said, letting out a chuckle despite the grumpy look on her pretty face, “I only promised not to splash you.”

She wanted to scream. Instead, she splashed him back.

“Well, I never promised not to splash you.” She said indignantly in a way that reminded Draco of a child.

“Ah,” he said, much too arrogantly for her taste, “is that how you want to play?” He removed his hands around her waist to splash at her, but even though she knew what was coming, she didn’t step away from him.

“Nuh uh,” she whined, turning her head to avoid the water coming into contact with her face, “you promised you wouldn’t splash me.”

“Well, I take it back.” It was then she decided that she hated Draco’s height. She used to admire it, loved how he towered over almost anyone in any room. But now, she came to realise that his arms were much too long, because before she even got the chance to splash him back he had reached out and grabbed onto her hips, pulling her closer to him and bringing her with him under the water once more.

This time she gave him a good shove on the shoulder while they were under the water, but she wondered if Draco even noticed with the way his hands were squeezing her hips and grabbing at her flesh.

It was only when he brought them to the surface that she realised he was trying to find the string keeping her bikini bottom up and once again, she cursed his long fingers for quickly untying the double knot.

“Draco!” Her hands left his shoulders to grab onto her swimmers before Draco got any other ideas, but Draco was quick and in one swift movement he grabbed both of her hands in his.

She wriggled against him, but movement only made the swimmers pull away from her skin so instead she gave him a defeated look.

He was laughing manically, his chest rumbling at her predicament and the pretty pout that was gracing her pretty lips.

In another swift movement he turned her around so her back was against his chest and her hands were still locked up in Draco’s large hand jail, but the movement was not her friend because with his other free hand, Draco had grabbed the traitorous bottom and thrown it out of the pool, quick to bring it to the front and give her top the same treatment.

He was taking his time, kissing all over her neck, trying to get her to succumb to his pleasures, but she was strong-willed and it was only the way her voice gave a slight tremble at the end of her sentence that gave her away.

“You’re so annoying.”

Draco was now kissing her neck in a similar fashion, but she wasn’t going to give in.

“Thought you liked it then?” He teased, his voice low from the late hour and soft due to their proximity.

“I mean it was alright.” Draco could tell by the slight quiver of her voice and lack of comeback that his little neck kisses were getting to her.

“Do you want to try another word, darling?”

But while the kisses may have softened her, she was still able to respond with, “romantic.”

Because he was.

The only reason she was looking for her lip balm was because he was taking her out for lunch.

And when she came down, all dressed up for him, she twirled on the spot, loving the soft look in his eyes compared to the mischievous twinkle he had worn trying to get a reaction out of her.

They were sitting across from each other and when she rested her hand on the table, Draco took it in his own and neither arm was strong enough to move from its position.

While they waited for the server to come over, she used her free hand to rifle through her bag and when she found the desired lipstick and started putting it on, Draco squinted his eyes at her.

“What?”

“I want to ask you a question.” She gave a seconds pause before putting her lipstick away and facing her pretty husband.

“I’m scared.”

He disregarded her comment and asked, “what’s in your bag?”

“My bag?” She gave him a confused look, losing the warmth of his palm as she grabbed her bag for a second time. The very expensive bag Draco had bought for her only a month or so ago because she had made a trivial comment about how pretty it was when they first walked past it.

She opened it and showed it to him, he was her husband, she had nothing to hide.

Draco liked what he saw. Lipstick, a little mirror, the perfume she usually wore in a small cylindrical glass, and the lip balm he had teased her about this morning.

“What if I forgot the card at home?” he chuckled, his smile only intensifying at the confused look on his pretty girl’s face.

“The credit card?”

“What other card, darling?” The smirk on his face told her he was telling a fib, but she still asked, “did you?”

She never got her response though as the server politely interrupted the conversation, causing her to close her bag back up and listen to Draco repeat what she had told him she wanted from the menu.

The fact that he was ordering told her all she needed to know about the card situation, but she still continued the conversation as if there had been no interruption.

“In all honesty, I stopped bringing money with me after, like, our second month of going out.”

This made Draco let out a laugh that was an inappropriate volume given their surroundings, but the couple didn’t notice.

When Draco calmed down, he put his hand back on the table and she reached out to hold onto it.

“Good,” he said, bringing their intertwined hands towards him to press a row of soft kisses along her knuckles.

When he had frightened her over the bug situation, he kissed and doted on her the rest of the afternoon, feeling bad that he had upset her so greatly.

When her cup was empty he placed her on his seat and went inside to fill it back up for her. Lifting her back onto his lap when he returned.

When they arrived home he had her silk robe waiting for her the second her foot stepped out of the shower and he happily had her sit on the edge of the bathtub as he completed her skincare.

“You know,” she said, giving him the saddest look she could muster, “I was so scared when you pretended there was a bug on me, it really tired me out, I don’t think I can do my skincare.” He let out a large scoff, even though she was still frowning, giving him a faux innocent look with her silk robe wrapped tightly around her.

“C’mere,” he was sitting on the edge of the bathtub but reached out to grab her fingertips, bringing her closer to him so he could sit her on the edge next to him, “you big baby.”

And even after he played with her pretty hair until she fell asleep, he still felt bad. He let out a sigh as he begrudgingly got out of the comfortable bed and once he was outside of their room he called for the house elf and instructed him to get a bunch of her favourite flowers before they woke up.

Draco found that he fell asleep quite easily after he had settled that matter and his arms were wrapped around the waist of his pretty wife.

But he was disgruntled when he woke up hours later to find said pretty wife sitting on the edge of the bed, a small white card in her hand that he assumed belonged to the bunch of her favourite flowers that the house elf had delivered.

He lazily trailed his fingertips down her spine, enjoying the way she jolted at his touch.

“Come back to bed, lovey.” When she put the card down and turned around she found Draco’s arm sprawled out to the side from where he had let it linger on her skin. His eyes were still closed and his hair was sticking on his forehead.

She leant over to smooth it away from his pretty face and when he brought his arm back up she gingerly found her way back to him, his arm coming back down the second he was satisfied she was comfortable.

And it was after they christened the pool that she started to whine about her wet hair.

“I told you I didn’t want to wash it.” Draco wished he had a couple more minutes before her attitude came back, but was quick to remember he was the reason she was in a mood and so he kept that thought to himself.

She was behind him while Draco swam to the edge to receive the two pieces he had meanly thrown out of reach.

“I’m not getting them,” she had scoffed at his reply when she said she needed her swimmers back to which Draco pointed to the edge of the pool where they were sprawled haphazardly. “I’m naked,” she whispered as if it was a sin worse than what had just occurred in their own swimming pool.

“I’ll wash it for you,” he grumbled throwing her swimmers at her. She wasn’t quick enough to grab them so they floated on the surface of the water. She picked up the bottoms and started tying the knots in the appropriate places.

“Really?” She asked, Draco already swimming back to her, picking her top up and redoing the knots he had cruelly untied moments before.

“Of course my love.”

And that was how she found herself sitting in between his legs, warm water filling their bathtub with rose petals tickling her calves and the smoke of a coconut candle making its way into her nose.

She let out a hum as Draco’s fingertips circled her scalp. She let her head fall back so she could look up at him and he was quick to place a quick kiss on her forehead before gently pushing her head up so he could continue his service.

“You spoil me.” Draco liked when she whined and pouted and screeched whenever he found a new way to annoy her, but more than anything he loved the content in her tone knowing that he would always look after her. No matter how much he annoyed her.

“Romantic sounds better,” Draco hummed, leaning down to press some more kisses along her jaw.

But she was brave and she pulled away so she could turn around and face her lovely husband.

She ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in a way that brought a grin to what Draco thought was her precious face.

How lucky she was, really, to have such a beautiful husband. Who, despite his teasing, made sure that she was treated like royalty. Who would never let her worry about a single thing if he had his way and who made sure she knew he loved her, even if he liked to annoy her. Who called her beautiful even when she called him annoying.

“And handsome,” she whispered, bringing her hand to his soft cheek, not missing the way he leaned into her touch, “so handsome.”

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy blurb #draco malfoy fluff #dm #dmi #dmf #harry potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter fluff #harry potter blurb #hp #hp imagine #hp blurb #hp flufff

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svsss-fanon-exposed · 4 months

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I really appreciate your continued emphasis on people being free to enjoy canon and fanon as they want while providing accurate canon information! All the asks and PSAs you've shared on that recently reminded me of a fic where sj actually WAS innocent, even wrt abuse. They had to make an a/n how it was their spin deviant from canon so it'd be great if they could stop getting nasty messages pls. I just think we should all foster a nicer fandom environment, so I love what you're doing~!

Yeah, I personally might be a book-canon purist, but I can certainly recognize that not everyone feels the same way-- and at the end of the day, it is fiction, what people want to do with canon and fanon is up to them and really has little to do with them as a person. I hold authorial intent in really high regard, but no need to bully those who don't, and who want to rearrange things.

Of course, for something like you mention, I would advise using some kind of tag to indicate that it's off-script. Especially since SJ's abuse of LBH is an integral part of the story the novel is telling, changing things like that changes the entire tone of things.

If a fic where the characters are intentionally OOC gets popular, then people will inevitably start going to that fic's portrayal and mixing that up with canon details (this is, probably, why there is so much apologism and denial of SJ's canonical abuse of LBH in this fandom, though it certainly wouldn't be the specific fic you're referencing alone and is probably a combination of many different factors). I personally don't like portrayals like this, but if a writer is changing it for their story, then who am I to judge or harrass them over it? The only issue comes when it spills over into the wider fandom perception, and you have people swearing left and right that SJ had nothing to do with the fake manual (he did) or didn't actually mean to abuse LBH or want him dead (he also did, and this can't just be contriubted to unreliable narrator since it comes from his own perspective in the extras). So I think an a/n at the beginning is a good idea in situations like these. If writers don't want to spoil things, just simply tag that the character is OOC compared to canon-- no need to go into specifics, and readers will know going in that the portrayal isn't meant to be a take on canon or aligning with it.

No one knows how popular their fic will become, after all, and if it gets into the wider fandom space without proper context, things like "Shen Jiu was just treating LBH normally for the time period, he wasn't abusive, LBH was just a self-obsessed person trying to demonize him" become mainstream, widely held beliefs.

Of course, this is what my blog is for, hopefully rerouting some of those ideas, pointing back to the sources where the divergence happened, so that people can see that while they may enjoy this canon-divergent depiction, that they shouldn't bring it into canon-based analysis. I think sourcing fanon is very important for this reason-- better than just saying "you're wrong" is being able to say "this is where the idea came from."

At the end of the day, a deliberately off-script, ooc portrayal should be tagged as such and AO3 provides those tags for a reason. There's nothing inherently wrong with writing characters OOC to change a story. People can write what they want! It's the writer's job to make relevant information known, and the reader's job to filter it out and just not read things they don't like. I'm so particular that I put down probably 80 percent of fics I read before I even get through the first few chapters. That's just me though! I'm a canon snob! Other people have no issues and that's fine.

As long as things aren't skewing into abuse apologism in regards to the canon-universe, there's literally no reason I can't just ignore things I don't like, and there's no reason other people can't do the same with things they don't like.

Anyway, don't harrass artists and writers in the fandom. If you feel it absolutely necessary to leave a comment in regards to an OOC character portrayal, don't be mean about it, just say something like "<Character Name> seems to be a bit OOC here, is this intentional?" but even then, it's really not necessary to come into someone else's space like that. Make your own posts, write your own fics.

There is no reason to assume malice when there are other explanations. This is hard with topics like abuse apologism, but people also need to remember that this is fiction. SJ was abusive in canon, but he's still not a real person, and if someone wants to write a version of him where he's not abusive, then that portrayal can easily be treated as a version from an alternate universe where things were different. This is not the same as saying a person in real life isn't abusive, because in this case, it's not apologism-- it's literally a different universe where the rules of the original canon don't apply. In fictional and fandom spaces, it's a lot easier and better off to just give people the benefit of the doubt.

As long as you're not claiming that his canon behavior wasn't abusive (since that's about behaviors now, and not just a fictional story), it literally doesn't matter what people write in fanfic.

Authors, tag your fics with everything you'd like your readers to be aware of, because when a reader opens up a fic they're probably expecting the characters to follow canon unless stated otherwise.

Readers, read the portrayals and stories you like. Don't read the ones you don't. If something isn't tagged correctly, and you find out you don't like it after reading, just close the fic and stop reading.

No one should ever be harassing anyone else over fandom for any reason.

#answered #psa #if it's going to be a discussion on character analysis #then people can have civil debates while providing sources #it's possible to argue without it being harassment or bullying #no need to attack people there either #but definitely no reason to just not read a fic you don't like #you know what i'll put this one in the tags #svsss #shen jiu

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o-wild-west-wind · 8 months

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so after the s2 teaser drop the pirates have been ping-ponging inside my brain for the past few days rapidly enough to reach a boiling point and I think it’s just cooked a theory: the Kiss™ was, for all intents and purposes, a marriage proposal—and Ed’s not raiding weddings just because he feels like the possibility of a future marriage is off the cards, but because he sees himself as, quite literally, having been jilted by a man who just said yes to his proposal.

Prefacing that a) I know the historical context is not (and absolutely should not) be given much weight in this show, and b) I am not a historian (so please correct me if I say anything patently ~falshe~) but that said and with my only qualification as being a Certified Slut for period dramas, I think a case could be made that this show—and Ed specifically—could be assuming an era-specific formula for romance.

While the majority of society was kind of a free-for-all when it came to sex/marriage/etc. in the 18th century, the upper echelons were still bound to a relatively strict level of propriety, as well as transactional views of a relationship; and at the same time, this was a period when the notion of marrying for love was rising in popularity (Stede, of course, is the poster child of someone forced into this contradiction). For the upper classes, you'd be lucky to get a period of courtship before the actual marriage, because if you did, it meant you got a shot at getting to know the person you were going to end up with (and had the potential for love). And—as such—courtship was kind of a thrilling, romantic thing with a few common qualities: it tended to be very public, very loaded & grandiose, and very brief, and even though it didn't have to end in marriage, marriage was always the end goal. You can probably see where I'm going here.

I think it's easy to read the "you wear fine things well" scene as a possible soft-launch of their courtship, and Lucius's nudges solidify it. Courtship was traditionally full of big, romantic gestures—maybe planning treasure hunts and setting ships on fire weren't typical ones, but they sure do count—and as much "getting to know you" as possible. Like dating, it was the time when you'd learn the other person's values, hobbies, preferences, etc., except perhaps to a shallower degree given the typical lack of privacy. If anything, Ed and Stede have a leg up in this respect.

Now, I do think it's a misconception that the majority of marriage proposals in this time happened after, like...3 weeks of knowing each other, but the trope is there for a reason. It was a lot more common for the engagement period to be the time you really got to know each other, and it wasn't abnormal for the engagement to last longer than the actual courtship; a marriage proposal kind of WAS the first truly official step in someone's relationship socially, emotionally, and physically. And while this might not have been true of the rungs of society Ed has been a part of, it definitely would've been true of Stede's.

Now, I don't think Stede is really thinking consciously of all of this during the timeline he's with Ed; he's intent on breaking all the rules he's felt strangled by his whole life. But Ed—he wants all that. He loves the idea of an aristocratic life, but he's also a romantic who wants an aristocratic love. Like how so many of us romanticize Jane Austen novels because it's a world we're so far removed from, Ed probably romanticizes love in Stede's world. He doesn't want the free-for-all he's been living; he loves the thrill of a courtship, of gentlemanly sensibilities, of the metaphorical dance of it all. And when an upper-crust gentleman appears to have initiated this courtship—and when he's being encouraged by everyone (except Izzy, but there's even more romance in rebellion) to reciprocate—he's going to indulge in it with all his heart. He's literally living a romantic novel dream world, and once he's sure of Stede's feelings, he has absolutely no reason not to expect that their trajectory is marriage. Sure, Stede is a pirate now—but he's still a gentleman, and isn't that what being wooed by a gentleman means?

So when they're in a desperate situation and the bar for grand gestures can't go higher, and they experience true privacy for the first time ever, and Stede kisses back, and he says yes to running away together—and Ed even asks for confirmation to make sure it’s all for real—"yes?" "I think so?" "yes!"—that's as good as a vow. That's a promise on par with a proposal. And this is probably when it clicks for Stede, too—he hears Mary's words, "we never would've chosen each other," and suddenly he realizes that he can finally choose love! And so there they are: relationship made official, 1700s style.

Cut to Ed, crashing weddings and stealing little cake toppers in dramatically tragic, anachronistic fashion—because, well...they were supposed to get married, weren't they? Because that's what gentlemen are supposed to do, or so he thought. But in reality, gentlemen aren't romantic; they're just fickle.

And let the divorce arc commence.

#i went for a thesis brainstorming walk and came back with this can i send this to my advisor instead #and apologies if this has been said before and I didn't notice i've been awol from fandom for a while and i miss her sm #also obligatory note that i think Kraken!Ed is 100% Izzy's doing but i do think the sims wedding era is something closer to his true self #and i love him for it <3 #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #our flag means death #blackbonnet #edward teach

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hoyowomentournament · 28 days

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Quarterfinals: Bronya Zaychik vs Collei

(Propaganda under the cut)

Bronya Zaychik:

revamping this bc i feel like it could be better: i love her so so bad <3. canonically disabled lesbian who has trouble with feeling intense emotions BUT HER ENTIRE CHARACTER REVOLVES AROUND LOVE!! whether it be from her romantic love of seele in the early game/manhua (it being the primary motivation for her to take care of herself and a partial reflection of her initial goal of saving seele from the quantam space no matter what); familial love surrounding her (her inheritance of the legacy of reason from welt yang who lost his own father, her guardians love for her being the only reason shes survived for so long even after their death <- many examples of that but the most obvious one being alexandra trading her own life for bronya via misteln, cocolia's relationship with bronya being emphasized as complex in part because of the real love they do feel for each other alongside all the other resentment from cocolia's betrayal of her), literally just. the core of reason and its 300,000 minds being representative of welt joyce's decision to fight for humanity because he loved humanity from that. and all of this from (again!!!) a canonically disabled lesbian! who's character and marginalized identities have been dehumanized over and over again in real life and in the plot! this isn't even mentioning how her entire arc exemplifies honkai's theme of agency!! which makes me sob my eyes out bc bronya hasn't really been allowed agency since she came to cocolia's orphanage!! she was a child mercenary who's lost her home and guardians over and over and over again and forced to care for herself when she was young. her first true point of domestic stability was in cocolia's orphanage (which even then wasn't perfect!! cocolia, for how much she loved her children, still asked them to participate in dangerous experiments!) and when that was threatened because of her loss of seele and her trust in cocolia, she chose to leave. her agency is also exemplified with cocolia literally taking over her body in the early chapters of the game and ofc the parallels w wendy. AND DO YOU SEE HOW THIS CONNECTS TO WELT JOYCE, HUMANITY'S ADAM, WHO CHOSE TO FIGHT FOR HUMANITY AND EMBRACE HIMSELF AS A HUMAN INSPITE OF HIS ORIGIN AS THE CURRENT ERA'S FIRST HERRSCHER AND HOW THAT ALSO EXTENDS BACK TO ELYSIA'S SACRIFICE? she's so important to me everyone watch cyberangel rn.

Collei:

MY DEADALIVEGIRL!!!!!!!!!! i genuinely don't even know where to start. collei is such a beautiful beautiful character who's entire story revolves around a girl who's been dehumanized and exploited for her entire life, healing through compassion and a recognition of her own humanity. first of all, when we meet collei in the genshin manhua, she is full of vitriolic anger and hate at both the world and herself. she's been dehumanized over and over and over again and because its a repetitive experience, she fully believes that her lack of worth is something innately true. this only changes when someone (amber) shows her unrelenting compassion and trust. amber goes against everything that collei believed about herself. amber tells her that she is not only capable of good, but she is good. amber reinforces this novel idea that collei deserves goodness. and that realization is the moment that collei begins recognizing her own humanity, and thus, recognizing her own potential to grow, heal, and be the good person that amber knows she is. every moment thus forth is a demonstration of her attempts to grow and be kind!!!! she decides to go through with cyno's sealing ritual even with its conditions! she asks lisa to help her write a letter at the end of the manhua! she mends amber's tattered clothes like she promised! she decides to go to sumeru, a land of wisdom! it's so pertinent to her character that she gains her vision (representative of her ambition) during a show of compassion (protecting a child during a dangerous storm)! it's even in her symbolism with the way she's constantly referred to as a sproutling. NOT EVEN MENTIONING HOW THE REBIRTH METAPHOR THATS APPLIED TO HER CHARACTER (re: sprout of rebirth, revived serval, cyno and anubis and their ritual) IS SO DEEPLY CONNECTED TO SUMERU (her being the first sumeru character we know of and having that rebirth metaphor hinted at in the manhua! that rebirth metaphor carrying over to the actual sumeru plot w nahida! the rebirth metaphor tying in with the snake and cat symbolism that she and the archon residue complete!!!!!!) she's just such a loaded character!! AND collei's one of the few genshin characters with canonical cptsd who has identifiable and realistically common triggers. most importantly, the game acknowledges that its there and in spite of that, shows her resilience in still trying and healing!!!! my disabled deadalive mummygirl i love her so bad.

#hoyoverse women tournament #hoyoverse #tournament poll #honkai impact 3rd #hi3 #bronya zaychik #hi3 bronya #genshin impact #genshin #genshin collei #collei

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booktomoviebrawl · 4 months

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We are not judging how bad the movie is, we are judging which adapted the book the worst. There are good movies that are bad adaptions.

Propaganda below the cut (spoilers may apply)

Persuasion:

They massacred my girl!! That is not Anne Elliot!! The whole point is that she's beaten down and thinks she's missed her chance at happiness and is bullied by her family, not making mean and snarky nods to the camera :( They completely missed the whole point of the dynamic and it's SICKENING! They also cut Mrs Smith who is arguably one of the most important characters as she highlights Anne's lack of focus on title and rank and her family's comparative obsession with it + it's only through her that Anne learns about Mr Elliot's true nasty nature. Also they cut the 'I am half agony, half hope' line from Wentworth's letter at the end so what's even the POINT of adapting it if you don't have that!! Oh my god!! My poor favourite Austen novel :( (I do want to make it very very clear that my issues with the movie come from the writing and adaptation and not in any way from the race blind casting. The casting is superb and I'm genuinely so disappointed that they got such a bad adaptation bc so many of the cast are literally perfect)

Where do I even start? They tried to 'modernize' both the protagonist and the love story and managed to take out everything that made it good in the first place. Anne Elliot in the novel is quiet and good and helpful, full of regret. In the movie, she constantly turns to the audience to mock everyone around her, feeling so much better than everyone, to the point where nobody understands why Captain Wentworth would still be in love with her, or have fallen in love with her in the first place. Eight years before the plot starts, she broker her engagement to him because she was persuaded by a family friend that it was a bad idea. No way would movie!Anne have let herself be persuaded. They just tried to do a Fleabag/Emma type of thing without understanding what made either the novel or those two things work and thereby ruined it completely

Whoever made this didn't understand the point of the novel at all. They completely screwed up the character of Anne Elliot (the protagonist), which in turn screws the rest of the movie, as the original story only works because Anne is the way she is. Also, it's a period piece but the characters are talking in modern slang the entire time. And not in a clever way but in a very cringey one. If Jane Austen knew, she'd probably turn in her grave, and rightfully so.

Maximum Ride:

The storyline makes absolutely no sense, and the movie is nothing like the book. You could've given the movie an entirely different name and and keep the plot I wouldn't bat an eye

the movie's just bad mate

Horrendous low budget netflix movie with effects so bad they make me feel physically ill and acting so wooden the cast is in danger of being attacked by lumberjacks. The story already wasn't the best and the film somehow made it worst. I came in with nostalgia for my dear kids with bird wings and left never to be the same again.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children:

While Miss Peregrine was one of my favorite books as a kid and incredibly unique in the way the story is written (The author basically took a box of weird antique photographs and created an underlying story behind a handful of them) the movie is incredibly boring. Like seriously I can't remember a single goddamn thing about the movie besides my extreme disappointment with it after leaving the theatres. It's probably because the original is a trilogy but they didn't want to make it a trilogy for the movie so they just scrapped the ending of the first book and rewrote a shitty climax where they threw snowballs at the nightmare child eating creatures or something. I remember THAT scene perfectly because it was so, so dumb. It was so stupid oh my God- ALSO, thank God I have a copy of the book from before the film came out because new copies don't have one of the photographs that the actual book uses as a base anymore and instead have the shitty movie poster! We truly do live in a society.

Changed way too much so it doesn't feel like the same thing. The main characters are these kids with different abilities (called peculiarities) and the movie switches around their powers and changes almost everyone's age. Emma and Olive switch powers so that Emma now floats (they also added that she can kind of control air to some extent) when she's supposed to have fire powers to match her fiery personality. Olive can make fire now and she's also aged up from an eight year old to a teenager and put her in this weird romance with Enoch. Enoch is also aged up from a grumpy thirteen year old to around the same age as Olive. Bronwyn, one of the older kids in the book and sort of a motherly figure to the younger kids, is now one of the youngest kids. Hugh and Fiona are aged down and basically have no interaction at all in the movie, even when their book counterparts had such a good relationship. The only one they didn't really change was Horace and Jacob. They also added these gorgon twins that do like two things. The antagonist in the movie is Mr. Barron who honestly isn't super memorable and isn't in the books whatsoever. The ending of the movie is weird too because they manage to turn back time somehow so Jacob's grandfather isn't dead and then he hops through loops so he can be with Emma and the other peculiars. I guess the problem of wights and hollowgasts is magically eliminated and we do not have to deal with the consequences. It took six books to fix everything. I appreciate that the movie engaged me enough to read the series but once I did, I could not believe they did my kids that dirty.

Yikes where to start. The 3 girl characters are all mixed up. There are 2 teens, one who's super strong and has a brother (I'll get back to him) and one who controls fire and is the love interest named Emma. The third girl is a child called Olive who floats. She's lighter than air.

In the movie, strong girl is the child, olive is now the fire girl and is for some reason super introverted, and Emma the love interest floats and gets given a super breath??? Power?? Like she rises a sunken ship by blowing in and keeps a man blown against a wall by blowing air at him. He makes a remark that she'll run out of breath eventually, which happens here because plot convenience, but not when she's blowing in the sunken ship.

The enemies in the book are terrifying Hollows. Creatures who have lost themselves and devour souls of those with powers... The movie decides they eat eyes now. And turn human again. And get busted up in a fair for the final act of the movie. Ugh.

The movie also decides randomly that time travelling through the loops is a thing; a loop being a pocket of time that replays the same day over and over. But apparently this means Main Character can travel back in time and stop his grandfather dying??? What?? His grandfathers death is the whole start of the movie and motivation for the character.

The movie undermines many of things that made the book amazing and even decides it's not a trilogy anymore!! Fuck the other 2 books, right?!

Tldr; it is terribly hollywood-ised and t tim Burton ruined a franchise by trying too hard to make it quirky and fun when the books already had a brilliant sombre and interesting tone to them.

#tournament poll #persuasion 2022 #persuasion #maximum ride #miss peregrines home for peculiar children

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roseboysstuff · 4 months

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can you do a leon x reader where reader like loses his eye or something and leon fucks his eye socket while its still bleeding and stuff.. .. very unrealistic yes sorry i couldnt think of a plot for this if it makes it any easier you could also do a scenario where reader gets stabbed and woundfucking happens❤ if this crossed any of your boundaries or i accidentally misread anythimg please PLEASE dont respond to it its gonna be so embarassing💔 have a good day..ur fanfics are good

This has been in my inbox and I have been staring at it for so long Its a very unique idea i have to say, and I'm not into gore but I'm not opposed to it, so I hope whatever word vomit happens here will meet your standards lol CW // gore, wound fucking, gets pretty descriptive so pretty heavy warning and I've put a break

Leon was supposed to be looking after you, but it wasn't looking good. An attack had happened and you had got the brunt of it. The damage was undetermined, but you had a lot of wounds. Your face was a mess of blood, and your eye socket was definitely hollowed out. Those creatures had gotten to you and tore your eye out while he was helpless to stop them. But what disturbed him the most, wasn't the extent of your wound, or the blood still dripping, or the hollow eye socket that was obvious on your face. It wasn't even your cries and whimpers of pain, no. What disturbed him the most was how painfully hard he was. As he simply stared at you, seeing the muscles and bones of the inside of your face, he couldn't have been more aroused. He wanted to fuck into your face, literally, and cover his cock with all your blood. To feel your insides throbbing and spurting blood and other fluids all over him. And as you passed out from blood loss and pain, he seized his opportunity. He positioned your head and whispered out a small apology. "Sorry, baby boy, I know this is strange, and gross. You're asleep so you won't feel it, so I guess it's okay. Don't worry, I won't cum inside your head." He got his cock out and rubbed it against what once held your eye. The wound felt good against his cock, lubed up with your blood. The novel sensations made him groan out in pleasure. He forgot about the guilt, the pleasure overwhelming him, and he pressed his cock into your eye socket. The wound was almost perfect for his cock, a little tight but perfectly lubed up. And so he kept fucking it, taking his pleasure from your pain, although you weren't feeling the pain. "Fuck, that's so good, makes my cock feel so good, good boy." There was some guilt about doing this, but with you being asleep, and no one else being around, he rationalised it. He'd take care of you when you woke up, and make sure that you were taken care of as you learned to live with one eye. Just let him have this one thing. He got close to cumming pretty quickly, and pulled out, not wanting to cause any more problems by filling your head with cum. He spilled over his hand while touching your wound with his other hand. The guilt came back, post nut clarity hitting him hard, but he shook it off and started wrapping your wound, picking you up into his arms to take you to a hospital.

#ftm reader #male reader #x reader #leon kennedy x ftm reader #leon kennedy x male reader #leon kennedy #leon kennedy smut #leon kennedy x reader #cw: gore

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nabanna · 14 days

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lord help us all I've been given a reason to think about Dracula novel/Drizzt series crossover

I love following canyourfavesurvivecastledracula (I especially love seeing characters I'm not familiar with on there) and they recently got an ask about my little guy Drizzt Do'Urden but didn't know all that much about him BUT YOU SEE (unfortunately for everyone who knows me in any way) this is a crossover of the two major fandoms that have become my entire personality in the past year or so! so as someone who's eagerly awaiting the return of Dracula Daily Season AND reading multiple of the Drizzt series books as we speak (simultaneously! help..) and considers him a blorbo to tenderly and lovingly put in the microwave to watch him dodge the radiation like an ant, I'm taking a crack at it because this looks like fun :D

Making my own post because this is purely to be enrichment in my enclosure and also it's.. gotten So So Very Long.. also pouring one out for my other account where I normally would post this sort of thing that I simply cannot log into anymore for mysterious and unknown reasons. (Literally it's still like There and I can See It but trying to log in takes me to 'make a new blog' pages and... wait I'm silly I think I know why. the email died. no idea how to get back in without the email.)

ANYWAY

To the thought experiment:

Could Drizzt Do'Urden Survive Castle Dracula?

Short answer: Yes, it's not a fun time for him, he saves the baby though!

Long answer:

Using the blog's stated general criteria...

Overall approach to the supernatural:

Is an elf, knows what a vampire is, however D&D vampires work differently from Dracula vampires so he would not have all the information on that front if it came to a confrontation. (Knowing the Drizzt books, it would definitely come to at least one fight or at least a tense chase sequence.)

Also depends on how quickly he clocked that this is, in fact, a vampire, and whether Dracula could catch on to him catching on and spin things in a way that kept Drizzt relatively chill OR decide it's time to strike (which he could probably escape) (though now I'm thinking about Vampire!Drizzt....... no no I shouldn't.... unless.....)

The presence of Guenhwyvar (constellation panther BFF my beloved) would afford him some protection other than Dracula's whims, and companionship which is Very Important as he has been known to go feral without sufficient friendship.

Probably takes all the local superstitions very seriously because where he comes from if someone's like "there are ghosts that come out on certain days" and "there are monsters in these woods" they mean it very Very literally.

Dracula's general inhuman behaviors he could take in stride and adapt to pretty well I think, he's known a lot of really eccentric people and is from Fantasy Zone, so the idea that Dracula isn't human wouldn't be scary or even all that weird. Vampire, yeah that's sus, but just non-human? you walk past a hundred non-humans on a single street in most cities where he's from. Many of the eccentricities might be explainable just by going "Ah, he seems to be some kind of wizard. Yeah that checks out." Doesn't seem to be sleeping on a normal schedule or at all? Drizzt does that too! Sees too well in the dark/doesn't seem to use lights much? Darkvision and light sensitivity, same! Moves inhumanly fast? A little concerning but why not. Tells stories from centuries ago as if he was there? Elves do that all the time and it's because they were, in fact, there. (Also some human wizards do all of that too, just because.)

Now because things work differently between these two settings I'm not sure how much his general familiarity with things in the Forgotten Realms would help him here, like he's taking it all in stride but does he know how to protect himself against a Dracula-type vampire? Does he know magic is so incredibly rare and (apparently) usually evil or does he think this is just an unusually magic-less region?

Whether they would accept the crucifix from the old lady:

He is a polite young man so yes of course he would, and because the lady doesn't know what a drow (or an elf?) is, she probably wouldn't think "evil!!!" like most of the common folk in the Realms do, so much as "weird-looking (yet androgynously beautiful) young man" or depending on the local superstitions may assume he's some sort of fey being? or just like, really exceptionally foreign foreigner.

Assuming she still offers it, he would accept it despite not knowing what sort of deity it's for, because he recognizes it's a token of goodwill and he loves expressions of goodwill. Would definitely go and write about it in his little diary to both wonder what she's so afraid of/what sort of protection it affords, and also gush about the kindness and possibly whether this expands or aligns with his current understanding of morality.

This plus the other Superstitious Behaviors would clue him in that something's up so he'd be going in with that knowledge, prepared to figure out what's going on and what the villagers are so afraid of.

Whether they would go exploring after being told not to:

100% and he might even be stealthy enough to mostly get away with it!

Demonstrably does not like being restricted, only went along with this stuff when he was younger because the indoctrination ensured that he literally had no idea there was any other option (also his dad sparred with him daily to get his energy out so his zoomies were managed)

If Dracula really truly wanted to discourage him from any particular places he might just need to come up with an explanation, but he might also be entertained enough by Drizzt's sneaking and snooping to let him roam and see where it goes. Drizzt is better at stealth than Jonathan but they have different flavors of wet cat charm which Dracula may want to handle differently.

Depending on how you read the scene with the vampire ladies trying to "kiss" Jonathan, like how much of it was vampire charm making him feel kinda into it or potentially more of a paralysis situation, it could go differently just because Drizzt may or may not be able to break out and run away very fast, or just kinda endure it while feeling Really Bad And Gross about the sexual overtones. (Based on instances such as him resisting drugs and exiting the room as fast as possible when a priestess was coming onto him, and going feral to push through a paralyzing poison to prevent an assault on another person.) (I read him as incredibly demisexual and he demonstrates being sex-repulsed to everyone outside of the very short list of people he's actively very close friends with and attracted to.) (His feral side has been known to come out in these types of situations but not all of them and it wouldn't necessarily always work either.)

The girlies would not put him off of exploring for very long but he would likely be trying to avoid all possible run-ins with them from that point forward. Unfortunately for him he is a tasty little guy and I think the girlies would actively mess with him against Dracula's orders, perhaps in part because he's an elf and they find that interesting and engaging. Enrichment for their enclosure! Horrible time for Drizzt. Exactly the way the vampire squad likes it!

Verdict: He has a bad time but he's gotta run around he has the zoomies. Dracula could possibly prevent this, if he wanted to prevent it, by letting him into a training yard of some kind so he can get out his energy.

Ability to manage the whims of a Rich Jerk / hold Dracula's interest:

This one is harder and probably depends on the circumstances of him going to the castle, like what his goal there is, and around what point in the timeline he's at. I haven't gotten through all 30-something books just yet but my answer is Probably?

Just the fact of him being an elf and having some innate magic abilities could possibly be enough for Dracula to find him interesting enough to keep around. He's not a wizard and his innate spells are mostly harmless, more battlefield management than anything, so he's not magically a particularly powerful threat to Dracula, just decently interesting. He could also go on about how magic works where he's from, though going on too much about his inherent drow magic would make him uncomfortable (which Dracula would probably like) and especially like, if he got into the ins and outs of Menzoberranzan specifically.

He would definitely bring out the active listening skills for Dracula's history and war stories. Might want to get examples of any particularly interesting fighting maneuvers. I wonder if Dracula would indulge him in a spar or let him practice? The castle must have a training yard somewhere, but would he let Drizzt keep his weapons/borrow some?

Usually good enough at reading the room to determine when is or is not a good time for the scimitars and the panther (combat mode) to come out.

Not the most charismatic, but insightful and clever. (autism-ass elf. elftism.......)

Raised in a very controlling environment with a strict social hierarchy where he was simultaneously part of a high-ranking noble family but also as far down the social ladder as he could be otherwise (male, youngest child, was supposed to be assigned spell component at birth, doesn't like conforming) so, again, he wouldn't like it but he could probably manage it.

Partly depends on how much effort Dracula is willing to put in to make the Friendship believable and keep Drizzt in the dark, or if he's interesting enough to more carefully balance a web of manipulation around.

I'm gonna say this point gets a Yes

Assuming he realized the vampires are Bad but too dangerous to 2v4, he would be so uncomfortable for most of it but is also funky enough that Dracula would probably find his discomfort and weird-but-trying-to-be-so-polite mannerisms entertaining. Dracula would decide this is his blorbo now. I may be biased but this is tumblr so actually Dracula himself said all of this to me personally in DMs.

Facility for climbing without gear (free soloing):

Lizard fashion? Spider fashion...

He Is On The Walls

Multiple points in the books involve him sneaking around places by climbing on walls and I believe elves are canonically, in general, weirdly good at parkour. So yeah!

Whether they would choose to risk being eaten by vampires over the certain death of being eaten by wolves:

IF he has weapons, the wolves aren't really certain death because he is a whirling tornado of death, I am so sorry wolves. If not then he might be able to parkour out of their way? He probably wouldn't want to fight the wolves though, because he is a disney princess nature lover and would rather free them from Dracula's control if possible.

Depending on how much he could figure out about how vampires work here, he may have some ideas for how to turn a fight against them to his advantage or otherwise.

Wait, this happens after the baby incident, right? If so then he's not getting to this point plot-wise, though he might have come back to try fighting the vampires after saving the baby, and depending on how he's doing that, he might still have to contend with the wolves at some point.

Decision: Doesn't want to go against the wolves at any point, but if necessary, he can out-parkour them.

General analysis from Me:

Main counts on the original post are accurate! He accepts the cross, survives the social situations as long as necessary, and escapes with the baby to give it back to the villagers upset but otherwise intact.

As soon as he realized the vampires were menacing the locals to any extent, he would decide to figure out a way to free the area of their evil. Unfortunately the best way for him to figure out anything about the vampires is to stay in close quarters with them for a little while. He has been known to pretend to side with an enemy to gain information or an advantage in a fight, but I'm not sure how long he could keep it up.

Dracula might string him along with Friendship (Drizzt loves friendship so much if he doesn't have friendship he will explode) but he would have to get his baby-eating roommates to play along and behave or else they could easily freak the guy out too much for it to remain believable.

Either way, Drizzt is not staying in that castle beyond the point of another person (the baby) being put in danger. There's at least one point in the books where he's protecting a baby while fighting some enemies and he always puts the baby's safety first. Also Guen can respawn, so if it's absolutely necessary to, she can get taken to 0 HP distracting the vampires while Drizzt improvises some way to get out of there with the baby intact.

That's as far as "survive Castle Dracula" usually goes because well he got out of the castle alive but now I am also thinking about possible plot beyond that point...

First of all the villagers?? Assuming they saw him as Really Weird Foreigner or perhaps some sort of fair folk rather than Literal Demon Spawn the worst they'd do is probably be very tense and silent after taking the baby back and let him leave uncontested without welcoming him in. Best case scenario is some or all of them, or at least the baby's mother, being grateful enough to help him out a little. But like what's he gonna Do after that? (Also if the villagers think he's some sort of fey guy then would they think there's something up with the baby now...)

I mean he knows there's baby-eating vampires in that castle now and he's very against the idea of leaving baby-eating vampires around. Even if he can't 2v4 all of them plus their minions he'd wanna do something about that. (2v4 rather than 1v4 because Guen counts as one) Would he try to gather allies to assault the castle? If he learned that there's times when he can expect them all to be asleep in their coffins would he try to just go back in and stab them in their coffin-sleep? Would he leave the area if he knows the local people are still in danger or would he reason that he needs to find help and come back?

(Also raising to myself the question of whether this is "specifically only Drizzt has been isekai'd into the novel Dracula" or if there's perhaps a little more crossover type setting blending, or if others from the Realms are in there, is Elminster around I know he's canonically been to Real Life Earth, would Van Helsing have some kind of tangent about how this has allegedly happened before, there's an implication that vampires aren't even Van Helsing's favorite cryptid what if d&d type elves are actually higher on that list and he knows all about them, is it even possible to put something resembling the plot and characters of Dracula into a D&D setting, what if I could make a Domain of Dread out of this–)

No matter what happened, Drizzt would be writing SO many diary entries which is perhaps the true main reason why he would survive, he's got that journaling and diary-keeping swag just like my good friend Jonathan Harker

(This is all assuming he has Guen because if he didn't have Guen he would wilt away of the Miseries. Might un-wilt specifically to save the baby and then re-wilt as soon as he remembered there's no kitty.)

#drizzt do'urden #dracula #drizzt #me #my posts #maybe I shouldn't be putting him in the microwave... he has metal on him usually...#this got so long help me #perhaps there is a point where I should just write a fanfic but then again I would 100% get caught in the setup #but this isn't even getting close to 'what if Drizzt met Jonathan' levels of blorbo crossover perhaps that energy would carry me through #microwave addendum again I remembered the ice scimitar gives fire/heat resistance but would that help in a microwave?

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ckret2 · 5 months

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@bluefrostyy said: How did bills eye moved from his corner to his center XD

That's a terrific question I actually have a serious answer to!

So for context this comment was left on a post with this image:

About the writing system used in Bill's home dimension. I also illustrate him with an eye on his corner in other posts about his home dimension.

Small diversion: I actually do also occasionally illustrate him with an eye on the inside of his body to represent "psychic" perception (that is: the ability to see the third dimension)—

—as in his home dimension, having an "eyeball on the inside of your body"/inner eye is a non-literal visual metaphor for psychic powers (equivalent to how humans use the phrase "third eye").

But that's just supposed to be a visual metaphor to represent him looking at the third dimension; in reality his eye's in the corner where it belongs. Diversion over!

So I've mentioned recently that one of the consequences of living in a 2D universe is that to someone looking in from "above," a shape's perimeter is their outside/skin, and their internal organs are all on the inside of their shape—completely open and visible to the third dimension. (This is backed up in the original Flatland novel, where the main character Square mentions the visiting Sphere touching his "insides" because the sphere can reach it through the third dimension.) So if you were looking down on Bill's dimension you'd see this, exposed organs and all:

(just an illustrative example of the concept, I don't actually think their guts look LIKE THAT.)

Which means that for Bill to become the Bill we know today, at some point after he left the second dimension, he got skin or armor or an exoskeleton "over" and "under" his body to hide & protect his guts from being poked in the third dimension.

All of which is to say: since leaving the second dimension, Bill's had to make some SERIOUS surgical alterations to his body to accommodate living in the third dimension. Covering his guts is just one of MANY changes he continuously made over the eons since burning his universe.

Relocating his eye from a corner to the center of his body is just another thing he's had to do to adjust to 3D existence. An eye on one corner that's designed primarily to see in a thin horizontal line and that requires him to hover horizontally to see isn't as useful as an eye on the "inside" of his body that faces flat out toward the world and allows him to hover vertically. The new position WOULD look grotesque to a normal shape from his own dimension... but, hey, they've been extinct in the wild for a trillion years, so who cares.

For my writing needs I don't think the exact mechanism by which it was done is relevant. (Surgery by another shape doctor who'd moved to the third dimension? Snapped his fingers and did it himself automatically because he has godlike power? Slowly migrated as his body adjusted itself over time to accommodate his needs, the same way humans' muscle structures or bones can gradually change in response to how they live their lives but extended over billions of years?) What matters is: it was done deliberately, in response to living in the third dimension, because that's where he needed his eye to be.

The other survivors from his dimension—Kryptos, Hectorgon, Amorphous Shape—also have eyes in the middle of their bodies and also started off with eyes on their corners. (Hectorgon appears to have a mouth instead of an eye, but as Bill showed us in the penthouse scene those are the same organ for his species. Kryptos kept his eye in the original place, but it IS now forward facing, and he added a mouth in the middle of his body like the others.)

I think Bill was an early adopter of the new eye position: because being stupidly OP means it was easier for him; because he's not afraid of looking like a freak to his peers; and because since childhood a large part of his identity has been being "psychic"/"having an inner eye" so the idea of making that literal came naturally to him, it's making him a freak in a way that also highlights what makes him special.

#bill cipher #headcanons #about my writing #bill goldilocks cipher #bluefrostyy

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yellowbluemoonshine · 2 months

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Naoki Urasawa's manga "Monster" Interview;

Naoki Urasawa is one of the most successful manga artists in Japan, having not only been awarded the most important prizes in Japan, but also in Germany. He celebrated his international breakthrough with the thriller series "Monster", which he drew in the 90s. It's about a Japanese neurosurgeon in Düsseldorf who saves the life of a boy and gives up his career to do it - actually he should have operated on the mayor instead of the boy - and then gets into real trouble because he is involved in a series of serial murders and a conspiracy device. Andrea Heinze : How did you come up with the idea for the series? Naoki Urasawa: The drama “Monster” was created because I really liked the novel “Frankenstein”. That really interested me and I thought about whether I could bring the story into today. The second aspect was that at that time in the USA there was this film with Harrison Ford, “The Fugitive”. It was about a doctor whose wife was killed and I really liked it. And then I thought, I have to do something that involves a doctor who is being chased and has to solve a mystery. And then I was interested in “Frankenstein,” this old Gothic landscape, and I wanted to bring the two together somehow. And then we somehow came across Germany. Blonde boy as a contrast to evil Germany

I heard that people saying Johan was inspired by Hannibal and other psychopathic characters etc but it never make sense to me. (Maybe some characteristic sides makes sense but generally no, he is different). It makes sense that Monster is inspired by Frankenstein story because Johan is portrayed as more like someone who became the way he is because of his past. He is the monster created by the real monster. (Mostly its Franz Bonaparta who stole his and many others name, biggest sin a person can do). Its really combined between two stories because Tenma wasnt/isnt wrong to save Johan.

Heinze: And what does Germany have to do with it? Urasawa: I wanted to do something dark. And I don't want to say that Germany is the root of all evil. But if you look at the Second World War - and this is present in Japan, also because Japan was an ally of Germany at the time - there were a lot of dark stories in Germany and also in Japan. A lot has been clarified. But some things don't. I also came up with this beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed boy as a character. I think that's a good contrast to contrast with this dark, bad thing. And the more you delve into history, the more clear it becomes that the roots of the conflicts lie in the Second World War. If you add all of that up, the manga could only take place in Germany.

I am glad that real life stories was brought up but its really sad that this actually happenned somewhere.

Heinze: How did you research the story for “Monster”? Urasawa : I watched a lot of documentaries. In the 1990s there were also reports of neo-Nazi attacks on houses where Turks lived. I've seen things like that and they've also found their way into my story. I made up the rest. For example, the boy, Johann. He is raised in a children's home where many human experiments take place. And shortly before I finished my work "Monster," there was a documentary on Japanese television about the end of the Nazi era, and it also reported on a camp in which blonde, blue-eyed young people were herded together and essentially had to undergo elite training . And this boy who was depicted there was also called Johannes. I was then asked if I had known all of this before - but that wasn't true, it was all in my imagination. A person becomes a monster

This is insane....chills. Its so ironic that a lot of people remember Johan's character as some evil psychopath but not only he isnt written that way in story but also, his origin is literally coming from actual victim, a child. Intentional or unconciously or maybe coincidence but still, wow.

Heinze: How is it that Prague also became the setting for the story? Urasawa: Because everything that was east of Germany, all the Eastern European countries, was not even known in Japan in the 1990s. It's completely different today, but back then people hardly knew everything that lay east of Germany. While on the other hand, Germany and everything further west was already developed for tourism. And Eastern Europe had never been featured in the manga until then. It also fascinated and really attracted me as an illustrator. If you go to Germany or France, it is much brighter in the evenings. But if you go further east, in my case it was Prague, it was much darker on the streets in the evenings in the mid-90s. And I wanted to explore this darkness, this night, for myself.

No wonder story feels so real, with both its characters and places.

Heinze: What does the manga “Monster” have to do with Mary Shelly’s novel “Frankenstein”? Urasawa : Frankenstein is about a scientist who created a monster, and it's also about human responsibility. There are certainly things that humans are allowed to do and that they perhaps shouldn't be able to do. These thoughts can certainly be taken further, and that's what I did in the "Monster" series. It's about the Japanese doctor who saved a boy, and later the boy becomes a monster, a murderer. And then the doctor asks himself whether he is not responsible for the fact that this boy has become a murderer. This is a different conflict than in "Frankenstein", but the question of responsibility for one's own actions is also an issue in "Monster". Dostoyevsky novel using the means of manga

Though, story is inspired by Frankeinstein, Tenma is clearly right to save kid's life. He isnt the 'evil' doctor who is responsible for the monster. He is the real doctor who saves this boy from destruction at the end.

Heinze : For me, this doctor is an ideal example of the good in people. He even saves this boy against the wishes of the clinic management, who would much rather use their best surgeon to operate on the mayor. Urasawa: Every good person has places somewhere in their hearts that are perhaps not so good, and it was the same with Doctor Hämmer - in the hospital there were also some disagreements with the management, where he also thought: "Preferably I would like it if everyone were dead." And later Johann also tells him: "I have fulfilled what you wished for." Then the idea came to him that he had also caused all of this and was to blame for it. And I wanted to show in my work that there is something good and something bad in every person, and that is just human nature. Also, what I didn't mention: There is the classic manga "Astroboy" by Osamu Tezuka in Japan. There is a scientist whose son died and he then creates a robot that looks like his son and that also has feelings. But somehow he says: "You are not my son." At some point he neglects this robot. This scientist is basically Doctor Tenma. So “Frankenstein” and “Astro Boy” are the two sides that belong closely together. I especially consider the artist Tezuka with his classic “Astro Boy” to be my roots.

Here's the real message of Monster, that noone is just a monster and every person has monster in them and that story, Tenma is being parallels with father who neglects his son...I wonder is it him realizing that he was never supposed to kill Johan (the son), he was right to save him, trying to kill him is the neglect/him failing to understand him and end up saving him. Maybe i am reaching but its makes more sense that way. Btw i love how Tenma visits Johan even at the end. Despite everything, they really give that father-son energy.

Heinze: Osamu Tezuka is considered the founder of modern manga, what do you like about him? Urasawa: It's hard to say in one word. Maybe you can describe it like this: The manga were initially comics for children. But Tezuka did it differently, he practically wrote something like a Dostoyevsky novel, but using the means of manga. Something much deeper, and ultimately it's not about justice winning, but it goes even deeper, practically conveying the feeling that even winning can bring with it something sad and empty. This is something deeper. And he was able to convey that in the beginning of the manga. Statements made by our conversation partners reflect their own views. Deutschlandfunk does not adopt statements made by its interlocutors in interviews and discussions.

Its really deep story.

This is the source of this interview, i really wanted to make comment/analyze about it.

#naoki urasawa's monster meta #monster naoki urasawa #monster meta #johan liebert #tenma kenzo #interview #naoki urasawa #monster #frankenstein #crossover meta

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britcision · 1 year

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Gonna try and sneakily post after dnd let’s see how fast I can yeet this up 👀 new chapter!!

(I was kinda considering pushing out the porn parody to push me over one million words on AO3, but I have to be in the mood to write good smut, whereas I’m damn near always in the mood for crack, so here we are

The porn parody has been started though, and the first chapter is edging its way to completion. I will be starting an entirely new taglist for the porn parody though, so do say in the comments here if you would like to be tagged in the first chapter of that!)

I got to use a little of my actual real life work knowledge for once in my life, instead of my unending stash of random knowledge 👀 it’s a bold new world and I bet you ANYTHING Bruce never documents his code

Eleven million backup plans for if marshmallows take over the world, but someone else sits to debug the batcomputer? Zip. Nothing. Fuck them if they can’t read Bruce they aren’t authorised to touch it

As may be rather obvious… We’re right up in the bats again this chapter, and Bruce is going to make some Inadvisable Decisions 😈

I’m sure this will have absolutely no consequences whatsoever! This chapter also came in a little short, since there’s not quiiiiite enough space left to squeeze in our next scene, Danny Attempts To Make Jason Kill Him In A Motorcycle Accident

This means we should not brick ANYONES’ tumblr! (Like that’ll happen, my poor mobile using fellows)

Note: there is a reason why I’m choosing when to use our various vigi’s human names while they’re masked, I didn’t miss one on the “edit” that is formatting this mess for Tumblr 😁

First Chapter and AO3 link:

Previous Chapter:

——————

One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night

About twenty minutes after dropping Danny off at his dorm, Jason was suited up and ready to go.

Well, he’d stayed outside until he’d seen Danny shut the door behind him first. Jason had some fucking manners, though if pressed he couldn’t name who’d taught him them.

It was a habit older than the streets, watching to be sure his friends got to safety.

Danny’s dorm was about fifteen minutes from one of Jason’s better safe houses, as it happened. Jason had never been to a dorm, but from Danny’s stories?

A step below Teen Titans’ bunks, and those had sucked. Less privacy, smaller rooms, and more people? Who weren’t even part of the same team?

Maybe next semester Jason could offer to let Danny move in. He didn’t need need the safe house.

Red Hood could always buy the building. There were other apartments and while they weren’t luxurious, they beat half his other spots. The neighbourhood wasn’t bad either.

It’d be nice to pay Danny back a bit. Not have him closer. Just. Repay some of the debt by giving him a place to stay, rent free.

And maybe, just a little bit, the part of Jason that enjoyed the romanticism of his period novels kinda liked the idea. An estate for the king on your lands was a big deal back then.

A slightly more modern part of him thought being a landlord for his ruler would also be pretty funny. He figured Danny would enjoy that side too.

And it wasn’t like the guy could complain, since he’d literally given Jason back himself. Yeah, Jason was gonna pull that one out if Danny tried any familiar “oh I can’t accept this” on him.

Fixing his core was pretty damn god level on the favours spectrum. Jason could do whatever the hell he liked and Danny would just have to deal with it.

It cheered him up a little more, kept him in a good mood on the ride back to his safe house. It was more time where he couldn’t help Cass, but seriously?

Danny could change in a matter of seconds and be at her side not much slower. Walls, cars, goons, Jason had this feeling that none of it would slow Danny down.

And yeah, knowing that helped, but there was still a piece of him that only unknotted as he slid his helmet on and headed to the window.

“Hey, Black Bat. Busy?” He asked as the comms switched from earpiece to helmet display.

Of course he wore both. People kept trying to steal his damn helmet. That was also what the internal explosives were for.

The others all piped up when they heard him, Harper and Steph calling cheerful greetings around an ongoing conversation.

“Shit, Hood’s in, this mean I can go back to bed?” Bluebird teased. Spoiler cut her off immediately.

“Hell no, it can’t be a school night, Robin’s here! Great timing though Hood, we’re planning Red Robin’s eulogy and you have some experience there,” Spoiler chirped brightly, and Jason hesitated.

Sucked in a breath. He wasn’t gonna judge anyone else’s coping mechanisms until they got past “heads in a bag” levels.

Best to ignore it, since she wasn’t actually trying to set him off.

What the hell had Tim done since they’d left the manor?

Shaking his head, Jason settled into Red Hood and hopped onto the fire escape, scaling easily to the roof.

“Black Bat?” He repeated instead of answering, and half smiled when Spoiler groaned dramatically.

Black Bat answered in the considerate group pause.

“Not busy. Why?” She sounded amused, not even particularly tired, and Jason relaxed enough to slip all the way in.

“Thinking of going a little out of my way tonight. Wondered if you’d mind a tagalong?” Red Hood asked, hoping he sounded casual.

It wasn’t like he’d been planning to patrol the Alley anyway; his guys had already been told to handle it. He’d have to run around tomorrow night to keep the creepers scared, but he could have a couple off.

The tiny pause before her answer didn’t quite feel like judgement, but Jason muted before blowing out the sigh as she did. It wasn’t like the others needed to know he’d been stressing.

“Sure. Meet at library?” She’d had his tracker up. Hood nodded, turning and running for the edge of the roof.

“Sounds good.” And they’d probably wound Spoiler up enough, she’d start plotting vengeance for being ignored soon. “So what the hell did Little Red do?”

“Brought Too Fine to the Bat Cave,” Spoiler told him with relish, not noticeably put out by the delay.

Not necessarily a good sign, since she was also this enthusiastic while actively plotting against him.

Wait.

Too Fine was Tucker’s hacker name.

“But he doesn’t know about us,” Red Hood said with a frown, catching an outcropping and swinging on.

“Oh, now you tell me,” Tim groused while the others snickered, “what a shame you didn’t think to when it’d have actually been helpful!”

News to Hood that he was on, probably still in the cave.

“He knows now,” Nightwing chimed in brightly, probably also travelling from the slight strain in his voice.

Hood paused for a moment, letting that sink in before attempting the next jump.

“Is he on comm?” He asked warily, because if Tim brought Tucker to the bat cave, it was entirely possible that they were all outed.

And that Tucker might tell Danny he was Red Hood.

Shit, he still had to text Harley. Resolving to do it once he hit the library, he set back to running, throwing himself across another street.

Black Bat would probably take a little longer to get there.

“He’ll be back, he’s in the bathroom,” Tim explained with a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “It’s not all bad, he’s given me the full story on what happened in Amity Park. Witness account and all.”

“From a witness you let down to the bat cave~” Spoiler sang sweetly across the air.

Red Hood could hear Oracle rolling her eyes as she cut in.

“Tone it down, Batgirl. Bluebird, if you’re still thinking of heading in, could you swing past one last site on your way?” She said firmly, then lightening her tone for their current guest.

“Batgirl who? I’m Spoiler,” Spoiler grumbled, but didn’t push beyond that. None of them did when Oracle invoked the name she’d had before any of them masked up.

Bluebird snickered at her before answering the question, a hint of exertion suggesting she was on the move too.

“I’m not actually in a rush to go home, O, I got all dressed up so I might as well enjoy one last hurrah.”

Right, because she’d be going back to school probably when Danny did.

Harper had always been a damn good hero in Jason’s books, but she valued her retirement and none of them really wanted to ruin it. Unless, apparently, seven bats just had to stalk Jason’s new friends.

Hood would have apologized, but frankly if she’d said no, some of the others couldn’t have come to the gala to be a pain in his ass.

And then he couldn’t have had so much fun fucking with them.

Fine. One cool fruit basket for the Row household, and some rainbow cupcakes for Cullen. He needed practice on frosting roses anyway.

Although that also reminded him.

“Hey Bluebird, have the others filled you in on Phantom?” He asked, cutting off some more background chatter from Spoiler and Tim.

Nightwing and the girls had had hours by now.

“What, your new boyfriend?” Bluebird asked sweetly, and Hood rolled his eyes.

Probably hit the important shit then.

“Sent you a picture?” He asked instead, decidedly not entertaining that question.

Nightwing and Spoiler snickered. Hood flipped off their general directions, settling himself comfortably on the roof of the library to wait for Black Bat.

There was a short pause, the others now wondering what he was getting at. Good.

“In and out of suit,” Bluebird agreed, curiosity tinging with mild suspicion. Being out of retirement clearly wasn’t good for her.

Hood nodded, pulling out his phone and shooting Harley a quick text. It might be moot now, asking her not to mention Red Hood shit in front of Danny, but he might as well.

He still had to ask if Waylon knew. Might as well ask. And see if Tucker knew when he got back.

“I know you’re outta the game, but keep the light show to a minimum if you see him around, okay?” He asked, scanning quickly over the list Danny’d cleared for public discussion.

He didn’t know if Tucker would have mentioned it, but he might as well. Cause of death was good, but Jason personally would veto “and the effects it may have now”.

Because fuck Bruce and his need for everyone to show him their weaknesses.

Bluebird definitely sounded curious now, and possibly like she was punching someone.

“Oh? He not big on the electricity?” She wondered aloud, and Hood grimaced.

Because if they were both at Gotham U in engineering… there was actually a chance Harper and Danny would run into each other.

Danny was older, but Harper skipped a couple years and he had no idea what year Danny was in. Fuck, they might be in the same classes. He couldn’t believe he’d never thought of that.

“Not exactly. You mighta seen him around actually, he’s an engineer too. But he’s not a fan of the electricity flying around,” he explained, Nightwing making background noises that told Hood he hadn’t put the pieces together either.

Good. At least he wasn’t alone.

Bluebird made an interested hum, and probably a finishing blow considering the satisfaction when she spoke next.

“I thought he looked familiar. But then, he’s total Wayne-bait. Yeah, I can keep the good stuff under wraps if I see him around. Gonna guess he’s had some bad shocks in the line of work?”

Hood hesitated and in exactly the same instant Black Bat landed on the roof. Sam had given them all the warning about talking about a ghost’s death, so he could leave it at that.

But…

The way Danny had looked when he explained about Vlad. Yeah, he’d rather they took this seriously. He didn’t want any of his family to hurt Danny, even by accident.

“It’s how he died. He won’t spontaneously combust or anything, but it’s a bad memory.”

Silence reigned while the others absorbed that particular detail, Black Bat crossing to crouch on the roof beside him. Hood leaned over enough to bump their shoulders together.

He could almost feel concern radiating off her, which was an extra weird experience after literally feeling all of Danny’s emotions half the day.

Guess that was where Cass’s liminality was going. It made sense, kind of; despite her occasional trouble speaking, she was pretty much the clearest communicator in the family.

Having another back up way to make herself heard would only fit.

On a whim, he tried projecting comfort back to her. Black Bat didn’t seem to notice, though whether that meant more on her part or his was the question.

She leaned in and bumped him back, her expression unreadable between the full face mask and the shadows.

“Heard and understood, Hood,” Bluebird agreed after a minute, her tone unusually solemn. Hopefully Dickie would take it to heart too.

The odds of Danny running into Nightwing weren’t great if he stuck to Blüdhaven, but Dick was a nosy bastard and there was always one “emergency” or another.

Better than the odds of running into Bluebird, although Harper would almost definitely look him up at school.

Maybe Jason should warn him.

“Maybe you could build him a faraday suit,” Spoiler mused, and Red Hood snickered.

“Handy, but then we couldn’t contact him,” he reminded her and she groaned loudly.

“Hey, if we’re both techies he’ll probably have his own idea. I’ll look him up out of costume, it’s my turn to say hi,” Bluebird decided, and Hood shot Danny a quick text.

Just a heads up.

A picture of Harper, captioned “beware of sibling. May be looking you up in class”. Black Bat giggled beside him, head cocked to watch the screen.

Harper wasn’t technically one of the Waynes, but if Waylon counted she definitely had to, and it wasn’t like Bruce picked his family. Asshole.

A few minutes later he got a message back from Danny.

‘DannyP: !!!!! I know her! 😳😳🤯 She does the cool nanobots! Half our year is betting if she’s a rogue or a vigi 👀 inside info??’

Which was fair, since just knowing Jason wouldn’t be much of a hint either way.

“He knows you,” Black Bat reported to the others, Bluebird immediately bitching that she’d been ratted out.

Red Hood mostly ignored her, texting Danny back.

‘JTodd: Neither anymore. She was a vigi, but she’s retired and getting her degree. No idea if she’ll come back after.’

“Odds you’ll change sides and go rogue, Bluebird?” He asked into a pause, and very much enjoyed the momentary stumped silence. “Apparently there’s a hefty bet.”

Momentary, because everyone had an opinion on that and had to share it. Everyone except Bluebird herself, who seemed to be thinking it over.

“What’re the odds for rogue?” She asked thoughtfully, immediately defending herself as the group booed. “What! I have student loans!”

“You are my villain arc, Red Hood,” Spoiler declared as solemnly as she could through laughter.

“I’m my own villain arc thank you so much, go find your own,” he refuted with a half grin.

“Ask Phantom,” Black Bat advised Bluebird in the meantime, which was probably fair. They weren’t good at staying on topic.

She then gave Hood another gentle nudge, probably for the same reason. Flicked off her comm for a moment.

“Wanted to talk?” She asked, and yeah, they probably should get back to it.

He gave a shrug, hauling himself up and holding a hand back down to her. Definitely not feeling guilty.

They’d tell her before anything became relevant. It just.

Well.

They were a family of fucking detectives, who could never leave well enough alone, and Jason really didn’t want them questioning his humanity.

Just once, he’d like to know something about himself before anyone else did. To have time to understand and come to terms with what he was before Twenty Questions.

Cass was very good at not asking questions though. And Black Bat turned off her comm first. Tim was distracted, probably with Tucker coming back because he’d been quiet.

No better opportunity was likely to come up.

And really, she deserved the same courtesy. Knowing about herself before the others did.

Maybe she’d have some ideas on how to tell them.

Making up his mind, Hood tapped his comms and hauled Black Bat up with his other hand.

“Hey O, gonna be offline for a minute. Text if you need me or BB, we gotta be radio silent.” There were enough possible reasons for that, he didn’t bother giving one.

Just so long as they knew.

Usually he’d just turn the comm off and swear at her if she turned him back on if he wanted peace and quiet, but… well, it was nice to hear the background chatter.

Nicer when the big Bat himself wasn’t in the field to tell them to focus.

“I always need you, baby!” Nightwing called just before he clicked off, and Red Hood rolled his eyes under the helmet.

Dramatic bitch.

He looked back to Black Bat, wondering where would be the best place for this talk. She was watching him patiently, not moving.

It had been her patrol.

“Is there anywhere on your route we can talk privately?” He asked softly, a little surprised at himself. He’d been the one who wanted to wait.

But that just made it his call who he decided to tell what, and when. And Cass… he trusted Cass.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was liminal. It’d give them something to think until he was ready.

Black Bat regarded him for a moment longer, then nodded and made her way to the edge of the roof.

“Follow.”

The night was wearing on, but Bruce was darkly satisfied that they were finally making progress.

Constantine’s pacing (replacing his smoking; Bruce may not have bothered arguing in the cave, but even Constantine knew better than to light a cigarette in space) had finally slowed.

Something terrible had happened in Amity Park, but even the magician was grudgingly admitting it was probably over. Left permanent scars, but getting no worse.

Unless it was on a cosmic level and would be a slow seeping problem for millennia, but Alfred had Opinions about Bruce concerning himself with issues on that time scale.

There was only so much they could do in the moment.

Another survey of the city was required, and in person since even the League’s best couldn’t take clear pictures of Amity Park.

A fact which didn’t seem to have stopped the Amity Parkers from photographing and sharing pictures of each other, according to his children. Constantine hadn’t actually argued when Bruce compared it to background radiation, so it must be close enough.

He also hadn’t done more than grimace when Bruce asked if he wanted to undertake the survey personally. That was as good as an enthusiastic agreement.

First, though? First they needed to call a meeting of the Justice League, primarily the heroes located in North America.

They had been horribly uninformed of what was going on right under their noses, and if Constantine was right… Amity Park’s problems had begun to spread.

To Gotham.

To his children.

Constantine’s grumbling that it was the miasma of death that hung over the city drawing them in had not inspired confidence, and Bruce resolved to have Zatanna over at her soonest convenience to explain.

Helping Constantine put together a report on Amity Park itself had more than convinced Bruce not to ask Constantine, even if he could have done it today. The man was…

Well. Bruce wasn’t looking forward to having to run him through the JL’s classification system again. Maybe one of his children would want to go and handle the technical side.

All he had to do was finish preparing the presentation, call the League, and he could rest. It would likely take a day or two to put a full meeting together, but he could at least fill Clark and Diana in tonight.

He could sleep in between. Just for a little while.

Right after he showed Constantine how to configure the alerts from Amity Park to direct to the Justice League Dark, not the spam folder. They hadn’t sent one in years, but he was determined not to miss any changes.

That should have been the easiest part of this whole mess. It was just a simple form, with a basic test button to ensure it worked.

Nothing too complicated even for a man who’d decided “no reply needed” meant the same thing as “too dangerous for anyone but JL Dark”.

Fine. It was fine.

Bruce loved making training videos to highlight the most basic functions of a system and ensure that people actually understood what the various controls meant. Wonderful.

It meant that they could work in parallel for a while, Bruce on the presentation for the League, Constantine to fix his mistake. In a blissful silence, even.

It couldn’t last.

“It’s not working, Bats,” the magician declared, pushing back and away from his computer. Probably to pace again.

Bruce closed his eyes, breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, and made his way across to frown at the monitor.

“Did you save your changes?” He growled, doing his best not to let the irritation show. It was getting harder every time.

Constantine rolled his eyes, definitely not helping, and pointed at the screen.

“See for yerself. Look, JLD Top Priority, like ya said. And then ya hit the top button to save, and the red button to test it, and nothing happens.”

He waited impatiently while Bruce clicked through the buttons, seeing it for himself.

Constantine wasn’t wrong. That was unexpected.

Brows furrowing under his cowl, Bruce checked the deleted requests. Three test messages from “Amity Park”.

“Hn.”

“Someone’s fucked ya system,” Constantine commented dryly, sounding unduly pleased that it wasn’t his fault.

Something other than his haphazard filing had apparently been causing some of their problems. Bruce… just didn’t have the time tonight.

He nodded over to his screen instead, pulling up his wrist computer to send a private message to Tim in the cave. How long could a tour take?

Tim could find what was going wrong long before he’d have the time.

“I’ve compiled most of the presentation on creatures of the Realms. Is there anything important I should add?” He asked gruffly and Constantine sighed dramatically and flounced over.

Bruce firmly ignored Steph’s voice in his ear.

Not because he didn’t agree, whatever a “woobie” was.

He just needed Constantine’s once over to confirm he had all the pertinent information, and then he could call Clark and Diana.

Head home.

Get to bed.

“Looks fine. I should check yer damn revenant some time soon too though.”

Bruce froze, finger just above the send button on that tech request to Tim.

His fucking what.

Black Bat led them easily across the city, along what was probably her normal patrol route. Taking her cue from Red Hood, she didn’t rush, but soon indicated that they turn off into a small alley between two warehouses.

Hell, not even a proper alley. A gap where the buildings hadn’t quite smushed together.

Red Hood recognized the area from Nightwing’s bitching; there’d been a bust here last week, and something had cloaked the whole block from surveillance.

These days, he was almost tempted to check what Danny knew about it. Ghosts fucked with technology in ways none of the bats would find.

Black Bat stopped them half way down the gap, feet braced against one wall and her back to the other, leaving her “sitting” about twenty feet off the ground.

Hood matched her a little further down, grumbling a little at the crush. Almost a foot taller, it wasn’t exactly a comfortable position for him, but he’d held worse.

They were stable, and damn near impossible to observe. This was as good as they’d get.

“So,” he began, and immediately realized he had no fucking clue what to say.

Black Bat’s flat, expressionless mask was not helpful.

Hood wished he could pull his helmet off, just to run his hands through his hair. But they were on patrol.

Black Bat just waited, silent and patient while he wrestled with himself. Finally he decided to just spit it out.

“Danny died, and came back,” he said in a rush, glancing over to her.

Black Bat nodded.

“Like you.”

“Like us,” Hood corrected, groaned, and switched off the voice modulator. Actually, fuck it, he had his domino on.

He pulled the helmet off, balancing it in his lap. He could shove it back on if it came time to go.

Black Bat was beside him now, almost close enough to touch. Close enough to lean in and bump their shoulders together.

“One main difference,” she noted thoughtfully, then tapped her chest, “no skin change.”

Which, yeah, Jason had been hoping to emphasize before any of the family got too far down the right track.

“Right,” he agreed, leaning back to stare blankly into the smog of Gotham above them.

Fuck. How do you even say it? How do you tell someone they’re not fully human anymore?

Someone like Cass, who’d been raised to believe she’d never been human, by force. Just a weapon.

Her hand was in his now, and he couldn’t be sure if he’d reached out or she had. He stared down at their laced fingers instead.

“You know how people get when they spend too long around the pit water,” he began slowly, trying a different path.

Cass had been raised around the League of Assassins. She knew.

And took the change of topic fully in stride, nodding and giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Erratic,” she mused softly, her face tilted to the wall across, “unpredictable, especially if they went in.”

No one was going to say Ra’s Al Ghul was an unstable mess of a man, but no one had to. Still, how controlled he was was impressive, especially after you saw what mere exposure to the fumes did to other people.

Red Hood nodded, sighing softly.

“Danny’s parents kept it in the fridge. He was… exposed long before he died,” he explained quietly.

If he was talking about himself, he’d say “contaminated”. Hell, it was the word Danny used when explaining it to the bats.

Jason just couldn’t use it about Danny. It just wasn’t right.

Black Bat stilled, almost enough to be mistaken for a statue instead of a living being. Was that her liminality too? Or just her training?

Red Hood couldn’t stand it either way, giving her hand a gentle tug.

“He told me… being around it too long can change a person, even if they never get dunked,” he said slowly, trailing off again.

“We got dunked,” Black Bat said quietly, her hand curling more tightly around his. There was no hint of emotion in her voice, and Jason hated it.

Pulled her closer, doing all he could to project comfort-sorry-concerned-love you. Wishing he’d asked Danny to teach him to do that first.

Neither of them had really considered he’d need it, since Danny was so good at reading him. But he needed her to know she wasn’t alone.

Her shoulders hunched suddenly, body tensed to spring until her head snapped round to focus on him.

He could… he could feel surprise from her. Maybe it was working.

He gave a graceless half shrug, grinding his shoulders against filthy bricks.

Tried to project yeah it’s weird for me too, but wasn’t sure how well it came across. Anything beyond pure feelings was a little tricky for him to push, though he could usually work out what Danny was saying.

“We got dunked,” he agreed quietly, resolving instead to wrap her in love-protect-safe-safe-safe, “and sometimes… that changes you even without a flashy transformation.”

It was an awful explanation and he knew it, could practically feel her eyes darting all over his face, his posture, reading things he probably wasn’t aware he was showing.

Then she relaxed all at once, settling in and leaning part of her weight on him as well as the wall. He braced automatically to take it. He wouldn’t let her fall.

“He called it being “liminal”,” he explained softly, working an arm around her shoulders above the wall to coax more of her weight onto him. “I don’t know what it means for you yet, BB. But nothing bad. He was sure it wouldn’t be bad.”

Black Bat made a soft humming sound, obediently shuffling so he could wrap his arm around her. Looking down at their still twined hands.

“Can feel you,” she said softly, hand rising to tap gently against the red bat on his chest. “Big brother.”

It startled a bark of laughter out of him, because… well, yeah. A good way to sum up everything he’d wanted to tell her without words.

Felt a quick rush of satisfaction from Black Bat, and tried to answer it with relief-agree-protect.

“Yeah, that’s the fuckin’ weirdest part,” he agreed dryly, almost felt the rush of her giggle more than he heard it. “Apparently some liminals get this… aura around them. Sharing what they feel. I didn’t know if you would…”

What? If she’d notice? If she’d be able to feel the same things?

Black Bat nodded, head tipping up to meet his gaze once again.

“Robin? Batman?” She asked, and Jason hesitated.

He couldn’t talk to either of them about it. Not yet. Bruce would fucking push, he always did, and wouldn’t stop until he tore the secrets out of him. Damian would just run to Bruce.

But it was a valid question. And they did sort of deserve to know just as much.

For now he took refuge in what he knew, shrugging it off.

“Danny thinks they’re liminal, but… not as far along as we are.”

Not as close to death. Not as close to not being human, although technically they were both legally non-sentient, so that was fun.

“D’you really think either of them have the emotional bandwidth to share?” He tried to joke, covering the moment.

Black Bat just stared at him until he fell silent. Then nodded.

“Should tell them. No rush,” she added almost before Jason could tense, leaning back in and resting her head on his shoulder, “have been for a while, yes?”

Jason paused a moment longer, shook his head, and snickered.

“Cannot believe I ever doubted you’d be able to do the whole “emotional telepathy” thing,” he grumbled good naturedly, and Black Bat glowed with gentle amused.

“Better than you,” she told him archly, sounding for a moment like Steph when she was teasing Tim. Jason gave her a squeeze.

“Don’t I know it. But yeah, it’s not a new thing, and won’t mean anything to anyone unless one of us dies again.” Which he wasn’t going to think about.

Shit, someone said Robin was out tonight.

Nope. Not thinking about it. Robin had been patrolling for years, and as much as he whined about his solo patrol route, he never deviated.

Not after Oracle had highlighted his route on his wrist computer for him and proved she could see every footstep. She wouldn’t necessarily tell Bruce, but she’d always know.

Black Bat nodded, resting against him for a moment longer before sitting up again.

“You want to wait.” It wasn’t a question, but he felt compelled to answer.

Picked up his helmet, turning it over slowly in his hands. But of course she’d understand. She always did.

“I want to know what this means to me before I have B poking and prying into every part of my life,” he said quietly, staring into the eye slits of the helmet.

Black Bat ruffled his hair.

“Can wait,” she agreed gently, switching her position to have a hand and foot on either wall. Ready to move on. “No rush.”

Red Hood pulled his helmet back on and matched her, the pair climbing quickly out of the crack between the warehouses. It almost wasn’t worth saying, but…

“You can tell the others if they ask. I just…”

“Don’t want questions,” Black Bat agreed lightly, flipping up onto the roof. “Can ask Danny when the time comes.”

“Yeah,” Red Hood agreed, crouching beside her. “Mind if I stick with you on patrol tonight?”

He sort of hoped she’d think it was unrelated, but another moment of stillness passed across her as she regarded him.

“Until we die again,” she repeated his own words, and Hood was pretty happy she couldn’t see his face anymore as he grimaced.

Not that it mattered, another shot of amused shooting between them, followed by a much softer appreciated.

At least she wasn’t judging him for being a mother hen.

“Understand.”

Tim and Tucker had made quick work of the interview, and Tim was pretty much running out of questions when the batcomputer pinged with an incoming message.

Tucker gave it a longing look and Tim chuckled softly, wheeling himself over.

“Hang on. Might be one of the others out on patrol,” he explained, right clicking to pull up the monitor that tracked the bats’ various dominos out and about.

Tucker stared up at it politely, diverting his attention from what Tim was doing on the other screen, no matter how curious he was. Showing trust and all that.

It was actually really cool too; he’d not really seen a map of Gotham, and having one superimposed with little glowing lights of the various heroes on patrol was really cool.

It wasn’t really zoomed in enough to tell if Bluebird was actually in a fight, but the little blue dot seemed to be the only one standing still, so Tucker assumed she was.

How cool would that be? Watching just normal human vigilantes fight and take down bad guys?

Although off the top of his head, he could already think of a couple of things to add to the monitoring program. They might already be there, he hadn’t clicked around, but like.

Vitals were all well and good, down in the corner next to each hero’s name and the colour of their dot, but just the heartbeats? That wouldn’t tell you enough.

Tucker preferred brainwaves, because then you could tell if they’d been hit with something or overshadowed.

Although maybe it was because he’d spent his time keeping track of a guy who pretty regularly did not have a heartbeat. And it also gave him more data points for some of his cooler side projects.

Understanding the different brainwave patterns an individual made in different situations was a key part of neural mapping, and adding it to the bat’s routine would get him a ton of data.

And then they could really play Mariokart.

He’d have to ask Tim if they tracked any of that later. Not all the bats wore helmets or cowls that would support the electrodes, apparently. Although if Danny could get his hands on a domino…

Tucker was snapped back to the here and now as Tim pushed back from the batcomputer, a wry grin on his lips.

“Actually, I think this might be something you could help with, Tucker. If you don’t mind a little work on your night off?” He teased, back to Tucker’s complaints about a night of fun and tech.

Like getting to play on the batcomputer did not absolutely count as fun and tech.

Tucker beamed, excitement welling up in him and cracking his knuckles. It’d be pretty cool to assist a human vigilante too. And on a tech problem!

Gotham was fucking great. If Tim really meant it about getting him an internship, Tucker might have to see about switching schools.

MIT was great, but it wasn’t Wayne Enterprises, personal meetings, or personal tech demonstrations with Tim Drake Wayne!

“Sure! What’s going on?” He asked, shuffling over to look at the other screens now that he had permission. Making sure it was obvious he hadn’t been looking.

Resisting temptation had been hard. He deserved credit.

Tim nodded to the screen, and that? That was a message from Batman. Bruce Wayne. Batman.

Tucker scanned the message, eyes widening even as Tim spoke.

“Wanna help debug the Watchtower?” Tim asked, and Tucker clutched at the back of his chair as his heart leapt, swooning just a little.

The Watchtower. The actual Watchtower. In space. Oh he was shoving that in Danny’s face for not telling him he was friends with the Bats!

There was only one real question left.

“Will Oracle be here?” He asked eagerly, looking around the rest of the screen.

A soft chuckle played from a speaker in the bottom corner, and Tucker jumped half a mile as a masked voice spoke.

“You boys have fun with this one, I’ll keep an eye on the city. If you finish early you could walk me through that server of yours?”

Oracle.

The Oracle.

They were real, they talked to him, they wanted to talk about his locked down servers! Tim lunged to catch him as Tucker collapsed, knees giving out under the swell of emotion.

All of his dreams were coming true, all at once.

He’d never been happier.

Danny was having a pretty quiet night in. That didn’t used to be unusual while he was in Gotham; having time to himself was still pretty much a novelty, and he wasn’t exactly a party boy.

Of course, it was a night in with some of his parents’ inventions and recently one or two of his own, so the actual “quiet” part was negotiable.

Quiet enough not to piss off his dorm mates, but luckily most of them were engineers too. They may not always know what he was doing, but they were usually interested.

Tonight, he was alone, most of the floor still being home for the holiday. That had been one of the things he’d looked forward to most about staying behind, but…

Well, after his noisy and action packed few days… he was lonely.

He wished he’d asked Jason to stay. Just because he’d said he was going to bed didn’t mean he had to do anything of the sort.

It was just that Jason had been… tense. He’d not even gotten off the bike when they arrived, just pulling over and chatting for a minute before heading out.

Like he wasn’t fully comfortable going into Danny’s place, which was kinda fair. Unlike Jason’s apartments, Danny’s dorm was a communal space.

Even if most of his dorm mates weren’t home, there was still a chance one of them might turn up. And then Danny would have someone else bugging him about his “boyfriend”.

Nope.

Besides, he’d see Jason again at 11am (he had this horrible feeling Jason might be a morning person), so it wasn’t even all that long. He should probably just go to bed.

He should check his class schedule, actually. Work out what days he’d have free, work out when he and Jason could skip to the Zone for fight club.

Wait.

Would Jason be free.

What the hell did Jason do for a living? He’d have to ask at some point, Danny mused, logging in and taking a screenshot of his class schedule for the new year.

For now, it was probably best just to send Jason the picture so he’d know when Danny was free, and then Jason could work out a good time for them to go and it wouldn’t be Danny’s problem.

Excellent. Sheer genius.

Humming happily to himself, Danny pulled up Jason’s number and sent the picture of his schedule, with the caption:

‘Let me know when ur free for field trips 👊🏻💥👻’

Eyes closing for a moment, Danny let his awareness drift out across the city. It wasn’t something he’d done a lot; Gotham wasn’t his haunt and he didn’t want to step on any toes.

Usually he’d just expand his conscious aura if he was looking for someone, but knowing how much Jason didn’t like it… well, his passive aura covered most of the state, so reaching through the same city couldn’t be all that hard.

Right?

Frostbite could find anyone, anywhere in the Far Frozen with little more than a thought. And was convinced Danny would be able to do that with the entire Zone, some day.

Danny was a little less convinced. Past the background awareness that he was no longer in Amity Park that had taken months to fade, he’d never really paid attention to his passive aura.

It’d be too tempting to feel out the rogues, or at least react to the sudden surges of aggression and danger. But he hadn’t had anyone to protect before, and he knew Jason would feel better knowing Danny could.

That was kinda why Danny hadn’t mentioned how theoretical this particular ability was, although he had no doubt he’d recognize Cass’s energy if she came close to death.

Which meant he should totally recognize it while she was alive, well, and had more energy, right?

He had no idea where she was, which parts of Gotham fell on her patrol route, but that kinda helped. It meant he couldn’t trick himself by focusing on a particular area.

Surprising precisely no one though, he found Jason first. The other halfa almost glowed when Danny was focusing on his energy, a bubbling little ball of yellow and red.

He… was maybe with Cass? Danny’s brows furrowed, nose scrunching as he tried to focus without changing his aura.

He was definitely with one of the liminals. And that quiet little light, almost blue, felt sort of like Cass. When he forced himself not to be distracted by Jason’s brighter glow.

Eyes snapping open, Danny’s concentration broke and he frowned up at the ceiling.

Well, that explained why Jason was in a hurry to get going. He was no expert in Gotham herself yet and had no idea where the two of them were, but if he tried again he could probably work it out.

Did Jason still have a suit? Or did he call Cass in, find something he could do as a civilian to have her help?

Shrugging to himself, Danny dismissed the question and hauled himself up. Might as well get to bed; they’d be back together in the morning and he could always ask.

Tim was scrolling through the code for the alert messaging system itself while Tucker went through the sections that pertained to Amity Park specifically on his PDA when the other boy made a sudden, startled squeak.

Tim considered pretending he hadn’t heard, but there was a chance he’d found the answer. So he glanced over.

“Any luck?” He asked, noting Tucker’s sudden strained expression. Maybe the guy needed the bathroom actually. They’d been down here a while.

Tucker laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“So… uh… what exactly does the bug we’re looking for do?” He asked in a small voice, looking more embarrassed than Tim had ever seen.

Which… was not a proportionate response for that noise. And a question that they both probably should have thought of sooner.

He’d meant to mention it, since they’d have to explain it to the Amity Parkers at some point.

“So… remember how the Justice League never responded to an alert from Amity Park?” Tim asked not a little sheepishly himself.

Tucker nodded, not actually looking any less embarrassed himself either. That was definitely a great sign.

Tim sucked in a deep breath and forged ahead.

“So, it turns out there’s a bug in the Watchtower’s systems, where anything coming in from Amity Park gets marked as spam and funnelled straight into trash. We fixed the marking as spam thing, which I guess was user error, but it’s still-”

“All going to trash,” Tucker finished with a sigh, grimacing and shaking his head, “aaaaand I think I know why. But the timeline doesn’t make sense?”

That… that wasn’t even on the same continent as what Tim’d expected he’d say.

“The timeline?” He asked, brows furrowing, sliding over to peek at Tucker’s screen.

Tucker shook his head again, angling it so that Tim could see… a section of code that shuddered faintly in and out, almost disappearing entirely every few seconds.

That.

That was not a thing that should be happening.

Tim would have loved for it to be a simple screen glitch, but it was only that one small section of code. The lines above and below were fine, and Tucker could move the flickering chunk up and down.

“Yeah, this is your problem,” the Black man sighed, wiggling the section demonstratively, clearly aware of Tim’s shattered hopes.

Heartless man. Genius man.

“You’ve had ghosts in your back end. Probably wouldn’t even show up on an uncontaminated device. Which, by the way…” he trailed off, and Tim shook his head immediately.

“Not tonight. No changes to the batcomputer without Bruce’s say so,” Tim said firmly, since he’d already fucked up once. Might as well limit the damage.

Tucker shrugged and nodded back to the section of code.

“Okay. But this… this was definitely Technus. And that makes no sense? He’s a spirit of technology, we’ve fought him a bunch of times, but if he got into the Watchtower’s code he wouldn’t just… hide,” he tried to explain, adjusting his beret fussily.

It totally wasn’t adorable.

Tim did his best to keep up though, nodding along and thinking back over everything they’d been told about ghosts so far.

“You think we’d have noticed?” He asked, and Tucker snorted.

“He likes making giant robot bodies out of toasters, you’d definitely have noticed him on your space station,” he agreed dryly, then sighed.

Frowned down at the tablet again.

“I mean, Danny could make him do it and behave himself now, but if these changes were active during the whole Pariah Dark thing… I dunno, Technus should have been a way bigger problem. He’s not subtle.”

Tim frowned, thinking about what Tucker had said and then pausing.

“Danny could make him behave now?” He asked and Tucker pulled another face. Like he hadn’t meant to say that.

“Well, yeah, Danny’s miles out of Technus’ league now,” he tried to brush it off with a laugh, “the guy knows he’ll lose any fight so he’s really not a problem anymore. We have hackathons,” he added and Tim really wanted to know more about that.

There was just. Something off about Tucker’s answer. Not the content itself, just the way Tucker clearly wasn’t saying something.

That was a problem for future Tim though. Present Tim had a job to do.

“So can you fix what he did?” He asked the important question, and Tucker made another face.

“Dude… whoever or whatever made Technus do this, will probably notice if we fuck with it,” he said warily, and Tim shrugged.

“Whoever or whatever made Technus do it couldn’t do it themselves. How would they know?” He shot back, and Tucker chewed his lip.

Shook his head.

“Lemme text Danny. He’s the ghost expert, he’ll know how much we should worry about this,” he explained quickly, pulling out his phone and shooting off a short message.

Tim gave him his very best deadpan expression.

“How much we should worry about technology ghosts getting into space and fucking with Justice League HQ. I have the feeling the answer is “a lot”?” He offered sweetly, and Tucker snickered.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see. Might actually be alright, if this is all he touched. And, since you won’t let me juice the big computer, we’d have to scan the whole thing through my PDA. Every line of code,” he added, like Tim wasn’t already dreading it.

Tim sucked in a slow breath, weighing his options.

Touching the batcomputer? Ultimate no-no. But Tim’s personal laptop… it had access to the Watchtower’s systems, and was under Tim’s personal control.

And would let Tim go through the sensitive data himself, which the core code of the Watchtower was full of. The question was, did he trust Tucker not to install anything dangerous?

That question had been answered the second he asked Tucker to help him debug though. Clearly the guy could already put what he wanted, where he wanted, and with their current tech?

None of the bats would ever know. At least if Tim’s computer got the update, he’d have a chance at spotting ecto-infused code.

There were other computers they could use of course, old or unnetworked computers that Bruce would probably insist they start with.

Which wouldn’t be able to access the Watchtower’s servers, and couldn’t hold the whole thing to be able to run a useful check.

The answer really was kinda obvious.

Tim looked to Tucker, who’d been texting away while he thought things through.

“We can’t do the batcomputer, but is there anything you could do for my laptop tonight, or do we have to wait on Danny still?” He asked, deeply regretting that they’d gone to video games instead of the tech upgrade.

At the time he’d been planning on having a burner laptop done though, so it probably wouldn’t have been as useful.

Tucker shrugged cheerfully and slid his phone into his pocket, cracking his knuckles.

“Well, I can’t give you the full infusion to let you open Amity’s encrypted data, but I can write you a little something that should expose Technus’s code even without it,” he offered, and Tim brightened up.

“How long?” He asked eagerly, wondering if Tucker would let him watch. It’d be fair if he didn’t, Tuck had been cool about not looking when Tim played on the batcomputer, but…

Tucker smirked, flicking open a new screen on his PDA.

“How long will it take you to get the laptop down here?” He asked smugly.

Tim booked shit to the elevator.

Private Chat: DannyP & TooFine

2:15am

‘TooFine: Danny when tf did u have Technus hack the JL’

‘DannyP: ……. 👀 u cannot prove i did that 🚫🚫’

‘TooFine: I’m helping Tim debug the Watchtower’

‘TooFine: double fuck u for not telling me about Batman btw’

‘TooFine: someone sent all the Amity alerts to trash’

‘TooFine: if we keep talking about this I might accidentally send something to the group chat 🤨’

‘DannyP: FUCK FINE DONT TELL SAM 🏳️🏳️🏳️’

‘DannyP: after the pd thing’

‘DannyP: cw called’

‘DannyP: they hadnt been reading the messages anyway i just’

‘DannyP: shitty people track the jl y’know? and i didnt want em knowing about us’

‘DannyP: let em all think its a joke and then no one else comes an tries to use our portal to harness the realms and blow up superman or whatever’

‘TooFine: dude u fucking told me to tell them what actually happened??’

‘TooFine: pretty sure anyone tracking the jl will work that out now’

‘DannyP is typing’

‘DannyP: ok so maybe i didnt think that through 😔😔😔’

‘TooFine: no shit. I’m fixing the code in case any new alerts come through but it’s not like they’ll bother to call’

‘DannyP: not like they need to, frighty’s got em covered 🗡️🗡️🎃’

‘TooFine: yeah yeah. I’ll set it to ping u too’

‘DannyP: ur the best tuck 🙇🏻‍♂️🙇🏻‍♂️🙇🏻‍♂️’

‘TooFine: better than u deserve’

Across the city, Red Hood and Black Bat had stopped for smoothies. Patrol was quiet, and word on the street was that Bluebird was mostly to blame.

Nobody wanted to know why she was back and taking no prisoners, so even the docks were almost deserted.

Then again, with Riddler and Waylon snapped back off the streets, Penguin lying low in fear of Harley, and Batwoman making Two Face’s life a personal hell?

Yeah, no wonder the smaller players were lying low.

Hood had pulled his phone out to check in on the Alley in case they’d be more useful there when he noticed a message from Tucker’s private chat app.

It was from Danny.

Danny had sent him his class schedule. Told Jason to let Danny know when he was free. Like class was the only thing that’d stop Danny from wanting to see him.

Jason was so lost in staring at his phone, utterly swamped in the implications, that he didn’t even notice Black Bat finish her smoothie and swap out her empty cup for his.

Danny wanted to see him again.

He’d have to work out a proper schedule of his own.

Bruce was having a Bad Day. An extended bad day, one that was fast approaching 48 hours long.

As if everything with Amity Park wasn’t already bad enough, both in the past and the present, now Constantine believed there was something wrong with Jason.

That his son wasn’t fully human anymore.

Now, Bruce’s best friends weren’t even a quarter human between them, and no matter what everyone seemed to think he was perfectly happy with meta humans.

So long as they kept themselves safe.

Preferably where they wouldn’t be mind controlled, kidnapped, or held hostage every few days. Frankly being a meta was probably stressful enough even in a normal city.

But he’d keep Gotham’s metas as safe as he could, just like Duke.

But Jason… Jason had been born human. Had lived as a human, died as a human, and Constantine seemed so sure he’d come back as something else.

“Revenant” the man had called him. An animated corpse that haunted the living, powered by rage.

Bruce might even have believed it two years ago, when Jason first returned. Jason had been so angry, intent on destroying Tim when the other was just a child.

When Jason was little more than a child.

But… that wasn’t all he was. He was himself, truly Jason Todd in ways Bruce hadn’t wanted to believe. He’d fought his rage and won every day.

Most days.

And being around Amity Park, being around Daniel James Fenton, might be enough to push him back over. To drag Jason closer back to death.

Halfas could act as psychopomps, bringing lost souls safely to the other side.

Jason had only just become himself again. They had only just begun healing the rift between them.

Bruce couldn’t lose him again.

They had to keep him away from Amity Park. It was as simple as that really; something in Jason’s resurrection had gone wrong and they all knew it.

Even Jason himself wouldn’t argue with that. Something about his death clung to him, poisoned him with that violent green rage.

His children’s reports told him that Danny was claiming to help with the pit rage because he had also been exposed. But what if he was just helping the pit?

Even if he didn’t mean to, exposing Jason to that much power that closely tied to death couldn’t be good. Constantine hadn’t exactly said as much, but Bruce could read between the lines.

Death magic was contagious between those who’d been infected. Who’d died and come back.

That wasn’t fun to know. Not with how many of his children, his friends had all died before.

Even he himself had. He’d have to investigate Amity Park personally. Take the risk himself, to keep it from the others.

Tim and Duke could help, but they were both so busy with their own lives. He would have to wait and see.

His meeting with Clark and Diana hadn’t gone well either. They’d both been gratifyingly concerned with what he’d learned and had recognized the threat.

Clark had promised to keep an ear out for Jason, to listen in on his heartbeat and make sure he was okay. Bruce would have been grateful, if Clark hadn’t also told him that Jason’s heart was noticeably slow.

Easy to pick out, even if they hadn’t spent much time together.

Just how close was his boy to dying again?

Diana had advised caution. Wanted to speak to Danny herself, see the hero who had shouldered the burden of this small town. See if he had turned under the pressure.

Pressure that should never have been his. Pressure they should all have shared, protecting the child and the town together.

It would be his fault if Danny had broken. Had given in to whatever in the Infinite Realms had stolen a whole town away.

Bruce knew that with a leaden certainty, felt the weight of it settle in his chest. The same way he knew he was responsible for most of his rogues.

He could see the wisdom in letting Diana talk to the man first. She was wiser than most of the League, and a good judge of character. Even without her lasso, it was hard to lie to her.

But if what Constantine said was true, he didn’t want to tip their hand. Zatanna and Shazam had both agreed to attend tomorrow and give their own opinions.

They could afford to wait one night. Perhaps two, if Danny couldn’t be found tomorrow.

Just about the only thing Bruce wasn’t worried about was Danny running. If he had ill intentions, he wasn’t the sort to give in and disappear so easily.

He’d threatened Bruce to stay out of things between him and Jason. And certainly wasn’t afraid of a fight.

Bruce was also quite sure that he and Diana could take the boy if it came to it, even with the abilities Constantine ascribed to the realms. He would find a way.

But not tonight, he reminded himself firmly as he strode into the zeta tube. Tonight he would go home, update his children, and get some sleep.

Maybe waiting a day or two to speak to Danny directly would help. This concussion had passed frustrating and was beginning to affect his decision making.

Shaking his head to clear it, Bruce hit the button to send him home. Soon he could rest. At least for a little while.

A gentle buzzer went off in the cave and Tim yelped like he’d been stung, clutching at Tucker’s arm in an entirely unmanly way.

“SHIT he’s back hide the candy canes!”

Tucker stared at him wide eyed, but to his credit the other man didn’t hesitate to sweep the pile of different flavoured canes off the desk and into the front of his shirt.

“Where?!” He asked, and Tim hesitated for half an instant.

The zeta tube was down by the cars. Bruce would be up in less than a minute. Spinning Tucker by the shoulders, he shoved him towards the infirmary.

“Get in there! Don’t come out til I say!” He hissed, already hearing the zeta tube’s door whoosh open.

Tucker obediently scurried away, and thank fuck he was quick on the uptake enough to drop his voice below a whisper.

“What?! Tim, what?! Am I not supposed to fucking be here?!” He hissed, and Tim pulled the infirmary door almost shut before darting back to the table.

He’d cleared it with Bruce, had texted about giving their guests a tour, but since it turned out that Tucker hadn’t already been in the know… well, he wanted to prime Bruce with the good news first.

The tube only pinged once though, so Constantine hadn’t come back with him. That was probably good. Bruce would be less cranky.

Tim wasn’t exactly back in his seat by the time Bruce reached the batcomputer, but he was close enough to watch him note the second chair.

Tim didn’t let him ask.

“I have a first hand witness account of what happened in Amity Park.” That was the important thing, right? That they had answers.

Bruce stared at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed and the whiteouts narrowing with them. Tim stared him down, refusing to look away.

He’d fucked up just like, a tiny bit. But he’d gotten results. Better results than anyone else. So was it really a fuck up?

He watched Bruce’s eyes widen as he realized, and was a little surprised when the man’s shoulders slumped. He dropped gracelessly into the swivel chair, elbows propped on the table and his head cradled in his hands.

Tim was growing a little alarmed now, hurrying forward to Bruce’s side. Was he injured? Had something happened?

His hand was just reaching out to touch when Bruce sighed and sat back up.

“Tim. Who did you bring to tour the cave?” He asked in a tired, heavy voice, and Tim’s brows furrowed.

What? He’d said, hadn’t he?

“Tucker Foley?” He said cautiously, wondering if he should call Alfred. Maybe switch out Bruce and Tucker and get the big guy into the infirmary.

Bruce was very still. Tim forged ahead, hoping to get to the good news.

“He was a vigilante back in Amity Park, part of the support team. I have his statement going back to the beginning of the ghost attacks, and he’s already answered most of our questions.”

Leaning past Bruce, he hit a couple of keys and brought up the sound file of Tucker’s interview.

Bruce was still a little slow as he turned to look, but it seemed to hearten him. Which was when Tim realized.

“Wait. Who did you think I was bringing?” He asked, brows furrowing in confusion.

Bruce shot him a sidelong frown, pulling off his cowl.

“Not a stranger,” he growled, though his heart clearly wasn’t in it. He just sounded tired.

Tim carefully patted him on the shoulder, still thoroughly confused.

“What? But I said…” he paused, pulling out his phone and staring at the texts.

Nope. No he didn’t.

Oops.

Groaning, Tim let his head drop.

“Ah fuck, and I thought we were doing so well!” He sighed heavily and Bruce made a grunt that might have been a laugh. “Alfred’s going to be unbearable.”

That shut Bruce right up, as it should, and then Bruce sighed again. They were moving past it then. Probably for the best, since Alfred would lecture them both on the importance of communication later.

At least it wasn’t only Tim’s fault. The only person who wasn’t a stranger or a bat had been Harley, and he wasn’t actually sure if Harley had cave privileges.

Well. She did now. Since that was what Bruce must have thought he was asking.

Then Bruce straightened, eyes determined and steely.

“I have new information from Constantine. The risks of the Infinite Realms.” It definitely heartened him to talk about, skipping straight to the debrief part of the day.

Maybe they could just skip right over the Tim-fucked-up-and-brought-a-stranger-to-the-cave.

“I need you all to keep away from the Amity Parkers until I know more.”

Ah.

No then. Nope, not skipping over it, because Tucker was actively still fucking in the cave. It was for the best that they’d hidden him then.

Tim shook his head firmly, hoping that if he seemed certain that would help.

“That’s not gonna work, Bruce. I couldn’t have fixed our Watchtower problem without Tucker, and we can’t look at any of the Amity Park data without an Amity Park device.” It was the theory they’d been running with, but they’d had it confirmed now.

Never mind that Tucker had already downloaded most of what was publicly available for them. Bruce would always want a primary source anyway.

Tim pretended it didn’t affect him when Bruce’s head jerked, eyes narrowed as he scowled at Tim.

“You let him into the code for the Watchtower?!” He exclaimed in a hiss. Which was interesting, since Tim had kinda figured the bat cave thing would be more personal.

Then again, the Watchtower could compromise more than that.

“Bruce, read the report on Tucker. We literally couldn’t stop him if he wanted to hack in, because his tech runs on levels that slide right past ours. Tech he’s already sharing,” he added sharply, reaching behind him without looking to hook his laptop forwards.

Bruce, mouth already open to argue, quieted at once. Yeah, new toys always helped. Tim nodded to the batcomputer.

“The update’s ready to go live, but I waited because you need to see this. Open the third window,” he nodded over, pulling up the corresponding section of code on the laptop.

Bruce’s expression pinched but he did as requested, clearly not willing to put another step between himself and the answer. A quick glance up to confirm, and Tim nodded to himself.

Fuck, he needed a laser pointer.

“So it all looks good up there, right?” He pushed and Bruce frowned, but nodded, eyes scanning quickly across the screen.

“Is this your update?” He asked but Tim was already shaking his head, pushing his own laptop towards the man.

Bruce’s eyes widened at the glitching sections of code. Tim nodded, satisfied he’d gotten Tim’s point.

“Tucker Foley wrote me a program so that I could access this ghost code. In half an hour. From scratch,” he added for emphasis, and yeah, he could already hear the lecture about “compromised tech”.

He tried to shut that one off too, pointing up at the screens.

“That? That’s apparently the work of a ghost. One called Technus, who likes to possess technology, and now Tucker and I are going through every line of the Watchtower’s code looking for changes.”

Bruce’s lips thinned to a tense line and he gave a short, harsh nod. He very obviously didn’t like it, but the presence of a bigger threat did wonders for calming him down.

Tim patted his laptop.

“We’re waiting on you to upgrade the batcomputer, but we’re gonna need to check every program on that too. Everything, Bruce. These ghosts could have been rewriting everything. And we’d never know if I hadn’t asked Tuck to help me with the Watchtower.”

Honestly, Tim was just hoping none of their rogues had made any ghostly connections. The implications made his head spin, but he stubbornly kept himself on track.

They needed Tucker’s help. Never mind that the ghosts themselves were reportedly allergic to subtlety and would always go big over going home; that was a tendency, not a guarantee.

Hell, if Tim had a say, he’d get Tucker’s upgrades for the ghost code, improved firewalls, and Danny’s ectoplasm into all his own gear by tomorrow.

He wasn’t going to, Bruce’s paranoia being what it was, but he was already uploading Tucker’s program to his suit’s wrist computer. It wasn’t like there’d be any hidden malware.

Tim had watched over his shoulder as Tucker wrote it, direct on the PDA. And watching him work had been… it was just…

He so rarely got to talk to anyone that was actually on his level. Rarer still that they weren’t a direct member of the family.

And Tucker, for all he currently had a tech advantage? He’d invented that advantage himself. All on his own, he was incredible. Maybe even better with some aspects of software than Tim himself.

The things they could do together… even the internship was pretty much a formality at this point. Just get Tuck through college and see if he’d accept a job at WE.

Hell, if he wanted to found his own company Tim would invest. That kind of brilliance deserved everything it needed to grow.

He had to wrench himself back to the present moment, the “introduce new genius to Batman” step still looming large, but honestly? Tim wasn’t worried. Bruce would see the potential.

Here and now Bruce’s gaze had gone distant, and Tim could easily have kept going, but he stayed quiet. Let the man absorb new information, stop and think.

And if he still wanted to make dumbass decisions, well, Tim could argue with him literally all night. They’d all picked up Bruce’s stubbornness too.

It was hard to focus on the screen through the throbbing of his head, the lights too bright even at their lowest setting. He’d checked.

Luckily, it was an issue he’d been dealing with for years, and Bruce pushed it aside with the resigned acceptance of long practice.

He’d pay for it later. That night of sleep was probably going to be a day of sleep at this rate, but he’d get at least six hours. More if Alfred caught him.

For now… Tim felt very strongly about this. Had good reason to, if he was even half right about the scope of the problem, or Tucker’s uses as a solution.

After hearing from one member of the Justice League Dark, Bruce was desperately hoping Tim was right. They sorely needed an ally, one they could trust to guide them through these dangerous waters.

Of course, Fenton and Foley were close. That may skew his judgement, but it could be accounted for. Wasn’t worth more than an ally whose skillset Bruce understood, and could trust.

Tucker Foley was a tech expert, which put him above any occult master in Bruce’s book. Magic had no rules, not that could be relied on, and Bruce wouldn’t touch it if he didn’t have to.

And Tucker’s tech would work with his own.

There’d be a review period of course. He’d have to meet Tucker himself, speak to him a little, get a sense of the man. See how far his opinions would be based in fact, not feeling.

Tim’s vouch was a good first step. As little as Bruce liked that Tim had brought an outsider down to the lab. And then let him use Tim’s computer.

And honestly, it certainly wasn’t Tim’s fault that Bruce hadn’t asked. He’d been lax, not checked properly, and it was that damned concussion slowing him down.

He needed sleep. His thinking was dangerously clouded. But one thing was always true: he trusted Tim’s judgement. Probably more than he trusted his own at the moment.

They could review the situation in the morning, come up with some suitable punishment and protocol to introduce new vigilantes to the cave (which they’d never needed, because other heroes usually came through the League and were already vetted).

A thought struck and Bruce almost smiled. It would be a fitting solution on three separate sides. Maybe the punishment would be easy after all.

“Alright. I’ll need to speak to Foley first. And you will be writing out fresh protocols to address when a new hero but not a league member can be introduced to the cave,” he added, and Tim groaned loudly.

Bruce ignored him. That was just the start of his troubles.

“You will also be responsible for running John Constantine through the full reporting system, and updating the training materials so this doesn’t happen again.” It was a weight off his shoulders, really.

And a fitting punishment, because Tim would definitely think twice before pulling this stunt again. The man himself threw both his hands into the air.

“What?! Bruce! You said you fixed it!” He whined, and Bruce resisted the urge to smile.

“And I fixed Amity Park. But I highly doubt this was his only error, so the two of you will have to review every case he’s reported on before you go back on patrol.”

It was probably several hundred since they’d had the new system alone. Tim groaned like Bruce was sucking the soul from his body.

Bruce levelled him with a stern look.

“I take the secrecy of the cave seriously, Red Robin. This will not happen again.”

“Because I’m gonna die of old age sitting at a desk with Constantine,” Tim grumbled, folding his arms and scowling.

It wasn’t even something he could write a program to fudge for him; every case would need Constantine’s personal input to be sure it was filed correctly.

Bruce was quite pleased with this solution. But he made sure to hide the smile from Tim, who wouldn’t appreciate it right now.

“Tucker Foley may end up working out for us all, but that’s no guarantee a future mistake won’t be fatal. And Tim…” even if it was a formality at this point, he had to ask. “Do you trust him?”

The answer was obvious, this was Tim’s personal laptop, this was the Bat Cave, and as expected Tim nodded immediately, the sulk from his punishment vanishing.

“He’s a good guy. He’s even made a clean set of Amity Park data you can look through until Danny fixes the batcomputer.”

Ah. And there was the problem. With a solution wrapped around it though, so Bruce focused on the cleaned set of data.

If Tucker was anything like Tim, it’d be extensive enough to keep him busy until the Justice League came to a decision.

Until he could speak to Danny. Speak to Jason.

He was so tired.

Bruce nodded, leaning back in his seat.

“Alright. Tucker Foley is exempted, but I need you and the others to stay away from the rest, and particularly Danny Fenton until the League has made a decision.”

It was just a little heart breaking watching Tim’s face fall from hope and happiness straight back into worry.

“But Bruce… he’s helping Jason with the pit, he might need to see him,” he argued, arms folding again.

Bruce shook his head. That was exactly what he was afraid of.

“I know… and I know how Jason feels about following orders. I’ll tell him myself, tonight.” Luckily he was still in the batsuit, if not the cowl.

Raising his wrist to his face, Bruce activated his secondary comm on the group channel. He’d turned both off when his children headed out, fully aware Oracle would override it if they needed him.

He didn’t need to be distracted by the noises of a normal night.

“Everyone, return to the cave before heading in please. There have been developments I need to update you on.” Nothing to worry them, but hopefully interesting enough that Jason would still drop in.

No talk of protocols or anything. No, that was Tim’s future.

Tim, who was looking at him oddly.

“Who told you Jason went out tonight?” He asked, and Bruce frowned. Looked up at the batcomputer, and realized that the tracker screen wasn’t open.

That could be a problem.

“Didn’t he?” He asked, really not looking forward to asking Dick to ask Jason to drop by tonight. If Jason was actually home, actually sleeping…

But Tim shook his head, that odd expression still on his face.

“He never said he would, but he called in after taking Danny home. He’s out with Black Bat,” Tim added, and Bruce frowned.

Why even bring it up if Jason was out? What did it matter?

Tim, clearly seeing and understanding his confusion, groaned and tugged at his hair.

“Bruce. Please, just… listen to me. Danny isn’t the threat here. He’s been nothing but helpful. He’s the one who picked up the ball when the League dropped it, who dealt with all the ghosts we can’t. He saved that town-”

“We don’t know that, Tim,” Bruce cut him off, shaking his head sharply. “We can’t take that risk.”

He could see Tim getting frustrated, temper flaring, and in an odd way, it made him feel better. Calm. In control.

“Bruce, you stubborn… so what? We just tell Jason to keep away from the only person who makes him feel better?” Tim asked sarcastically, and Bruce could see exactly how he’d missed the point.

This was what he’d have to watch for with Tucker Foley. But the technical advantages would be worth it.

“We don’t know that he’s making the pits better,” Bruce said darkly, and fuck it felt good to even voice the thought aloud.

Made it feel real, less like paranoia.

Tim gaped at him, but didn’t argue.

Bruce raised a hand, counting the points off on his fingers.

One.

“None of us heard anything about him a week ago. Not even a few days. Fenton has been here over a year and only just ran into Jason?” It wasn’t possible.

It didn’t make sense. Gotham was a large city, sure, but for two people apparently so closely linked? No.

A second finger rose.

“Danny himself claims that he is helping with the pits.”

“Jason agrees,” Tim cut in, clearly looking to break his train of thought. Bruce silenced him with a stern glare.

“Danny claims he is helping with the pits. Jason claims to have noticed the same thing, but we already know the pits affect his mind. He may not understand what’s being done to him.”

That? That made perfect sense. The pits had driven Jason into those uncontrollable rages, made him do things he’d never have wanted to.

Who was to say they couldn’t have a more subtle influence? More dangerous? More like Ra’s himself.

Even Tim couldn’t argue with that, and Bruce nodded his satisfaction at the boy’s silence, raising a third finger. This… he wasn’t looking forward to this one.

But its weight had been sitting in his chest since the possibility came up, and he didn’t want to hide anything from his boys. They deserved to know the risks.

No matter how much he’d rather protect them from it.

“The little f… Constantine believes there is a chance that even being close to Danny may have dangerous side effects for Jason, purely accidentally.”

Tim’s eyebrow rose at the aborted description, and Bruce was glad he’d clamped down on it. Couldn’t quite meet the boy’s eye as he continued to explain.

“Danny’s connection to… his death,” the words were hard to even speak, another child lost, “is what gives him his power. It’s strong, and may have radiating effects Danny doesn’t even know about.”

Because that was kind of the worst part. There was a chance that Danny truly meant everything he’d said in earnest. That he was Jason’s friend, wanted to protect him.

Wanted to help Jason come back to himself and be free of the pit rage. That they did truly care for each other, and wanted to make each other better.

And none of those good intentions would matter if Danny’s mere presence risked Jason’s soul.

He could see Tim realizing it too, eyes widening and the aggression slumping from his shoulders. But he’d decided to be honest.

Clear, open communication. They could try.

“The way Jason came back… we still don’t know how it happened, or why. But anything half living and half dead can have side effects on the world around them, especially for those who have already died.”

Danny might be here to take Jason away. Back to the dead.

He’d meant to say the words, to lay it bare, but in the end he choked on them. Couldn’t even face the thought.

Tomorrow. After he slept. If they still needed convincing, he’d try again tomorrow. Which did neatly bring them to point number four.

Steeling himself, Bruce shifted his gaze back to Tim, raising his pinky finger.

“And if you are right, if Danny really is helping… it’ll only be for a few days. I meet with the League tomorrow. Zatanna and Shazam will both be there to give their opinions.”

Suddenly Bruce just felt tired. Tired of arguing, trying to make people see things his way. All he wanted was a couple of days. Just to be sure. Just to be safe.

Tim raised an eyebrow again, shifting slowly to lean against the other chair.

“Then why will it be a few days? Why not tomorrow?” He asked cautiously and Bruce chuckled.

Of course Tim knew him well enough to know there would be something else.

“I’d like to talk to him myself first. Perhaps have them meet him directly. Just to be sure what his intentions are in the city.”

“And with Jason,” Tim put in flatly. Bruce just nodded. The boy was right.

“With the city and with Jason,” he agreed, looking back up at the large screens of the batcomputer.

Pulled up the location tracker for his bats and birds, watching their little trails of light run across the city. He wouldn’t let any of those lights wink out.

Tim sighed and shook his head, coming to lean against the back of Bruce’s chair instead. Not quite tall enough to rest his chin on the top of Bruce’s head, and not likely to grow much more at nineteen.

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” he said bluntly, eyes tracking the Red Hood dot in particular. “You’ll only push Jason further away by trying to control who he sees.”

Bruce shook his head, leaning back just a little more into the presence of his son.

“I don’t care if Jason hates me for the rest of his life, so long as it’s a long and healthy one,” he said softly, and Tim snorted.

Pushed away from the chair, and for a moment the distance ached.

“Yeah, well. When it blows up in your face, I told you so. Did you wanna see Tucker tonight or tomorrow?” He asked, and Bruce’s head snapped suddenly around, scanning the cave.

“He’s still here?”

Shaking his head, Tim made his way across the cave to the infirmary, pulling out his phone where Bruce couldn’t see it. He shot off a quick text, not looking down.

‘J. Don’t come back to cave. B has mega bitch face just let him cool down’

Across the city, the message flashed in the corner of Red Hood’s helmet visor. Groaning to himself, Hood kicked a goon’s gun into Gotham bay and waved to Black Bat.

“You good? I gotta send a text.” He called, deeply offending the eight goons still standing, armed with knives and fucking pipes, and tussling with Black Bat.

Which only got worse when she shot him a quick thumbs up, sat on a particularly tall goon’s shoulders before throwing herself back so far the guy toppled, twisting them in the air so she still somehow wound up on top.

Hood nodded, pulling out his phone one handed.

“Hey! You can’t just text! We’re not done!” A goon protested, rushing in at Red Hood.

Who pulled his gun and shot him in both kneecaps, sending him sprawling to the slick planks of the dock.

This was why he always took out their shooters first. Batman could preach hand to hand all he liked, it was way safer when the bad guys had holes in their hands and no guns.

“Anyone else?” Hood asked rhetorically, pointing the last gun on the dock at the remaining goons in turn. In unison, all six focused their attention solely on Black Bat.

Not because they thought they’d win, but well. She didn’t have a fucking gun.

“Yeah, thought so,” Hood grumbled, sending a quick message back to Tim.

Paused to take a picture when Black Bat actually got three heads at once into a leg lock, because that had to be a record.

‘Is it to do with your big fuck up?’ Cuz honestly, what else could B be pissed about?

The answer came back though, fast and weird.

‘As hard as I also find it to believe this, no. Magician’s got him all twisted around about Phantom. Wants to forbid us all from seeing him.’

The phone creaked in Jason’s grip as he read the last words, a low rumbling growl spilling from low in his chest.

The remaining standing goons whipped around and exchanged startled looks.

That. That definitely wasn’t fucking good. No way.

Black Bat took another to floor as they paused, and the last three fled. Didn’t quite make it to the door.

Jason didn’t notice until her hand landed gently on his shoulder, concern radiating off her. His head whipped round, and he was suddenly glad the full helmet covered his face.

Couldn’t see the way he fucking snarled at her.

Black Bat didn’t move, her head cocked to one side as she regarded him.

“Eyes. Glowing,” she told him carefully, reaching up to touch the side of his helmet.

Jason jerked back in shock, but he could already feel the green rushing away. Receding until his vision purely his own again.

He hadn’t even noticed the green haze.

Black Bat inspected him again, then nodded, going on tiptoes to pat him on top of the head.

“What’s wrong?”

Red Hood sucked in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment to recenter. He’d never felt the rage come on that fast, from nothing to all consuming before he even felt it.

Even thinking of the messages made angry green tides again.

We will not be kept from the King!

And it was talking to him again. Lovely. Why couldn’t that part have been his imagination?

Shaking his head, he focused on Black Bat’s question instead.

“Just B bein’ an asshole again. I’m gonna pass on the cave tonight, tell him I went to bed.” It was about as much as he thought he could talk about it without screaming.

Almost forgot that Black Bat could read him too, her aura still soothing and open to him as she nodded. Rested a hand gently on his shoulder.

“Go now. Rest,” she told him firmly, turning back to the downed and groaning goons.

Red Hood hesitated, looking around the dock. It was getting early, nearly time to turn in anyway, and they were done here. Just a routine drug shipment.

The last lot too dense to be cowed by the mood on the streets, or counting on the hour to mean the bats went to bed. Cuz that went so well for them.

He nodded and moved to help her, flipping the biggest goon over and zip tying his wrists to his elbows, and then his ankles.

“After I help you wrap your presents,” he agreed, heard Black Bat let out a soft huff of laughter.

One of the still conscious goons shot him a glare.

“Y’could at least pretend to take us seriously,” she grumbled, then yelped as one of her fellow goons kicked her in the shins.

Clear message: do not push the crazy bat.

Red Hood snorted.

“I’ll take you seriously when you’ve fuckin’ earned it,” he told her, going for the next biggest body.

Black Bat could take every one of them out of the fight, but bagging and tagging a dead weight was much less fun for her. He could handle that part before turning in.

He had a big day tomorrow.

Private Chat: DannyP & TooFine

4:30am

‘TooFine: dude Tim just shoved me in a closet I don’t think Batman knows I’m here?????’

‘TooFine: dude’

‘TooFine: dude wake tf up I might need emergency evac 🚨🚨’

4:35am

‘TooFine: that fucking Constantine guy’s put a bug in Batman’s ass’

‘TooFine: told u we shoulda hunted him down 😤’

‘TooFine: and after all I did to help!! Ungrateful bat!!’

4:46am

‘TooFine: okay Batman fucking hates u specifically ur screwed 😳’

‘TooFine: I’m good tho 😇’

‘TooFine: I think he likes me now 😏’

‘TooFine: he wants all my sweet tech upgrades’

‘TooFine: they’re gonna let me play on the batcomputer!!! 😳😳😳’

5am

‘TooFine: u are missing vital updates bitch’

‘TooFine: he’s gonna fucking ground Jason from hanging out with u’

‘TooFine: AH SHIT HE KNOWS IM HERE ABORT ABORT ABORT’

8am

‘TooFine: u may have been right going to bed early man this shit sucks’

‘TooFine: didn’t even get to see what happened’

‘TooFine: they sent me to bed like a naughty child! 😤’

‘TooFine: I’m changing all his ring tones to Funky Town’

10:59am

‘DannyP: okay miette’

11:02am

‘HalfBitch: OKAY IM SORRY TUCKER AT LEAST TAKE THE MAGIC MIKE THEME OFF’

——————————

Next Chapter:

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778

#dp x dc #danny fenton dead and loving it #dead on main ship #jason x danny #danny x jason #one fine day in the middle of the night #still no smooches here tho #just bat angst and softness #chapter 13 #unlucky 13 cuz i forget the number exists

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