#these two fucking idiots have a chokehold on my soul

[wolfwithpaws]

Anybody gonna talk about that one Random Rings! Video from like three-and-a-half years ago where Doof was gonna take Perry and Norm (and 12 of his clones but that's not important) out to dinner at this pretty fancy (at least, it looks like it) restaurant and he was specifically like "Yeah, I want to go there because the food's so good," like HELLO??? He wants to take the people he cares about out to get good food because he cares about them?? its literally the perfect family dynamic I swear. Only thing that could have made it better would have been if Vanessa had been there too. Sorry for posting this so long after it came out. I hopped onto the PnF train last July.

Also unrelated but my Perry onesie came in the mail today currently wearing it

#perryshmirtz #disney #Random Rings! #perry the platypus #dr. heinz doofenshmirtz #idk how to tag I only recently started using tumblr consistently #norm the robot #gay #these two fucking idiots have a chokehold on my soul

[lovepookie]

♡︎ how enha would ask for a kiss!

♡︎ disclaimer: i am passive-aggressive and sarcastic, so please know im joking!! also i love these men lets bfr 😔

♡︎ warnings: cursing, kissing, suggestive in jake’s and kind of in jay’s?, please lmk if i missed anything!

heeseung ༉‧₊˚.

hmmm okay heeseung! the devil himself. 😣

i think it’d be un-natural for him to ask for a kiss,, like he’d easily just lean in with a smile and kiss you—and you’d let him!

but, I feel like if he does ask beforehand, it’s because he’s doing it on purpose to catch you off gaurd.

like if Jay meticulously thinks about asking before doing so,, this dude would just do it out of nowhere

like simply because you two are having fun type shit.

you’re mid laugh and he’d just stare at you like….my god…that’s the love of my life. :((

“Oh my god, you’re so stupid!” You’d laugh out, hitting him on his shoulder because he sent you a cheesy grin after saying something really idiotic LMAO

he’d grab your hand as you hit him and wouldn’t let it go, urging you closer so you don’t get away

he’d watch you smile and analyze the way your balled fist feels gainst him when you hit him playfully——and he most definitely see’s the way the sides of your eyes crinkle in happiness.

he’s just blown away 🥹

he prolly has a ~this person is all mine~ type of mindset.

“I want you to kiss me.” He’d say out of nowhere.,,,

LIKE!! it’s a command or something,, not even a question! 😧

bcs, he’s not trying to make it sound cliche and ask lmfaooo!

also he hasn’t had enough time to think about it, he just talks out his first thoughts🤕… damn….

but you’d sit there all taken aback and shocked, still trying to retrieve your hand from him 😵‍💫

and he smiles with this pretty teasing smile,,

all happy because he has you flustered like he always does :(((

“What? You don’t want to kiss me?” He asks, head tilting.

and you hit him again

over and over with your fists

“Lee Heeseung! Stop fucking around!” LMFAOOO

and he’d laugh, and laugh and laugh.

then he’d pull you near, clutching your fists and pulling you close

then his pretty lips are still smiling when they touch yours

all light and teasing…

and you’re still fighting him 💀💀

see! so he’d only ask on the basis to make you flustered, but most of the time he doesn’t really think before he kisses you;; he just does it!

jay ༉‧₊˚.

nerd

would probably do a lot of self reflection before ever asking directly for a kiss…

he also strikes me as a dude who would just pull you in naturally instead of asking really…

but!! let’s say he’s asking lol

He’d definitely do the stare at your left eye

lips

then back up to your right eye type of mechanism 😎

he’s so cool! (i’m trying to act like i’m not phased but in reality jay has me in a chokehold)

anyways,,

he’d really set the moment n shît, maybe there’s a couple candles lit,, maybe you two were having dinner and then he followed you to the kitchen to set the dishes in the sink, soft smiles and racing hearts pounding in each of your chests.

he’d definitely set it up nice and throughout the whole dinner he’d been staring at your lips but missed every opportunity given to kiss you bcs of the way you stared into his eyes and down his soul lmao!!

you made him nervous too okay!!

but suddenly, now that you’ve set the dishes down and turned to leave, he’s entrapping you between the kitchen island and his arms.

would definitely use the “can i kiss you?” line.

yet,, it’s mumbled underneath his breathe for only you two to hear and it totally defeats the purpose because he’s already leaning in, pushing your hair out of your face, all with that jaw of his tilting

you know,,

his 🔪 jaw

and as soon as your lips touch, the nerves are gone and bro is a little too confident

🫥

the kiss is all slow and a bit drawn out and long…you taste the minty gum he just disgarded a few minutes ago…

yeah! this is THAT type of kiss

that’s the only way he’d ask imo…

it’s like he’s asking because you know he knows it’s not a regular normal one he’s asking for 🤭

the vibes just have to be right.

wheeew :((

jake ༉‧₊˚.

AUR KAY!

i feel like any chance he gets to kiss you, he’d ask you before-hand all smooth n shît 🙄

it’s actually upsetting because he knows it does shit to you lmao

and he ALWAYS! asks for one when he feels attracted to you in some way :(

for instance; maybe you’d been trying things on from your latest shopping spree and are currently showing him the outfits one by one

this particular one you just showed him would show you and your figure off just right and boy!!! he would be a heated mess !

hands all over you—no time to think

your bodies are pulled very close together just how he likes it…

and he’d go;

“can i have a kiss? or two? or three??” whilst staring down into your eyes. 😣

and you fall for it everytime!

“yes. yes, you may….”

and his lips are on yours

and-and-and! he he hums into your mouth in satisfaction through the kiss….😧

fuck him.

anyways the energy created in the studio would be for baby making is all I’m saying.

but besides this he also asks in wholesome cute times too !

it’s like he doesn’t have any shame almost—or like he takes pride in asking and initiating things.

like imagine y’all laughing together after a continued stream of jokes that you guys take turns layering with more jokes

and he turns to you, intertwining your hand’s with his pretty upturned smile, his bottom lip falling out from between his teeth as he calms down from laughing

“You-…You make me so happy…I really want to kiss you right now.” He’d say, staring over at you.

⚰️.

AND YOU’D LET HIM!! OFC U WOULD BECAUSE I WOULD TOO :((

sickening.

sunghoon ༉‧₊˚.

well well well 😈

you see, our dear hoonies pride would never allow him to ask for a kiss or any type of affection outright,,

he’d only do that once he’s frustrated by you not intituating things after a couple hints here and there.

so let the games commence ☠️🤡

bro would already have pink in his cheeks when he’d clear his throat like the wimp he is,, trying to gather your attention and let you know he wants your affection

pero (but) you already know him already!

you’d smirk and continue to go about your day whilst scrolling on your phone,, acting as if you don’t know what he wants LMAOO

bro would mess with the hem of your shirt or shamelessly crawl his fingers into yours in a non-invasive way so as to not take your full attention in one go because he’s scared you’ll figure him and his needy tsundere self out

jokes on him,, you know exactly wtf he’s doing LMFAOO

he’d continue to clear his throat, getting closer and closer to you before you’d finally utter some words to help him out;

“hoon? you need something?” you’d ask, eyes taking a moment to look at him for the first time in ages.

he’d blush and shoot you a frown,, embarrassed to even get to this point.

“no, not really…do you want to like…do something?” he’d ask.

by this time he’d see the teasing smile make its way onto your face and would groan out in feisty frustration.

“oh my god, you know I want your attention and a kiss…why are you putting me through- a-all of this!?” he’d grumble, throwing your hand away to your side as he walks away LMAOO

poor kid 🥹

you’d laugh and run after him, hands going behind his head/neck and bringing him down to your level, your lips finally connecting.

he’d blush but his stubbornness for your affection wouldn’t allow himself to pull away,,, and THEN his hands would confidently make their way to your sides finally.

see,,,

he just needs a lil ~push~ is all ! ☝️

help the boy out!! 😭

sunoo ༉‧₊˚.

mkay, so I think sunoo is a sweet and cute uwu baby…and I think the way he asks for a kiss would be the same :((

but tell me why!?!?

i think he’d be kind of smooth with it…

like

y’all are in the same room, maybe you’re on the bed with him, his head in your lap as he stares up at you with his honey brown eyes…

you know! THOSE PRETTY EYES 😞

a smile on full display as u play with his hair

and he just stares at you,, taking you in with love :(

then at one point he notices your lip gloss.

“y/n?”

“mhm?”

“your gloss looks really pretty…can I try it?”

and you’re like 😊 😧 😳

because oh man I think he’s flirting!

and he laughs at you as you go pink…

y’all are so cute :(

but he’s not going to stop there—he still hasn’t retrieved his kiss ‼️

“…you’re so cute…can I have a kiss?” he’d ask through a smile, deciding to just be straightforward with it. he’s not going to get anywhere without being direct—by the looks of your flustered state anyways lol!

and you’d nod,, not wanting to utter any words in fear that you’d say the wrong thing lmao

you’d just lean down and peck his pretty lips.

it’s quick!

but sunoo is more than satisfied—and when you pull away he’s pursing his lips to spread the gloss you left behind on them and then he watches as you go even redder :(

he’s picking up too much from his hyungs mayhaps 😟

((the office camera pans to you sitting in a corner,, an absolute blushing mess))

jungwon ༉‧₊˚.

this duuuudeeee

okay hear me out!

i don’t think wonnie ever makes advances first

like the others definitely will,, but he strikes me as he’d never

no matter how much he’d want to

like he’d have to be really serious for him to do it lmao!

i think instead,,, it’d be like you’re already leaning in,, maybe it’s a soft moment and y’all are just laying in bed or on the couch cuddling

because jungwon strikes me as a kid who would never actively do PDA,, but when you are alone he’d cling onto you and follow you around, hands to his sides and his chin on your shoulder from behind

or like he’d play with your hands

OR! hear me out!

bro would put you in headlocks just to be closer to you in a funny way

💀💀💀 jsjsj

that’d be so funny lmao

anyways back to the purpose of this whole thing,,

wonnie would be the little spoon until he turns around because you started to speak on something funny that he wants to hear you say again or sum

so he spins around, your arms still around his waist

like the baby girl he is ☝️😌

and he’s just smiling that ugly scary ass smile

and your faces are so close

so when you go quiet after a giggle and glance at his lips

HE SEE’S IT ALL!

and you’re probably already leaning in but haven’t got the guts to fully go for it

so he’d say some shit like

“are you thinking what I’m thinking?” 😭

LIKE? SHUT UP LMAOO

it makes you laugh msksksksj

and he giggles back too :((

then you’re leaning in for him and muah! 🥹

so u see….

he’d never ask,,; but would instead say some dumb shit to kind of insinuate he wants a kiss

another example;

*gets really close to you*

*small silence*

“you want to kiss me, don’t you?” he’d say teasingly

JSJSJSJS MF?

even tho he got close first??

….

fuck off. :(

niki ༉‧₊˚.

sjsj

okay so…

we got riki up…

this kid….🫥

tbh I think if he wants a kiss, he would never ask out loud.

would probably do some type of gesture or something to get your attention and lead you on to kiss him lmao

for example ☝️

he’d walk up to wherever you’re sat, lean over and just get real close to you,, then he’ll proceed to tilt his head and tap his cheek.😒

tap tap…

with that playful smirk of his smh.

now this is all fun and games..so you roll your eyes but kiss his cheek nonetheless..

then this guy! 😠

he’ll tap his other cheek.

so—

muah.

that one gets a kiss too.

he giggles as you stare at him because you’ve done this enough times to know exactly what he wants next.

his pointer finger goes to his lips, and for a second you see his cheeky beauty…the mole on his chin doing no favors for his pretty playful self.

so you decide to give him the kiss of a lifetime bcs HE should be embarrassed!

not you!!! 😣

you confidently grab both sides of his face in your hands and you let the kiss you plant on his lips last a little longer than a peck.

when you pull away he’s still got that cheeky smile,, but now he’s all red in the face and neck and proceeds to scurry off.

brat! 🙄

(we love niki in this household!)

2024 © lovepookie

♡ ︎please do not plagarize, repost, copy or translate any of my works. thank you.

#. . . nanowrites #lovepookie/scenerios.doc #enhypen scenarios #enhypen reactions #enhypen fluff #enhypen x reader #enhypen #enhypen imagines #enha x reader #enha imagines #enha scenarios #enha fluff #heeseung imagines #lee heeseung #enhypen jay #jay imagines #park sunghoon #sunghoon x reader #sunghoon imagines #sim jaeyun #jake sim x reader #jake sim imagines #sunoo x reader #sunoo imagines #niki x reader #enhypen niki #niki imagines #yang jungwon #jungwon x reader #jungwon imagines

[tired-fandom-ndn]

So. My thoughts on Alastor/Vox in a VAAV context.

Let's get general headcanons for Vox out of the way now.

Vox is a human soul demon, one of the modern overlords.

He's the media mogul of Hell, and works closely with Valentino (dominates sex industry) and that one woman they were hanging with (dominates fashion industry)

He died in the late 1990s or early 2000s; I know that that's later than most people ping him, but I'm pretty sure he's a computer monitor instead of a tv.

Probably died from a studio fire or something. He seems like the kind of guy who cuts corners when it comes to employee safety, and I like the idea of that biting him in the ass.

How do he and Alastor know each other?

Maybe they form an alliance and start working together on their own. This would be the easiest scenario because it’d basically be a cheesy romcom.

oh no, their fingers brushed over the soundboard and they both blushed and looked away!

oh gosh, their eyes met while murdering a demon and now they can’t look away from each other! 

oh, their faces are so close that they might. . . just. . . . . . . kiss. . . . . . . . . . . . 😳

will their love persist? will alastor stay in christmas village or will he go back to his work-driven ex who forgot their anniversary the hotel? will vox fight for them to be together, even against all odds? will they both finally get the wish they made upon the north star murder husband they always needed?

the drama! the murder! the suspense! the passion! the romance~!

Maybe they worked together for a short while when Vox first manifested and eventually had a falling out, probably over Alastor's reluctance to embrace modern tech.

Maybe they only knew each other through meetings and other run-ins but didn't get along because of how they're simultaneously so similar and so different.

Either way, they know each other but don't get along too well. Which is a shame because they're both aware that they could be great together.

So anyway. Fast forward to established Alastor/Angel/Valentino.

Vox and Val are hanging out, maybe with Lolita or maybe not, and talking about the weird relationship that Val is in that somehow is working.

And then Val starts to Vox talking about Alastor.

"so I know about that weird crush you've had since forever"

"go fuck yourself"

"and if you want, i can introduce you two officially and you can get a fresh start and see where things go"

"................ go on"

Cause the way I see it, Vox has a huge thing for Alastor but, being an idiot, has no idea how to express that in a normal way.

He did all the gross and inappropriate flirting that always worked before and it just made Alastor clam up (for now obvious reasons).

Then he turned to the demon equivalent of pulling pigtails, and we all see how well that turned out.

Alastor thinks Vox hates him and, in response, has started seeing Vox as a very dangerous threat to his well-being.

long story short, they're both messes who don't know how to communicate

So Val and Angel essentially force them into a room together and, somehow, they eventually start to talk and figure out that they’re both idiots and agree to give the chemistry between them a shot (with Angel and Val’s blessings).

They probably start actually working together too. With these two on the same side for once, or again with Vox being stronger and having a more established presence, they’d probably end up basically being the most powerful overlords in Hell. They’d have a chokehold on almost all media and any information passing through the news, radio stations, theaters, other tv programs, etc.

But what I really want to figure out is what their relationship is actually like.

Are they soft and classic like Angel and Alastor are? With a lot of dates and quality time spent together?

Or are they more fast-paced and fiery, like Angel and Valentino?

Do they actually love each other, or are they at least on their way? Is their relationship queerplatonic? Or is their mutual attraction formed out of fascination and the desire to finally have an equal?

Is their relationship strong and stable, or is it essentially a house of cards built on a slope? Do they fight often? Are their fights violent or just verbal?

Do they have sex? Angel and Alastor don’t, but I headcanon Alastor as sex neutral. If they do have sex, what is their dynamic like with that? Are they good at communicating their needs, desires, and limits? Do they respect each other’s boundaries? If they don’t have sex, does that cause friction in their relationship? Does it make Vox feel resentful or like he’s not good enough? Do they sit through and talk about it, or does Vox stew in silence until it’s too much and he explodes?

Do they hunt together? Do they sit down to eat together, even though Vox doesn’t have a mouth to eat with?

i need to know

Anyway. There’s all my nonsensical ramblings. Feel free to share your thoughts.

#alastor/vox #hazbin alastor #hazbin vox #hazbin hotel #vaav #i went on some weird tangent about hallmark movies there sorry about that

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: Death shall not rest on my doorstep

Summary: Bruce dies and suddenly Gotham, previously claimed by the Omega, is without a ruler. And Jason hadn’t planned to do anything about it, but-

AN: Written for @thursday-batfam-prompts ABO! Because I like non-traditional A/B/O AU’s so this is NOT CREEPY. I repeat: NOTHING CREEPY!

In-between all the vigilante occupied cities, Gotham had always been the odd one out. Not simply because none of its heroes were aliens or meta-humans of any kind, but because it was a claimed territory.

If you passed Gotham city borders, you entered the home of the Bat. It made outsiders vary. They weren’t used to the omnipresent feeling of darkness waiting to wrap them in its shadow. They thought of it as unnatural, gross, and downright frightening. For those who called Gotham home, the Bat’s presence was the sweet reassurance that someone would be there for you at the end of the day. Whether it was to welcome you to the gates of hell or heaven’s feather-light embrace, nobody knew. It was the reason nobody ever truly left Gotham. After years of living under someone’s protection, it was hard to move to another place.

During his training, Jason had spent a couple weeks in Bialya, first tracking down a teacher, then learning under them. While the country wasn’t a place Jason had wanted to spend more time in than necessary, Bialya was also one of the few claimed territories still left in the world. Its ruling Omega Queen Bee couldn’t be further from Bruce, but the weight that came from being in claimed lands had been comforting on Jason’s shoulder.

He had never known what it was like to live in free land. Jason had been a toddler still when Batman had started his crusade. He couldn’t even recall what the city’s scent had been before the Omega had torn through the streets, declaring it his city to nourish and cherish. In the course of one night Gotham’s fate had changed.

And now its direction had turned once more.

Jason knew that there was a difference between death and absence. He was the best example of what either did to you. Absence was breathing in and remembering the taste of something you were missing dearly. Death was defined by taking a breath, choking on glass, and wondering how you could ever lose something as precious as your heart.

Gotham was grieving, had been since Bruce had died - or disappeared if you were to believe the words of an equally destroyed teenager. Jason almost felt sorry for Tim. First, another little Beta disturbed the careful balance of Gotham’s vigilante pack, then their parent and guide died, and finally Dick proved incapable of putting his foot down properly, effectively pushing Tim out.

And meanwhile, Gotham was still in tears. Sure, there was a new Bat on the streets who could hit just as hard as the old one, but in the end, Dick was a Beta and couldn’t claim a territory. It was almost ironic that Crime Alley, Jason’s region, was the most stable one. Its people missed the Bat – How could they not when it had such a much more merciful chokehold than the Red Hood? – but at least its borders were still defined every night.

Jason stretched his arms above his head. It was time to get going, least of all some other second-rate Omega thought he could take what belonged to Jason. As he made his way across the rooftops, Jason stopped once in a while just to turn west and stare. The rest of Gotham whispered sweetly, begging for its Knight in shining armor or, perhaps as Jason used to dream so long ago, for a Robin who had spread his wings.

Bruce gave him a promise ages ago when the streets Jason walked hadn’t run red with his own blood yet.

Nightwing had made his home in Blüdhaven then, barely even a member of their pack, and Batgirl had sought new heights to explore. There had been no other children tearing at Bruce’s cape for attention, whether that was in form of an angry blonde Alpha, another silent Omega or two Beta Robins.

Jason had been a son then, the only other Omega. It had been logical that he’d become the next Bat and inherit Gotham. His eyes had been so wide when Bruce promised him this city, so full of disbelief.

The child that had died had been right to question it. Crime Alley was all of Gotham that ever should belong to Jason, to the Red Hood. The rest was the home of the Bat and a naïve, hopeful Robin dreaming of the future.

Red Hood couldn’t care for a city. His job was to keep it contained.

Jason’s attention spiked when he felt a disturbance two blocks further down. The Bat was halfway across the city, but he could tell that the newest Robin was interrupting on the edge of Jason’s territory. Jason wasn’t really able to pinpoint Damian’s scent. He was a child still, smelling more like a mix of his parents than himself. But Jason was more than familiar what Robin’s scent should be. Before they were even allowed outside, Bruce had taught them how to divide themselves.

This was who you were at home.

(Old books, oil, hot chocolate, lemonade tarts)

This was who the media got to see.

(Ink, money, gold, summer)

And this was who you will be on patrol.

(Hope, streets, laughter, the Bat)

Robin was supposed to be attuned to the Bat. Jason had buried that part of himself deep beneath the anger, blood, birth and decay of the Pit. Damian, however, still smelled like the Bat. Like a Bat who was out of his depth and should have stopped hanging onto Daddy’s legacy when he left this city the first time, but a Bat nevertheless.

What was the little brat doing here? There was no reason-

Oh.

Jason bit on his tongue until it bled. It was a bad habit he hadn’t been able to unlearn even after all the terrible lessons his silence had taught him already.

Someone was trying to lay claim on Gotham, or at least a part of Gotham.

Jason shouldn’t care.

He had his part of town, the rest was up for grabs since Jason distinctly hadn’t claimed it and yet-

It had been supposed to be his years ago. When he still recalled how to not only be the danger waiting to snap your neck but the person you ran to for help. The kids on the street came to him, they recognized his slang and knew he was one of their own – but therein laid the problem. Robin hadn’t been one of them. Robin was theirs, body, soul, mind. If you misbehaved, you’d get hurt, that was given. Batman and Robin wouldn’t be effective if they just gave stern talks. The reassurance that despite everything, you wouldn’t die on the cold and dirty asphalt though, was enough to trust Robin above Red Hood every day. As long as Batman had been there, Jason hadn’t needed anyone to trust him.

But now the difference of Bruce’s disappearance managed to tear a rift the size of the Grand Canyon in-between him and everyone else.

Jason hurried to his bike and raced to Damian. He wanted to see which idiot thought he could trouble the most lethal Robin to date yet and dare to claim his father’s city right in front of him. Jason was halfway there when he recognized the intruder.

Victor Zsasz.

Fuck. Jason hadn’t even known the serial killer had escaped from Arkham.

He was already driving way above the speed limit, the few miles more he pushed for shouldn’t matter. When he arrived at the scene, Jason first scanned the situation. Zsasz was armed, Robin didn’t have his belt, and a couple kids were standing behind Robin’s back. Oh great, civilians. Last thing Jason needed tonight. As soon as he jumped off his bike, even before feet touched the ground, Jason threw a smoke bomb in Zsasz’s direction.

“What the hell-?”

While Zsasz was distracted, Jason ran for Damian’s belt lying on the ground.

“Don’t let anyone ever take this from you,” he hissed as he threw it in Damian’s hands. “You lose the belt, battle’s already looking worse.”

Then Jason turned to the kids. “You, scramble. You don’t want to see this.”

They didn’t have to be told twice and rushed off in the opposite direction, disappearing into another street.

“I had it under control!” Damian lied, so Jason didn’t even bother with a reply.

The smoke cleared up and Zsasz didn’t wait for even a second to jump Jason. The serial killer was dangerous, but he had nothing on the teachers Jason had trained under. Jason grabbed Zsasz’s outstretched arm, breaking his wrist as he took the man’s knife away and used his speed against him to throw him on the ground. He crashed harshly against the asphalt, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from trying to kick Jason’s legs away.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason could see Damian reaching for his batarangs and no. The last thing he needed was more knives in Zsasz’s reach. Instead, Jason let himself be caught and crashed onto the attacker’s back with his knees.

“So you get out of Arkham and the first thing you do is try to claim Gotham,” Jason said. “You’re not really that stupid, are you?”

Zsasz growled and tried to shake Jason off.

“Nobody’s taken Gotham yet!” Zsasz shouted. “The Bat is dead. Has been for weeks now. We all know it! I’m just the first to try to do something about it.”

“And you think you deserve Gotham? You think you’re strong enough to keep this city under your thumb? Don’t make me laugh.”

Zsasz’s face turned into a torn impression of a snarl and he tried to push himself up again, but Jason stopped him by putting pressure on his broken hand. Zsasz hissed and reached for Jason’s leg with his other hand, digging his nails into the armor.

“Don’t act so high and mighty now, little Red Riding Hood, you didn’t do anything either! You’re weak and scared. Barely brave enough to stick to Crime Alley like the trash you are- urgh.”

Jason dunked Zsasz’s face in the ground, but that didn’t stop him. He just kept talking and talking, cutting into Jason’s skin with his words just as well as he would with a knife.

“All dressed up with a Bat across your chest, but we all know you’re not really a part of their pack. You just take like the rest of us. Take, take, take and cut this city into pieces, but you don’t try to fix anything at all.”

“Shut up.”

He didn’t need to hear it, he didn’t want to listen to it anymore. All Zsasz should do now was keep silent and stay down like the scum he was.

“What? Little red afraid to hear the truth?”

“I said, shut up!”

Zsasz kept grinning despite lying on the ground defeated. Jason only had to put a bullet into his head and it would be all over. It would show him what happened when you messed with the Red Hood and tried to take what didn’t belong to you. Jason should claim Gotham to keep all the monsters away from ever touching this city again. Jason should let them rot in the same depth of anger and decay as him.

Them and the rest of the city.

He couldn’t do that to everyone. The rogues of this city, the ugly creatures of terrible massacres deserved to drown in the worst of Jason’s self. But the kids spraying Batman murals and Robin Rs should grow up in a better place.

“Speechless, Red?”

“You,” Jason said and injected Zsasz’s with a sedative. “Talk too much.”

Slowly he stood up. Tomorrow, maybe, Jason would regret it. The Pit would scream at him, and he’d wake up wondering how he could ever let the broken little Robin spread his wings again. But right now Jason was angry. Gotham was his city. The city they had sweat, bled and died for. The hell would he let anybody else take it from them.

No matter what you did, you couldn’t forget Robin. It was almost a little too easy to open up the cage he’d put the kid in and let hope, laughter and the Bat wash over him, effectively switching places with the scent of the Pit.

Zsasz’s eyes went wide, he looked up to Jason as if he saw a ghost. Jason licked his lips.

“Y-you’re dead!” The man screeched. “The Joker killed you! How is your scent like the dead second’s?”

Jason’s shoulders tremored. He wanted to cry, but instead, a pitiful laugh escaped him. He grinned, bright and just on the edge of unsettling.

“He did,” Jason said. “He took a crowbar to my head and didn’t stop until only heaven could have saved me, and it didn’t care. But do you know who cares? Do you know who wanted me back?”

Zsasz tried to push himself to his feet again, only to stumble and fall again in a fit of hysterics. Jason stepped on the man’s back, pushing him down.

“I said, do you know?”

The man sobbed and shook his head. With his hands, he tried to protect his face. Jason could feel Damian’s eyes on his back. He wondered if the kid had ever gotten to see Bruce like this.

“Gotham did. She called me back to keep this city from falling. So listen well and tell all your buddies: This city is mine. It always was, it always will. The Bat gave it to me and if you want it, feel free to knock on our signal and we will answer.”

“W-we?”

 “The Bat, Robin, me and all your worst nightmares.”

Before Zsasz could say another word or continue with his freak-out, Jason hit him at the back of his neck, knocking him out. Zsasz deserved death. All of Gotham would be better off with him dead in a ditch six-feet-under.

But murder was hardly the first thing Jason should do after taking Gotham, if it was something he could afford to do at all.

In the distance, Jason could already hear the police sirens.

“C’mon, Robin,” Jason told his Robin.

His.

It hadn’t even been minutes and Jason was already getting protective. He could already feel the headache coming. Was this how Bruce had always felt day in and day out? No wonder that Betas were usually the organizers in charge of keeping everything else running and Alphas were sent to defend their land. Jason had a hard time recalling a moment he had ever felt as cheerful and nauseous as right now.

But maybe his suffering would be short. Dick would kill him as soon as he got to them. Even if Jason would still have to walk Gotham’s borders at least once to finalize his claim, but Dick would be able to tell right away that this particular Robin had laid claim on the city.

He’d shout and accuse Jason of trying to be Batman, except Jason really wasn’t. The man he had grown up to be couldn’t be Batman.

But he still remembered how to be Robin. To look like he belonged in any street, crack a joke for the crying children and give them hope, and linger in the shadow of the Bat and support him.

Their city, their pack, didn’t need Red Hood to spread the fear right now. He could do this when their runaway Batgirl returned to be this pack’s Omega.

Right now, though, they only had Jason, and there was a particular responsibility that came from caring for a city. Mainly, that you had to love all of it. Every corner, every flaw.

And Jason could do it.

“Todd, what are you doing!? How dare you put your filthy scent on Father’s city!”

Damian had finally found his voice again it appeared.

“I’m putting a claim on our city. And I smell just like you, brat.”

“This isn’t yours-“

“Then whose is it?” Jason interrupted the squirt. “Zsasz is right. B is dead and everybody knows it. Unless this pack got another member with the ability to claim territory lying around, be my guest and let them take all of Gotham. Until then, Gotham will be dealing with me. Don’t worry, I’ll stick to your rules. Now, are you coming or not?”

Another second passed, then Damian got onto Jason’s bike.

“Did B ever take you ‘round the city and showed you how to do proper claiming?”

Jason could feel Damian shake his head.

“Then I’ll do it. The most important part is the visualization. If you don’t know how your home looks, you can’t draw proper borders. You know how Batman forces you to memorize maps before you go out? Imagine that but a hundred times worse. Every day he’d have me learn each street and then go about practicing it. I swear, the first time I managed to make a part of the Batcave mine, it was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done.”

They covered all the bridges, kept driving until the sun was rising again and the newspapers began to shred each other apart trying to explain that it was their dear second Robin who had taken over for Batman. Jason enjoyed the silence of the drive. He and Dick would scream at each other long and loud enough once they returned to the Cave.

#jason todd #bruce wayne #damian wayne #dc #dc comics #batman #fanfic #idk what I'm doing with my life

[majirocksoff]

Majima breaks Kiryu out of prison; now with alt backstories. Majima x Kiryu / Kiryu x Nishiki (implied) Takes place during Y1. (Longfic, 70k words+)

His name is One-Thousand-And-Five.

Yesterday he was someone else, had been given, with the manners of a machine and the politeness of policy, the name, Mr. One-Thousand-And-Six.

Tomorrow he will be someone else again, at the ringing of the perfunctory bell that divorces one day from another: Mr. One-Thousand-And-Four.

In between the going-aways and the coming-tos, he collects names like dust. He goes to the chow hall, and he becomes Wait Your Turn; in going to the yard he becomes Thirty Minutes More. At the shower he gains a uniquely ephemeral identity: Batch-Two-Quickly-Now. He goes in, let the water scald off his skin, be reborn in water burning so hot it strips him red. Coming out shiny like a cooked lobster, he can wear a new identity for the rest of the night: The Dogshit of Dojima.

— —

In his prison cell he is nothing, his action is waiting.

Waiting is not inaction, this is the second thing you learn in prison.

Before prison you have assumptions, and the assumption is that waiting is just something that happens while the rest of your life is unraveling, becoming, acquainting itself to happenstance; fusing itself, in chemical reaction to coincidence, so that events may soon happen. You are always about to do something while you are waiting: buy groceries, run errands, break someone’s neck. Waiting is anticipation, a pre-meditated murder of time.

You were wrong, you know that now. Waiting is action, this is what you learn in prison.

It is an action that must be actively done. You fold yourself as small as possible into diamond-shaped patterns in the privacy of your cell (waiting is not done in public, it is sacred). You may sit cross-legged or seiza, stand on ceremony or leaning coolly, curled up in your bed with an arm tucked behind your head. Sucking your thumb, if you must.

Your exterior does not matter when you’re waiting, what matters is your interior, which must be shrunk. You shrink yourself inside, small-small as possible, until you can be turned around and poured out, and out-plop comes your soul and it won’t fill even a leaky thimble. You do this by stripping identities out of yourself.

Once upon a time you might have wanted to be great, for example, to follow in the footsteps of Kazama-san, to trace yourself in his shadow.

You take this desire and you erase it, line by line from the top, beginning first from the greatest concept then extending to everything else. You first forget the sentence whole; then you dismiss in inches and angry nights everything else: Kazama-san, the concept of greatness, the idea of footsteps, the desire of wanting, an entity of ‘you’, the stretching of time, once of the past, until at last you can be left alone with nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Then you wait.

— —

The first thing you learn in prison, is that you have no identity.

You’re given an ID the moment you step in, and you think philosophical thoughts: ah, is this what I shall be? You were wrong, of course, because a series of number is an identity, and that identity is more solid than what you’ll eventually end up with.

Your identity becomes the days you have left, because 8-1-5-7-6 rankles your ears and bedevils your patience. At roll call, they put existential fear into you: will you be here for eighty thousand days, each by minutes longer than the last? You cannot. You fear. Your soul trembles and weep. You cast it off and take a new name: Mr. Three-thousand-six-hundred, all ten years to be waited tattooed on you; it is a long time but it can be waited. In contrast eighty thousand is forever.

When you take on the others it becomes easier; take them on in the secret corners of the prison where lips can split, skulls can break, nails torn one by one out of grasping flesh. There are many corners where the guards don’t see, willfully blind, and here you can be beaten by anyone: your seniors, your juniors, your hitmen, your old friends, your new enemies. Gradually in blood you extract from them new names:

The Dogshit of Dojima, that fucking backstabbing cunt, the lil Tojo shit, why ya staring, asswankcuntsucker, goddamned cocksucker, oi fuck off, are-ya-happy-now-ya-murdering-cunt, and so on.

They’re fine names; at least they don’t have numbers.

— —

The man with the one eye comes and instantly breaks every rule. He is an earthquake: in his presence you must obey new rules, run for high ground, cower in clear spaces.

He comes, swinging his hips like a new officer, twirling his hands holding an invisible bat, eating with his lips a pop song five years too new for you. He peels back the skin of the cell the moment he arrives. He overturns containers. He looks into the toilet, opens up the flusher, cracks open the sink to examine the deep sadness of the hole in the middle. He takes out his sheets, folds it messily so that he can lay in it like a well fucked boy.

All this you see, his cell is right opposite yours.

“Yo,” He says. He puts his legs up in a cross, carefully, making space for the steel tips he must have worn once. He straightens the eyepatch he was allowed (they had tried taking it from him, but realized too late it was too much a part of him, it would have killed him).

“What’s yer name?”

You are surprised. It is a terrible question, a faux pas, an abhorrent question never asked in prison. How could he, how dare he?

A name? He wants a name? But you don’t have a name, you’re a condemned spirit. You’ve worked hard to get this far. The Japanese dream: work so hard you don’t know who you are. Once you had a name, and it’d laid discarded in a laundry pile. You wait for him to understand how rude he’s been and go away.

“Oi ya deaf? Ya want me to go over there and beat it out of ya?”

There’s three feet of corridor and two sets of bars separating you, and you see that he means it.

You lick your cracked, chapped lips, tried hard to recall…

“My… Name?”

“Just my luck,” He swore. “I’m roomed with a fuckin’ idiot. Your name! Your name! Are ya daft?”

He needs to be patient. Names are the first thing to go, and the last thing to be replaced. He doesn’t know what he’s asking, demanding a name. Oh, the weeks to come, wracked in the throes of identity. Does he not know? Does he not care, how much this hurt, to recall a name?

Reluctantly, slowly (time itself is slow here) it is said.

“My name is… Kazuma. Kiryu. Kazuma, Kiryu, Kazuma. Yes, that’s my name.”

Oh, he says, mouth perfect on an O. The Dragon of Dojima? That Kazuma-fucking-Kiryu? That you? The Dragon of Dojima? The fucking Dragon of Dojima?

“Hell yeah! Always wanted to fight me a dragon! Sit tight in that cell, dragonshit, because I’m comin’ for ya Kiryu-chan!”

— —

Majima Goro was introduced to him in bits of nerve, bones, and tissues.

Kiryu goes as far away from him as he can. Now that he has identity it is not so easy to walk the hallways of the prison; it clings to him like bits of plastic wrap, tight and suffocating, each piece determined to make themselves be remembered. Every nook and cranny and day and night that once he’d lived as a young man of Kamurocho, clamored to be the one to dice his anonymity to pieces. He will not be forgotten, he cannot forget, not if they have any say about it.

In the manner of Majima’s walking and the dance of his fingers on the cutlery he sees the glittering manner of a younger Kamurocho, a visitor, a stranger, here to tell him: time has passed, but not enough time yet so that you can see it firsthand. Time is here to visit. The outside world has been let in, poured angry but fearsome into his cells.

The rattling of Majima’s bars replaces his roll call, his silent private mornings.

“Hey,” He screams (he is always screaming, he has no other verb). “Hey Kiryu-chan! Wake up, I’m bored!”

At night he rattles them like chains, screaming again: “Tell me a bedtime story, Kiryu-chan! Hey? Ya ignorin’ me? I can’t sleep, why don’t ya stay awake too? We could play imaginary shogi, how 'bout that?”

He is gyoku; the king that has come to sweep all of Kiryu’s neat, patiently-allocated time away and replaced it with himself, loud and trying, rolling over all the hallways into the secret corners where he is allowed to beat up Kiryu.

The first time he does this he shatters bone, broke clean through in one piercing fist Kiryu’s entire cheekbone, part of his jaw. Lovingly Majima brought him to the sink and tended his wounds; he tended him five times, smashing Kiryu up-down-up-down onto the metal until it shatters Kiryu’s nerves, it was so loud, and the metal had caught him in the ear. Majima left him tended, tender, tenderized, lying in a pool of blood leaving him rapidly for the freedom of the drains. The water, slow and warm now, cascading over him, lights bright and disorienting, the smell of soap mixed with the secrets of prison bathrooms.

He is made to realize he is fuhyo; a low mere degraded pawn. Like a pawn he could only move forwards, could not retreat, could then only be pushed into Majima’s arms, holding him in a chokehold over metal plates of curry and rice.

“Ya not such hot shit, Dragon of Dojima,” Majima tells him, whispering in his ear. “Ya just plain shit. I’m so disappointed. Ya disappointin’ me here, with your lousy ass performance. Kiryu-chan, ya need to shape up. Ya the best entertainment I’ve got around here and you’re so. goddamned. boring.”

He cracked his neck and laughed the whole time Kiryu goes down.

Once Kiryu remembers, he would have soared with Majima in his clutches and brought him down like thunder, would have stepped on him and never realized it - ah, might have thought, it’s dirtying the soles of my shoe, the little soul of Mad Dog Majima stuck in the rubbery meat he walks on.

“Kiryu-chan!” The hound howls. “Kiryu-Kazuma-chan! Come on, let’s play imaginary shogi! Are ya mad I beat ya? Or are ya mad that I beat ya up? Don’t be such a princess, Kiryu-chan! Let’s play, let’s play, let’s play!”

The hellhound becomes a puppy at night, frolicking in the lonesome cells; his cell bounded by Kiryu’s bounded by others. Only other people don’t matter to him; only strangely, Kiryu mattered to him. Kiryu was fun, Kiryu was gokudo, Kiryu had a past. The others Majima couldn’t wake up, couldn’t ask: who are you? What did you do to end up here? They can’t answer him, all of them mute and anonymous, because most of them have worked hard to forget, and unlike Kiryu could not be brought back.

With their sad sunken eyes and closed eyelids they watch Kiryu and Majima play imaginary shogi; kei-ma leapt over kin over gin, pushing aside hisha, storming onto kaku. Who are you, Kiryu whispers one night in bravado. He pressed his head back against the cell bars, sitting with his eyes closed to better remember the shogi board. Hands folded loosely across his lap, moving invisible pieces around.

I am Kei-ma, Majima whispered. Kiryu collects this identity, examine it in the moonlight, thinks fragmented thoughts –

“Are ya an idiot, Kiryu-chan? It just looks like my name - it’s a joke! Ya stupid ass thinking it means anything?”

He grinned, laughing so hard he overturns their imaginary board; neither can remember now which pieces were where. “This prison getting to ya, you’re a goddamned old fuck now.”

— —

Trapped now in the machine of his identity, Kiryu loses his numbers. He realized this one day when he had to go down to the office, to ask with form in hand exactly how many days he had to wait; the answer came back and surprised him, he is holding less numbers than he thought he had. They had slipped through his fingers and rolled into forgotten corners when he wasn’t watching.

He is now Mr. Nine-Hundred-and-Fifty, a whole month having passed him in scorn. Those numbered days he could no longer wear; Majima had forced his identity back onto him and they won’t go on now, came on like a loose coat, baggy in the elbows. He can no longer wait, at least wait the way he used to. There is no patience to be had, with Majima strolling bored and callous into his privacy, intruding with answers, leaving with questions.

Why are you here, Majima-san, he asked - desperate to give Majima more form, more identity, to know more so that he can become less to Kiryu.

What crime did you commit? Who did you kill? How did you live?

“Wouldn’t ya like to know, Kiryu-chan? I’m bored, bored, so maybe I’ll tell ya - but ya have to beat me first.”

They dance in the yard. They have exactly six minutes before the officers come with batons and extra days, so they must be quick, trading fists until their faces are bloated with blood and torn epidermis; Kiryu dancing better now but still far from a match to Majima, so that Majima danced with him only because he had no better partners. A fallen dragon made of shit was still better than just plain shit. Majima pivots on the officer, says: it’s me, I started this.

An act of generosity. It surprises Kiryu, he doesn’t know what to say, Majima taking this sin into the confession of his records.

“I ain’t plannin’ ta stay here twenty-five years, so what’s a few months that I won’t be around for?” He bared nasty teeth at Kiryu. “I ain’t like ya. I ain’t the wallowing sort. I’ll be out before six months is up.”

Oh, Kiryu said. Glad but sad, sad and glad. He is relieved that Majima in leaving will restore him to his formless mass again; bittersweet that he loses such a strict mold. Kiryu Kazuma Kazama Nishikiyama Dojima. Things he can’t forget as long as Majima is around, rooting him, anchoring him without his permission and against his wants.

“Whoooo—”

— —

The days are slipping away so fast now that he has to seize it with both hands clenched so tight his knuckles go white. Stay, he commanded. Stay. Seizing his miserable days in his hands, he watched Majima prepare for flight. By inches and minutes and lost seconds he withdraws from Kiryu, become more and more likely to disappear during yard time and bath time and free time, to meet with associates strange and shapeless huddling in the other yard.

Lined up against theirs but separated by a fence is the small-timers, the low-hitters, the off-ballers, little people who won’t be doing more than six months in the most deprived luxuries, off-site beside them, counting less than one-hundred-eighty-days.

It is these people that Majima meets, forehead-to-forehead like lovers, whispering convoluted plans calculated like algebra. When they hide, when they bother to hide, Majima scratches at the fence with loose-tipped fingers, plucking the fence like a guitar, plucking tunes at his associates until they come: unwilling but bowed by Majima’s boys who’d sequestered themselves in the smaller prison.

Where is — He demanded.

What is —

How shall —

How does the flight mechanism work? How does Kiryu find out? He finds out in nerves; Majima sometimes, sidling up to him, having the nerve to ask: I have a question. Where is the control room for —

Kiryu frowning, turning away, saying go, go I don’t know, don’t trouble me, I’ve never seen, I couldn’t possibly know, I never meant to go, never meant to leave, this prison is for me, nine-hundred-days only left to be. Majima beating him with his fists until he lay shivering and nurturing wounds on the ground, beating his identity into him.

Tell me what you see, Majima demanded.

“Kiryu-chan, don’t ya lie to me. I’ve been watchin’ ya watchin’ and ya know it. Ya just don’t know that you know it. Well, that’s what I’m for. I’m going to beat your piece of shit memory into your head.” He seized Kiryu by the collar, lift him up so that he could be closer to the sun, shaking him over and over again.

“Tell me! Where is it? You know where it is!”

Come, Kiryu told him, spitting out blood. Led him to the dark places in the prison where things can be seen, push him into corners angled right, take him away from plans angled wrong. You’re not doing this right, he told Majima. This control room is patrolled all the time, six-at-a-go, it’s a no-go, a no-show, what you want, really want, is this other place. You won’t know it unless you’ve been like me; a man without identity, they don’t let anyone see if they’ve got eyes. The crow-pig comes and pluck out your eye, one on each side, if they see you waiting to watch.

“I get it,” Majima said. “Thanks.”

More, “Hey, ya wanna come with—”

No, he said, he only had nine hundred more to go, it didn’t mean anything to him. All he wants is for Majima to leave, and quickly - so that he can once more be subsumed by anonymity.

— —

In bits and pieces he watch Majima assembled his plan; in his patience Kiryu had learned to see everything, and in so seeing saw that his plan would work before Majima himself knows it. Majima shrunk and wrapped himself in ignorance until the plan itself is executed. He goes with the flow, himself. Doesn’t need to have foresight. He’ll work it until it works, even if he fails this time. They waited calm and nerveless in their cells for the escape that will come soon.

“It’ll work,” Kiryu told him sleepily. Tomorrow, he’s thinking. This will be their last game of imaginary shogi, so he slipped: slipped the golden knife in and ate Majima’s king whole.

“Damn, ya good, Kiryu-chan. Ya totally wreck me this time.”

“Thank you for teaching me how to play.”

“Teach ya? Kiryu-chan, ya always knew how to play. Don’t ya know? Don’t ya remember? You could do anything you wanted - that’s why you were the dragon. All I did was make ya remember.”

Oh, he doesn’t remember anymore; all he’d wanted to was forget. Tomorrow when Majima is gone, he’ll go back to forgetting again. Reverse-engineering an onion, putting back layer by layer his thin skin to cover the sound of the silence inside. Eight-hundred-something more days to be lived. The days had leapt from his hands but he’ll have them back under rein again. When Majima is unleashed.

“Good luck, Majima-san,” He said.

“Thanks, Kiryu-chan. Couldn’t have done this without ya,” Majima said.

— —

He comes awake, frightened by the silence.

Kiryu sat in the dark and listened: there were no sounds. Not just the greater sounds of the outside world: cameras that had stopped working, alarms silenced and napping, doors grinding to a halt in mid-air. There is silence in him everywhere that frightens him - he can no longer hear the sound of forgetfulness, he’s forgotten how to forget…

A knife pressed itself tightly to his jugular, nicked him not because it’d miscalculated. Its owner was just sadistic, wanted him to bleed, wanted to see the sheen of a dragon’s blood.

“Kiryu-chan.” whispered Majima. “Ya coming with me.”

“No,” He gasped. “No.” He wanted to stay, was terrified by the outer world.

“I ain’t givin’ ya a choice. Ya coming with me, whether ya like it or no. Ya my present to that fucking Nishikiyama cunt.”

He pushed his knife in. Hissed orders at Kiryu until reluctantly, Kiryu unfolded himself and groped with seeking hands in the darkness. At length he found the thread of the plan, and began to follow it as it unraveled in the darkness of the prison, its silvery length glowing with hope. They walked down the halls quiet and empty illuminated by the shining spool. Somewhere somehow Majima had secreted all the officers away.

The inmates lined row by row in their rat-holes to watch them, trapped in their cell that wouldn’t open. When they realized what had happened, they howled like hell itself - unfair! unfair! unfair! - and hands scratched, brushed, rend at them from all sides. The inmates will drag them down to the pits if they could only reach…

Outside.

Air the same but different; they’re on the other side of the fence now. There is a motorcycle waiting, a snakeskin jacket, a small tanto and a helmet. A set of clothes prepared by someone who thought Kiryu was as big as he’d seen Kiryu last. Untrue, he has shrunk now, made skinny by the weak broth of prison.

“Put on the helmet,” Majima said. There was only one.

“Don’t you—”

“I can’t fuckin’ see with a black glass on, asshole. Vision strictly 10/20. 'sides,” He smiles. “That skull of yours worth ten of mine, isn’t it?”

Kiryu knew nothing; there was too much not being said. He climbed onto the motorcycle, clamped loose hands around Majima’s middle, and then they flew, across snowy landscapes into the cold and a freedom he never wanted but had received.

#kazumaji #majima #majima goro #yakuza #fanfic #ryu ga gotoku #kiryu kaz

[sneakywitch-thief]

Words:  4,577 || One-Shot Robert Joseph MacCready/Lucy MacCready

An unlabeled holotape found in a Third Rail trash can.

( A short look into MacCready's past set in the world of my fic "It Had To Be You", but can be read independently.)

Now for all you Johnny Mathis fans out there in the Capital Wasteland, playing ‘til forever, it’s The Twelfth of Never.

Even now, Three Dog’s still running Galaxy News Radio.  

Him and his damn— dang Brotherhood goons.  They’ve got DC in a chokehold and its even got most of the mercs spooked.  The ones that have a shred of a soul, anyway.  After the clean water started flowing it was good for a while, but now.  Now that the Brotherhood’s got its shit— crap together, they took back everything they promised, and then some.  It was all some ploy, I guess, to get us wastelanders in line.

Even Little Lamplight hadn’t been entirely immune to that.

That funny mungo who passed through Little Lamplight never came back, now that I think about it.  Said I looked like her butt and insulted my mom, even with my rifle pointed right between her eyes.  Balls of brass.  Last I heard of her, though, she got herself killed to get the Brotherhood’s little project up and running.  Used her all up too.  She was our friend, she had saved some of the kids.  Hearing she helped the Brotherhood, that mungo, our mungo, well.  We were a bit friendlier to mungos in steel after that.  We didn’t just outright shoot them like we damn right— like we definitely should have.  Lucy even gave them some of our fungus for their drugs and medicines.  It was good for a while.  Life was good, if you can believe it.

Then Lucy and I got big.  Didn’t matter that I had made Little Lamplight what it was.  Rules were rules, even for the mayor.

Big Town was a mess when we got there.  Our kids who got big, well, they had been easy pickings for raiders and slavers and muties.  Our mungo helped them out a bit, so they survived, at least.  We were far enough from DC that we didn’t feel what happened right away.  It was good for a while.  I found work to support me and Lucy guarding caravans.  Got good caps to buy food and Brotherhood Aqua Pura.  Better guns for our big kids in Big Town.  Funny, how I still think of them as kids.  Most were older than me and Lucy, but still.  I had been their Mayor and I had done well by them.  They were good kids, and they were mine.  So I did my all to keep doing that.

I took different jobs, a bit shadier and some a bit less moral, but hey.  I had a wife to feed and my own stomach to fill, don’t judge me.  Lucy kept doctoring for Big Town, even helped travelers and merchants with their brahmin even though she didn’t know a thing about them.  Didn’t stop her from learning.  She wanted to help.  All the time, mothering anyone and everyone and just being so damn— dang— so dang kind.  And the world ain’t kind to kind people.

And true to fashion, the world went and made her an actual mother.  

You ask me how much I need you, must I explain? I need you, oh my darling, like roses need rain

I didn’t know quite what to think when she told me.  I still hadn’t even told her what I was actually doing on all those long jobs in the Capital Wasteland.  I told her I was a soldier.  I couldn’t tell her that I was a hired gun for half a dozen merc groups, taking and stealing and killing to put bread on the table.   I don’t know why, I had done worse to protect Little Lamplight when I was mayor and she hadn’t batted an eye then.  But now, married to a girl I didn’t deserve and now to be the father of her child— a father!  The words would just catch in my throat and choke the courage straight out of me.  So I’d slink off to another job or some other thing.  Anything to distract me from the thought of actually being a father, I guess.  The thought of it all terrified me.

When Duncan was finally born, happy and healthy, well.  I was more scared than ever.  He was this tiny and delicate thing, beautiful and perfect, a miracle, and me.  Me, his merc daddy and his mother who knew fuck-all, er, nothing about it all, I wondered what on earth I had done to deserve him.  At first, I felt like I didn’t.  I didn’t spend a lot of time in Big Town, or at the homestead we built together some years later.  There were always more jobs to take and more caps to make.  Looking back I have no clue why Lucy decided to stay with me, but for some reason she stayed.  She stayed and raised our son, built our home, and loved me.

And I was there for almost none of it.

I didn’t see my son’s first steps or hear his first words, and at the time I told myself I didn’t care.  I was making sure we survived and I was providing for them, that was enough.  Jeez, I remember now Lucy playing with him, he was two, I think.  He was smashing together some blocks she had whittled him, she sneaking glances at me as she picked up another of his messes.  And during it all I was pouring over some new rifle or loading pistols.  I don’t remember that anymore, but I thought it was important at the time, I think.  A soldier, I told her I was, gunning for the Brotherhood.  They were the good guys, I would lie to her, we’re making the Wasteland a better place.  And at that she would smile and tell me she was proud of me.  I hated hearing it every time but, hey, if it kept up the lie it was good enough for me.  I remember the guns, Lucy walking up to me and wrapping her arms around my neck, settling her head next to mine.

She told me that she’d be having another.

And I remember being, of all things, mad at her.  Wasn’t one kid enough for her, I had wondered, as if it had been in her control or something.  I was having enough trouble even being able to look at Duncan, being what I was and how I was, I was a pretty shit— no, I think I’ll say it.  I was a pretty shit father and husband, then.  Having two kids with a shit father seemed a bit much, and to me then, well.  Might as well have been the end of the world for me.

So I did what I was best at, lied about having to do a job or something and split.  I think that was my first time to the Commonwealth, after she told me.  Place was almost sh— crappier than the Capital Wasteland, if you could believe it.  Good bar in Goodneighbor to drink away my sorrows.  Spent all the caps I would have earned that job drinking at that bar.

When I came back Lucy was bigger then, and Duncan was too.  They were both so beautiful, waving at me from behind the rows of razorgrain, Duncan running to catch me around my knees.  Daddy, daddy, he was nearly screaming his joy.  That smile, that f— that freaking smile on his face, every time he saw me.  Breaks my heart even thinking about it, now.  Especially now.

Lucy pulled me aside that night and told me she was getting lonely.  Didn’t we have enough to get by now?  Couldn’t we settle down now, raise our children?

God, I loved them so much, but at the time, hell if I knew it.  All I could think about was all the danger around the corner and the caps we needed to stay alive.  I ran on that, I had to.  I couldn’t handle being a husband, a father.  Shooting, stealing, killing — that was what I knew.  What I know.  So I kept doing that.  I brushed her off, telling her raiders and slavers didn’t just stop and settle down.  I had to keep working, getting caps, soldiering as I told her.  Doing my part and fighting the goddamn Good Fight.  More lies to keep her happy, to keep her from knowing who I really was.  And it worked for a while.

You ask how long I'll love you, I'll tell you true Until the Twelfth of Never, I'll still be loving you

She was pretty well along with our second when the Aqua Pura stopped flowing.

Of course, it still was here and there, say through my merc contacts — but the merchants weren’t carrying it anymore.  They couldn’t, they would tell me, the Brotherhood wasn’t giving it freely anymore, and what remained of the purified Potomac was swarming with the horrors of the Wasteland.  They had quit their patrols outside of DC.  Merchants couldn’t even buy the stuff, they had to brave muties and ants and ferals for it at the river.  And of course none of them did.  I had nearly blown one of their heads off, the a fu— freaking coward.  I needed the stuff for Lucy.  She had told me children weren’t easy to have here in the Wasteland, what with all the radiation and the disease and the fighting.  So I only ever got the best for her.  For our kid.  She almost lost Duncan once when I couldn’t get any of the good stuff.  Got so sick she couldn’t even stand, and then the bleeding...  

Ever since, only Aqua Pura would do.

So I went to DC, through all the muties and all the whatever else decided to ‘eff me up that day, and went straight to the Brotherhood.  Cut through all the dang middlemen, get straight to the source, you know?  Well DC was a warzone again, what with the Brotherhood infighting.  It had stopped though, suddenly and without warning, and the streets of DC were quiet.  I remember feeling uneasy about it.  I finally found them holed up in the Citadel, even the red ones.  Something was off, but I didn’t give a damn.  Getting water for Lucy, that was something I could do.

They offered me water in exchange for hired muscle.  Like an idiot, I agreed.  I was part of a team of mercs, some of them I had done less savory work with before, some looked more like raiders than anything.  We were all men and led by one of the reds’ officers, some Paladin.  They called the job a supply run.  Didn’t know why they needed mercs for that, but hey, they were giving me good water so who cared.  We went to some settlement built out of a fallen building.  Not many people there, and it looked like it had seen better days.  Like the rest of us, they were hurting bad for the pure water we had become accustomed to.  Being in the worst of the Wasteland, they were getting the worst of the water.  Many were dead or dying from it.  

That, that was even we could see just looking at them as the red Paladin spoke to some scruffy looking scavver.  The conversation between them wasn’t long, and after it a few bottles of precious Aqua Pura switched hands.  I remember being taken aback by it at first, as I was working for the jerks and I wasn’t getting any until the job was done.  But then the scavver went into his tent and brought out what must’ve been his wife.  She was just as scruffy looking as he was, if not more.   She was quiet.  A little girl clung to her ankles, giggling at being dragged about.  Another child, an older boy, looked somberly on from the door.  I thought of Lucy and Duncan at the sight.  I wanted to see them for some reason, then, so much so my heart ached with it.  But I brushed it off and focused on the job.  We left the settlement, undoubtedly to move to the next one.  I wondered, absently, what kind of supplies we were trying to get.  Or were we just giving them away?  But no, the merchants weren’t getting any.  What gives, I thought to myself, and soldiered on.

The woman and her girl followed us.  When we got far enough from their settlement, the girl got scared and started crying.  Wailing.  Made me think of Lucy back home, across the Potomac and far away from all this.  Was she crying for me, about having to raise Duncan and the next kid all on her own, run the farm, while I was trying to run from it all?  That little girl crying reminded me of all of this and I needed it to stop, immediately.  The annoyed Paladin shouting back another order to quit it just made it more official.

So I bent down to the girl, remembering Lucy’s tricks to make Duncan calm from his frequent toddler rages.  Puffing out my cheeks, funny faces, the whole thing.  Probably made myself look like an a— like an idiot to the other mercs, but who cares?  I needed that girl to stop crying before I did too.  She thankfully got to laughing then at me, and it was better then.  When I stood and went to move back to spot in formation, the mother spat at me.  She called me cruel.  

Hold me close, never let me go Hold me close, melt my heart like April snow

I shrugged it off, thinking it was just her being naggy or crabby or something, and went back to my position.  When we stopped for the night, and the woman and her child were still following us, I asked why she was there.  The merc I asked, a really shady guy called Neil I had run a heist with a few years back, had instead of answering me, given me a cigarette.  He asked me about how my wife was doing, if she had had her kid or not.  For what I later learned to be good reason, something in my gut told me I shouldn’t answer him.  Something was off.  But I wanted to know, so I told him.  Duncan was as healthy as can be, and a second was on the way.  Lucy couldn’t have literal sh— crap water, so here I was.  Neil just nodded over his cigarette and never answered me.  But at that point, I had got to thinking about her and him and nothing else really mattered anymore.

Suddenly I just wanted the job to be over so I could go home.  I thought seriously about just doing what Lucy told me.  Settle down.  For good, stop doing godda— gosh-dang merc work, farm the earth and be a father, a husband.

The next morning we were off to the next settlement and the Paladin talked to two more men.  The first was a filthy old man, so old I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had dropped dead from a fart right then and there.  The red Paladin gave him three bottles of water and the old man brought out a woman with only one arm. One of many of his women, if what I saw through the open door was right, and most were in similar condition.  She was despondent and wouldn’t answer our questions, but sidled over to our woman and her girl.   We left the old man and his women, despite the pleading looks they gave us.  The Paladin did nothing and neither did we.  As we walked I looked back to the women that followed us.  They must have been good friends or something, I had thought, because they held their hands so hard their knuckles were white.

The next house was more of a tent than anything, and the Paladin talked to this guy who looked like a literal greaseball.  Balding and fat, covered in grime, chewing on some sort of leaf as he listened to the Paladin.  He accepted ten bottles of Aqua Pura with a toothless smile and parted the flap of his tent.  Inside was a teenage girl, so young she wouldn’t even be a mungo by Little Lamplight standards, if she had had the luck to be with us.  She screamed at the sight of the Paladin.

He dragged her out kicking and screaming by the hair.

I really wanted out of the job after that, after I realized what it was.  When we were ordered to shackle her to the other women, the little girl.  When we herded them into the gates of the Citadel.  For my work, I was given five bottles of Aqua Pura, half of what we had bought a teenage girl for, and a sack fat and heavy with caps.  I remember clearly walking home the weight of those caps, that water that felt so tainted with the mark of Brotherhood upon it, the stain of what I had witnessed.  Of what I had done.  What I had stupidly told that, that fucker Neil!  I remember then throwing them all in a dumpster and breaking into a sprint.

Lucy and Duncan were sleeping when I burst through the door, nearly out of breath and muscles screaming from running for miles without rest.  We have to leave, I remember saying, packing up what little we had in a suitcase in a frenzy, we have to go.  Lucy, after she had woken and seen the look on my face, the terror, she didn’t question.  She gathered up Duncan, carried him in her thin arms above her massive belly, and followed me as we ran from the place that had been our home.  A light appeared in the sky in the distance, growing bigger.  I knew immediately what it was and told Lucy and Duncan to stay quiet and hide in the far end of our razorgrain fields.  

I watched with a sinking heart as the vertibird landed outside our homestead, armored men in red and silver milling about.  They kicked open the door when no one answered, began searching when they couldn’t find us.  Their headlamps were approaching.  I don’t know how, I can’t remember from the adrenaline and panic in that moment, but we got past them, only shot at once or twice, and away.  Though I’d like to say far away.  The Wasteland was too empty to evade sight by their Vertibirds, ironically our only safe haven was among the ruins of DC.  I hated the idea of having to go closer to them to get away from them, but there weren’t too many options.

We took the metro system to evade notice, and maybe, flee the Wasteland.  To what lengths would the Brotherhood search for us?

I'll love you 'til the bluebells forget to bloom I'll love you 'til the clover has lost its perfume

Well, we never found out.  The Metros were something both taken and avoided by many.  In the days before the Brotherhood change in leadership, well.  There had been patrols to clear out feral nests and mutant hives.  Not anymore.

All the routes I had learned over the years through my merc jobs, none panned out.  We got lost in the dark twists and turns, we got blocked by locked gates or train cars scattered or busted to hell by explosions or who knows what horrors that walked these tunnels.  Sometimes tunnels carried the echoes of the laughter of drugged-up raider gangs, others the freaky shouting of super mutants.  Hours passed, or minutes that felt like it, I don’t know.  But we were lost in the metro and we were at our wit’s end.

It got dark again, and Duncan was hungry.  When he began to cry, it carried loud and long through the tunnels.  It was shrill and it near made my heart stop.  Lucy did her best to make him stop, but he was inconsolable.  He wouldn’t stop fucking crying, and when I heard the scrambling and the shuffling of feet I knew soon we’d all be.  I yelled at them to hide and we do, in a subway car.  This horde of ferals, more than I’ve seen in my entire goddamn life, come running down the tunnel searching for us.  There’s like, thirty.  Fifty.  I don’t even know how many, but all I’ve got is this stupid fucking hunting rifle from my Little Lamplight days on me.  My arsenal’s back at the house, which is swarming with Brotherhood sons of bitches and now there’s a bunch of ferals between me and them, so I’m fucked.  The thing’s a rusty bolt-action and I’d maybe manage to gun down two or three before we’re torn apart.  They’re slowing now, following the echo, but they don’t know where we’ve gone.  Fucking miracle, that.

I tell Lucy to sneak down the car, past the ghouls and down the tunnel.  I’d stall them here and follow them.  I knew I could outrun them, and I’d distract them from Lucy and Duncan, who were slow.  It’s a fucking dumb-ass plan, but it’s the only one I’ve got, okay?  I tell her to run, I push her when she tries to say no.  She has to, for our kids.  A ghoul hears us, starts walking towards us through the darkness.  It’s face, it’s face freaks out Duncan and he starts screaming again.  Lucy clamps a hand on his mouth but it’s not enough.  She runs off at a sprint, but she’s so pregnant she’s waddling and straining with the effort of it.

Fuck, fuck, fuck it all!

I slam a leg bone from a nearby skeleton into the handles of the subway door and smash open a window with my elbow.  I start firing at the ghouls trying to get in at me, one by one, I fire at their fucking heads.  They explode, bloody and wet and they fall to the ground.  For every one I shoot there’s two more and the bone won’t hold forever.  I hear Duncan still fucking screaming and it’s so much louder here in the tunnels, I can hear it it’s so fucking loud in my ears it hurts, but I keep firing.  As fast as I can I keep firing, and the bone creaks with a sickening snap.  God, they’re breaking through and—

They scramble over each other for me, for flesh, and I keep firing as I run, I have to.  They can’t reach Lucy, they can’t reach Duncan.  I need to fucking stop them or I have to distract them from the screaming from my wailing little boy or something, anything, but god damn it I can’t! One runs past me, then two.  I turn and sprint past them, punching them or kicking them in the back of their melted legs to trip them.  But it’s not enough, it’s not enough!

I catch up to Lucy, and thankfully I’m still ahead of the ghouls.  But her hair’s sticking to her face from the sweat, her face strained from the exertion of the running, from carrying Duncan.  She looks about ready to collapse, but still when she sees me she gives me one of her smiles.  It’s tired and weary from the pain from the running, from fear of the ghouls, but still.  It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and the sight of it is burned like a brand into my fucking brain.

I'll love you 'til the poets run out of rhyme Until the Twelfth of Never and that's a long, long time

She trips then, a ghoul has her.  She yelps at it bites at her.  Duncan falls out of her hands and to the ground, hitting his head on the concrete.  Immediately, he’s quiet.  So quiet I can feel, I can hear, my heart drop.  I scream, everything’s falling apart.  My body burns with adrenaline, with fear, with everything as I scoop up Duncan and kick the ghoul in the face.  But there are five more behind them running faster than I can shoot them and their mouths slobbering with hunger, and who knows how many behind them.  I can’t see for shit anymore anyway, there are too many tears.

She sees them too, looking back, and she tells me to run.

Lucy, I can’t just leave you!  I can’t leave you to die!  Lucy!  I’m screaming at her, crying freely now, I can’t stop it.  Thinking about it now, looking back, I feel it again.  God dammit.

She tells me to save Duncan.

I don’t know how I managed to escape the Metro with Duncan, unconscious in my arms, or how I found myself at a farm north of the Capital.  Lucy wasn’t there.  She still hasn’t come back, in these years, though part of me still wants her to come back to me.  I never told her that I loved her, not even as she left herself for the ghouls.  More than anything, I want to tell her that.

I… I want to tell you that.

Duncan’s four now, and I’ve sworn to be better for him, but shit, it’s so fucking hard without you.  He needs a father to be there for him and he keeps asking where his mother is, fuck, he can’t remember your face anymore, Lucy!  He doesn’t remember the Metro, thank god, but he can’t forget you.  Fuck, I can’t forget you.

And now he’s coming down with something real weird and I don’t know what to do.  He’s, he’s sick.  He’s coughing and he’s covered in these blue boils and it’s scaring me to death, the doctors I’ve talked to and wasted all my fucking caps on don’t know anything.  Lucy!  Lucy, I can’t… I don’t know what to do.  Where ever you are, just, just help me.  Please.  I can’t lose him, too, not after losing you.  

I’ve heard about all the tech in the Commonwealth, I’ve seen it.  Before the war that’s where all the egg-heads went, right?  There might be something there, some medicine or something, that might be able to help him.  I’m thinking of leaving him here in the care of this family I’ve been a farmhand for the past year or so.  Don’t worry, they’re good people and I think I can trust them.  If not, I’ve given them a fuckton of caps to keep him safe until I can find a cure for him.

Until the Twelfth of Never and that's a long, long time

But anyway, the caravan I’m leaving with is calling for me.  They’ll leave if I don’t go— well, and I’m sick of hearing that fuck— freaking Brotherhood sellout Three Dog anyway.  Why didn’t I turn off that damn radio before I started recording… and what’s with this song anyway?  So terrible, making my eyes water.

Shit, I said all that while I was recording?  I meant to make something for Duncan for when he was old enough, if I didn’t come back, to remember his old man— but, f-freakin’ heck, this stuff is utter shit.  Said too much.  You’d be better at this, Lucy, I think.  I’ll have to delete this later…

Anyway, I’m headed out so I guess this is goodbye, huh?  I already told Duncan but I guess I should tell you too.  Leaving you two and the Wasteland behind…

Good-bye, Lucy.  I… I love you.

[static.]

#fallout #fallout 4 #fo4 #robert joseph maccready #maccready #ih2bu #it had to be you #writing #fanfiction #ff #fanfic

[djerinyes]

Baby, Won’t You Stop

After a full day of drinking orange juice and nursing a horrifying, vision-blurring, ear-ringing headache following Reed and his monster hunting excursion, Daejun could finally stand light enough to start up his laptop. The act was grim, as he was setting up to curse Reed, but the man had to learn to respect his abilities enough to not go fucking with them by making wishes without asking. 

Daejun was a patient, supportive individual who liked to see people change for the best, and he aided them in his own specific way. He never tried to be more than who he was, rarely going out of his way to show kindness, instead acting blunt, removed, and cold. It was only because he was so stoic that, when he did express friendliness to anyone else, they could be sure it was genuine, without hidden meanings or underhanded manipulations, or worry that he was only doing it because he pitied them. One of the ways he showed his good intentions was by helping the friend out, either by buying them things, or supporting their passions and emotions with a firm, guiding presence. He enjoyed seeing those close to him struggle, but only because when they succeeded, he could celebrate them, and when they failed, he could provide comfort and reassurance. 

Like a wayward, hormonal teenager, Reed didn’t understand that Daejun acted out of caring for him (barely any of it was the desire to see him fail, as the man suspected), and grew bitter and suspicious of him. Why? He didn’t know, but he could guess it had to do with Reed’s ego, insecure personality, and desire to prove himself which stemmed from being the weaker one in the relationship both mentally and physically. He couldn’t let himself be vulnerable, instead warping his soft human mind into playing petty games and stealing to keep himself from the truth, and any aid. Daejun didn’t mind the former, because he knew he could work him through it, but the latter was a dark act, and he intended to shut it down in a week with a single jinx.

Reed stole something without asking, and it felt too much like he was trying to take authority of his abilities, life, and body. Daejun wasn’t a free, lawless wish dispenser who could just sit back and let Reed have his way, relinquishing control over something that was his so much that he’d worked years to cement it into his soul. No matter how Reed pushed and pulled, he wouldn’t allow the incantation to become a leash that kept him in a chokehold, and the impending punishment was the slap to Reed’s face that he’d been too restrained to deliver as soon as the deed was done. 

The price of the mutant thing in cases like this, when none was named previously, was years off Reed’s life, which didn’t benefit him in the same way an enchanted necklace or weft of hair did. Physical payment forced the client to put some thought and energy into their request no matter how rich or poor they were, where years were ripped from someone who truly had nothing to give, or rushed the process too much. He couldn’t exactly do much with them, and receiving them made him feel about a thousand times more oily and unclean than before, but now they’d been forced into him in the worst way possible, and he was going to do something about it. Just because he viewed Reed fondly didn’t mean he could ignore his clumsy attack. Really, he was an idiot for insulting a creature whose life purpose was to facilitate revenge. 

Daejun didn’t think Reed truly understood what he’d done, or meant to cause such harm, but with any luck his incoming punishment would be enough to curb the behavior. 

The curse itself had two arms, both of which had been thoroughly mulled over. The first arm was of dread, and would force Reed into a state of panic for a full week, complete with an elevated heart rate, feeling faint, chills, breathing difficulties, and an impending sense of doom which would only increase as the days went on. The second arm played off his tendency to waffle, and dictated that every time he was indecisive, he’d bleed out his eyes, ears, nose, or mouth. They fed each other well, since a terrified Reed wouldn’t want to make any decisions, and the resulting bleeding would only feed the panic attack. They were frightening, but without the potential to be deadly, though Daejun still planned on monitoring him closely, just in case; if he showed signs of hysteria or asphyxiation, he was prepared to lift it and give him a break (though he doubted that would happen since Reed was so lovingly familiar with dread). 

His computer dinged gently, signaling that it was started and ready to use, so he navigated to his favorite cam girl’s website, entered, and tipped her a few hundred dollars to get her attention. A moment later, she brought them to a private room, grinning with her purple lips and eagerly awaiting instruction. 

“My dear, it’s been so long, hasn’t it? Are you ready to make a wish?” 

#para #para: Baby Won’t You Stop #touchofsolo #reedhan #tldr: daejun cursed reed for making a wish without permission

[wolfwithpaws]

trying to make a Perryshmirtz playlist. Need ideas for songs.

Please Help. Already have

I Knew You Were Trouble.

American Beauty/American Psycho

Disgusting

Love Like You

My Blood

Super Psycho Love

I Hate You, I Love You

Hot N Cold

Flares

Docter

I'm Coming After You

I Do Adore

Must Have Done Something Right

Genghis Khan

A Musical

There! Right There!

JUST LOOK MY WAY

Nemeses

Can I Have This Dance

When We Didn't Get Along

Also unrelated but I originally the P in Perryshmirtz wasn't capitalized. Grammarly is so fucking used to hearing about Perryshmirtz it just fucking tells me "Oh yeah, you didnt capitalize the ship name to the gay secret agent and bisexual "evil" scientist. Might wanna change that. lmao."

what is my life

#dr. heinz doofenshmirtz #gay #perry the platypus #perryshmirtz #music #spotify #spotify playlist #these two have taken over my brain #these two fucking idiots have a chokehold on my soul #please guys I need ideas #Perryshmirtz nation #gay romance