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luxaofhesperides · 4 months

Note

For ghost lights prompts: eldritch/creepy/weird Danny + shy/flustered Duke + hand holding

Your ghostlights fics are giving me so much joy RN I cannot express how much, if this prompt doesn't spark a brain worm for it I get it but I'm excited to read all the others you may wind up posting

There’s a new kid at West Robinson High School.

This normally wouldn’t be a big deal. They get plenty of new students, being an average high school; not prestigious like Gotham Academy, but not terrible like some of the schools in the lower South Side. New kids are hardly anything to make note of, but something about this student has everyone paying attention to him.

It’s not charisma. The guy doesn’t talk to anyone. It’s not attractiveness, because no one really knows what he looks like under the tattered hoodie he wears all the time. It’s not curiosity, not really, because the student body moves around him like he’s dangerous, not like they want to pry all his secrets out into the open.

It doesn’t help that Duke sees things around him.

He considers briefly telling someone about it, but then remembers having to argue for returning to West Robinson High School instead of being put in Gotham Academy and decides that Bruce can continue to mind his own business. It’s not like this new kid has done anything bad (yet) and Duke can handle investigating this on his own.

So he watches, catching glimpses of the new kid—Danny Fenton—in hallways during passing period, hiding away at lunch, disappearing into the streets as soon as the school day is over. They even share a class together, French Language and Culture, but Danny is always in the back corner, ignored and made invisible by everyone else.

Well. That’s not quite true.

There are shadowy figures that surround Danny and they never leave him alone. Even when he’s got his arms folded on his desk, head down, looking as if he’s asleep, these figures pull at the hood covering his head or reach semi-transparent hands down to pet his hair. And Danny reacts to them, lightly batting their hands away or turning his head away from them.

Duke has no idea what they are. Ghosts are his best guess, but he can’t confirm it. As far as he knows, ghosts are magic and can only be seen by magic users, which Duke very much is not. They do lead to cold spots, keeping the temperatures noticeably colder around Danny, and make the shadows darker, which only makes other students more nervous about being near Danny.

Through his week of observing Danny, beyond the ghostly figures and visible unease he causes in everyone, what Duke learns is that Danny is lonely.

No one talks to him. People barely look at him. Teachers avoid calling on him when they can.

And Danny accepts it. He fades into the background, keeps out of the way, shrinks in on himself.

No one else sees it. No one else wants to see him.

It’s breaking Duke’s heart, just a little bit.

He’s lucky that he’s not an outcast at school. With his meta gene awakening and his free hours taken up by Bats and fighting crime, it’s hard to have much of a social life, but he still has a few friends during the school hours he can hang out with. Danny doesn’t have anyone, and the more Duke sees how isolated he is, the more upset he becomes.

Which brings him to step two of his investigation: befriend Danny.

So what if he has some ulterior motives! He also just wants to give this guy someone to hang out with! What little glimpses of Danny’s face he’s able to get show him a tired teenager, worn down the way Alley kids are when they’re at the end of their rope and have nothing left to give.

Duke’s first attempts at befriending Danny fail so fast it’s almost funny. It’s as if Danny knows when someone is seeking him out, because every time Duke goes to where he is, Danny up and disappears, hurrying away and vanishing in the crowded hallways, or in the alley a few buildings past the school, or into the fucking restroom, which is always empty when Duke goes in after him. Trying to use his powers to see where Danny goes next doesn’t help either; all he sees is some glowing figure resembling Danny walk through walls, which is either due to Danny being a meta or from Duke’s powers deciding to be unhelpful.

He’s about to resort to Tim level stalking to finally have a conversation with Danny when his French teacher blessedly (and unknowingly) aids him on his mission.

“Find a partner, everyone!” she instructs with a clap of her hands near the end of class. “This is a translation project, and you’ll be doing them in pairs to check each other’s work and decide how to best interpret something into English. If you don’t have a partner in the next minute, tell me and I’ll assign you someone.”

The class is a flurry of movement just as the last word leaves her mouth, friends turning to each other or running across the room to make sure they’re partnered up before anyone else can butt in.

No one looks at Danny. Which means Duke can just skirt along the wall of the classroom until he’s next to Danny, gently knocking on his desk to get his attention.

Danny looks up, and Duke sees a flash of blue before Danny averts his gaze, tilting his head down again. “Yeah?” he says, and his voice is much softer than what Duke imagined. He expected something hoarse and rough, a little deep, intimidating. Instead, it’s gentle and quiet and smooth.

It’s a nice voice. It’s a shame that no one else has really heard it.

“Wanna be partners?” he asks, as if he’s offering a choice. They both know no one else is going to ask Danny, and if he wants to avoid talking to the teacher, then he has to work with Duke.

Danny sighs. “Sure.”

And then he puts his head back down on the desk.

Duke backs off. This is the best he’s going to get right now. Now that he’s got an excuse to spend time with Danny, he can take his time breaking down his walls and getting to know him. He watches as a figure from the usual group that hangs around Danny breaks away and gently brushes a hand against Danny’s arm. Then they turn to Duke and reach for him.

He moves without thinking, stepping out of the way. The shadowy figure fades back, almost invisible even to his eyes, and Danny’s turned his head to lay his piercing gaze on Duke.

…There’s no way that blew his cover, right?

He didn’t just reveal one of his meta abilities from taking a single step to the side. No way.

But Danny’s eyes are a deep blue that seem almost endless as he keeps his attention on Duke. It feels as if he’s staring into Duke, seeing more than what he wants to reveal.

“Alright, looks like everyone’s found a partner! As you head out, be sure to grab a practice packet from my desk to work on some translation. There are due the next time we meet, and I will be handing out your individual passages once these have all been turned in.” Their teacher sets a large stack of papers onto the corner of her desk, then gets to work erasing the whiteboard just as the bell rings.

Students grab their bags and rush to take one of the packets before heading out to their final class of the day. Duke stays behind with Danny, waiting for most of the class to leave before swinging his backpack onto his shoulder and grabbing a packet for both of them.

He hands one to Danny, who takes it with some hesitancy and a quiet, “Thanks.”

He leaves before Duke does, and though it’s only a second between his leaving and Duke stepping out the door, Danny’s already vanished from sight.

As soon as school ends, Duke heads for the Hatch, hoping a quick evening patrol will help clear his mind. It’s a quiet evening, though, so he’s left with his thoughts more often than not, staring out over the city long enough that Oracle asks him if he’s alright.

Against his better judgment, he says, “I’ve been looking into something, but I’m not finding much. Can you do some research on Danny Fenton?”

Oracle is already typing before he finishes asking. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything. He’s… strange. I don’t know if he’s a meta or just lightly haunted. But there’s something up with him.”

“Do we need to be keeping a closer eye on him?”

Duke considers. None of them ask Oracle to look into specific people unless they’re dangerous. But danger is not the sense Duke gets from Danny. It’s more like he’s hiding, shying away from the world, constantly on edge. “No. If anything, he might be in danger. Something happened to him, because no one ends up like that by living an average life.”

“I’ll let you know what I find. Turn in for the night, it’s quiet out and you’re too distracted to patrol properly.”

“You got it, O.” He salutes the nearest camera, knowing she’ll see it, and makes his way back to the Hatch to change back into civies and get started on his homework.

When he next goes into his French classroom, all the desk has been rearranged so they’re all in pairs, side by side. Already, patterns are filling up the desks, so Duke heads for the back and sits down where Danny usually hides away. He’s not here yet, which is making Duke realize that he’s never actually seen Danny walk into the classroom and head to his seat.

Did he just never pay attention? Has Danny always just slipped in unnoticed until attendance was taken? How did Duke miss that?

There’s movement in the desk next to him. Duke goes to say that he’s waiting for his partner, so please sit somewhere else, when he realizes that it’s Danny who managed to sneak in yet again.

“Hey,” he says after a moment, hoping his surprise is hidden.

There’s a pause, and then Danny returns, “Hey, Duke.”

That’s all they have time for before class is starting and their teacher goes around to collect homework. She then hands out new packets, each one a different section of L’Ecume des Jours, and gives them the rest of class to begin working on translating it.

Duke is already dreading it as he flips through the three pages they were given to translate, stapled to each other beneath the two page instructions of how to format the final translation, how to document their previous translation drafts, and what to include in the reflection essay.

There’s no way he can get all of this done in a week.

On the other hand, it gives him a week to learn more about Danny. He needs to make the most of it.

“This is a lot,” he comments, hoping to prod Danny into conversation.

Danny shrugs.

“Can we work on this together after school today? Or do you have plans?”

“We can work on it today,” Danny says, voice barely louder than a whisper. He’s already scanning the pages, underlining certain words and phrases.

Duke hurries to get to work as well, trying to parse out meaning from the text through single words scattered on the page.

Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie, vous?

J’apprends des choses, dit Colin. Et j’aime Chloé.

Duke nods to himself. He definitely doesn’t know French. Well, he knows qu’est-ce que. He knows vous. He know j’apprends and j’aime Chloé. Also dit Colin. Fairly simple, but with the missing pieces to the rest of those sentences, he really doesn’t know what’s going on beyond the fact that it’s a conversation and Colin loves Chloé.

When he glances at Danny’s desk, he’s shocked to see that his partner is already translating the first few lines into something that reads like normal English.

“Oh, wow,” he says, leaning over to get a better look, “You’re definitely better at this than I am.”

“I just like languages,” Danny replies, turning his paper so Duke can read it more easily.

“Have you been hiding your French skills this entire time? I could have definitely used your help before this.”

Danny goes still for a moment, eyes flicking towards his right where a shadowy figure has placed a hand on his shoulder. Then he turns to fully face Duke and says, “Better late than never. What do you need help with?”

“Everything.”

His immediate answer makes Danny smile, and he begins talking in that soft, soothing voice of his. He talks about not trying to translate everything into English immediately, but to understand the French and take it in as a whole language itself. He talks about getting the idea of the text first, the feeling of it, before trying to fit it into English. He talks about splitting up the text into sections to make it easier.

And then he reads the text, entirely in French, and Duke did not have a thing for voices or multilingualism before this, but he sure does now.

“Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie, vous?” Danny reads, reaching the end of the first page. The syllables come to his easily, his French smooth and steady. “J’apprends des choses, dit Colin.” His eyes dart up, off the page, and fix Duke in place. “Et j’aime Chloé.”

Duke has never been happier that he doesn’t blush so visibly with his dark skin because he feels downright romanced. It’s a mix of the French, of Danny’s addictive voice, of their closeness, of how intimate this dark corner of the room feels, tucked away from the rest of the class.

“We can work on the other pages after we finish translating this one,” Danny says, leaning back at bit.

Duke nods, swallowing to chase away the dryness of his throat. “Sounds like a plan!”

They work in silence for the rest of the class period, and once the bell rings, Danny says, “I’ll wait for you by the bus stop down the street,” before he slips out of reach and disappears into the throng of students heading to their last class.

He’s beginning to think that he’s in way over his head. Duke can handle being in the middle of all the action, risking his life, fighting for others. He can handle staring down rogues and criminals and Gnomon. He can’t handle feelings and romance and other such things. Those are much scarier than a criminal shooting at him. At least with the criminal, he knows what to do and doesn’t just freeze up like he did with Danny.

The school day ends faster than he’s prepared for. As promised, Danny waits for him by the bus stop down the street, where other students are also waiting.

They don’t wait for a bus, though. Danny just meets his eyes and begins walking away, leaving Duke to follow after him, matching his pace so they can walk side by side.

The shadows in the alleyway seem to reach towards them as they walk down it. Something about it doesn’t feel right, so Duke tries to quietly use his powers and force them back.

He only has time to think, Oh, that was a bad idea, before Danny is shoving him against the wall, getting them both out of the way as a shadow solidifies and lashes out at them. He’s kept in place by strong hands on his chest, and Danny’s eyes are glowing lightly as he hisses at the shadows, making them rear back and settle down once more.

As if given permission to reveal themselves, more shadowy figures and strange movements in the shadows emerge, surrounding them.

“Danny, I don’t mean to alarm you, but—”

“I know,” Danny says. “I thought you might be able to see them too. Which is not good.”

“Sorry, man, it’s not like I can turn it off.”

“It’s fine. Just be more careful. They like me because I’m like them, but you just register as a threat. Either that, or prey.”

“Great,” Duke replies weakly, “Those are my favorite things to be. Are we… are we safe to move?”

Slowly, Danny steps back, no longer pressed right against Duke. Nothing moves to attack him, but it might be due to the glare fixed on Danny’s face, eyes still glowing.

“They’ll leave me alone, so…” He reaches a hand out, looking away. The hoodie isn’t able to hide the way his cheeks go red. “Don’t let go and we’ll be fine.”

“I hope this isn’t to lead me to my doom,” Duke jokes nervously as he accepts Danny’s hand, holding it tightly.

Danny wiggles his fingers, making him loosen his grip, and then their fingers are lacing together. Duke stares down at their hands, wide eyed, and hopes he doesn’t look as flustered as he feels.

“Not to your doom,” Danny reassures. “Just a coffee shop I thought you’d like.”

“Well, then, lead the way!”

“Allons-y,” Danny replies.

Stealing glances at him as they walk, ghostly figure and shadow shrinking away from them, all Duke can think is that he doesn’t need to worry about Danny being evil. His immediate instinct to protect Duke has proved that. He’ll keep the investigation going, though, to make sure Danny is safe from others that could hurt him.

Strange and unsettling as he may be, Danny’s also a smart, kind person who deserves more.

Duke is determined to make sure he gets it.

And if he gets a crush along the way, that’s his business and his business only.

It looks like Step Two: Befriend Danny is finally complete. He’ll figure out the other steps later. For now, he has an evening of French in a coffee shop to look forward to.

#ghostlights #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp fic #prompt fill #my writing #im glad youre enjoying my ghostlights fics so much!!! im having a blast writing them #thank u for giving me more propaganda to spread for the ghostlights agenda <3 #this could easily continue into a much larger fic that goes into danny relocating to gotham for his protection #and start mixing in dc's spirit world with danny phantom's ghost zone/infinite realms #its kinda two stories in one tbh #1: danny trying to protect his kind classmate from ghosts and gotham spirits leading to supernatural shenanigans #2: duke trying to protect this clearly hurt and lonely person which leads to getting him accidentally roped into superhero shenanigans #both are the protagonists of a ya novel where they stumble into a secret for the sake of protecting one person #idk if im getting that across well but if u know the vibes then u know what im talking abt

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holyantenna · 6 months

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Azora | @unsanctioned-if

#artists on tumblr #commission #my art #unsanctioned #digital art #interactive fiction #had a blast painting Azora thank u so much for working with me ✨

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macolegacy · 7 months

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GORGEOUS commission i had the honor to paint for @khaligula of their characters 🥺❤❗

#star wars #star wars the old republic #swtor #THANK U SM AGAIN. HAD A BLAST !!!#commissions #art fart

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tazernatic · 1 year

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CAN I GET ONE LAST

HAPPY BUDDY DADDIES FRIDAY!!

#ITS BEEN A BLAST #thank u everyone for the fun ride #buddy daddies #buddy daddies friday #rei suwa #kazuki kurusu #miri unasaka #kazurei #kyu chan (beloved)#IM GOING ALL IN

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mars-ipan · 2 months

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the other day @barack-fa and i were discussing garfield and growing up with it and such and then somehow one of us (barack, i think?) had the genius level idea of komahinanami garfield au. and i HAD to make it real

#martzipan #garfield #komahinanami #ok we have #hajime hinata #as garfield #nagito komaeda #as odie #and!#chiaki nanami #as arlene :)#all of these doodles (save for the trio one) are directly based on panels from comics i own!#they're my childhood comics. i love garfield so much #btw pooky is usami i think. we can say she was a gift from chiaki #i always loved how garfield and arlene would caterwaul together. i think it's cute if hinanami do it too #also had to get a doodle of chiaki whistling thru her teeth. FWEEEEEEET #also also garfield and odie translates. absurdly well onto kmhn #is it sillier? inherently. but it's also correct #ok as of my queuing this it is like 2 am. i gotta shower and go to bed #thanks barack for talking with me!! i love sending ideas back and forth with u it's a blast :)#friendship yaaayy yippee yahoo

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callmegaith · 6 months

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Down the Rabbit Hole pt.4

LOOP CONCLUDED

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

comic/David playlist

thank u everyone so much for joining me and David on this small trip. Hopefully there will be more to come in the future :D

And again, thank u for encouraging me and supporting me to create something so special about a character that I love so deeply 🥰

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alexihawleys · 1 year

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Chenford + what if we don't work?

Lucy whispers it against his chest as he trails his fingers along the curve of her shoulder, her skin warm beneath his hand. Tim shuts his eyes and swallows, the candlelight creating a soft haze he can still feel even from behind closed lids. "What do you mean?"

She adjusts, moving in closer to him. She hitches her thigh over his leg and presses her lips to his chest. He rumbles, soft and slow, appreciatively, then dips his fingers into her hair further, still lazy and dazed with afterglow. "I mean, what if we don't work? Now that we know," she trails her big toe along his calf gently, and he can feel the smile on her lips pressing against his pec, "all of it. What do we do, then?"

Tim exhales in thought, swallowing at the tail end and shrugging his shoulder carefully. He wraps his arm tight around her and pulls her into his side. He doesn't want to think about the idea that this won't work, but she's right: they should probably have at least an idea for what happens if they don't. They should have contingency plans. He feels a buzzing beneath his skin at the idea that she may have learned to do that from him – that he's the thing her instincts are telling her to make contingency plans for. "I would just like to state for the record, if I have anything to say about it: we're going to work."

She hums quietly, smiling, burying her face into his chest for a long few moments. "I know," she rests her chin against his chest and he opens his eyes, looking down at her, taking it all in. She's smiling up at him with her hair mussed and her cheeks warm, candlelight pooling around her in a soft, ebbing glow. One of her hands is splayed over his side, the other arm extended up, her fingers tracing lightly over his neck. "I'm talking...out of our control, it's impossible for us to change things without completely altering the fabric of our lives, lives are on the line kind of thing."

He laughs, low and soft. "Lucy Chen and her hypotheticals," he murmurs, knowing full well this is more than just a hypothetical, but refusing to acknowledge it. They've been playing fast and loose with the rules and regulations of Mid-Wilshire, something that has his stomach twisting in knots day in and day out even though she's worth it in a way he didn't even understand the first time he said it. "Alright," he rumbles, tapping his finger against her forearm gently, once, twice, three times. "Let's say something happens and we can't. I...don't stop caring about you," he raises his brow. "Do you stop caring about me?"

Lucy presses her lips together. "Never," she shakes her head, her teeth digging into her lower lip.

He nods softly, glancing around the darkened room in thought. It occurs to him, absently, that he needs to talk her into getting a sturdier bed. "We wait," he murmurs, after a long few minutes. Lucy looks at him, confused. "We wait for it to work. We try to find a way to make it work, because I'm not," he bites down on the inside of his cheek, looking down at her, meeting her eye. He holds her gaze, raising his brow as he lets out a soft, almost embarrassed laugh. "I'm not giving you up, Lucy. We make it work, because there's...no other way."

He thinks she may deflate a little – because she loves her hypotheticals, because she wants him to think outside the box with her, because they should probably know the answer to this question that's a little less hypothetical than either of them want to believe – and he pulls her all the way on top of him to thwart some of the fall out.

Instead, her face is soft as she gently slides up his body, her chest pressed into his, her hands flat against his neck as she stares down at him. Her voice is so light when she speaks that he thinks he might be imagining it before he sees her lips moving. "There's no other way?"

Tim swallows, shaking his head just once. "There's no other way," he repeats. "It's just me and you, now."

Lucy lets out a strangled sound he wants to hear again and finds his lips with her own, kissing him slowly, making his mind go blank and his arms go numb. When she pulls back, breathing still heavy and heart still pounding, she presses her face into his neck, kissing his skin softly.

She doesn't say it, but he feels it clear as day: tap, tap, tap against his neck with her thumb. He trails his hand along the curve of her waist slowly, deliberately, hoping he isn't imagining it. He taps his index, middle, and ring finger against her skin in a slow, clear succession.

They're not ready to say it, but they both know what it means.

Lucy lifts her head from his neck, pressing her forehead to his. "It's just me and you, now," she breathes against his mouth, and he catches her lips in another kiss before she can come up with something else to say.

#*fic #*5sentence #chenford #chenford fanfiction #tuserbecca #usertimlucy #c: tim bradford #c: lucy chen #tv: the rookie #ship: tim x lucy #thank u anon for this i have been waiting and mulling over it and then the rookie handed me a perfect little thing to work with so!#i hope this works for you :)#have so much to do and yet i am doing this instead!#THIGH?? TAP??#GOTTA BLAST

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mail-me-a-snail · 5 months

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Tell me about Vance 🫵

thank u for giving me this opportunity to introduce you to vance my love my light v(ance). it's. a long one. a very long one

vance is a gay transgender man who grew up in a corporate family. his mother n father had met while working for arasaka counterintel during the 4th corpo war and had vance and his sister maya shortly after the war ended. they owe arasaka their comfortable, safe lives; if it weren't for their loyalty to the megacorp, they'd have been crammed into some rundown megabuilding alongside a thousand other poor, working class night citizens.

a lot of things started to change for vance when he turned 15. he realized he was transgender and confided this in maya, who had suggested his first chosen name: he started going by penn when he started his education at arasaka academy.

this was also the year he received an official, albeit beginner-level, cyberdeck. it's a hard implant for someone so young, but he had expressed an interest in tech and the NET years beforehand; why not let him hold the beauty of it in the palm of his hand?

he had jumped at the opportunity. he had always wanted it; why not accept it, now that he's been told he could have it?

he began to see his small world for its interlocking machinations. began to understand the little bits of code fluttering inside every piece of tech in the city. with the cyberdeck linked up to his neural systems, night city's buzzing got louder and louder, until the ever-present drone started keeping him up at night.

it would follow him throughout all his years in the academy—right until he graduated and arrived on arasaka's doorstep at the age of 19, newly transitioned and unaware of the other, freer paths the world might've had for him.

they took the beginner deck they had given him four years prior and began building him a new one.

a new deck required new implants. some of these were necessary, at first: a black steel spine to shoulder the weight of the deck, for example.

but over time, as vance excelled at every task they had given him, and then some—arasaka began to wonder: could they make him into something beautiful, in its intricacy, something impossible?

the average netrunner looks like their profession; technosights; jumpsuits; the seams for their cyberware running through their skin.

arasaka wanted to create something different—something covert. the most innocous of people; a tech weapon the nusa government themselves would kill to have (but how little they really knew).

vance's handlers proposed this plan to vance himself, there seated in arasaka's basement; they were, in some aspects, honest about what they wanted for him. they wanted him to be dangerous. they wanted him to be good. they vowed that they would be by his side throughout the whole process, the promise as loyal as vance had decided to be the first time he put on his uniform.

so he agreed—to all of it.

they started slow.

the steel spine traded for titanium; an expansive cyberdeck with more ram capacity; pulmonary implants to keep up the processing power; other organs traded for their mechanical counterparts, to ensure their safety when vance overclocks his systems.

vance became eerily familiar with arasaka's in-house chop shop. the ripperdoc there, boone vasco, put him under the knife time and time again—each major procedure had been carefully scheduled a few years apart. but vance wasn't just arasaka's pet project; on the side, he was their assassin. their ghost, trickling through the neon-drenched gutter that is night city, slaughtering anyone that needed zeroing.

a little hack there, an iron pressed up against someone ribs here.

he flatlined some disgruntled, middle-class corpo rat, some pencil pusher, who thought all it took to delta out of the corp had been booking the fuck out of the city with little else but both his family and several canisters of CHOOH2 in tow.

as far as anyone is concerned, maybe they did make it across the border.

or maybe they could've just made it, had they been faster; smarter; had they stayed to begin with.

maybe.

vance ran ops in and out of the nusa; his file will never see the light of day, not for all the eddies in the world. there's shit on there that'd start coups; destroy what little they've all built to keep. there are just some things that will always stay between him and the corp. they owe him that much.

when he wasn't out on the field, he was chasing novice netrunners out of arasaka's intranets.

eventually he had gained enough implants that the skin on his torso and back began to run warm—too warm. these were the days where he'd run ops feverish and slow. these were the days his own systems would fail him.

letting the machines breathe out in the open would've defeated vance's entire purpose; they had to get creative.

enough of these slip ups led to an entire torso's worth of a realskinn graft. arasaka had taken the market variant and specifically modified it so that it would allow vance (and his systems) to cool down faster. it's like a mesh rather than skin, soft enough to pass as the latter, but with pores big enough to remind one of the former.

they peeled the organic skin off his back and chest and replaced them—slowly, carefully—with this unique version of realskinn.

it took vance a long time to recover; for his body to accept this skin-like facade as its own.

because of the nature of his work, arasaka had thought it best to keep his existence a secret from the people beneath him in the pecking order. as far as they were concerned, vance was in a class of his own—just as adam smasher is his own unit, in a sense. still arasaka's; still a product of their patronage; just with a false sense of independence and superiority above everyone else, as if they're not all wearing the same tags.

vance had found a friend in someone like him; her name was veronica. she was a weapon, too—more blatantly, however, and certainly more of a physical, immediate threat that secrecy would've been a waste of more realskinn.

they often snuck out of work when they could—they took any and all measures to ensure that they didn't look anything like what arasaka had made them into. they went to bars. concerts. they breathed with the rest of night city—for the first time in a very long time.

the year is 2076. vance has been in arasaka's ranks for 12 years. he is 80% realskinn and the only truly organic parts left are on his arms, legs, and face. he is still arasaka's top dog; he is still their hound, loyal on a short leash. he still hears the world as loudly as they want him to.

but one, slow night in the basement, his handlers begun to talk—not to him, but amongst themselves. they didn't know he had left a little virtual watchtower for himself in the mikoshi chamber; the one place where he wasn't allowed to be.

he had spent 12 years as their model of what the perfect netrunner should and could be: covert, dangerous, and a powerful piece of tech.

he had spent 12 years as the first in a potentially long line of others.

they could've started sooner, more efficiently; they could've rolled out 3 generations in 12 years, not just the one.

one of the techies claims trial-and-error; there had been many times where certain implants had made vance violently ill. they had had to roll back. his recovery had been a necessary delay time and time again.

another agrees: one generation for twelve, another 2 in half that time. why not stop complaining and start now, with all the information gathered thus far?

and what'll we do with him?

the techies gathered around the room didn't have to answer for vance to understand his own obsolescence.

he had given them 12 years of his life; he had given them the skin off his back; he had told himself that every time he chose arasaka, he was choosing out of his own desire to be good.

what good comes of something past its expiration date?

he hadn't been the only arasaka pet project to be thrown out. veronica, too, was going to have her implants traded out so that they may go to the faster, newer generation of her kind.

together, they worked fast; they pulled every string that they had had the foresight to weave around night city; they created a small team of mercs to ferry them out of arasaka HQ; among them was vance's contact, jackie welles.

not many mercs were open to going toe-to-toe with a megacorp like arasaka—but if vance scrambled all the data concerning himself and veronica from their escape, then no one would ever be the wiser. to anyone on the outside looking in, it'd just look like they were stealing equipment from a shipyard.

i won't go into too much detail about the escape; only that it was long, tedious, and had left its marks on the both of them—physically and mentally.

in 2076, veronica and vance disappeared from arasaka's ranks, carrying within themselves the unique, stolen implants that made them who they are.

in 2077, they were beginning to live their own lives again.

vance changed his appearance; scrubbed all traces of himself from the NET, if any at all; tried to find his footing in the city that had heard of him only in the bodies he had left behind.

he looked over his shoulder a lot, those first few weeks he had spent lying low in mama welles'. he had been averse to any and all touch; he still craved it, however. that soft affection that demanded of him nothing but to let himself have it.

the hand brushes from jackie; the way mama welles would pat his cheek or fix his hair (even if it didn't need fixing) now and again; how viktor had put his hand on vances knee after the latter had confided in him everything arasaka had done to him.

he had left his family behind. his sister.

but he had friends at the end of his corpo world, too.

moving among them, he had found something in himself that he had had never realized was there: that he has a lot of love to give, and no idea how to give it.

but he tries, anyway; that is the one act of free will arasaka can't take from him.

that's it from me! you can learn more by perusing vance's character tag (#vance) or! if you have any further questions I'd be more than happy to answer them :3

#asks #vance #4V #HOOWEE #if u made it this far thanks for reading!!!!#AUTISM BLAST 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

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