#soulless-paper-bag

[honeybleed]

— ★ JUST A LITTLE WHILE // JEAN KIRSTEIN

content & warnings: comic book artist!jean, modern au, female reader, black-coded reader, established relationship, angst kinda but fluff, smut so mdni (breast play, vaginal fingering, oral, f. receiving)

author’s note: i always wanted to write sumn dat gives kdrama ost so lets hope this gave obashata 🏹 n i always complain i hate everythin i write for jean so i hope i don’t hate dis

word count: 2.5k

Jean's studio was an array of things.

One wall with comic book covers and vintage sci-fi posters, the other adorned with sketches, character studies and concept art.

Sat by the drafting table, which was scattered with pencils, inking pens, and a meticulously organised array of reference materials.

Sticky notes on the bookcases that practically groaned with the heavy weight of the collection of comic books, graphic novels, and rare editions, meticulously organised and catalogued.

With his hands on his head, Jean let out a deep sigh as the sketches lay in front of him on his desk.

Despite such a critical thing left to do, the only thing on his mind was you.

Things were slightly off, to say the least. With the upcoming finale of his series, Jean was more distant than ever. It had been a long six years.

Most comic book series span decades, but quite frankly he'd run out of steam.

This was a story he loved dearly, and the last thing he wanted was for it to get taken away by the publishing company and morph into something unrecognisable and soulless.

So he'd end it himself. And the pressure to create a satisfying conclusion was immense. He felt as if he was wading through a swamp of problems and sinking.

It had to honor the journey of the series, it needed to respect the investment of the audience and leave a lasting impression that resonated even after the final chapter.

It'd been three weeks since he began the finale saga and you were an understanding girlfriend.

You'd drop by once in a while to check if he ate or needed some fresh air or even some downtime away from it. In the first few days, it was alright and he obliged.

But later on, he just couldn't bring himself to even take a five-minute break. The constant barraging phone calls from the editors and staff made Jean struggle to even breathe sometimes.

He was overwhelmed. Everything was closing in on him, and as much as he gave his all it seemed like his integrity as a storyteller was slipping from his grasp.

Suddenly his ears pricked up at the sound of the keyhole of the front door jiggling and some footsteps as the door closed.

He’d been at the drafting table for hours, and he could feel it. Eyes strained and dry, neck and shoulders stiff and achy.

He made his way to the hallways where you were taking off your shoes to place on the rack as you gave him a small smile.

“Hi.” You chirped. “You good?”

“No.” He thought to himself.

“So-so.” He snorted as he stretched his arms with a groan.

Involuntarily your eyes settled on his rising black t-shirt, which showcased the sliver of skin of his pelvis and his happy trail.

“Pervert.” He snickered, humored at the fact you were shamelessly ogling him, as he grabbed the takeout bag from your hands and headed to the kitchen.

“Am not!” You snapped, following after him.

"Here...open this." Jean says as he averts his gaze, unable to meet your eyes pushing the envelope in your hands.

"Okay.." You respond with an uneasy laugh at his skittish behavior.

"Open it now." He says, a little demandingly.

"Jean, can't you see that's what I'm doing?" You snap, kissing your teeth.

Despite the bite in your tone, your teeth sank into your lower lip to stifle back a laugh. Jean with his towering figure acting like a shy toddler was amusing.

You grab a knife to tear open the top of the envelope and see a pristine white paper neatly folded. You made your way to slump on the dining chair as he stood, leaning against the marble countertop in your kitchen.

You unfolded it to see a drawing of a couple.

But surrounding the couple were six mini versions of the two of you.

In the middle, it was undeniably Jean, with his sandy brown mullet, upward-curved ends, stubble and goatee.

You giggled, as your finger traced along the drawing of him.

He was holding you, kissing your hand gently, and his other hand was firmly planted on your side in the illustration — then there was you. Rich brown skin, bouncy curls, plump lips and doe eyes.

Jean had done many drawings of you in the past but there was something more heartfelt about this particular art.

He could see your eyes were soft, filled with a glow while you gazed at the gift, as he watched you with bated breath.

Anxiety stirred in his stomach as he absentmindedly clenched his jaw, a habit of his when he was feeling uneasy.

You'd never bashed his art, on the contrary, you were probably one of the most supportive people in his career as a comic book artist, but there was always something nerve-wracking about pouring your heart into something for the person you love.

You were in awe of the powdery and soft art. The pastels had a warmth and gentleness, something that was rare in his artwork.

Jean who always fared better in bold lines and vibrant colors. Whose art was always praised for dynamic action scenes and expressive storytelling.

To picture the sheer intimacy of his hands spending time on this artwork, where you could feel the earnestness with the dreamlike lilacs and turquoises caused a tingling warmth to spread through your body.

"This is so...beautiful, Jean..." You finally mustered out, your voice barely a murmur earning a sheepish grin from him as he rubbed the nape of his neck.

“I know it’s tomorrow but…I just couldn’t wait.” He said. “But you really think so...?" He chuckled, but when he saw tears stream down your cheeks he immediately paused feeling his heart sink.

He hurriedly crouched in front of you as he cupped your cheeks, wiping the droplets with the pad of his thumb.

"Why are you cryin', huh?" He chuckled his voice soft but still with a hint of concern as he stroked your cheek. "I hope my drawings ain't that bad." He teased in an attempt to make you laugh.

"No, it’s lovely.” You mumbled. “I just thought you forgot.”

“Look, baby…I know I’ve been acting distant and grumpy lately but it’s not because of you.”

He paused, as he took in your features intently. You felt your stomach flutter as you met the soft, golden glimmers of his light brown eyes.

“It’s just this stupid comic causing me stress. So just promise me that you’ll always be by my side when I need you.” He said with a warm smile, as he pecked your lips and then pressed his forehead against yours.

“Will you promise me that?”

His tender tone stirred up feelings you haven’t felt in a long time.

A mixture of desire for him as your mind was fogged with his familiar warm, woody musk fused with the clean, crisp scent reminiscent of freshly washed linens.

And adoration as the hair on the nape of your neck began to rise. This all-consuming need to reach out and touch him properly. Feel his skin on yours, like you used to.

He called your name to drag you out of your daze.

“Yeah?” You quipped, trying to recompose yourself.

“Thought I’d lost you there, baby.” He chuckled as his sturdy palms and weathered pads of his fingers settled on the bare skin of your waist which made you jolt slightly, as he remained crouched in front of you.

“Promise?”

“Promise.” You affirmed as you slot your pouty lips against his own.

Pattering raindrops gently tapped on the windows as the both of you began to prepare for bed. It was a long time since you slept at similar time.

Jean made it a habit to fall asleep in the studio or even crash on the couch so as not to disturb your deep sleep, despite you chastising him.

He came out of the ensuite bathroom in your bedroom after a shower with a smile. Dried up and dressed for sleep.

As you sauntered up to him for a kiss you could still feel the heat from the hot water emitting from his flush skin, and smell the light citrus scent from the soap he used.

You reached a hand to rake your fingers through the ends of his tousled tawny hair, the droplets sliding down his collarbone.

He pulled you close against him as he gave you a cheeky grin.

“Close your eyes and don't open them until I tell you. Okay?” He said in a tone laced with jest.

You obliged fluttering your eyes closed, just happy he seemed to be returning to the mischievous nature of his you remember when you first met.

Jean meets your lips. This kiss is different to the quick pecks you’ve become accustomed to.

It’s almost as if this kiss won’t end. You feel yourself gasp slightly when he brings his tongue to your mouth. Softly tasting you.

His large hands grasp at you to pull you even more impossibly close as if you aren’t already flush against his firm and solid body.

“That kiss got you raring to go, huh baby?” Jean snickered to himself, a gleam in his eye.

Any time he could make you jump or make a noise, it stroked his ego immensely. One of his less favorable traits but he wore it well sometimes.

Rarely.

“Do you want more?” He murmured in your ear, breath tickling the shell as his voice became husky, which was quickly stirring arousal within you.

The deep baritone of his voice, the tingling of your lips after the wet and heavy kiss that left your lip a little swollen, and the overbearing proximity of him created a deep heat within your gut.

“I have a lot more to give.” He stated, voice firm.

“So do it.” You provoked, and within an instant, you were backing up on the bed until your back hit the headboard of the king-sized bed as Jean’s toned figure hovered over you.

The contrast between the rainy outdoors and the cosy glow indoors, with the dim bedside table lamp made things different.

Though the kisses were lust-filled and hungry at first, when he leaned in to meet your lips once again, the way his breathing was soft and shallow along with the way your eyelashes against each other's skin made it morph into something more sweet.

“Want this off..” He muttered as his tongue danced with yours, tugging at the satin, champagne-colored night dress.

“Jeez, be patient.” You tittered as you sat up from lying down to pull the garment over your head and discard it onto the carpet. “There.”

“Much better…” He chuckled, running his tongue over his lip as he gazed at your bare chest.

His hands began to roam across the soft skin of your body, then settled on your breast, kneading it gently and tweaking your nipple which made you gasp.

Your stomach turned again.

In the glow of the lamp, your boyfriend when aroused has an animalistic look in his eyes. Very rarely. It frightens you at first but also rouses something primitive within you.

He eagerly dived in to kiss you again, but you dodged the kiss. His eyes widened.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Did I do something wrong?” He stuttered, panicky.

“No…but you gotta strip too! Fuck you thought this was.” You giggled.

“Jeez, I was so wrapped up in what was goin’ on in here that I forgot. Alright.” He responded as he began to tug off his boxers, discarding them quickly.

Your eyes descended lower until you gazed upon Jean’s length.

“What’s the matter?” He asked a little sheepishly as he felt anxiety seep into him when you gazed at him wordlessly. “Guess I could use a little trim, mhm?”

“No, it’s fine..” You giggled. “It’s sexy, don’t worry.”

“You think so?” Jean grinned as he ran his hand over his stubbly chin. “Maybe I’ll go full 70s.”

“Jean, you’re sick.” You scoffed.

“I can be a lot worse…” He chuckled as he leaned in, to trail kisses along your soft skin.

“Is that so?” You teased.

“You pushin’ me?”

“Maybe.”

With a wicked grin, Jean slid lower on the bed to position himself between your thighs, prying them apart.

You’d been together a long time but the glistening arousal from Jean’s earlier teasing and ministrations that sheened in the low light made your cheeks heat up.

“I barely touched you, y’know.” He chuckled darkly as his eyes hungrily raked over your thighs and wet heat.

“Shut up!” You protested but were cut off with a squeak as Jean immediately delved between your thighs, wrapping his arms around them as he began to suck and lick at your folds.

“Jean…!” You gasped as he restricted you from squirming with his strength.

“I promise I’ll make you feel so good…” He muttered as his tongue began to take long and languid strokes, losing himself in your centre, drooling and moaning so loud it reverberated against you, which made you even more jumpy.

Your hands threaded his hair as you tugged, bucking your hips against his face. It spurred him on even more, and he slid one finger inside of your entrance, pumping slowly.

His jaw clenched and he groaned at the feeling of your gummy and plush walls, clenching and pulsating around his digits.

“Fuck…” He said with a low growl. “You’re so sensitive.”

He slid two fingers in, which made you mewl pathetically.

You knew you must’ve looked and sounded ridiculous but with the intense pleasure washing over you, you couldn't care less.

“That’s it, baby…” Jean said in response as your name fell from his mouth like a mantra, his fingers curling inside you as he massaged the tip of his tongue on your clit. “Want you to cum for me..”

“Jean…” You cried out weakly, as he was coaxing you nearer and nearer to the edge.

Your eyes squinted shut as you felt your peak reach you, your body shuddering as you gushed all over his fingers.

“So beautiful, baby.” He grinned as he kissed your temple, stroking your hair back, leaning to kiss you gently the tang of your arousal on his lips and tongue.

“You’re so sexy when you cum.” He said as your chest heaved, attempting to catch your breath. He trailed his hand down your body, cupping your breasts to tweak your nipples again.

You smacked his hand away.

“Move.” You chortled.

“This better?” And you shoved him off when he swiped his tongue against your hardened nipple.

“You are so!-” You thumped his chest.

“Hope you’re ready for me, baby.” He smirked as he gazed at you. “Cos I ain’t finished. Think I might just fuck you into the mattress til dawn.”

“Jean…never change.” You chuckled as you squeezed his broad shoulder.

The next morning, Jean was out cold. You glanced over at him where his bare back was facing you and his arms were sprawled over the mattress.

“Wake up…” You called out as you slapped his back.

“What?” He groaned, voice groggy and drowsy.

“Happy anniversary, baby.”

“Don’t wake me up for no stupid shit like that again.” He muttered as his hand slid to caress your thigh and squeeze it.

author’s note: if u made it this far, ty for reading sorry for any grammatical or spelling mistakes love u all, reblogs and interactions r always appreciated 💓✊🏽

#aot x reader #aot smut #jean kirstein x reader #aot x black reader #aot x black!reader #jean kirstein fluff #jean kirstein smut #aot angst #aot fluff #jean x reader #jean kirstein #snk x reader #snk smut #aot x female reader #aot x y/n #⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ nara scribbles

[guys-im-literally-spiderman]

Recovering is incredibly boring. 

Eddie’s been out of the hospital for what must have been years–but Steve assures him it is more like 9 days–and he is absolutely out of things to do. 

At first the novelty of being in the harrington mansion, an arrangement made because his fucking house was split in facking half, was enough to keep him entertained. While Steve was out volunteering like the martyr he is, Eddie would mindlessly wander from huge room to insanely more huge room. He picked up every terrifyingly expensive and useless object he could, and stared into every soulless room until he physically could not any longer (which was often, because you know he almost fucking died) 

But now, he’s run out of things to inspect without straight up snooping and he’s still fucking bored. He’s currently laying on his back, spread out an unnecessarily large bed, making every dramatic sound and sigh in his very large collection of ways to get attention in the hopes that Steve will get the hint that he’s bored. 

Eventually,he hears footsteps descending the stairs, and he hopes that Steve has finally gotten the hint and comes to rescue him. But instead that traitor picks up his keys and informs a very inconvenienced Eddie that he promised to watch the kids on their outing because their parents were worried. Then just leaves. Leaves! 

Look Eddie gets it, the world almost ended and the kids were missing for days. He understands how parents could be worried. But is the safety of their children really worth letting Eddie be bored??

He gets through about 5 minutes of silence before he gives up. Fuck his attempts at being being a polite house guest. He’s gonna snoop. He’s a curious guy, you can't blame him. 

Also, may he reiterate, he was bored. This is a very large issue. 

Slowly, he creeps up the stairs, calling out Steve’s name to be sure he’s alone. Because if he’s going to invade Steve’s privacy, he’s going to at least do them both the favour of making sure he never finds out. 

Eddie goes straight for the back of Steve’s wardrobe, because although he wants to see the juicy shit, he’s a DM, he knows he can;t go straight to the most interesting part. 

He almost immediately finds a small plastic container. He opens it to find some pretty ordinary, by Eddie’s standards, contents. A lighter, some rolling paper, and a few empty bags that definitely once contained weed. The typical things a teen would want to hide from his parents, not that Steve really has any reason to these days. 

Eddie is about to close the lid and put the box back when he spots something. In the corner of the box is a scrunched piece of paper. He grabs it and flattens it out to reveal a poster with the words “Corroded Coffin” in big bold letters at the top, with the date and time of their first show on it. They were the posters Eddie used to plaster around the school, mostly to piss off the jocks and scare the pearl-clutchers among the faculty. 

When he turns the poster to the back, he finds a note scribbled on the back. For a moment Eddie assumes that's why he’d kept the pa[er, because some girl's number was on it. That is quickly disproven when he actually reads the note which reads “Eddie = that hot senior” and below it, in larger handwriting “Go you coward!!!!” 

If Eddie suddenly feels the urge to giggle like a schoolgirl with a crush, that's his own business.

#i did not proof read this sorry lol #steddie #pre slash #Eddie's chaotic mind #its ok #we all have undiagnosed ADHD here #eddie munson #steve harrington

[xysidhequeen]

New Ficlet

TW: Death, Murder, Blood, Experimentation, Vivisection, Dissociation, Child Abuse

RedredredredsomuchredsomuchBLOOD.

Danny backed away, hands shaking. His foot slipped on the blood mess on the floor. He went down, a keening whimper escaping him as the fall jolted his wounds. His hands went up to grab at his chest, at the gaping wound and flapping skin. He froze, looking at the dripping red liquid coating his hands and arms like gloves. 

His hands shook and he could feel a wail crawling up his throat. He didn't look up, didn't look at his…at Jack and Maddie at their…bodies. He killed them. They're dead. DEADdeaddeadhekilledthem. He didn't look at them. 

Some cold part of his mind whispered to him. The voice sounded like Jazz. And– oh Ancients what would she think? What would Sam and Tucker think? They'd hate him, surely. He couldn't–

Jazz's voice in his head spoke up over his spiraling thoughts. Calm and clinical and ordering him to get up, to wash his hands. To find bandages and fishing line to sew up his wounds before their were three dead bodies in this lab. 

Danny listened to Jazz's voice. She'd always been the smart one. She'd always known what to do. He stood on unsteady legs and limped to the sink in the lab, washing his hands in robotic motions, ignoring the pink water until it ran clear.

He gathered up the materials he needed, sitting on a clean stretch of ground where there was no blood mess. He stitched himself back together, not even feeling the pain of it. This was nothing compared to what his parents Jack and Maddie had done to him over the past week.

He closed up the Y shaped incision on his chest, closed up the deep, surgical cuts along his torso and arms. Covered them in spare ectoplasm lying around the lab, slathered it on like ointment on the chunks of flesh taken from his arms and legs. Then he wrapped them all in bandages. 

He stood again and mechanically gathered what he'd need, Jazz's voice in his head, a calming narrator telling him what step to take next. What to grab. All the ecto-dejectos after he'd taken one and injected it into himself, giving him the energy he'd need and kickstarting his healing. More bandages, all he could grab. Fishing line, needles. 

He climbed back up to his room, grabbing a worn duffle bag to shove it all in. He grabbed his phone, turned it off, and tossed it in. Clothes, the cash Sam had given him 'in case of an emergency', the thumb drive Tucker made that would grab all the data from the Fenton computers and wipe the rest. He grabbed clothes, roughly yanking off the ruined remains of his jumpsuit and tossing a hoodie and jeans on instead. His ectoplasm would replace it, eventually, but for now, he needed clothes. 

He didn't turn back into his human form. It didn't feel safe. It wouldn't survive with the injuries he currently had. No matter how tired he was.

He drifted through the house, Jazz's voice his only grounding anchor as he dipped in and out of rooms. Grabbed a few things from Jazz's room, some of the emergency supplies she had left. A med-kit, cash, his fake papers, and ID. They kept it in her room, just in case his parents found out and it went badly and they combed his room.

They found out. They found out. It went so much worse than he could ever imagine. Now they're dead, and he's a MONSTER.

He dropped into his parent's room, the static in his head nearly drowning out Jazz's voice. She screamed louder, though. She always had. He took a hesitant step. It felt like moving through molasses. Then another and another, forcing himself into the room of his parents, his victims, the Fentons. He moved as quickly as he could, barely touching anything except to grab his legal papers and the money his dad squirreled away because he didn't trust banks and thought they were controlled by ghosts.

"No one can be that soulless and not be a ghost, Danno!"

He left the room, slamming the door behind him so hard it cracked. He stopped in the kitchen next, grabbing whatever wasn't currently animated and attempting to stage a coup. It wasn't much. He tossed it into the bulging duffle, struggling to zip it closed. 

He paused at the stairs to the lab, the darkness yawning like a monster's maw. He wanted to run he wanted to never see it again. 

But Jazz's voice was louder than his fear, so he stepped back into the lab, his prison, his cage. Each step rang too loudly in the silent house. Finally, he was back, and he kept his eyes carefully averted from the… mess. From the stains on the ground and the lumps beside a metal table covered in green ectoplasm. 

He hurried to the computer, shoving the thumb drive in. Immediately, a screen popped up, denoting how long it would take to download. Danny kept his eyes locked on it, never blinking or moving as the bar slowly went up. 

When it reached a hundred, Danny ripped the thumb drive out and shoved it in the duffle, deep down into it. He took a deep breath and turned his head quickly to miss the…mess. He zeroed in on the portal and forced himself to walk to it, past it. He ripped a panel off, exposing a mess of wiring. 

Danny moved on autopilot, ripping wires and twisting them together. Turning h- Jack and Maddie's greatest invention into a ticking time bomb. 

He couldn't afford for anyone else to get into the Ghost Zone or for anyone to get out. He needed to hide the bodies evidence. He needed for all of the Fenton inventions to be gone. This would do it. It wouldn't be a massive explosion, but it would be enough to take out the house. 

Everyone would think he was dead.

Sam, Tucker and Jazz would think he was dead.

That would be for the best.

Better he die a hero to them than live as a monster.

Danny finished his work and stepped back, taking a deep breath he finally turned his head to look at Jack and Maddie. At their bodies. At his victims. He killed them. Him. He was the monster. 

The monster they made him.

Invisibility and intangibility washed over him in a cooling wave. He stumbled but held his legs, his core crying from the strain. He pushed past it. He forced himself up, up, up, and out of Fenton Works. 

He floated there, watched with a detatched type of curiosity as he mentally counted down the seconds until there was a rumble. Then the building just…crumpled in on itself. Imploding. 

Jazz was silent in his mind.

Danny didn't wait around for the emergency services to arrive. He turned his head and flew off. He wasn't sure where, exactly, until a memory tickled his brain. A memory of a little bird, a robin he remembered Sam saying. A ghost robin that used to warn him when new ghosts were coming or his parents were getting close. A robin who used to try to distract his rogues or tug Danny out of (or occasionally into danger if someone needed help) danger. 

A little robin that Danny used to just unload his woes and troubles onto because it felt like the bird could understand him. He always stayed to listen, at least. 

A little bird who had only ever spoken once, the last time Danny ever saw him.

"If you ever need to run, come to Gotham. It'll keep you safe."

Well. He had nowhere else to go. He might as well go to Gotham. No one would find one singular eighteen year old kid there. 

Danny turned his phone on, ignoring the hundreds of missed calls and texts, just long enough to see where Gotham was. Then he turned it off and started slowly flying in that direction, desperately hoping he got to Gotham before he passed out.

—-----------

Danny kept flying doggedly on, only pausing when he started leaking through his bandages and even then only stopping long enough to redo them in whatever bathroom he came across. He burned the old bandages once he was done, not willing to leave behind traces of his ectoplasm for someone to track him with. 

He ate while flying, shoving whatever he grabbed out of the bag into his mouth. The ecto-dejectos kept him going when his vision started to go dark at the edges. He couldn't pass out here. Not where it wasn't safe. He couldn't risk it. 

Danny had no idea when he'd feel safe again. Had no idea if Gotham would provide that safety, but it was the only hope he had. He had nowhere else to go. He couldn't go to the Zone, the portal was destroyed, and he couldn't risk trying to sneak past Vlad. He was too weak to open his own right now. Besides, if he came into the Zone this injured, then every ghost in a hundred mile radius would be on his ass, trying to finally End him and take the crown. 

No, the living realm wasn't safe, but it was safer than the Zone right now.

He just had to get to Gotham, find a safe place to lay low for a few weeks until he healed. Then he could vanish into the Zone. 

Danny kept flying, forcing his invisibility to stay up even when his core felt like it would shatter. He kept pushing and pushing. He stole a phone at one point. He couldn't risk turning his on again and having Tucker trace the signal.

He didn't spend time wondering why he'd even grabbed the phone. Why he kept it on him. The buried hope it would uncover would be the end of him.

He used it to keep him on track, getting closer and closer to Gotham until he could finally see the smog that coated the city like a dirty cloak. Could see the twinkling skyscrapers and Gothic architecture clawing at the sky. 

Danny was half delirious at that point, running on fumes and ecto-dejecto. He'd run out of food days ago, and his stomach had stopped growling, instead cramping in a ball of pained agony that just joined the rest of the pain his battered body felt. 

He flew over the city, past skyscrapers and ancient buildings. He ignored the thoughts of Sam that accompanied every gothic building and gargoyle. He flew deeper into the city, ignoring the crowds below. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, a sign, maybe?

A feeling tickled at his senses, at his core. It felt familiar but faint. Hidden almost under something…wrong and rancid. But it was familiar. It felt safe in a way Danny hadn't felt in two weeks.

It had been longer than that, but Danny didn't want to think about that.

Danny followed the feeling, half asleep and so delirious he could swear the buildings were warping around him as he flew haphazardly closer. The feeling grew stronger. It almost felt like a ghost. As he crossed some unseen threshold, the feeling strengthened. It was like entering an abandoned haunt, the boundary lined weak and feeble. 

If there had been a ghost here, they were long gone. Probably Ended, it was one of the only ways he'd ever seen a ghost relinquish a haunt.

Danny paid it little mind. The ghost might be gone, but the sense of them remained. It felt so safe to him, even if the energy pulsate Rage/Pain/Hate/Grief/Vengeance like a heartbeat. He followed the feeling deeper into the haunt towards the center. Towards what would've been the ghost's lair. 

He forced his body to go intangible when he found the building, an apartment building that was slightly less derelict than the ones around it. Not that Danny was particularly picky at the moment. This spot was as good as any, and if it had been a ghost's lair, it was unlikely there were any living people in it. They tended to naturally avoid ghost lairs, some deep instinct buried in their psyche screaming at them to stay away. 

Danny dropped through the roof and through apartments until he reached the one that was positively drenched in the faded ghost's energy. There was a couch right there. And Danny didn't even have the energy to look around further.

He was tired. He was in so much pain. He just wanted to sleep.

Danny dropped his invisibility and intangibility, collapsing on the couch, his duffle bag dropped to the floor beside him. The moment his eyes closed, he was out.

---------

What. You thought I only wrote fluff? Nah.

Anyways, this is an idea that's been rattling around in my head I wanted to get out. It's rough, unedited and who knows if I'll continue it. But it exists now.

It has no name but I saved it as 'The Monster They Made' but the name is subject to change.

I'm pretty sure I got all the trigger warnings. Let me know if I missed any

#danny phantom #dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #dead on main #danny phantom crossover #ficlet #tw murder #murder #tw blood #blood #tw experimentation #experimentation #tw vivisection #vivisection #tw body horror #body horror #tw death #death #tw abuse #abuse #tw child abuse #child abuse #danny is having a very very bad day #so i gave him a little murder as a treat #hes jason's problem now #also i made jason a smol bebe robin ghost when he was dead #cause i just KNOW he wouldve raged about it the entire time #tw dissociation

[gingersnapwolves]

the following update is brought you by the letters LMAO and WTF

so as discussed in my previous posts, the house my parents share with my brother's family is LARGE. like deadass this place has three living rooms. and one of them has a fireplace. upon this fireplace were displayed my dad's butterfly boxes. sadly, I don't have a picture but they are very pretty, and they were really the only color in the room, which is mostly white with dark blue sofas.

for those unfamiliar with butterfly boxes, they look something like this:

(source)

they tend to be somewhat expensive because they are made with butterflies that have already died a natural death (no butterflies are harmed in the making of these boxes) but obviously the butterflies in question have to be in perfect condition

my dad's looked a lot like these but they were clear glass all the way through, and the butterflies were a lot more colorful. he's had these literally as long as I can remember, so at least 35-40 years. and he had them up on the fireplace mantle.

today he emails me all in a tizzy because SIL took them down and replaced them with this:

now we all have our own tastes and opinions but wtf in the hgtv is that shit??? that is the most boring, random collection of items - that is staging by a realtor, not decoration by a real person! it looks so completely soulless. and she did this without asking him or even mentioning it to him and he doesn't even know where his butterfly boxes even ARE currently because he's been so mad that he hasn't trusted himself enough to ask lmao. I told him I'll ask if he wants, I'm ready to fight, I'm pissed. you can't just move someone's shit without asking them and replace it with stuff that you personally think looks better!!!!!! okay I'm okay I'm gonna go breathe into a paper bag until the urge to drive forty-five minutes and punch my SIL in the nose subsides

#personal #rant #feel free to ignore

[milllersfae]

𓆉✩°｡ ⋆ rockstar in 616 I rockstar!ellie williams

word count: 929 I warnings: fem!reader, fluff (very tame this time!) I summary: 'it was hard not to be interested. the long empty apartment across from yours had been tenant-less since your arrival, a soulless room that had been that way long before you knew. the first sign of life to re-emerge had been her.'

a/n: i am so sorry for the sudden hiatus! i had writers block and spent some time drumming this up. this is my first attempt at a series fic, so if it flops i deserve it 100%. enjoyyy <3

it wasn't a bad first spot.

the thought crossed your mind as you unlocked the door to your apartment. it wasn't as roomy as you'd like, but it was home; as it had been for the last 3 years.

your life was a little less than mundane. your wages relied on keep others dogs from running into the street, your social life was hopelessly still, and your mind was thinning at the seams. it wasn't awful, but it was empty. unwavering.

you turned on the stove, preparing your late dinner for the night. your routine was consistent; a gentle crutch that helped you stay awake and ready. you threw refrigerated pasta into a pan, heating the meal with a stir before emptying it on a paper plate. your raise the food close to your lips with a slurp before eyeing the trash that had now began to overflow. you put it down back on the counter and retrieve the bag from the metal tin. you muscled up your bit of strength and thrown the trash over your shoulder.

the spoiling smell left your nose as you left the bag outside and headed back to the front door. you sauntered back inside, making your way to the elevator to return to your floor. there the finger pressed the floor button before your hand fully had reached for it yourself.

she stood, brown leather-down jacket silhouetting her figure. rings curved around her fingers as they danced a nervous tic, waiting for the doors to part.

she enraptured you, eyes fixated on the rigid corners of her profile just before the green flicker of her gaze had smoothed across your face. you looked down at your phone as a subtle distraction as the elevator came to a stop, opening for your arrival.

the two of you step in simultaneously, finding you spot to stand as you enter. you froze, even as you were closer to the set of buttons that numbered your floor. you couldn’t find the words to mutter up to ask her where her stop was. in the corner of your eye, she stood slightly awry, before parting her lips to ask herself.

“which floor?” she said, warm pool of the rasp of her voice easing into your ears.

“8, please.” the words fumbled out of mouth, even long after they were prepared in your head.

she nods and puts a curved knuckle at the floor button, a staunch grin appearing on her face. she shoved her hands in her pockets and looked back at you.

“great. that’s my floor too.”

it was hard not to be interested. the long empty apartment across from yours had been tenant-less since your arrival, a soulless room that had been that way long before you knew. the first sign of life to re-emerge had been her.

there was little time to hyper focus on the thought though, as your phone buzzed with a new dog to sit for tomorrow. you accepted, and finished your now sullen food before slumping onto your cramped couch. you nodded off to sleep, mind anchoring back to that damn face you couldn't get your mind off of.

-

you woke up with a startle, instantly checking your clock for the time.

you had done it again, late to sit some poor pup you appointed yourself to watch. you rushed yourself into the shower and into day-old clothes. you dusted yourself off the night before and pulled up the address to your destination.

less than a mile away.

better yet, across the hall.

no fucking way.

you exit the front door, the identical frame mirroring you in the hallway. you felt your heart beat out of your chest as made a gentle knock against the wood.

there was that familiar eye in the peephole as it appeared and then left as the door opened with a pull.

she had been just as surprised as you had been, eyebrows raised in curiosity. your voice had ceased, and the air had filled again as her voice opened.

“my neighbor is my dog-sitter. sweet.”

your face flushed warm and hot as you gave a weak nod in response.

“i’m ellie, nice to meet you—in both ways.”

her hand stretched out to clasp yours, thick veins cascading against the dark ink of the tattoo on her wrist. you took in every distinct feature of her essence, wanting to keep learning. wanting to keep her there.

your introduction came out hasty, head spinning in a cloudy mist. you shook her hand, a flippant smile stretched across your face. it was hard to hide how silently enchanted you were.

a large dog butted his nose to the door, excited to meet the stranger that had been nosily making their appearance.

"there he is—this is comet, the little guy you'll be watching today." ellie relays, patting the fluffy head of the brown and black dog. ellie wrapped the leash around her palm, before sliding it off and handing it to you.

"i sadly have to get goin', but he's low maintenance, don't worry. my home is yours-have a drink, watch tv. i don't care. thank you so much for doing this on short notice." ellie rushed into hug you, the warmth of her body pressing into yours. the feeling nervously rushing through your body. you entered just as ellie left, and the door had locked with a click.

you stood in the middle of the vast living room of her apartment, a clammy film building on your hands.

the shit you get yourself into.

taglist | @zahraaziza @millersaurora @ccinnamongrl @ellabsprincess

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#cassi!writes ♡‧₊˚ #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams fanfiction #ellie williams fluff #ellie williams imagine #ellie williams x reader

[ginger-lime]

Silly Antler Jane for @soulless-paper-bag for the @rtc-secret-santa-event

#the cat is a gift from ricky btw #rtcsecretsanta2023 #my art #rtc #ride the cyclone #rtc musical #jane doe rtc #rtc fanart #rtc jane doe

[kjmalfoy]

Fatherly Love Pt2• 18+ Content

Warnings- Age Gap, Inflicted Self-Harm, Daddy Issues, Mention of Verbal and Physical Abuse, Description of Medical Attention, Mentions of Blood, Childhood Trauma, PTSD.

Summary- Waking up, the last thing you expected to see what John; and when you? You didn’t know how to react. Everything hurt, and ached at your heart. But, nonetheless; you let John tend your wounds.

Pairings- John!Price x F!Reader

Word Count- 2.1K

Author’s Note- I apologize this took FOREVER, college has ruined my passion to write; please forgive me my lovies:( also.. ending is so bad so yeah! SORRY ILY AND THE SUPPORT

My Masterlist <3

You woke up the next day, attempting to rub away the puffiness from your eyes– memories from yesterday already creeping in as you stared down at the tear-soaked pillow, damp spots still staining the pillowcases. You could feel your head throbbing, the pounding aches thumping in the middle of your skull, making your eyebrows crinkle from the pain.

The sound of glass shards cracking made your head twist, glancing over at the shattered mirror– you felt your breathing hitch, heavy but a short gust of air filling your lungs as you saw him. Price was bent at the knees, picking up the glass shards from the floor, and placing them in a small paper bag. Price noticed the large glass shard on the dresser, your dried blood still staining the tips of the transparent color.

“What did you do to yourself?” Price asked sternly, still holding the glass as he turned to face you. His eyes peered over at your body, immediately darting to the bloody shirt that was wrapped tightly around your palms.

Staring at Price with soulless eyes, you feel yourself being suffocated with your childhood's looming memories. The gut-wrenching feeling of Price’s actions from yesterday acting as a bar-wire around your neck. “Why are you here?” You sneered, pure and deadly poison smeared across your tongue.

Price sighed exaggeratedly, placing the piece of glass in the bag and the others he collected off the ground. He took careful steps towards you, noticing your quivers as he approached the bed. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you, Just let me take care of you, please?” He spoke sadly, a sympathetic tone just barely slipping through.

Snickering in disbelief, you sucked your teeth making the sound of blowing raspberries. You shook your head firmly, inching away from Price. “Oh, now you care?” You questioned his actions with a gravelly voice as you tried to fight back those memories of childhood, but failed miserably as Price’s facial expression dropped.

You could almost see your father’s disappointed eyes as you watched Price’s facial expression drop, the only movements were his slow blinks that shook away his teary eyes. His hands dropped to his sides, feeling like dead weight as he stood there, almost dazed by the sudden disgust in your voice.

The dead stare you gave Price made his guilt smother him, a giant bubble of regret popping over his head— leaving him suffocated with the agony of hurting the woman he truly loved the most. He choked down the dry lump in his throat, feeling the pain from holding back his tears as the lump moved down the pipes in his throat.

“[Y/n], please. Th-That never should have happened, I’m sorry.” His voice cracked, the usual harsh and intimidating tone completely wiped away— replaced with the sound of sympathy as he spoke to you. Price’s tears became more evident, his pupils now dilated as he watched you process his apology— but truly knowing it wouldn’t go anywhere, understanding how deeply he has hurt you.

You looked down at your hand, cringing at the bloody shirt. Slowly, you unwrapped your hand with caution; hissing in pain from the burning sensation of the cold air hitting the fresh cuts and puncture wounds on your palms. “Yeah, but it did. It happened and you didn’t bother with me until the next morning.” You muttered with a shaky voice, pulling yourself from the bed.

Walking into the bathroom, you stood there like a robot; both arms dangling freely at your sides as your swollen eyes peered into your reflection. You were expecting to see the same broken little girl from yesterday, but to your surprise; you saw the broken, traumatized adult you were. Standing there without a soul, emotionless eyes that your bloodshot sclera took control of, and the pain of a million punctures burning your palms.

Without realization, Price appeared behind you; his heavy hands softly finding their place around your waist. You shudder at his touch, the mix of fear and comfort making you dazed and confused. Not being able to peel your eyes away from your reflection, you glared at Price— finding uncomfortable warmth in the way his body towered over yours, and the way he rested his chin on the top of your skull.

You could hear Price’s deep breathing behind you, feeling it trickle down your neck; goosebumps raiding your body. His eyes cascaded over your body, watching how you shuddered and trembled in his presence. “Please, let me clean your wounds.” He pleaded, the shame and guilt so clearly visible— It almost made you rethink your emotions.

Turning around, you pressed your back against the sink and looked up at John— studying the softness in his eyes, and the tenderness of his touch. Your chest shuddered as you inhaled, gulping down the anger that bubbled inside you. “Fine, but, This isn’t me forgiving you.” You spoke firmly, letting Price gently reach for your punctured hands.

Price nodded thankfully, slowly and carefully reaching for your hands; holding them gently in his calloused palms. He held your hands up, shifting them cautiously as he examined the brutality of the punctures. Before you could realize it, John let go of your hands; softly placing his fingers underneath your chin— examining the soft bruises on your cheek.

“I did that... Didn’t I?” He spoke tenderly, almost like he was afraid to raise his voice. Price looked up at you, remorse swimming in his eyes; completely washed away from anger and resentment from last night.

Gulping down the dry lump in your throat, you glanced up at Price; nearly drowning in the remorse that clouded his eyes. Nodding slowly, you opened your mouth to speak, but nothing but a measly squeak came out. “Ye-Yea..” You muttered with an airy voice.

John stayed quiet, analyzing the bruises on your face for a few more seconds before taking your hands in his again. He looked around the bathroom and opened the mirror cabinet— grabbing the pair of blue tweezers. Lifting your hand closer to his eyes, he flashed you an apologetic look. “This might hurt a bit. I’m going to take out the remaining pieces of glass.” He informed you with a gentle voice.

You nodded your head, grimacing in discomfort as John started picking the small shards of glass out of your hand. Instinctively, your fingers danced toward Price’s forearm– gripping the long-sleeved shirt that protected his skin from your fingernails. With each pinch from the tweezers, you found yourself gripping harder– your knuckles almost turning white from the strength of your grasp.

Price didn’t seem to mind the aggressive latch you had on his skin, in fact– he didn’t even budge. He stood there like a stonewall, keeping his attention focused on your grated palms– taking each scratch and scrap of pain your nails could latch onto him. You could sense by the slight sneer on John’s face that he was hurting a bit– and you felt guilty. For some bizarre reason, you felt guilty for hurting him; hurting the same man that was the cause behind all of this. The man whose name was practically written on the glass shards being pulled from your hand.

Taking a quick glimpse at Price, you looked down at your hand; watching him intently as he worked on fixing your hand to his best abilities. Using your free hand, you wiped your palm across your mouth– slightly dragging your bottom lip down. “I’m sorry if I’m squeezing you too hard.” You muttered out, crinkling your nose in pain.

His eyes narrowed in cynicism, his medic-like movements stopped instantly. John’s lips scrunched together beneath his mustache, his doubtful eyes boring into you; trying to study the apologetic tone on your tongue. Price made a clicking sound with his tongue as he shook his head– “No. I don’t ever want to hear you apologize again.” He spoke firmly, placing the tweezers on the cabinet shelf.

The feeling of warmth invaded your body, John’s large palms gently cupping your tear-swollen cheeks. He bent his knees slightly, staring at you at an eye-to-eye level; resting his forehead against yours. “I should never hear another apology leave your mouth… Especially not after what I did.” He took a heavy breath, caressing your cheek gently– feeling your heated cheeks under the calloused pads of his thumb.

The two of you shared heavy; almost suffocating eye contact, penetrating each other’s soul with just a blink of an eye. You watched as Price’s eyes trickled down to your lips, watching as your bottom lip quivered anxiously from the proximity of his body. His fingers slowly slid down your face, tucking themselves underneath your chin— playfully tugging at your trembling lip.

John took a small breath of confidence, closing his eyes and dragging his lips across your cheek; tasting the bitter saltiness of your tears. “I will forever regret my actions.” He whispered, gently pressing his lips against the corner of your mouth; careful not to overstep your boundaries. “I love you so much, [Y/n].”

You stayed silent for a minute, frozen in shock and adrenaline as John taunted you with his soft kisses. Hands twitching, you reach for Price’s hand again; holding it tightly in your palm. Your heart was thumping, pounding heavily against your chest— making your head spin in emotional distress.

Tilting your face away, you stared at the ground in shame; bubbling with disgust from the soft kisses Price littered around your lips. “I-I’m sorry. I’m not ready to forgive you fully.” You babbled softly, feeling your teeth jitter with nerves.

John nodded, pulling his face away from you the moment you retracted your consent. His big eyes were solemn and dull, eyebrows furrowed together as he glanced away. “I’m going to clean out your other hand, okay?” He said, a hurt tone coating his tongue; but he remained respectful of your withdrawn consent.

You held your tongue, remaining silent as you watched John gently grasp your mangled hand. His adam’s apple twitched, swallowing thickly as he reached for the tweezers again. “This might hurt more. Your right hand is badly punctured.” Price mumbled.

His hands shook softly as they inched closer with the tweezers, barely grasping the largest shard that was slicing your hands. Price pulled out of the shard of glass, the clear material covered in the richness of your blood. “A few more pieces, then I’ll clean them out.” He whispered, looking grimly at all the dried blood.

Staying silent, the only response you gave John was a nod of your head. He worked carefully, grabbing the glass with gentle hands; slowly and cautiously removing the smaller shards. They looked like tiny diamonds and rubies coming out of your palm; still maintaining to glimmer under the dim lighting of the bathroom.

After removing the last few pieces, he tossed all the blood-stained glass away; the plastic trash bag became shredded as glass scratched at the bin. Shakily, you spun your hands around; looking in disgust at all the cuts and scratches that stained your delicate skin. “It’s worse than I thought.” You mumbled to yourself, glancing at Price as he grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and anti-infection cream.

John placed all his items on the counter, rummaging through the medicine cabinet for bandage wrapping. You watched him search carefully, grabbing a gauze pad and thick wrapping for your sliced palms. “This might sting a bit. Grab my arm, if it hurts too much.” He mumbled, watching you with a gentle eye as he grabbed the rubbing alcohol.

With a swift nod, you latched onto Price’s bicep; digging your fingertips into the fabric of his clothes. John reached for your wrist, holding it softly as he held your hands over the sink; unscrewing the cap of the alcohol in the process. He glanced at you, nodding his head stiffly; warning he was about to disinfect your wounds. As the alcohol touched your skin, you hissed loudly in pain; the burning sensation bubbling through your veins.

Squeezing onto John, he poured some of the alcohol onto your other hand; the burning tingle only growing more fierce. “It’s alright, love. Almost done.” He reassured with a tender voice; grabbing a rag and patting your palms dry.

As your hands trembled, John reached for the gauze pads; wiping an antibiotic cream on the material before laying it over the puncture wounds. “I’m going to take care of you, I promise.” He whispered, reaching for the bandage wraps; carefully concealing your raptured hands.

Pulling your hands towards his face; he gently kissed the top of your hands, his warm lips connecting to the skin of your knuckles. “I won’t hurt you again…’ He whispered, the trail of his kisses leading up your arm.

Your felt your body freeze again, the warm feeling of his lips made your skin crawl. Closing your eyes, you focused on your breathing; counting each and every heavy gust of air you took in. As if you were split in half, your body craved the affection and desire of his forgiveness; but, your other half absolutely despised his need for forgiveness.

Gently shoving his shoulder, your eyes opened; staring at him with dazed emotions. “It’ll take time, John… You promised you wouldn’t be like him.” You spoke unsurely.

John knew immediately, what “him” meant. It was your father; the man behind it all. He dreaded the fact that he was now connected to the same abuse your father put your through; but, he caused it. He blatantly let his anger control his own mind, and now he was facing the consequences.

Inhaling heavily, Price gave you a soft smile; respecting your wishes of withdrawn consent. He looked at you for a second, holding out his hand; slowly reaching for your cheek once more. His eyes focused on your bruised cheek; the fingerprint indents becoming more visible as time set in.

Tenderly brushing his thumb along your cheek, he felt your withering body against the pad of his thumb. “I understand, [Y/n]. Please, take all the time you need, love.” He spoke respectfully.

“Let’s get some ice for your cheek.”

thank you all for the very patient wait! I sincerely apologize if the ending seemed rushed (it was) as i said in the author’s note, i truly lost my passion for writing. i’m so mentally drained from college, but i will try my best to feed my lovies with new fics soon <3

as always reblogs, comments, and likes are ALWAYS appreciated. BUT, please DO NOT post or copy my work on any other social platform. 💗

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[softagenda]

aperitif (ais)

ais x reader(f)

food au / short fic

series: birds of a feather ; aperitif

originally posted on ao3

masterlist

Preview:

“He wants you to become one with the Seaspring. To bind your soul and body within this temple. To drown forever in these waters.”

His hand slid up your back and sunk into your hair. He crushed your mouth against his, more bite than kiss, his breath hot against your face. “Sometimes, sparrow,” he said softly, pressing the words into your lips, “I want that too.”

______________

A thin trail of cigarette smoke issued from the open maw of the Seaspring’s temple.

You felt the tension leave your shoulders, breathing in a lungful of briny air as you breached the steps and entered. This must be what it felt like, to tread on the tongue of a colossal whale: humid, salty air drifting around you, almost cloying to the skin; the arching red gates and rafters forming the palate, stalwart pillars covered in white talismans like teeth; a lake of blood pooling below like saliva.

As you surveyed the room, a form lounged between the pillars on the left, one long leg hanging over the pier, his boot stirring the water below. Your gazes met over the embering butt of a cigarette, his eyes glowing amidst the shadow and gloom of the temple.

You waited for a moment, gauging his mood, but, when the corner of his mouth slowly rose, you approached. The pier creaked underneath your boots, the talisman’s fluttering against the current of air.

 “There you are.”

Ais took another long drag from his cigarette before a smirk curled his mouth. “Missed me?”

“Not you.” You instead knelt next to the Soulless lounging at his hip, three tails writhing with what you’d come to recognize as happiness. “Hey, good girl. I brought you a little something.”

Reaching into your bag, you tugged out a parcel wrapped in butcher paper. Once the massive hunk of meat and bone was revealed, Princess leapt to her feet and whined, prancing on the pier. You checked to make sure all the paper had come away clean before lifting it with both hands and offering it.

Vicious jaws bit with savage glee into the middle, sending rivulets of blood falling to the ancient wood below. She spun to the left and leaned into Ais, as if to show him the gift proudly, before he gently guided her back with a hand on her shoulder. 

“Good for you, Princess,” he said with a smile, the hard lines around his eyes softening a bit. “Mind eating over there? You’re dripping.”

With a happy whine, she took her prize a few yards away and began tucking in with glee. You smiled but glanced away, ignoring the visceral wet sounds of hundreds of teeth gnashing into meat and scraping against bone. 

“Where’s mine?”

You dropped down across from him, crossing your legs and propping your back against the pillar. “Jealous?” you asked, an echo of before that had his mouth curling again. “Have you been a good boy?” 

“Doubt it.”

“Then,” you continued, “earn it.”

“Woof.”

Glowing red eyes watched you, their depths inscrutable, as he took another pull from the cigarette. The smoke curled from around his lips, slipping from the cracks in his teeth. The shadows under his eyes had darkened since you last saw him, the hollows in his cheeks deeper.

“You weren’t at the Wick the other day,” you said, careful to keep your voice level. “Skipping out on your tab?”

Smoke exuded from his nose as he sighed, head drifting back as his eyes closed. “Hm. Didn’t feel like company. Pissed I didn’t show?”

“No. Not like we’d agreed to meet,” you said easily. That was true - though over the past few months, it had become something of a regular thing: moseying into the Wick some time after dusk, having a drink with the other at the bar, sometimes lazing the night away in the booth in the corner, nursing pints and heckling Leander. “And now?” At his look, you added, “feel like company?”

“If I don’t?”

Witha short nod, you swept your bag over your shoulder and prepared to leave, when Ais’s eyes opened. “Stay.”

“Ass,” you murmured under your breath but slouched back to the ground. 

In silence, you watched the water, the blood red surface still as stained glass. Ais resettled, his head back, eyes closed, his expression almost meditative except for the furrow on his brow. Once in a while the cigarette was lifted, his frowning mouth wrapping around the end, before another ghost exhumed from his lips.

You sat back, content to wait, thoughts drifting hazily as though you were spread out on a sunny hillside rather than the threshold of hell. 

Ais could be mercurial at times - his moods swinging from playful smirks to grim contemplation, sharp with an icy rage or coddled by an almost drowsy boredom, with little warning. Some of that you knew was due to the Seaspring and the hivemind created amongst those who had drunk from the water, but it was difficult to tell how much. 

Every now and then, Ais would disappear for a while, locked somewhere deep in this temple, and resurface after a time, his countenance steadier, more controlled. You couldn’t be sure - you had only known him for a few months, after all - but you wondered if that was his time to center himself amidst the hundreds of others swimming through the hivemind’s pool.

Hours could have passed before you felt his gaze on your face. The cigarette was barely a nub between his fingers. He dropped it into an iron tray by the tea kettle with a flick of his wrist and watched you for a long moment before he lifted his hand. 

You lifted one brow in silent question, but Ais just curled his fingers, beckoning.

With narrowed eyes, you sighed before rising from your slouch and approaching him. Once in range, his hand whipped out and grabbed your arm, tugging you into his lap. Your knees hit the ground behind his hips, burning white hot for a moment before aching like a fresh bruise. 

Muffling a curse into the front of his kimono, you sat back on his thighs, pushing against the hand that had settled on the small of your back. “Here I thought you wanted to earn that ‘good boy’ title,” you griped, shooting a glare at the mouth just inches away.

But Ais wasn’t teasing as you’d expected. His mouth, rather than twisting into a smirk, had stiffened, a muscle flexing on his tight jaw. Red eyes bore into you, the color of wine, not bright with humor but full of a deep, bottomless darkness that hooked into you with a strange mixture of trepidation and desire.

“Far from it,” he said, his voice low and empty. Before you could react, his hips turned, both legs hanging over the pier, as he slowly leaned forward. 

Your arms, once draped loosely around his shoulders, now clenched around him as he held you over the Seaspring with an arm bracing your back. Your hands clutched fistfuls of the kimono, the fabric slippery between your sweaty fingers. 

Ais continued to bend until your back was near parallel to the surface of the water. Out of growing panic, your legs had wrapped around him, thighs gripping as tightly as you could hold. 

“Ais,” you started, but froze, the words caught in your throat.

His face turned toward you, burrowing deeper into your neck, his lips brushing against your ear. “Sometimes, the thought of you drinking from the Seaspring grows inside me.” His nose trailed against your cheek as until his mouth hovered against yours. “I dream of it. Taking a drink myself. Letting the blood pool in my mouth. Then…” A brush of hot, wet tongue teased against your lips, trying to coax you into opening for him.

A shudder ran down your back. Heat pooled and thrummed between your thighs, even as your stomach twisted at the idea. You’re caught between fear and desire, struggling to keep pace with him.

“Or like this,” he continued, his body pressed tightly to your front as he lowered you ever closer to the water. You realize with a thread of panic that the ends of your hair were now dipping beneath the surface. “Trapping you in my arms, and just… sliding in.” 

Something hard and unyielding pressed against your groin, rubbing against you.

You swallowed thickly, staring into his eyes. The simmering red had been completely subsumed within the black. An abyss peered back at you.

“He whispers it, in my head.” His arm loosened at your back, dropping you another inch closer to the water even as your legs and arms tightened desperately. 

The words sent icy fear flooding through your veins. He whispers it, in my head. That could only mean one thing, one being. A name you had only heard once before.

Ocudeus.

 “The thought of losing you, of someone taking you far from here,” Ais whispered, his voice rough. “He wants you to become one with the Seaspring. To bind your soul and body within this temple. To drown forever in these waters.”

His hand slid up your back and sunk into your hair. He crushed your mouth against his, more bite than kiss, his breath hot against your face. “Sometimes, sparrow,” he said softly, pressing the words into your lips, “I want that too.”

For a long moment, you hung there over the still water, holding him as tight as you could. You felt cold, your body paralyzed with fear.

Beneath you came the sound of faint, thin pops of air. Bubbles. One, two, a cluster breaching the surface. 

A scream was building in your throat. Instead of giving in to it, you stared into his eyes, searching. “You’d have to think of a new nickname for me,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Sparrows can’t swim.” 

You licked your lips, your tongue just brushing against his, and - there. A flicker of that familiar red curling around his pupil. “‘Seagull’ doesn’t have - quite as nice a ring to it,” you gasped, heart pounding in your chest. 

The bubbles were emerging more frequently at your back, the water gurgling, near boiling.

A thin whine from nearby cut through the air.

Just as it seemed the Seaspring might reach up and wash you beneath its undertow, you’re jerked upward. As easily as he might a bag of flour, Ais rolled you both back onto the pier. Stars burst behind your eyes as your head knocked on the pier, your hair snagging on splinters and nail heads.

Blinking through the pain, you forced your eyes open.

Ais was braced over you, his hair drifting about his face, the white tips hovering along his jaw and his horns. He was stiff and pale, his jaw taut, his eyes clenched shut as he fought himself. 

When you twitched, his whole body tightened around you. His hand beneath your head which had once softened the blow, now slid down and gripped your nape, holding you in place. The silver pendant that rested on his chest now nestled against your collar, a cool kiss of metal against your clammy skin.

Panting, shaken, you laid there without complaint as your body slowly calmed. 

After a long moment, the tension seeped from him, a tidal wave easing back into the ocean. His eyes opened, and the familiar bright, brimming red finally set your heart at ease.

His lips parted but no words came forth. He seemed unsure what to say.

Gathering your courage, you sighed, “... good boy.”

Ais blinked. 

Stared, inscrutable, for a tense pause before his head hung between his shoulders. His forehead dropped against your collar bone, his face practically nestled in your chest, and just like that your heart was thundering again, knocking insistently at your rib cage. 

He tilted his face toward you, his cheek rubbing against your shirt like a cat. “Do I get my treat now?”

“Think you deserve it?” you shot back, still shaken, but fighting through it to smirk. “After that performance… maybe I should muzzle you.” 

Ais hummed, his hands idly stroking up your waist. “Would find a way to bite you regardless.”

“How about you bite my buns instead, if you’re so desperate for a nibble?”

His brows rose, but Ais smirked, his hands drifting lower, headed for your ass. “Read my mind, sparrow.” He managed to grab two, squeezing handfuls while you were reaching above your head and digging through your bag. 

Wiggling out from under him and sitting up, you pushed another parcel into his now empty hands, flushing hot beneath your clothes. “These buns, asshole.”

Bemused, Ais maneuvered himself back into his preferred seat, leaning against the pillar with one knee drawn up. He inspected the parcel before unwrapping the edges. Three golden balls of bread were crowded together, their skins glazed with butter and lightly roasted. Inside, he’d find braised meat and chopped root vegetables, all marinated in a spicy sweet sauce.

He looked up, that fanged smile spreading across his face. “Really did miss me, huh. Sap.”

Huffing, you avoided his gaze and stared out over the water, drawn inevitably to the place where the Seaspring had begun to boil. The surface was once again calm, the depths impossible to distinguish. A shiver slipped down your spine, the hair on the back rising. 

“Here.” 

A bun hovered in front of your mouth. You stared him down over the top. 

“Sharing is caring. Can’t be known as that terrible of a host,” he said dryly, “Think of my reputation.”

“You just want your balls in my mouth,” you grumbled but bit into the bun to hide your smile as he grinned again. 

“Been told the taste is to die for.”

“Who told you that, Vere? I guess he would know.” 

“Ask him. Get a second opinion.”

“An expert opinion, I bet. I’ll do that.”

Debating the point amidst bites from the mean buns, you sank into the comfort of the familiar as that moment grew further and further away. Princess, evidently finished obliterating her cow shoulder, approached and curled up next to you for a post-dinner nap, her head resting on your thighs. She seemed a little unsettled but calmed after a couple scritches. 

As you stroked her head and fed her the last of your bun, all beneath the soft, dark veil of Ais’s gaze, you resolved to tuck that memory to the side for now, to examine later. 

The first true moment that the Seaspring’s maw attempted to swallow you whole.

__________________

a/n: thanks for reading!

#ais x reader #ais reader fic #ais touchstarved #touchstarved fanfic #touchstarved reader fic #touchstarved

[redr0sewrites]

Overworking (Eris Vanserra x reader)

i love eris hes so underrated! this is incredibly self indulgent, but not very well proofread 😭 i havent written for acotar yet, lmk what u think! reqs are open!!

🥀CW: Angst to fluff, shitty writing, eris is sad, arguments, overworking

eris knew pain. his whole life, eris had suffered at the hands of his father and brothers and he never expected it to end, never dared to hope for anything good, knowing it could so easily be stripped away. nobody could care for a man as broken and horrid as eris vanserra, especially not someone as perfect as you.

you were eris' salvation, his perfect companion, mate, and lover. eris knew you were more precious then anyone or anything else, and many nights had been lost to his anxieties about your safety. if he lost you, he knew that he couldn't handle it, and yet it seemed so easy for you to slip through his fingers, disappear like so many other people in his life had. eris had watched the light inside his own mother fade as she became a soulless husk from being subjected to the horrors of his father, and he would rather die then watch the same happen to you. he wanted you safe, he wanted to push you away from the dangers of his court, and yet his heart ached for you every waking hour. you were too kind, too good for him.

the long hours of working under his father were beginning to break eris, even he was finding it difficult to hide behind the mask of the sneering and cruel son. the bags under his eyes were heavy, and he couldn't remember the last time he had slept. his stomach was nearly always empty, the thought of eating only made him feel worse. it was killing you to watch eris tear himself apart, and yet whenever you brought it up it always seemed to lead to eris lashing out. tonight was another night of waiting for him to join you in bed, staring at the illuminated crack between the door seperating your shared bedroom from his office. as the time ticked by, you just couldn't take it anymore, and stood, marching up to the door and opening it harshly. eris was sitting hunched over at his desk, his hair falling lazily across his face as he looked over some papers.

"we need to talk," you said sternly, his figure unmoving and stiff.

"can it wait?" he sighed, exasperated and clearly irritated at your interrupting of his work.

"no! no it cant wait! you have been overworking yourself for weeks, months even! i dont know whats gotten into you, but you need to stop, we need to talk about this! losing sleep and refusing to eat is not going to help you defeat your father, and if something or someone is causing an issue, then we should discuss it together!" you couldnt stop the words from tumbling out of your mouth, and your voice grew gradually louder before it came to a stop. you expected a reaction, expected him to stop his work or at least look at you. instead, he merely sighed, burying his head in his hands.

"this isnt easy for me either," he said, his voice dangerously soft. "perhaps if you werent always interrupting me, you would understand how difficult this is."

"so is that what i am? an interruption and nothing more? a nuisance for you to sway away?" you were angry now, and your words were heated and meant to hurt. eris' face shot up, and you could see the torment in his eyes.

"i.. i dont..." eris trailed off, leaving you feeling even worse then before. angry tears welled in your eyes, and you turn away to leave when his voice stops you.

"there are so many dangers that reside in this court, so many dangers that come with facing off with my father. i dont know how to solve these problems, i dont know how to keep you safe, i dont know anything anymore." his voice trembled, and his shoulders start to shake and shiver. too late, you realized he was crying. immediately you stepped towards him, swerving around the desk and wrapping your arms around him. eris buried his head in your chest, melting into your embrace and began to sob.

"please... please dont leave me. i cant lose you too" his words made your heart break, and you hugged him impossibly tighter and he did the same, as though fearful that yoh might disappear before his eyes if he were to let go. you whispered soft, sweet nothings to your lover as he wept, the stress and burdens of the past month leaving his mouth in garbled complaints, gasps, and sobs. you ran your hands through his hair, gently holding him as his crying began to subside and he stilled in your arms. for a few seconds, you both just sat there as he matched his breathing to yours, finding peace within your presence.

"do you want to talk about it?" you ask, voice gentle and concerned.

"not right now," he mumbled. "i jus' want to sleep." you chuckle at his confession, and begin to stand. he follows you to the bedroom, and the two of you curl up on the bed. as the both of you begin to drift off to sleep, eris cant help but feel a surge of gratitude for your kindness and patience. eris may know suffering, and he may face more in the future, but at least he has you at his side to support him.

rahh this sucks so bad but i love him sm. hes so silly and underrated aksnksd i love my little fox man. i promise i can write better then this im just tired and in pain guys ajdjdn ANYWAYS HOPE U ENJOYED REQS ARE OPEN I WILL WRITE MORE FOR ERIS THE LOML SOON👹👹👹

#eris vanserra #pro eris vanserra #eris x reader #eris vanserra x reader #eris x you #the silliest sillys #i really do love him #eris #eris acotar #acotar x reader #acotar #acosf #acosf x reader

[dianneking]

Intoxicated - Larissa x Reader -  Drink Two. Truly Bloody Mary.

Summary: Larissa is a handsy drunk. Vampire!Teacher!Reader is a sad drunk. This fact, and their inability to talk about their feelings, blows what could simply be a drunken accident out of proportion. 

Angst! Drama! Drunkenness! 

Part one is  here.

Cross posted on AO3 here.

Here's my fanfiction masterlist.

---

A/N: I am quite ambivalent about this second part. It totally spun out of control from my original idea, but at the same time it kinda made sense, so I didn't want to scrap this second chapter to make a new one. I might revisit this in the future to have an alternative second chapter, but not anytime soon for sure. Beware of the content warnings below if you are at risk of being triggered.

TW second chapter: Drinking, intoxicated people, blood, swearing, angst, mentions of dubious consent, talk of death, talk of self harm, in-depth talk of suicidality. Please be safe if you are fragile, no fic is worth you suffering. 

“I know you have something to take off your chest.” Vlad closed the door to your quarters behind him with his shoulder, and toed his shoes off, his hands busy with the paper bag, crystal carafe and two shot glasses he was holding.

“Good evening to you too, Vlad, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company on this lovely Saturday night?” You sniped sarcastically. You were already in your nightclothes, not expecting any visitors, especially not him, friend or not.

The only person you had any interest in spending time with, which happened to be your boss and the person who had tried to seduce you while completely drunk, had apparently decided to pretend you had dropped off the face of the Earth, so you didn’t really want to partake in any other sort of interpersonal interaction for these two blissfully empty rest days. You even managed to swap patrolling duties with another colleague, just as to have an excuse to lock yourself in your room for the whole weekend.

“I don’t know what happened to you in the past days, but this sulking and hiding away is not something that is acceptable for a young stripping vampire such as yourself. So here I am coming to the rescue like the knight in shining armor that I am.”

He set down the two shot glasses and the decanter on your desk and proceeded to take a clear bottle and some blood packs from his paper bag.

“Vlad are you serious?”

“Truly Bloody Mary shots!” He announced cheerfully, tossing the now empty bag over his shoulder and perching precariously on the edge of the desk to pour the liquids in the carafe allowing them to mix properly. You were sitting in the only chair available, but that didn’t seem to dissuade him in the least. “The only way to get through heartache, as my old gramma always said, bless her nonexistent soul. Do you want to start talking without it or wait until they start to loosen your tongue?”

“Start pouring, you soulless bastard.”

“You know you love me, darling”

“That’s the only reason why you’re still alive.”

“Well, as alive as possible.”

“Truth.”

He expertly poured the first shots and held one out for you to take.

“What should we toast to?”

“To your gramma, bless her nonexistent soul.”

“Indeed! To my bunica!”

That started a long series of toasts, each growing more and more absurd as the mix of blood and alcohol started to have its effect on the both of you.

“To…to alcohol!” You proposed, raising the shot glass once again “That brings out fiends from the most frigid bitches!”

“Hear hear!” Vlad downed his quickly, before pouring some more. The carafe was starting to be quite emptier than when you started out. “To those frigid bitches, may the alcohol always flow in their veins!”

You nodded solemnly, trying to raise your glass to match his, but only managing to slosh it around. “To those bitches, like Principal Weems!”

Vlad had been halfway through his shot when you added your two cents to the toast and he choked, spraying alcoholic blood all over the front of your nightclothes.

“Gee, thanks for that, Vlady, I really needed to upgrade my wardrobe to baby vampire’s first feeding”

He was still trying to recatch his breath from the coughing access that had followed his accidental inhalation of the shot.

“I’m sorry…what?” He managed to choke out “What does Weems have to do with this?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought we were talking of frigid bitches who need alcohol to loosen up”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it seems a bit too specific…did something happen between you and Weems? You’ve been giving each other the cold shoulder since Outreach Day.”

“Of course nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. And she has been the one giving me the cold shoulder, that ungrateful piece of s-“

“Woah woah woah. Hold your horses. That doesn’t sound like the reaction one has when nothing happened, so here.” Vlad got a hold of your favorite mug, lying abandoned on the other side of your desk, and poured a generous amount of Truly Bloody Mary mix. “Drink up and tell daddy Vladdy what happened to make you so pissed at her. I honestly thought you had the biggest crush on her for ages.”

You took a sip of the concoction and suddenly sadness overwhelmed you like a tidal wave. Oh, how you wished you could go back to when you simply had a crush for her, when all you did was admire her from afar and imagine how her lips would feel like on your skin…

You suddenly broke into sobs, holding onto your mug with both hands as big, salty tears came rolling down your cheeks. It felt like a dam had broken within you and you simply couldn’t stop.

“Oh my baby. What happened? I’m so sorry.” Vlad was really astonished at your sudden outburst, but he tried to comfort you as best as he could, jumping down from the table to pull you out of your seat and in an awkward hug, the drink still somewhat caught between you as he rubbed soothing circles on your back. “Here, let’s sit on the bed, and tell me everything.” You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to will your tears into submission. The sobbing stopped, but your eyes kept stubbornly watering. You took a large gulp of the drink in your hand, the vodka burning your throat as if you hadn’t been drinking it for the past – how long had it been? –  Time was starting to lose all meaning in your alcohol-induced haze.

“I did have a crush on her. I…I think I still do.” You tried to start explaining, Vlad’s hand still rubbing your back and giving you the comfort you needed to keep going, but how could you even explain? “But now it’s painful. Do you understand? I don’t want to have a crush on her anymore! Not after…” you drank some more, hoping to stop your voice from breaking again.

“After what? What happened?”

“It was the night after the absolute clusterfuck that was Outreach Day and…Laris-Principal Weems…I found her drunk in her office. Like drunk drunk. Like, slurring words and all that jazz drunk. I…I thought I could help her” You couldn’t help yourself, you spat the words out, angry at your past self for putting yourself into that situation out of the kindness of your heart.

“And?” Vlad was completely captivated by the story now. Even his hand has stopped his comforting motion on your back. He was suspended in the moment.

“And well, it turns out that Larissa Weems is one handsy drunk.”

“Oh my God. You two slept together?”

“No, Vlad! Who do you take me for? Didn’t you hear the part where she was completely out of it because she was drunk? She probably thought I was someone else anyway.” You didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of your voice. The tears were not stopping, and you were starting to feel hollow inside. Vlad’s hand trembled slightly on your back before it resumed its circles. His voice trembled too, as he murmured in the softest voice you had ever heard him use.

“Darling did she…do things to you that you didn’t want?” The question took you aback. You didn’t expect Vlad to care that much. You were friends, yes, but more of the boisterous, over-the-top, ‘let’s get drunk together and have fun’ kind. This gentleness was not something you were used to.

“No, no I wouldn’t say that. I did want her to do that and much more to me, it’s just… I wanted her to be aware that she was doing it. And when she sobered up, she made it extremely clear that it was just the alcohol, and she doesn’t want anything to do with me. Not even small talk apparently.”

The sobs were back, and this time you didn’t even try to put a stop to them. You just put your mug down, and hid your face in Vlad’s chest, his other hand coming to wrap around you as he whispered comforting words “I’m so so sorry, dear. It’ll be alright, I promise. Tomorrow we’ll find a solution… Shh, It’ll be alright. I’m here with you.”

After what could have been minutes, hours or full days, your sad hiccupping subsided, and you tentatively detached from Vlad, “Thank you, I… I think I needed that.”

“What are friends for, darling?”

“Still, that was a lot to unload on you. I appreciate it.”

He stood up, picking up his paper bag from the floor, and putting all of the things back.

“It was my pleasure. Will you be alright tonight? Would you like me to stay?”

“I think I’ll be ok.” You could still feel the alcohol buzzing through your body, but the tidal wave of repressed emotions was gone. You picked up the mug again and drank it dry. “Thank you for the Truly Bloodies, your gramma was right as always”

“Ah, my bunica, she never missed a beat. Except that of her heart, of course.”

“Bless her nonexistent soul”

“Quite right. Sleep well, darling, and if you need me, feel free to come knocking. Tonight or anytime.”

You grasped his arm in an affectionate gesture. “Thank you.” You stressed the words, trying to impart how much you meant them.

And with a toothy grin, he was gone, living you so very alone.

Suddenly your small quarters felt almost claustrophobic around you. You needed air and you needed it now. You opened your door, and slipped through it, your bare feet not making any sound as they carried you like a ghost through the halls and up a small staff-only flight of stairs that brought you to one of your favorite places in Nevermore: the teachers’ terrace. It was a lovely place to come and think, and you were especially fond of it during the night. This is where you had come to decompress after Outreach Day, before your traitorous steps had brought you into Larissa’s grasp. You hadn’t come here since.

Just another bit of happiness that had been stolen from you in that fateful night. The knot was back into your throat, a mix of sadness, regret, and frustration. You had honestly thought you didn’t have any tears to cry anymore, but you can feel them prickling at your eyes nonetheless, undaunted.

Man, who’d have thought that you would turn out to be a sad drunk?

You took a deep breath, taking in the endless sky, riddled with stars. It was so breathtakingly beautiful. You let the tears fall again, unable to pinpoint even your emotions anymore. Were you sad at having had a glimpse of something with Larissa, just to have it so ruthlessly taken away? Or angry at her treatment of you from the morning after onwards? Both? Neither?

Slowly you walked up to your favorite place to sit, the parapet. There was something just so mesmerizing in sitting so far up over the world, the night breeze gently caressing your face, drying the tear tracks on your face before new ones were made in a never-ending sad game of chase. It was as if you were floating among the stars, offering them your heartbreak, and drinking their light in exchange.

It wasn’t the door opening behind you that diverted your attention from the heavens above, nor it was the surprised intake of breath of the person behind you; you were too deeply entrenched in your connection for that, tears freely flowing now, dripping onto your ruined nightclothes. It was the slow, controlled, almost circumspect sound of heels clacking on the stone floor of the terrace that finally did it. You turned your head and cursed your horrible luck.

Larissa stood frozen where she had been when you turned to look at her. Her eyes were open, alarmed, almost…scared. She was holding her hands up in a placating gesture.

“Hey there.” Her voice was high-pitched and uncomfortable. Why was she talking to you now, after going to great pains to avoid you? She didn’t make any fucking sense, and you didn’t want to waste any more time than you already did trying to interpret her behavior. You turned back to admiring the night sky, hoping that she would get the hint.

Clack. Another step in your direction, followed by a pause.

Clack. It was as if she was walking in slow motion and your slowly-sobering brain could not even try to understand why.

“I just wanted to check if everything is okay.” The words sounded wrong in that high, anxious tone, and at the same time they rang slightly familiar to you, like a memory out of context, or a déjà-vu. You kept ignoring her, choosing instead to look down on the faint lights of Jericho just some way off. They were not as pretty as the stars.

Clack.

Clack.

“May I talk with you?”

You wanted to scoff at her, but what came out was a strangled sob. You angrily wiped at your eyes, but the tears just kept falling.  Why did she have to come and torture you after ignoring you for days?

“Oh so now you want to talk?”

Clack.

“Please. I…I know you are in pain. I understand” What was up with the pleading, desperate undertones that her voice had? You couldn’t even begin to imagine. And you didn’t care.

Clack.

The last clack was right behind you. Strong arms snaked around your frame, hoisting you bodily off your seat and depositing gracelessly in a heap on the terrace floor. Larissa crouched between you and the parapet, her eyes still wide, her breathing labored with exertion.

“What the fuck, Larissa?” Whatever you had been expecting, a bodily assault was not it. The tears stopped, but that didn’t mean you didn’t feel like you were hollow and broken inside. “Are you drunk, again?”

She physically recoiled, as if you had slapped her.

“No…no. I just. There’s ways to get help. Please.”

You shook your head, still not understanding. Were you being insulted here? “Are you telling me I should get help? Have you seen yourself?”

Her face scrunched up in a grimace, and she lowered her gaze “I… I know I’m not the right person for this but I can call someone else if you’d like. There’s always something that can be done.”

“Larissa, you’re not making any fucking sense right now”

“It’s alright. As long as you keep talking. Just…don’t do anything drastic.”

Keep them talking.  A lightbulb went off in your head. No wonder some of Larissa’s sentences sounded eerily familiar. You had received the same training as she did, when the people from the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline had come a couple of years ago to Nevermore.

“Larissa, I wasn’t about to jump!” The sheer absurdity of the situation dawned on you. That explained the cautious approach, the nervous voice, the bodily removal from your favorite sitting place.

“You…weren’t?”

“Is that what all of this was about? Are you out of your mind?”

Larissa bristled, her temper rising to match your disbelieving tone.

“What was I supposed to think? You were there, in the middle of the night, blood down your front, sitting on the parapet and sobbing your heart out. And that was after days of retiring yourself from interaction with others.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“You think I don’t know?” Her voice was high, raw with emotion “How do you think I felt five minutes ago, believing you were ready to kill yourself because when I’m drunk I just cannot keep my bloody hands to myself? I…I don’t want to ever experience that again. I am so sorry to have caused you pain.” You were struck dumb. How did this become such a huge deal all of a sudden? Yes, she had broken your heart, but that was, as much as you liked to be dramatic, not a matter of life or death. You would get over it, especially if she stopped acting so fucking weird.

Larissa passed a distraught hand on her face, smudging the dark lines around her eyes. She changed her position and sat on the stone floor instead of crouching. She sighed, a sad, deep, all-encompassing sound of defeat.

“There’s another school for outcasts, up in Canada. It mainly caters to werewolves and doesn’t have the longstanding tradition that Nevermore has, but it will do, I guess.”

Your point, exactly. What was she going on about?

“Oh, so now you want to send me away? So that I’m out of sight and not at risk of reminding you of-“

“Of course not. I meant for myself. I will resign.” This shocked you out of your passive-aggressive state. Larissa leaving the school? That was absurd.

“You can’t be serious. Larissa, you are Nevermore. You cannot just resign over a drunken mistake. One that almost no one knows about, as well. I will keep my mouth shut, and…and keep out of your way if you want.”

“That is not what I want! Can’t you see? I molested you! You were helping me and in my drunken state I thought that meant that you reciprocated my feelings for you and I just assaulted you, my employee! I am not fit to be in charge of Nevermore. Hell, I shouldn’t even be in charge of a fish tank!”

“You…you have feelings for me?”

“Of all of what I said that’s what you choose to focus on? That’s not the point here! Being attracted to you doesn’t allow me to do things to you that you didn’t want to in the first place.”

You grasped her hand, and she jolted, as if you had tased her.

“Larissa, look at me.” Her blue eyes were full of tears, unguarded like that one fateful night, but this time due to the strength of her emotions, not the alcohol. You were seeing the true Larissa again, not Principal Weems and you would be damned if you didn’t take advantage of it. “I didn’t reject you because I didn’t want your advances. Quite the contrary. But you were drunk, and I was sober, and I didn’t want to take advantage of your uninhibited state just because I had a crush on you for the longest of times. It wasn’t right.”

“You…don’t hate me for what I did to you that night?” She looked so fragile, so incredulous, that you put your other hand on her cheek, a comforting touch.

“Larissa, I don’t think I could hate you even if I tried. Am I mad at you for refusing to talk to me about what happened and ignoring me in the last days? Abso-fucking-lutely. But the only thing that drove me crazy about that night was the fact that I believe that had been my one chance to be with you, when you were too out of it to know it was me.”

“I…I did know it was you. That was what made me that…uninhibited.”

“Would you mind trying that again some other time when the both of us are sober?”

A tremulous smile bloomed on her face. It was a tiny, shy, wobbly thing, but right now, it felt like the biggest success.

“Tomorrow after some hot chocolate at the Weathervane?”

You pressed your lips to hers, a chaste, closed-mouth gesture, full of affection and promise.

“It’s a date, Larissa.”

You stayed there for a while, sitting like kids on the stone floor under the stars, holding your hands, lost in each other’s eyes. When you finally broke the spell, and the both of you climbed back to your feet – with some muttered curse, the cold stone at night wasn’t too kind on the joints for either of you – Larissa jokingly pointed to the darkened stains on the front of your nightgown.

“So, what happened there, did you murder someone before coming up here?”

You chuckled, looping your arm through hers and leading her companionly towards the stairs.

“Well, in vampire culture, there’s this thing called Truly Bloody Marys, or Truly Bloodies if that’s too much of a mouthful…”

#larissa weems x reader #larissaxreader #larissa weems fanfiction #larissa weems x reader fanfiction #larissa weems angst #dianneking #dragonmist #crossposted on ao3 #larissa weems fanfic #wednesday fandom #wednesday the series #wednesday fanfic #wednesday #tw suicidality

[abluehappyface]

Time for the sixth continuation of the Suwako Takeover! It's a Silly/RuneScape Cover! Someone reblogged my previous Silly Cover with some advice on how to make them sound more like RuneScape, so this one may sound a little different than the others. The most important thing to note here is that the Silly Covers are going to be slowed down from now on, instead of the usual sped up. Despite never playing OSRS, I think I got really close to the music style with this one!

@motsimages @mango-frog @caniscreamintoanabyss@lesserbeans @k4ndi-c0spl4y3r @kinokomynx @he-was-beautiful@fembutchboygirl @semisentient-entity @siegesquirrel42 @soulless-paper-bag @space-frog-boy  @insertusernamethatsnottaken @the-cinnamon-snail @the-kneesbees @that-bastard-with-all-the-bones @reblogging-corner  @womensrightsstegosaurus @please-put-me-in-the-microwave @da-silliest-snek @scarletdestiny @chengoeshonk @oneweekwitch @crow-speaks

#bluey's music #bluey's nonsense #bluey's birthday posts #bluey's hyperfixations #bluey's fun posts! #bluey's songs #bluey's silly covers #bluey's audios #bluey's instrumentals #bluey's touhou resounds #bluey's resounds #bluey's takeover events #SUWAKO MORIYA TAKEOVER EVENT #touhou #touhou project #touhou mof #suwako moriya #moriya suwako #I really like this one! #it has a very chilled out vibe that still has just the tiniest bit of energy #hopefully I got the OSRS vibe here too #post-komachi era #abluehappyface

[rhysdoesstuff]

The person I got for the New Years RTC secret Santa was @soulless-paper-bag!!!

So I drew Penny Lamb holding her Jane Doe doll!!

I hope you like it! Happy New Year!

@newyearsrtcsecretsanta2023 @finleyforevermore @nats-comet

#Ride the cyclone #rtc #happy new year #jane doe #penny lamb #newyearsrtcsecretsanta2023

[perxywonderland]

Changeling

After several days in Eridia, you end up taking a pecurliar and unexpected job. With Willow and Ais, you solve a mysterious case of a potentially posessed or cursed child.

Relationship: Ais x MC (friendly) , Willow x MC (friendly) Characters: MC (you) Willow, Ais, Nessie, Mhin, Leander (both at the end)

It has been a couple of days you have been in Eridia, wandering around to discover the city, encounter familiar faces here and there, but only during daytime, you definitely did not want to be face to face again with a soulless. Surprisingly, you noticed repetitive faces, but there is one you have not seen outside of the Wet Wick at night, Willow’s. However, your mind was distracted by the pleasant smell of fresh baked bread. Your head turned to the origin of the smell, a bakery where a dog came out with a leather bag held by the handle in its big mouth. That was a really large, black dog, half the average height of a human you would say. Did he steal the bag? It is quite odd to see a dog with a bag around, the animals around Eridia are usually either strays or on a leash. You had nothing to do, so you somehow decided to follow the dog from a few meters away, in case the bag was stolen to return it back, and maybe to get money as a reward. People around either ignored him, glanced at the dog, or lightly peted it while it was on its way. After arriving at its destination, the dog entered an open shop. You read the metal and glass sign, “The Spark”, the star shape was familiar, but you couldn’t put your finger on it, it was when a familiar voice came from inside the shop that  you could.

“Need something?”

In the darkness, you saw Willow; sitting behind a counter, the daylight stopped in front of her, not touching her. “Oh, hey.”

Willow waved back a hi, staring at you.

“I… saw a black dog with a bag, I am afraid it stole it.”

Willow was confused for a couple of seconds and realized.

“Oh, no worries, he is my little messenger. He’s my dog, say hi Nessie”

Nessie, the droopy eyed dog lazily approached you with a ‘dog’ smile. He actually seemed very friendly. You gently scratched behind his ears.

“So I suppose this bag is yours?”

“Yes, it’s mine, Nessie went for errands for me. I hate the sun, and groceries can only be done by daylight.”

“Makes sense. That is why I never see you around Eridia during the day.”

Willow nodded, reading a piece of paper in the bag.

“Only for exceptions, such as work. Speaking of work, Mhin was supposed to help me out, but they cannot come as they got more urgent work, soulless…ugh.”

Willow scrambled the paper written by Mhin and rested her back against the back of her creaking stool. The monster looked at you again.

“Have you found a way to make money around the city? Or are you still baby fed by Leander?”

“ I did some errands here and there. Not much.”

“Do you have any knowledge that could be interesting, like shop keeping, occult, witchcraft, fighting, I don’t know…”

“I guess I have a bit of that, yes?”

Willow remained silent and thoughtful for some time.

“I cannot be greedy in knowledge these days, as long you’re fine with potential death I am good to go”

“Potential death? Wait, you’re hiring me?” “High risks, high wage.”

Okay, currency was not your biggest wealth, and you felt a little guilty about how Leander paid for your food, your room, your drinks for too many days already, and it was someone quite trustworthy, giving you a job, a high-wage job. But you needed to know what it was about.

“What is that job about to be that deadly?”

“Faery, trickster, ghosts, demons capturing, killing, evicting, banishing...”

You raised an eyebrow

“You kill your people? I mean, you are a faery. “

“And humans kill other humans.”

“You got a point.”

Willow stood up and put in a bag some accessories from her shelves.

“Today’s work is about a child acting odd for a couple of days, the parents doubt of a demonic possession, or a curse, something that is not a disease. We got to visit them. My work is to basically remove everything that is invasive, haunting ghosts, trickers, entities, pixies, demons. Everything that annoys little mortals in this city, aside from my shop.  Are you up for that job?”

“Is it riskier than Soullesses?”

“In the least extreme cases, no.”

“I am in.”

“Perfect.”

Willow closed the door, locked it and gave you a pile of heavy leather-covered books. They look very valuable but full of dog ears. Willow put a pair of tainted glasses on and started to walk down the streets in the building’s shadows.

“Let’s go, the house is located in lowtown.”

The walk was a little quiet, some people stared wary, suspiciously at both of you, surely mostly Willow, because how rare it was to see her in broad daylight.

“Don’t pay attention to the looks. Mortals are weird, as if monsters living in the dark can’t go out at day.”

“Is it really only that? They don’t seem just curious, like, in alert, distrustful”

“Like most humans in front of unseelie faeries, and monsters, you haven’t walked around with Ais for sure. People freeze, it’s funny. Oh, Hi Ais. You are here.”

The demon was towering you, waving back to the faery who welcomed him. 

“Hello sparrow, found a job? You’ll love it.”

You narrowed your look to Willow. “Wait, I thought you needed me, why is this annoying bastard here?”

Willow stared at you as if you had just asked her the most stupid question she had ever heard.

“If we have to catch a demon, it’s better to have a demon with us, obviously. Pretty sure Mhin knew Ais would be there and surrendered.”

“Happy the dove ain’t there. Would have been more awkward.” 

Willow rolled her eyes. All three of you glanced at the tall house. It seemed so calm. Willow stretched her long limbs. 

“Be polite you two, you both already have weirdo reputations here.”

“I do?”

“Like many odd balls here”

“That includes you, unicorn.”

“Shut up Ais”

She knocked at the door. A couple of seconds later, you heard the mechanics of the locks, the door opened. A worried mother welcomed us, she didn’t make us wait long to enter. 

“Thank you for coming so fast, miss.”

“No problem, I had free time this afternoon. Shop is quiet like a coffin.”

The mother looked puzzled at you, and very wary at Ais “This is MC, my apprentice, they will assist me today, if you don’t mind. I am not the best with children. And Ais, in case of… how to explain it… shady entity?”

“Oh no worries, nice to meet you… both”

“Nice to meet you miss, happy to help.”

You replied politely. Ais was quiet, as usual. He tried to give a “reassuring” smile. 

“So, can you give us more information about unusual behaviors, physic changes?”

“Connie, my single daughter, she was always such a social butterfly, full of joy. For a couple of months, she looked off, sick. I doubted bringing her to the clinic, but she refused, you know how she admires Kuras, she wants to be a doctor just like him.” 

“How old is she? Any disturbing events in family life?” “She is 5, and no, her father is off and back to work everyday, I take care of the house, sell some crops, no financial problems, same for health, aside from her nowadays. I am worried she has been cursed or possessed, she threw her favorite doll so strong, it left a mark on her wall.”

She teared up a little, brushing briefly a tired watery eye.

“Can we meet Connie?”

“S-Sure, she is upstairs, in her bedroom.”

“Alright, thank you.” All four of you went upstairs, the mother knocked at the door, no responses. The mother decided to open the door, and a blonde-haired girl was staring at the window. Not moving an inch. 

“Connie sweetie, can you turn around and say hello?”

She remained motionless. 

“Connie?”

Willow placed a hand on the mother’s shoulder, signaling it was fine.

“We will need some time with her, alone, if you are okay with that.”

The mother nodded, and left the room, closing the door behind her. 

You all approached the child, who still hasn’t moved. “Hey kid, what you looking at?”

Ais tried to ask gently. Connie didn’t reply. Nor moved, not even to look at Ais.

Was she petrified ? What the hell was wrong with that kid? You were clueless. Willow looked around, took a random plushie and tried to present it to the child.

“Hey, Connie. My name is Willow, what is the name of that plushie? It’s cute.” Connie rolled her eyes to Willow. She didn’t reply. By the slight squit of Willow’s eyes, you could see something was off in the kid that Willow noticed.

Willow looked at the window where Connie was looking, her window was facing the forest.

“You lost something in the forest? We can bring it back if you want?”

No reactions from Connie, it wasn’t that. 

“Hey Connie, can I check you, you know, like we do at the clinic, with Kuras.”

Connie instantly backed away. Her look narrowed on Willow, it didn’t look friendly as the mother described her beloved daughter. Her skin was pale gray, her blue eyes were accompanied by black eyebags. 

“Chill kid. We wish no harm, Willow is an assistant of Kuras.”

Ais tried to reassure the kid, crouching to be at her height. Connie pushed him, considering her small size, you didn’t expect Ais to fall on his back and yet that happened right in front of your eyes. 

“Strong kid there.” 

“Not accurate strength for sure for a 5 year-old mortal like her.”

Willow stomped her way to the plush pile, looking for the doll that hit the wall.

“Hey Connie, we don’t hurt strangers, would you like it if I hurt your doll too?”

A normal kid would stop being naughty and apologize, beg for its toy, Connie didn’t, she remained threatening. 

“No attachment for loved stuff. I might have my idea. Definitely not a possession.”

Willow headed back to you and whispered in your ear. “I need you to hold her the best you can, I have to do a body check, there should be signs on the body for possessions, curses and such. If she doesn’t want us to approach, there is a reason.”

“You expect me to hold this kid? You saw how Ais got thrown on the floor.”

“He will help you out”

You nodded, approaching the child reluctantly. 

“I’ll catch you if you fall, again” Ais said referring to the last time at the seaspring. You rolled your eyes annoyed. He just chuckled low, happy with your reaction. 

“Guys focus, we have a cursed kid here, or worse”

Ais caught Connie first with such speed it caught you off guard, and so does Connie, who screams, you help him out by holding her legs… they felt like modeling clay? Unlike fat or bones or flesh. “I hate kids. Well, definitely not a kid.” Ais said, annoyed, trying his best to not let go. 

Willow did her best to analyze the arms, legs, neck, and all the child’s body as much as she could, she checked her teeth, her ears. Pointy long ears and teeth were all you could basically see, not human-like. She was struggling too much.

“Her body feels off at touch, like… moldable?” You said to Willow.

“Body is deformed, primitive. Not a demon. Keep holding her, I need to check something.”

Willow hurryingly rummaged in her back pouch for gloves, she wore them before holding a silver ring. She placed it on the forehead of the creature, it screamed with a hissing sound from where the ring was placed, it was burning. When Willow put it away, it left a mark.

Willow took a chalk stick and a container of salt from her pouch again and started to draw on the floor, something a little too complex for you. The faery took Connie from your and Ais’ hands and threw her in the circle which seems to have invisible walls for us, but Connie couldn’t get out of the circle, she hit the invisible walls. 

Willow carefully removed her gloves. Silently. 

You were quite shaken by the chain of actions. And could only say:

“Wow.”

“Innit? I do that at least 2 times a week, but today, it’s a little unusual.”

“How so?”

“No curse, no demons, nor tricksters, or ghost, obviously for those last two.” “Rabies?” Ais asked, puzzled. “Kuras would have noticed, Connie’s mother wouldn’t have been sent to me by Kuras otherwise.”

“Well, what is wrong then?” You asked impatiently

“Nothing is wrong with that child”

“...Uh?”

“Be right back, check on her, have a chit chat, I don’t care, I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Willow left the bedroom, and directed the mother to go out of the house. 

Aside from the invisible wall punching from Connie, the room was silent. Only the heavy accessories of Ais made noise when sitting on the floor while waiting. Playing with the chalk stick willow left on the floor

“So, how you doing sparrow?”

You eventually sat as well on the floor, standing with Ais around for 20 minutes is gonna be long. “Enjoying the crazy internship? Fun right?”

“Not at all, that child is creepy.”

“I know right. Once, a friend of mine owning a brothel had a demonic possessed worker.”

You looked wary at him, suspicious friends he had. By your look, he replied.

“Not a demon like me. That shit was scary.”

“That wasn’t the problem, you have some unusual… friends.”

Ais shrugged with a smirk. “ Jealous?”

“O-Of course not! Why would I be jealous!?”

Ais smirk spread wider, satisfied with your reaction. Oh, he wanted that exact reaction from you. “I hate you.”

“I like you too sparrow”

“Are you deaf? I said I *hate* you!”

“Heard what you said, but it’s a lie.”

“!”

“C’mon, I am trying to tell you a story. To pass time.”

“What is Willow doing anyway?”

Ais shrugged, clueless as much as you.

“She is so unpredictable.”

“That’s the most interesting part, she is bossy too, and has a shitty attitude sometimes, something you both have in common.”

“Fuck off.”

“Compliment, really. Back to my story, that was the first time we saw that, had to help my friend tie that girl to the bed.”

“What.”

“That’s a brothel, what do you expect, tea time? She was dangerous. For herself and others. We contacted Willow, she came, but she never did an exorcism before, as a faery, touching those tools are tricky, allergic to silver, salt, iron, holy water… such things. Crazy cool to watch though. The girl is good now, it worked.”

“She seems full of knowledge, but the least willing to share, not the pedagogical type. She is so distant, cold. “ “Today was a ‘meh’ day, I guess, working during the day, she barely does that. The sun burns her eyes, give headaches, weakens her. Friendlier type at the bar, or in private. But work is work. If she works in broad daylight, it must be urgent.”

You nodded, understanding it a little better. 

“Back to Connie. Why did she capture her if nothing is wrong? Something is definitely wrong. A girl full of joy cannot in months turn into such an aggressive thing?”

Ais shrugged. “My knowledge doesn’t go above demons, I don't know for that kid. I sense no demonic energy.”

Willow returned, closed the door and rested her back on it. 

“Okay it’s ready, in case the child doesn’t want to speak.”

“Now we are interrogating Connie okay, I truly don’t understand what the hell is happening Willow”

“You will see, hey kid, where are you from? The forest?”

Connie aggressively growled, hissed at Willow, not replying to Willow.

“Nevermind I don’t need the answer for that, what are you? Tell me where Connie is.”

‘Connie’ gave an uncanny smile to Willow, provoking. 

“You know, I have the perfect place for you, you’ll talk faster trust me.”

Willow took a thin dagger from her upper arm and made a little wound big enough for some golden blood to appear on the surface of her palm; she made strings out of it, a little similar to Leander’s flower show. It was magic, but here, blood magic, a stronger form. She tied Connie and threw her on her shoulder like a bag of potatoes and went downstairs to the kitchen, both you and Ais followed her. The oven was lit up, ready to bake something, wait. Willow approached a bit too close to the oven with Connie.

Ais became too suspicious too, and decided to step in front of the oven.

“Willow, we don’t eat children for dinner. Come on.” 

“ I am still a vegetarian.”

“Then why the fuck are you going to bake that kid?”

“ So they spit the truth?”

“Did the sun hit too hard? It’s a child, a mortal child.”

“A child, yes. Mortal? Negative.”

She pushed Ais and threw the kid tied up in the big oven and closed the door. Screams could be heard from inside. Willow explained:

“We are convoking the real parents.”

Ais raised an eyebrow.

“Ever heard of changelings?”

Willow asked to both of you

“Changelings are infants, but not mortal ones, faery children. That kid isn’t Connie at all, she was swapped with a faery kid.”

“Then where is connie?”

“Good question, MC, Where the fuck is Connie, little shit?”

Willow asked, looking behind her at the oven. The changeling finally begged to be out to reply to the questions. Willow opened the oven and pulled on the tray with the moldy hideous body on it, it wasn’t in the form of Connie anymore, it looked horrific, gray mass of skin with pointy ears, long teeth with chubby cheeks but hollow at the same time, it wasn’t coherent, as if the form changed. 

“Damn, that’s an ugly baby.” Ais said, with disgust

“I got to say, Ais, I agree.” 

“You were like this as a baby Unicorn?”

Willow looked up at Ais with a frown “I was the cutest little baby of the world Ais, and the smartest, I did my first kill at 5 my dad was so proud. Don’t compare me with this ugly weak changeling”

The ugly wrinkled half baked creature weakly reached to willow who turned her attention to the deceiving faery with a satisfied smile:

“I am all ears”

The changeling told you everything. You stayed with the mother as Willow went into the forest in hope of finding the human child still alive, and not eaten by her relatives. Luck was with them as Willow came back with the real Connie on her back.The mother truly was relieved.

When going up the street to Amaryliss District, all three of you had a chat.

“Rare are the times parents realize just in time something is off with their child, they end up realizing too late when their real child is dead and raising a powerful faery that could potentially eat them too.”

“Aren’t you scared of having troubles with other faeries?”

“I am glad we found Connie in time.”

You couldn’t help but smile, that was a heartwarming comment. And you couldn’t disagree with that. 

“That pendant you gave to her, it’s going to protect her?”

“Yes, and the shield you helped me with will prevent more unseelie creatures from touching this family.”

“Your prices are high, to be honest, but mortal lives have no value.”

Willow nods

“Be happy with your wage. The mother will tell a bunch of good stuff about you to others, that’s how marketing works in Eridia. It’s not only currency.”

Willow gave you a heavy pouch of coins, you looked inside, quickly.

“Thank you Willow, that’s a bunch of coins”

“Don’t mention it, it’s a fair wage. You did great.”

You couldn’t help but blush at the compliment. Willow didn’t notice it, thankfully, but Ais did, but didn’t tease you about it, very thankfully.

“Drinks?” He asked, wrapping each arm around you and Willow. 

“I cannot say no, I am so thirsty.” You replied.

“It’s on me,” Willow added with a slight smile.

“We are well treated despite the baked changeling, how does it taste? Any morbid facts on that?”

“No.” Willow just said

“Bet it tastes like chicken.”

“Goodness Ais, shut up….” You just replied.

Arrived at the Wet Wick, Leander was already there with his bloodhounds. Ais headed already to get his drink.

“Hey Leander, we baked a child today.”

“WHAT.”

Leander turned flabbergasted, terrified to Ais who kept going to the bar to sit and order his usual drink, he turned back to willow to have an explanation. Mhin frowned to Willow, arms crossed,

“What the hell, Willow?”

“Changeling.”

Leander was immediately relieved. By the wide puzzled moody eyes of Mhim, they didn’t get it. Leander tried to briefly explain it.

“Changelings are baby faeries switched with a human one, so the faery child can be nourished by humans.”

Mhin looked at Willow, puzzled.

“You faeries are weird.”

“Why thank you Mhin. You missed a good wage today, MC did a great job today” Willow replied with a slight smile, gently pressing a hand on your shoulder. Mhin looked at you, pokerfaced, while Leander looked happy, like a proud mother who see his child succeeding in life. Mhin said with a pout:

“Surprised you are still alive.” 

“Today wasn’t that bad. Comparing from what Ais told me.”

Ais smirked. Willow was puzzled. And realized what they meant.

“You told about that damn exorcism, I need a drink. Now.”

Leander laughed and prepared her cocktail that she immediately took a swing of it and left the group to talk to other people she knew. You stayed around the bar with Leander Ais and Mhin, Vere soon joined. You had a good time and enriching day, with a potential job.

#perxywonderland #red spring studio #leander #ais #mc #willow #touchstarved fic #touchstarved #touchstarvedgame #touchstarved game #touchstarved mc #touchstarved oc #touchstarved imagines #touchstarved ais #touchstarved leander #mhin #ais x mc #ais x reader #willow x mc #willow x reader

[mushramoo]

I see u there, @soulless-paper-bag

for ur friend and anyone who needs it <3

#hope this helps! #fnaf #vanny #fnaf vanny #fnaf fandom #fnaf art #fnaf fanart #art #traditional art

[intriq]

Midnight

warnings: mentions blood, death, little bit of fighting, depression, mentions of guns/getting shot, etc etc NO USE OF Y/N

Part 2 of Little Moon

Part 1, part 2, part 3

Word Count: 5.7k words

Authors discussion n shizzle:

Hi y’all sorry this took so long to do. But it’s here and I’m happy and it’s long as FUCK.

Like it’s twice as long as part 1, and it’s so bad everyone voted I break this up into a 3rd part so like, yea

I’m publishing this while the 2 yr old I’m babysitting is down fr his nap so like woooo

I’d like to thank my beta readers n co owners of Little Moon for reading this shit (I’m sorry if u cried): my bestie aka @deaths-favorite-star , terra, Apollo (Taylor swift and bat brat versions), bri, and lilac

mostly cus without them this wouldn’t even be possible/done lol

let’s get on w this shall we? Hope you all enjoy <3

❉ ╤╤╤╤ ✿ ╤╤╤╤ ❉

Months have passed since your death.

In those months the children of Bruce Wayne, whether adopted or biological, grieve. All of them mourned you.

There are seldom times your grave is without fresh flowers or some sort of visitor, who either sits in silence or just talks to the headstone in a conversation that they know they’ll never get your input on again.

Your bedroom is in the same state of familiarity, too.

On some days, Alfred has to force Bruce to get out of bed or to even come home.

No one looks at Alfred quite the same anymore, but no one looks at Alfred with the same disgust as Alfred’s own reflection.

✧✿✧

Since the funeral, family dinners went from being twice a week, to just once.

And then they went to once a month, with Alfred having to just watch as the number of people who attended them dwindled, before eventually they came to a total stop.

✧✿✧

Today is another day of distant and silent mourning, as Alfred stands in his room, looking through pictures of you and Bruce as children.

Down the hallway as Alfred looks at a picture of you on your seventh (7th) birthday, he hears Cassandra softly crying down the hall in your bedroom.

During your birthday that year, when you’d turned seven (7) years old, Alfred remembers how the only thing you’d asked for was a cake. Specifically, you requested that he let you help him bake your birthday cake.

Alfred can’t help but smile, even just slightly, as he remembers how big of a mess you’d made when you had attempted to dump the entire bag of flour into the mixing bowl.

He also can’t help but remember that after a long day of celebrating your birthday, it was the first night since you’d come to live with him and Bruce that you hadn’t woken up once because of a nightmare.

✧✿✧

Alfred had been in Bruce’s study when the news came.

A tray of food in hand, he’d been begging Bruce to eat something. Anything, even if it was just a piece of toast that he hadn’t prepared himself.

“Master Bruce, you haven’t eaten in the past few days. Please, take at least one bite.”

Bruce only raises his head, dark circles under his eyes as he just blankly stares at him. An almost soulless look, one that gives a hollow feeling of emptiness.

Across the desk in Bruce’s study are papers, books, various gadgets in states of disrepair or in the middle of being made, as well as schematics for them that have the occasional ring-shaped coffee stain on them.

“Not now, Alfred. I have things to do,” Is Bruce’s only reply, a hoarse and exhausted sounding tone held within his words.

Alfred’s coming words of protest are silenced by the sounds of an alarm going off. Not too loud but neither too quiet, but just enough to make Alfred go silent.

NEW HUNTER DETECTED

That’s what the screen on Bruce’s computer read.

Various screens pop up on Bruce’s computer, each showing feed from different CCTV cameras of a person moving through Gotham and killing vampires in their wake.

The videos in question had been saved from numerous different days in the past few weeks, all adding up together once there was enough saved to trigger the algorithm that Tim had made. Specifically, it was designed to use the cameras around Gotham to track and keep note of Vampire Hunters and vampire attacks. Made solely to help prevent someone else from suffering the same fate you did.

All to prevent them from having to lose someone else.

Bruce and Alfred watch as the videos play, watching as the new hunter the algorithm had detected took out various vampires across the city of Gotham. But what made Bruce rub the drowsiness from his eyes as he leans forward, peering closer at the numerous video feeds was not because of how they looked.

No, it was because of how they moved.

The way they moved was eerily familiar. The way they moved with such precision that only got better and better with each new video feed that grew to be more recent was what had Bruce holding his breath.

While they had kept you from knowing the world of Vampire Hunting most of your life, they hadn’t let you be completely defenseless.

Which was why it was so eerie to see that the way this person was moving, was by using moves he’d only ever taught you. It was unmistakable, really. Bruce had grown up with you, knew most of the little habits you had. He knew you better than he knew himself sometimes.

Bruce is unsure if he wants to let himself grow delusional about whether or not it was who he thought it was. Should he? Could he? Was it even worth the pain it’d bring by opening up old wounds, to bring back the choking hold of grief?

Bruce can feel Alfred staring at him, because he gets that same feeling of familiarity. But it should be impossible. It couldn’t be possible.

But was it? Could it be?

Alfred sets the tray of food down on Bruce’s desk, taking the opportunity to clean up some of its disorganized mess. But it’s only because he doesn’t want to let his mind wander like Bruce’s is. He already lets it wander far enough when he looks through photo albums and when he sees his face reflected off the tea he drinks in the morning, in the mirror, off the windows, and on the screen of Bruce’s computer.

Bruce doesn’t even acknowledge the tray of food Alfred leaves on his desk, only getting up after receiving a notification on the screen that the new hunter was spotted again. Bruce already felt the idea of who it could be creeping into his mind and clinging there, leaving him wondering. Wanting to know. Needing to know, to get his question answered.

“I’ll be out for a while.”

“Will I expect you back for dinner today, Master Bruce?”

Alfred is only met with silence as Bruce grabs what he needs and heads out the door. Which gives him his answer.

“At least come back unscathed, Master Bruce. I don’t think they want you to join them just yet.”

“Don’t act like you know what they would’ve wanted, Alfred.”

Alfred goes quiet again. He understands, after all. He knows Bruce is still hurting, just like the others are. Alfred was the last person to see you alive, and was the only one there when you drew your last breath. They resent him for that.

But they also can’t look at him the same after knowing that it was because of him that you drew in that last gasp of air, held in his arms in that cold, dirty alley whilst the sun rose in the distance.

What makes it worse was just how often you used to like watching the sun rise. It was often when the others finally returned from their patrols, having spent all night hunting down vampires to make Gotham even just a little safer.

And every time, you’d be there, waiting for them. You’d welcome them home, tend to their injuries, and if they had a particularly rough night you’d even make them something, though it was usually some sort of baked dessert, like cake or cookies. And even though Bruce had a disdain for anything overly sweet, he’d still eat whatever cake you’d baked for him, even if it was so sweet it made him feel nauseous.

But no matter how much of a disdain Bruce had for sweet foods in general, he never could quite turn them down when you made them. You always had a smile with comforting words to follow, all to mask just how truly worried about him you were. Bruce knew that you always wanted, deep down, for him to stop being a vampire hunter. But you knew he couldn’t nor wouldn’t stop, so you always kept quiet about it.

If you weren’t so worried, if Bruce did anything to ease your worries, would you have let him know that you wanted to be walked home that night? He’d seen the unsent text message. Tim showed it to him. It’d been easy for Tim to find, with how unprotected your phone was from hackers and the like. You had deleted the message, and Bruce knew why.

It was because you felt guilty about even thinking of asking for his help. You knew how busy he was saving Gotham from vampires, which meant you could never work up the courage to ask him. He’d already helped you so many times before, and you barely could do anything to help him. Would things be different, Bruce thinks, if he’d texted you to make sure you got home safe instead of focusing on his patrol? Would you still be here, alive and well? Would you be here, saying goodbye to him as he heads out, telling him to stay safe?

Bruce forces the thoughts to shake free from his head as he swiftly departs, not allowing himself to turn around, knowing only that his heart would ache when he doesn’t see you there waiting for him. It’s always hurt, because the first few days he’d always mistakenly hear you calling out for him, sometimes even thinks he’d see you in the corner of his eye.

But whenever he’d turn and look, you weren’t there, and Bruce remembers.

✧✿✧

It takes a few minutes for Bruce to track down the new vampire hunter who’d somehow been able to avoid making Tim’s detection system go off, as it should have alerted Bruce to their presence months ago. The night is cold since autumn is right around the corner, and it reminds Bruce of just how cold that night was when you’d been brought to Wayne manor.

Bruce reminds himself to focus as he follows the new vampire hunter, who moves through Gotham as if they know the place by heart. Which almost seems odd to know every part of Gotham, when they’d only been detected less than six months ago. It’s odd, because the system has only had a record of their existence from that time frame. The program couldn’t even pick up data from normal Gotham citizens from before that to link it back to them.

It was odd.

So, so incredibly odd. Almost an off-putting, eerie kind. The type you get when you walk down the street at night and suddenly don’t feel alone, like you shouldn’t be there.

Bruce has this odd, eerie feeling for almost fifteen minutes before he realizes. The world’s greatest detective, they say, and it took him fifteen minutes of following this new vampire hunter to realize they were leading him in a circle. That they knew they were being followed.

When Bruce realizes he’s been following the new vampire hunter blindly for fifteen minutes in that same circle, the vampire hunter seems to know, too.

“Took you long enough to notice, Batman. You're getting awfully slow.”

Why does that voice sound so familiar?

Why does Bruce feel like he’s heard it somewhere before? And why is the familiarity hurting him?

Bruce leaps down from the rooftop he rests upon, landing on the street beside them. That feeling that screams in Bruce’s head that he knows who this vampire hunter is, who they are underneath the mask, is hideously strong. Almost sickeningly so.

But who is it?

Bruce narrowly avoids the punch the vampire hunter has swinging his way when he snaps out of his thoughts. Getting distracted and in a daze when confronting someone isn’t smart, he knows that. He taught Dick and Jason never to lose focus in a fight.

But yet here he is, losing focus.

Jason would probably find it ironic if he were here right now.

“Focus, Batman. Isn’t that what you taught those boys of yours?”

Behind Bruce’s mask, his face is scrunched up in confusion. Contorted as he continues to try and avoid getting hit, because he hates just how easy it is for him to lose focus because of just one thought.

But yet, even despite how familiar these moves are- which are the only reasons he’s able to avoid them even at the last possible moment- there’s something that bothers him, something that he realizes. The vampire hunter who is fighting him, attacking him, isn’t doing it with the purpose most others would.

It’s almost like it’s some sort of warning, as they change the trajectory of their moves to only hit the most non-vital points. Areas where it won’t do anything but leave a nasty bruise.

Which is odd, considering Bruce now realizes after a particular glint in the fluorescent lighting of the street lights that line the roads of Gotham, when the mask of the vampire hunter before him slips just enough when Bruce finally strikes back is that there are fangs.

Fangs.

The vampire hunter right in front of Bruce, the one that has managed to evade program that Tim spent weeks coding, the same vampire hunter that is refusing to strike Bruce anywhere vital as if some sign of guilt, is a vampire.

A vampire, hunting down and killing other vampires. Killing them. In a most brutal fashion, too, based on what Bruce and Alfred saw in the collected video files.

Why is a vampire, a creature that exists to attack and feed off of humans, trying to avoid hurting him?

Why?

Bruce can’t make sense of it. He can’t. There is virtually no reason for any vampire in Gotham, in the entirety of this world, that they would be trying to not hurt him.

Most vampires attempt to kill him on sight. So why isn’t this one? Why is it acting so… odd?

Bruce twists around the outstretched, reaching arm of the vampire hunter as they move in a pattern that Bruce is quickly learning. They never differ or change the pattern, no matter how often Bruce is able to evade their attacks. And with that open window of opportunity, he takes the chance to collect a sample of their DNA.

Some blood, to be specific.

The vampire… hunter lets out some sort of noise of pain. Not quite a shriek, nor a yelp, but just a noise. And just as soon as they started attacking Bruce, they are trying to flee.

And before Bruce can attempt to stop them, they are gone.

But that’s fine, because Bruce has what he came for. A blood sample.

Enough for Bruce to test, to compare to others in the database to see who they are.

Because that is the question lingering on his mind. Who is it? Just who is this new vampire hunter that has been able to leave a growing pile of bodies in their wake in just mere months?

✧✿✧

Bruce doesn’t waste a moment, ignoring Alfred’s pleas to let him look over and treat his injuries, as minor as they are. Just a few bruises that will heal.

He doesn’t waste a moment in immediately getting to work on finding out who that vampire is. Who the vampire hunting down and killing other vampires is, who they are underneath that mask.

After loading the sample into the batcomputer, he waits. Sitting there with so much impatience, so eager to find out who it is. It’s almost suffocating just how badly he wants it to just finish already, to just show him the results.

Alfred takes the opportunity, though, to place another tray full of food in front of Bruce. Because it’s now been a few days since Bruce last ate, and the only thing he’s done is keep himself hydrated.

Bruce attempts to protest, but he relents at the painful gnawing in his stomach. No longer able to keep himself sufficiently distracted to not notice just how hungry he is. But all he does is take small, slow bites, watching the progress the batcomputer is making on the sample.

He eats so slowly that by the time the sample is eighty [80] percent analyzed, the food has grown cold. So cold that it makes Bruce not want to eat anymore, even if he’s barely even touched any of the food. But Alfred is happy anyway, because he’s happy that Bruce has something in his stomach.

Even if it’s not a whole lot.

✧✿✧

When Bruce saw the results, his mouth went dry. His chest felt like an unrelenting void, filled with a crashing tidal wave. The creeping feeling that fills him is just as terrifying.

Alfred had to practically pry Bruce away from the batcomputer, as he mumbles nothing but words about how the results had to be wrong.

How there was no possible way that the blood sample belonged to and came from just who the batcomputer said it did.

So now here everyone was, called here by Alfred. Stated to be an absolute and utter emergency, and that excuses would not be tolerated. It was absolutely mandatory, and emergencies were to be ignored because this was the emergency.

Jason didn’t want to be here. Dick didn’t want to be here.

None of them wanted to be here. Not in the same home they’d ‘grown up’ in, that now held nothing but bitter reminders of a certain death. The death of someone they viewed as a child, a sibling, a parent. A role model.

You. Your death.

But yet here they are. Unable to avoid it, because it was an order. An order that it was an emergency, and no one could turn away when someone raises the alarm about something being an emergency.

When everyone arrives, Bruce is already seated in his office. He almost seems emotionless, like there isn’t even an ounce of life behind his eyes as he simply stares ahead, blankly.

He doesn’t even react when they all close the door behind themselves, his eyes only moving up once Dick stands in front of him.

“Why were we called here, Bruce?”

Dick’s voice sounds tired. But that’s because he is tired. He’s so, so tired of grieving. Of mourning you. Of feeling like that total and utter failure that he knows he is because he got lazy on one stupid patrol.

He’s tired of feeling like this. Feeling like he’s stuck in a deep pit of sadness and guilt, sadness because you died. Guilt because you died when he wasn’t looking hard enough. But yet, there’s also anger.

Anger at himself.

But Bruce doesn’t have the energy to answer Dick’s question, so Alfred does the talking. He shows the videos, also shows Bruce’s encounter with the vampire hunter. Everyone doesn’t quite understand just why there was an emergency meeting being called over a vampire hunter. Sure, it was alarming they were a vampire but that wasn’t cause for an emergency.

That is, until Alfred shows the results from the batcomputer. Results of who the DNA belongs to.

And while some seem surprised, some in a state of utter shock, others just feel.. Numb. Like there was nothing they could feel besides the ever consuming pit of nothingness in their chest.

But everyone is in disbelief, just as Bruce was. Is, more like.

The results showed a one-hundred [100] percent match for the last person they expected. The last person they even wanted to believe it could be.

You.

You, who was supposed to be dead. Buried six [6] feet under the ground in the cemetery on the grounds of the Wayne manor.

Dick wants to feel sick. Jason, too. Damian feels his stomach lurching as well, but he doesn’t let it show. He refuses to.

They all don’t want to believe the results are true, just as Bruce did. Because it should be simply impossible, right? They all made sure you were dead before burying you.

“But that’s impossible. We made sure. Alfred-... He…” The words choke and die in Tim’s throat. But everyone knows what he means. How could they not?

Alfred made sure, because he was the one who dealt the killing blow.

Those are the words that go unspoken. The truth, as disgusting and heavy as it is.

But is it the truth? Did Alfred actually deal the killing blow?

And the truth is, they hadn’t double checked. So lost in their grief over your bloody body that Alfred brought back to the manor they hadn’t even bothered to check and make sure that Alfred had actually shot you in the heart.

They had just assumed he had.

“Alfred… You.. You checked, right?”

Dick’s voice is shaky, as ragged and rushed as his breathing. He feels like he already knows the answer, but god does he want to be wrong.

But the way Alfred clenches his jaw and his eyes focus on that abandoned tray of food from much earlier, food long since grown cold, gives Dick his answer.

“Bruce? You checked, right?”

Tim is the one to ask this time. Because surely, there is no way that Bruce didn’t check and confirm for himself. He’s thorough, he always is. There isn’t any realm of possibility that Bruce didn’t check… Right?

Right?

When Bruce doesn’t answer, there’s a look of disbelief on just about everyone's faces. Bruce Wayne, the ever thorough and the world’s ‘greatest detective’, renowned vampire hunter Batman, didn’t double check that you were dead?

“You checked, right?”

“No. I didn’t.”

And now everyone is left with the horrifying, dawning realization of just one thing. A simple thought that is horrifying to picture, to imagine. To even now be known as a reality.

They’d practically buried you alive.

Everyone quickly dispersed after that. No one could stand to be in the same room as each other, because even though they know they rightfully have no right to blame one another, even though they could blame themselves, it’s all they think about.

You were alive. Alive.

All this time you’d been alive while they mourned you. While Dick blamed himself, while Damian blamed Dick for the reason you were no longer present.

Damian feels sick to his stomach at just how angry he was at Dick in the past. Of the things he’d said to him, blaming him for your death. When you weren’t even dead.

Jason can feel nauseating guilt creeping in his chest, too. Ripping open a swallowing, fathomless pit. He’d screamed at Alfred. Been angry with him, caused him so much pain. Alfred hadn’t even killed you, and he’d been so angry at Alfred.

But the sudden appearance of the vampire hunter is making sense. It coincides with your death, somewhat. With the recovery period a vampire would need to recover from a wound like the one you’d taken.

But it makes so, so much sense.

✧✿✧

Six months ago is when Cass was out tracking a vampire. Well, more-so a large nest of them. One that held connections in various cities, dangerous and leaving an endless, bloody wake of victims.

Perhaps it was because of the grief clouding her mind, that thought of how this group could be the ones responsible. The one responsible for your death.

So she got sloppy. Just a little bit. Enough to make a small error that she normally wouldn’t make.

Cass hadn’t taken the time she usually did to make sure she was sure of just how many vampires actually lived in that nest before she charged into it to take out the vampires that resided there. The information hadn’t been totally accurate, it’d missed a few vampires. So she’d been quickly overrun, out of supplies with not even enough bullets to last her.

But just as Cass thinks she’s going to die for her margin of error, as she decides to resign to her fate because hey, it means she’ll get to see you again, the vampires that are about to kill her are dead.

And there’s a figure standing over their bloody remains that seems oddly familiar to Cass. But she can’t quite place it. At least, she couldn’t then.

“I thought you were taught better than this. This is a stupid mistake, even for you.”

Before Cass can ask the obvious question that’s scratching at the back of her mind, the figure is gone just as quick as they appeared. Leaving nothing evident of their presence, besides the dead vampires.

✧✿✧

They’d all been in some sort of predicament caused by their overwhelming grief that meant they’d needed someone to save their ass. And you had. You’d been there to rescue them from their mistakes every single time.

You’d saved Cass from death, been there to save Jason during the few times he’d been distracted [even if all he’d glimpsed of you was your retreating silhouette], and so much more.

But why had you never shown yourself to them? Why had you let them wallow in their own self pity and grief over your death, when you hadn’t even died?

Perhaps there was an answer to this question they didn’t yet have.

But it was no matter. They had time to get the answer they so desperately wanted. They had a means to find you the next time you appeared, all they had to do was wait.

✧✿✧

And wait they did.

It took almost a week before you appeared again, presumably to lay low for a while after that encounter with Bruce. As if it would stop them from figuring out the truth.

They’d even checked your grave. And god, were they horrified to find that it was empty, just as they’d feared.

But yes, when you’d appeared again after lying low for a week, Jason was the one sent to go talk to you. You’d always had a soft spot for him, after all.

So in his Red Hood gear, he approaches you. He wasn’t even sure if he should be surprised that you seemed to know he was there the moment he’d landed on that same rooftop as you.

But maybe he should, since he knows neither Bruce nor Alfred gave you any training to be a vampire hunter. They wanted you to stay as far away as possible from it, after all.

But perhaps that distance is why you’d never stood a chance the night you’d been attacked. Maybe it was the lack of making sure you were prepared to face the threats that lie in the very shadows they hunted in.

Jason sees your moments from fleeing from the way you visibly tense up and flinch when he steps closer to you, so he stops. He entirely freezes, because the last thing he wants is for you to disappear again.

“We know it’s you,” Is all Jason calls out, paired with your name instead of the nickname he’d always refer to you by. A parental nickname, something similar to the way children call their parents Mom or Dad, but entirely different and unique to you.

Jason watches the way you seem to think, still frozen in a stance that says you're seconds from fleeing, that him making the wrong choice is all it takes for you to disappear. But this time it’d be Jason’s fault that you're gone, not Dick’s.

“We aren’t mad, I promise.”

Bad thing to start off with, Jason. Now you’ll think they all were mad.

“What I meant to say is… We all miss you. When you died- thought you died, we didn’t know what to do.”

Jason is practically grasping at straws. He can see his words aren’t reaching you in the way he is hoping, wanting them to. He’s never been good at the comforting stuff, never been good at talking someone down. Not like Alfred is, not like Dick is. Not like Barbara, too.

What would they even say to you?

Jason feels lost, because just why did they send him to talk to you, instead of anyone else?

Well, not sending Alfred is understandable. He’d been the one to shoot you, and Jason knows that he wouldn’t want to see the Joker again, to be the one to talk to him. But what about Dick and Barbara? What would they do?

Jason doesn’t even know if attempting to continue to comfort you is worth it, especially not when it doesn’t even seem to be working.

“Why?”

Those words slip past Jason before he can even get a chance to stop himself. But it’s a question he really, really wants an answer to. Well, not just want. He needs to know. He needs to know why you’ve let them all sit and rot inside their grief and despair, even as understandable as it may be for Alfred because even he understands that seeing the person who killed you is not easy.

Well, not that Alfred even killed you. Almost killed you, which Jason understands. The Joker had almost killed him then, too. Instead he’d lived because some weird ‘miracle’ left him being some freak of nature, a half human but not entirely vampiric person.

Like some curse.

“I was supposed to be dead.”

“I get that.”

“Plus.. I’m a vampire, Jason. I’m a danger to you guys. What if.. What if I lose control? Like I did that night?”

He knows what you're talking about. The night you’d attacked Bruce before… Alfred shot you. Jason remembers hearing about it from a very heartbroken Bruce, although the heartbreak wasn’t easy to see on the surface. But Jason had known. So had everyone else.

After all, they’d all been pretty much trained and raised by Bruce. They knew what he was feeling- most of the time. Though they couldn’t see it as easy as Alfred did.

“We could’ve found ways around it that didn’t mean you totally avoided us,” Jason says those last words with more bitterness than he should’ve. He knows he has no right to be angry, doesn’t even deserve to be. But he can’t help it, not with how he can only rethink on just how he’d treated Alfred because of it.

“Because of that we treated Alfred-” He cuts himself off, not wanting to spew those words out. Doesn’t even want them to fall past his lips. But it’s far too late, judging by the way your eyes narrow and your head practically snaps toward him.

“What did you all do?”

The venom in your voice when you hear those words is unmistakable. Sure, you wouldn’t be able to look at Alfred the same because he’d been the one to shoot you, but you still understood why he had.

You were a vampire. Something dangerous, and he was doing what needed to be done.

Before Jason can even try to backpedal he’s already spewing to you how everyone’s treated Alfred since you’d ‘died’. Everything. Including how he’d screamed at Alfred after hearing what your last words were from him, down to him destroying his room, Bruce’s new attitude, everything.

“Why would you all do that?” You’d hissed almost immediately after he’d finished telling that tale. Disbelief is just about the only thing you feel, along with those other bitter emotions you were currently feeling.

“He killed- we thought he’d killed you, and we just.. We were angry! Because he took you away from us!”

When had you even marched over to him? Was it while he was speaking those venomous words about how Alfred had killed you, taken you from them? Or was it sooner?

Was he blinded by his own emotions to even notice?

Nevertheless, you're pretty much right in his face, and while Jason is expecting you to scream at him, maybe even yell, raise your voice somewhat, you don’t. Perhaps it’s worse that you sound calm.

“Alfred did what he needed to, what he had to.”

“But you were our family!”

“I do not deserve special treatment because I helped raise you all. Not because I was the person Bruce viewed as a little sibling, and the person Alfred viewed as his own child.”

“But-”

You silence him by raising a hand up, your eyes squeezed shut in the way it does when you’d had headaches in the past, pinching the bridge of your nose between your index finger and thumb.

“Tell me, Jason, would any of you have been able to do it then, hmm? Do you know how hard it was for Alfred to even point the gun at me without his hands shaking? Without crying? Would either of you have been able to pull the trigger instead of Alfred?”

Jason stays silent, and when you open your eyes to glare at him, demanding an answer like those times you’d interrogated him after he’d been stupid and nearly gotten himself killed on those patrols back when he was younger, back when he was just Robin and training under Bruce’s watch. 

And he only shakes his head.

“But I promise I’ll be back.. Someday, I don’t know when. Don’t know if it’ll be soon, or if it’s not for years ahead. But I can promise that, okay?”

You really didn’t know just what else to say, honestly. You already had plans for what your coming moves were, for your motives. You knew Jason was wondering that just by glancing at him, even if you couldn’t see his face behind his helmet.

“And if you want, you can try to help me, if it’ll make you.. I don’t freaking know, feel better, I guess?”

“How?”

“You’ll see. It’ll be an answer to my motives and why I’ve been so secretive I guess. I’ll tell you how you can help me later.”

Jason wants to say something, but he doesn’t know if he should even be surprised you already know what it is he wants to say. “Oh, and don’t tell anyone I’m letting you help me. That part stays a secret, got it?”

Jason only nods in reply, and with that, you’ve disappeared from Jason’s sight, leaving him alone on that rooftop to think through his thoughts. And of your words, of course. To muddle them over, to debate whether or not he even accepts the notion of helping you.

With keeping it secret being the price he pays.

❉ ╧╧╧╧ ✿ ╧╧╧╧ ❉

#father figure alfred #oneshot #gender neutral reader #gn reader #angst #dc universe #jason todd #bruce wayne #babs #barbara gordon #alfred pennyworth #dick grayson #richard grayson #vampire!reader #vampires au #vampire hunters #may be non canon compliant dc universe oneshot #non romantic oneshot #non canon compliant dc universe oneshot #non canon compliant #fanfiction #fanfics

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Tyler Austin Harper

Published: Aug 14, 2023

The hotel was soulless, like all conference hotels. I had arrived a few hours before check-in, hoping to drop off my bags before I met a friend for lunch. The employees were clearly frazzled, overwhelmed by the sudden influx of several hundred impatient academics. When I asked where I could put my luggage, the guy at the front desk simply pointed to a nearby hallway. “Wait over there with her; he’s coming back.”

Who “he” was remained unclear, but I saw the woman he was referring to. She was white and about my age. She had a conference badge and a large suitcase that she was rolling back and forth in obvious exasperation. “Been waiting long?” I asked, taking up a position on the other side of the narrow hallway. “Very,” she replied. For a while, we stood in silence, minding our phones. Eventually, we began chatting.

The conversation was wide-ranging: the papers we were presenting, the bad A/V at the hotel, our favorite things to do in the city. At some point, we began talking about our jobs. She told me that—like so many academics—she was juggling a temporary teaching gig while also looking for a tenure-track position.

“It’s hard,” she said, “too many classes, too many students, too many papers to grade. No time for your own work. Barely any time to apply to real jobs.”

When I nodded sympathetically, she asked about my job and whether it was tenure-track. I admitted, a little sheepishly, that it was.

“I’d love to teach at a small college like that,” she said. “I feel like none of my students wants to learn. It’s exhausting.”

Then, out of nowhere, she said something that caught me completely off guard: “But I shouldn’t be complaining to you about this. I know how hard BIPOC faculty have it. You’re the last person I should be whining to.”

I was taken aback, but I shouldn’t have been. It was the kind of awkward comment I’ve grown used to over the past few years, as “anti-racism” has become the reigning ideology of progressive political culture. Until recently, calling attention to a stranger’s race in such a way would have been considered a social faux pas. That she made the remark without thinking twice—a remark, it should be noted, that assumes being a Black tenure-track professor is worse than being a marginally employed white one—shows how profoundly interracial social etiquette has changed since 2020’s “summer of racial reckoning.” That’s when anti-racism—focused on combating “color-blindness” in both policy and personal conduct—grabbed ahold of the liberal mainstream.

Though this “reckoning” brought increased public attention to the deep embeddedness of racism in supposedly color-blind American institutions, it also made instant celebrities of a number of race experts and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) consultants who believe that being anti-racist means undergoing a “journey” of radical personal transformation. In their righteous crusade against the bad color-blindness of policies such as race-neutral college admissions, these contemporary anti-racists have also jettisoned the kind of good color-blindness that holds that we are more than our race, and that we should conduct our social life according to that idealized principle. Rather than balance a critique of color-blind law and policy with a continuing embrace of interpersonal color-blindness as a social etiquette, contemporary anti-racists throw the baby out with the bathwater. In place of the old color-blind ideal, they have foisted upon well-meaning white liberals a successor social etiquette predicated on the necessity of foregrounding racial difference rather than minimizing it.

As a Black guy who grew up in a politically purple area—where being a good person meant adhering to the kind of civil-rights-era color-blindness that is now passé—I find this emergent anti-racist culture jarring. Many of my liberal friends and acquaintances now seem to believe that being a good person means constantly reminding Black people that you are aware of their Blackness. Difference, no longer to be politely ignored, is insisted upon at all times under the guise of acknowledging “positionality.” Though I am rarely made to feel excessively aware of my race when hanging out with more conservative friends or visiting my hometown, in the more liberal social circles in which I typically travel, my race is constantly invoked—“acknowledged” and “centered”—by well-intentioned anti-racist “allies.”

This “acknowledgement” tends to take one of two forms. The first is the song and dance in which white people not-so-subtly let you know that they know that race and racism exist. This includes finding ways to interject discussion of some (bad) news item about race or racism into casual conversation, apologizing for having problems while white (“You’re the last person I should be whining to”), or inversely, offering “support” by attributing any normal human problem you have to racism.

The second way good white liberals often “center” racial difference in everyday interactions with minorities is by trying, always clumsily, to ensure that their “marginalized” friends and familiars are “culturally” comfortable. My favorite personal experiences of this include an acquaintance who invariably steers dinner or lunch meetups to Black-owned restaurants, and the time that a friend of a friend invited me over to go swimming in their pool before apologizing for assuming that I know how to swim (“I know that’s a culturally specific thing”). It is a peculiar quirk of the 2020s’ racial discourse that this kind of “acknowledgement” and “centering” is viewed as progress.

My point is not that conservatives have better racial politics—they do not—but rather that something about current progressive racial discourse has become warped and distorted. The anti-racist culture that is ascendant seems to me to have little to do with combatting structural racism or cultivating better relationships between white and Black Americans. And its rejection of color-blindness as a social ethos is not a new frontier of radical political action.

No, at the core of today’s anti-racism is little more than a vibe shift—a soft matrix of conciliatory gestures and hip phraseology that give adherents the feeling that there has been a cultural change, when in fact we have merely put carpet over the rotting floorboards. Although this push to center rather than sidestep racial difference in our interpersonal relationships comes from a good place, it tends to rest on a troubling, even racist subtext: that white and Black Americans are so radically different that interracial relationships require careful management, constant eggshell-walking, and even expert guidance from professional anti-racists. Rather than producing racial harmony, this new ethos frequently has the opposite effect, making white-Black interactions stressful, unpleasant, or, perhaps most often, simply weird.

Since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, progressive anti-racism has centered on two concepts that helped Americans make sense of his senseless death: “structural racism” and “implicit bias.” The first of these is a sociopolitical concept that highlights how certain institutions—maternity wards, police barracks, lending companies, housing authorities, etc.—produce and replicate racial inequalities, such as the disproportionate killing of Black men by the cops. The second is a psychologicalconcept that describes the way that all individuals—from bleeding-heart liberals to murderers such as Derek Chauvin—harbor varying degrees of subconscious racial prejudice.

Though “structural racism” and “implicit bias” target different scales of the social order—institutions on the one hand, individuals on the other—underlying both of these ideas is a critique of so-called color-blind ideology, or what the sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva calls “color-blind racism”: the idea that policies, interactions, and rhetoric can be explicitly race-neutral but implicitly racist. As concepts, both “structural racism” and “implicit bias” rest on the presupposition that racism is an enduring feature of institutional and social life, and that so-called race neutrality is a covertly racist myth that perpetuates inequality. Some anti-racist scholars such as Uma Mazyck Jayakumar and Ibram X. Kendi have put this even more bluntly: “‘Race neutral’ is the new “separate but equal.’” Yet, although anti-racist academics and activists are right to argue that race-neutral policies can’t solve racial inequities—that supposedly color-blind laws and policies are often anything but—over the past few years, this line of criticism has also been bizarrely extended to color-blindness as a personal ethos governing behavior at the individual level.

The most famous proponent of dismantling color-blindness in everyday interactions is Robin DiAngelo, who has made an entire (very condescending) career out of asserting that if white people are not uncomfortable, anti-racism is not happening. “White comfort maintains the racial status quo, so discomfort is necessary and important,” the corporate anti-racist guru advises. Over the past three years, this kind of anti-color-blind, pro-discomfort rhetoric has become the norm in anti-racist discourse. On the final day of the 28-day challenge in Layla Saad’s viral Me and White Supremacy, budding anti-racists are tasked with taking “out-of-your-comfort-zone actions,” such as apologizing to people of color in their life and having “uncomfortable conversations.” Frederick Joseph’s best-selling book The Black Friend takes a similar tack. The problem with color-blindness, Joseph counsels, is it allows “white people to continue to be comfortable.” The NFL analyst Emmanuel Acho wrote an entire book, simply called Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, that admonishes readers to “stop celebrating color-blindness.” And, of course, there are endless how-to guides for having these “uncomfortable conversations” with your Black friends.

Once the dominant progressive ideology, professing “I don’t see color” is now viewed as a kind of dog whistle that papers over implicit bias. Instead, current anti-racist wisdom holds that we must acknowledge racial difference in our interactions with others, rather than assume that race needn’t be at the center of every interracial conversation or encounter. Coming to grips with the transition we have undergone over the past decade—color-blind etiquette’s swing from de rigueur to racist—requires a longer view of an American cultural transition. Civil-rights-era color-blindness was replaced with an individualistic, corporatized anti-racism, one focused on the purification of white psyches through racial discomfort, guilt, and “doing the work” as a road to self-improvement.

Writing in 1959, the social critic Philip Rieff argued that postwar America was transforming from a religious and economic culture—one oriented around common institutions such as the church and the market—to a psychological culture, one oriented around the self and its emotional fulfillment. By the 1960s, Rieff had given this shift a name: “the triumph of the therapeutic,” which he defined as an emergent worldview according to which the “self, improved, is the ultimate concern of modern culture.” Yet, even as he diagnosed our culture with self-obsession, Rieff also noticed something peculiar and even paradoxical. Therapeutic culture demanded that we reflect our self-actualization outward. Sharing our innermost selves with the world—good, bad, and ugly—became a new social mandate under the guise that authenticity and open self-expression are necessary for social cohesion.

Recent anti-racist mantras like “White silence is violence” reflect this same sentiment: exhibitionist displays of “racist” guilt are viewed as a necessary precursor to racial healing and community building. In this way, today’s attacks on interpersonal color-blindness—and progressives’ growing fixation on implicit bias, public confession, and race-conscious social etiquette—are only the most recent manifestations of the cultural shift Rieff described. Indeed, the seeds of the current backlash against color-blindness began decades ago, with the application of a New Age, therapeutic outlook to race relations: so-called racial-sensitivity training, the forefather of today’s equally spurious DEI programming.

In her 2001 book, Race Experts, the historian Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn painstakingly details how racial-sensitivity training emerged from the 1960s’ human-potential movement and its infamous “encounter groups.” As she explains, what began as a more or less countercultural phenomenon was later corporatized in the form of the anemic, pointless workshops controversially lampooned on The Office. Not surprisingly, this shift reflected the ebb and flow of corporate interests: Whereas early workplace training emphasized compliance with the newly minted Civil Rights Act of 1964, later incarnations would focus on improving employee relations and, later still, leveraging diversity to secure better business outcomes.

If there is something distinctive about the anti-color-blind racial etiquette that has emerged since George Floyd’s death, it is that these sites of encounter have shifted from official institutional spaces to more intimate ones where white people and minorities interact as friends, neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances. Racial-awareness raising is a dynamic no longer quarantined to formalized, compulsory settings like the boardroom or freshman orientation. Instead, every interracial interaction is a potential scene of (one-way) racial edification and supplication, encounters in which good white liberals are expected to be transparent about their “positionality,” confront their “whiteness,” and—if the situation calls for it—confess their “implicit bias.”

In a vacuum, many of the prescriptions advocated by the anti-color-blind crowd are reasonable: We should all think more about our privileges and our place in the world. An uncomfortable conversation or an honest look in the mirror can be precursors to personal growth. We all carry around harmful, implicit biases and we do need to examine the subconscious assumptions and prejudices that underlie the actions we take and the things we say. My objection is not to these ideas themselves, which are sensible enough. No, my objection is that anti-racism offers little more than a Marie Kondo–ism for the white soul, promising to declutter racial baggage and clear a way to white fulfillment without doing anything meaningful to combat structural racism. As Lasch-Quinn correctly foresaw, “Casting interracial problems as issues of etiquette [puts] a premium on superficial symbols of good intentions and good motivations as well as on style and appearance rather than on the substance of change.”

Yet the problem with the therapeutics of contemporary anti-racism is not just that they are politically sterile. When anti-color-blindness and its ideology of insistent “race consciousness” are translated into the sphere of private life—to the domain of friendships, block parties, and backyard barbecues—they assault the very idea of a multiracial society, producing new forms of racism in the process. The fact that our media environment is inundated with an endless stream of books, articles, and social-media tutorials that promise to teach white people how to simply interact with the Black people in their life is not a sign of anti-racist progress, but of profound regression.

The subtext that undergirds this new anti-racist discourse—that Black-white relationships are inherently fraught and must be navigated with the help of professionals and technical experts—testifies to the impoverishment of our interracial imagination, not to its enrichment. More gravely, anti-color-blind etiquette treats Black Americans as exotic others, permanent strangers whose racial difference is so chasmic that it must be continually managed, whose mode of humanness is so foreign that it requires white people to adopt a special set of manners and “race conscious” ritualistic practices to even have a simple conversation.

If we are going to find a way out of the racial discord that has defined American life post-Trump and post-Charlottesville and post-Floyd, we have to begin with a more sophisticated understanding of color-blindness, one that rejects the bad color-blindness on offer from the Republican Party and its partisans, as well as the anti-color-blindness of the anti-racist consultants. Instead, we should embrace the good color-blindness of not too long ago. At the heart of that color-blindness was a radical claim, one imperfectly realized but perfect as an ideal: that despite the weight of a racist past that isn’t even past, we can imagine a world, or at least an interaction between two people, where racial difference doesn’t make a difference.

[ Via: https://archive.today/8zfvc ]

#Tyler Austin Harper #antiracism #antiracism as religion #neoracism #colorblindness #colorblind #color blindness #color blind #religion is a mental illness