Drabble Bat

drabbles and babbles

[macavlays]

YA LIT MEME ▲ 3/10 series or books 

the scorpio races by maggie stiefvater

[cassandrajean]

Scorpio Races! 

I want a horse.

Maybe I’ll go to the beach tomorrow and wait for one.

Bah! Nevermind November is too far away.

(Scorpio Races written by @mstiefvater )

[maggie-stiefvater-deactivated20]

Happy National Book Lovers Day! I’m spending it in my office writing.

[drabblebabble-blog1]

Landscapes

This is so weird because it came to me while I was falling asleep but

Stephanie Brown is a meadow, bright and endless. Bright colors and constantly buzzing. Maybe there’s hard work behind the beauty but you never see it, only enjoy the company of the constant nature.

Tim Drake is a dark forest, mysterious but familiar the farther you venture. If it let’s you, the forest shows you amazing secrets of animals and nature that astound you but even on the first visit it is mysterious but protect. The trees are strong and sturdy and keep you safe in a storm.

Bruce Wayne is a cave. Dark. Difficult to navigate. Only those that have passed through the passages numerous times before know the correct way to navigate but some still get lost or stranded in deep cravases. Some never make it so far in to see the true beauty or recognize the protection the stone walls offer to the rest of the world. 

Dick Grayson is an ocean that’s vast and never ending with animals that dance above and below the surface. Sometimes it’s dark but the water suffers through storms and earthquakes without breaking, always serving a proper home to the animals it loves. It reflects the sky above it, sometimes a dark sparkling night and others a dazzling brilliant day. It seeps into caves and through forests, connected to nearly everything.

Jason Todd is a mountain range. Rocky cliffs crumble under the pressure of time and jagged points pierce the sky in angry retribution. It was made from angry earth crashing together but despite that, trees and animals have taken up residence on the mountain side. Sometimes it is unforgiving, casting climbers to their deaths but then there comes days where the sun reveals true beauty.

Cassandra Cain is a cliff face, a contrast of crashing waves, unscalable faces that’s meadow topped and offers a spectacular view of the world. Perspective changes where you on the cliff with dangerous water beating against the rocks below and sirene peace above. 

[drabblebabble-blog1]

I would love some prompts, especially after that Detective Comics today. Let me know your TimSteph requests!

[litwltch]

[drabblebabble-blog1]

Meditation didn’t go well today. I tried but I kept my focus on my heartbeat instead of anything else. I couldn’t slow it, no matter how much I felt out for it. I knew I over-caffeinated today and was sick because of it. I was hoping meditating would help. I’ve turned to chamomile tea.

While the meds have helped with the depression I’m beginning to see the side-effects again. The manic, the strangeness and hyper-sensitivity to things. I need to adjust my coffee intake. My dreams are also coming back, in a way that over-crowds my thoughts with fear. It’s like the pills push everything to my unconscious. Suddenly I’m dreaming of eating too much sugar and becoming sick and I carry that around with me. 

I am prepared now, though. For the hungry and the dreams and the fear. I have that calm with me. That assurance I never had before. There’s “being positive” and then there’s the outlook you have on life. When you decide you will live. And when you decide you want to live, you decide to make that decision worth it. It’s not positivity. It’s something deeper.

Maybe it’s life. Maybe it’s finally seeing life for what it is. And seeing yourself for what you are. Weakness and all. I liked to suffer,, I kept doing it. I held on to it in some way bc I didn’t know anything else. But deciding, being able to choose what to do. That’s a power. And when you finally feel that power, you’re not scared anymore. Not of living. Not of dying. You just... are.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense. It still doesn’t make sense to me. People talk about moments of truth, about a moment when everything changed. But it wasn’t a moment. I can’t remember that moment. It just changed. Everything changed. In a day, in a week, in half a year. I was the same and then I was different and everything looks different now. Feels different. Chemicals and hormones, yeah. But belief too.

[nkim-illustrates]

Jar of Starlight Part 2. Part 1

[nkim-illustrates]

Planta Ray and Octopus. From my Flora (Fauna) Series.

[drabblebabble-blog1]

I got a flower at the Renaissance Festival yesterday from this girl working the cider booth. She and the other girls all had their chests painted in pokemon teams and everyone else was team Valor but she was Mystic. She looked familiar and I guess she's online but I forgot to ask a screen name but she gave me a wooden rose. I'm sure it was just friendly and nice but I was properly wooed.

[drabblebatsss-blog]

Conversations in White

I don’t think I posted this here? I wrote it a while ago

Based on this picture that I’ve reblogged a lot. I really love it. 

Chara: Stephanie Brown and Jason Todd

The brightness hurt even before Stephanie opened her eyes. The surface beneath her was soft but she couldn’t reason what it was she lay on. 

There was nothing for her to see when she propped herself up with an arm and scaled the area. Whiteness consumed everything, blocking out a horizon that felt very far away until she blinked. Nothing but white, pure in a simple way and bright like nothing she was used to, and a boy. His hair was black and his skin light but his clothes looked familiar. He rolled and revealed the familiar Robin tunic, a verson of the same one she wore. 

He looked at her from his laying position and eyebrows knitted together finally when he couldn’t place her.

“Where are we?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” Stephanie said. She pulled her knees to her chest and noticed for the first time her gloves. She didn’t feel them on her hands, nor could she feel any of her clothes next to her skin. It should’ve been chilling but she didn’t feel surprised by it. Which only left curiosity.

He pushed himself up and unto his feet, searching himself before scanning her.

“Who are you supposed to be?”

She stared up at him, scanning his bare legs on the way to his eyes. “Robin. Who are you?”

“Robin.” He looked down at her and she thought he was mad. He didn’t know the name had been passed down. Sure, she recognized him but he wouldn’t recognize her. She waited for the reprimand, the challenge and prepared a retort, something to steady her own doubt she realized she no longer had. Strange. 

“Oh,” he said instead. He turned and surveyed the place, taking a few steady steps. The ground felt soft to her but his steps were level and even. She couldn’t see a seam where softness met stability. It shouldn’t bothered her. Knowing that it didn’t also should have bothered her. She hoped he didn’t go too far. “This is a crazy place,” he said.

That would explain it. A crazy place, with drugs that took away those uncertain feels. But she did feel certain and she knew that wasn’t the right answer. She wasn’t in a crazy place. He wasn’t either. Were they even in a place?

“How did you get here?” he asked, turning back to her. 

“I don’t know,” she said. She couldn’t recall anything. Not the details, not her past but she didn’t feel lost or empty. It was just feelings without context. She knew enough, and knew that she knew enough. “You’re Jason Todd.”

He looked about fifteen with a voice that sounded changed but not matured. His attitude was apparent in his speech, like a dog barking to be heard. He gave another ruffled look. “How do you know that?”

She didn’t know how, only that he was. The tunic he wore was familiar, his face a strangers but still very obvious. “Because I do.”

He didn’t like the answer and took a few more steps. 

“Why are you here?” she asked to distract him from the void between them.

His mouth frowned slightly, an unconscious move he wasn’t aware of. His eyes searched her’s as he tried to remember and she wondered if he could.

“I don’t know,” he said finally in defeat and sat down next to her. “But it doesn’t bother me.”

“Same here,” she said. “Weird.”

“Not for you.” She cocked her head to the side, confused. A few strands of hair fell forward to his forehead. “You’re an angel, so it wouldn’t bother you.”

“What does that mean? You said I’m an angel?” she couldn’t stop the laugh. “How’d you deduce that one?”

“You’re not wearing a mask,” he said. He watched as she touched her fingers to her face, feeling for something that wasn’t there. “Robins wear a mask.”

She felt the familiar warmth surge at the implication. “You’re not wearing one either. ” He tried to stop himself from mirroring her movement, instead settling on a weak glare.

“So?”

“So. I’m not an angel. I don’t think.”

“Oh.” He looked away to hide his hand from checking his face and her early anger drained. “Well I thought you were.”

“Not unless you are. Maybe we’re each other’s.”

He smiled at her. “Ha. Maybe.”

“So tell me something.”

“What?”

“Anything.” She released her knees and looked up at whatever was above her hidden in the white. “Do you remember anything at all?”

He followed her gaze up. “I was helping my Mom. I finally found her but I don’t think I saved her.”

Stephanie frowned and bit her lip. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

He kept staring up. “It’s okay. I don’t know why it is, but it feels like it is. It should bug me but…”

“But you know everything’s okay, too.” He nodded. “I feel the same. Like something happened, something I should feel bad about. But I don’t.” When she looked up he was staring at her. The color of his skin and hair and eyes was shocking against the white surrounding them. 

“I always worried I wouldn’t feel like this,” he said.

“Like what?” she asked, wondering what exactly he did feel and if she felt the same and if she could tell if she did or not.

“That is was worth it.”

Her eyes lowered to his emblem that was white on his uniform like everything else, but still visible by invisible lines, and knew that what she felt too. Contentment.

“Peace.”

He nodded. He folded his hands behind his back and leaned backwards until he was lying down again on the soft surface.

“I like this place,” he said and she saw that peace in his eyes. It looked well-earned, like sleep to an exhausted soldier. 

“Me too. I guess.” His eyes closed and she watched him for a long moment before joining him. They lay there together. Neither knew how long or cared. They talked some but no a lot. There’s wasn’t much to talk about when neither could remember much. They were both okay with that. She liked his eyes, the only bright color around and he liked her hair for the same reason. A falling star came to her mind without reason or source. Then the first sensation of anything but the serine hit her. Pain. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, propping himself onto his elbows. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I belong here, though.”

“Of course you do. Where else is there?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. But I should leave.”

He started to say something but his mouth caught the words before they escaped and the boy she first met came back. It was understanding of a cause she saw now. He understood.

“Good luck,” he said, instead of “stay”. She lay down beside him again as another wave of pain hit. He hugged her until she woke up.

A nurse yelled something in a language Stephanie didn’t know over her to someone out of sight. Smells from everything bombarded her senses, noises shook her thoughts in her head. Nothing struck her memory and her body jumped in pain.

A face looked down at her that felt familiar without real recognition. “You’re okay now,” the doctor said. “We got you now.”

Words blocked her throat, as immobile as the rest of her body and Stephanie blinked away the white lights from above. 

[theillumithotti]

Happy Valentine’s, Steph! <33333 I hope you like this bhnlkjewr

[drabblebatsss-blog]

Laying next to him, I feel whole. And it’s not the cliche post-romantic night complete with happy fun times or that that I need that sort of thing to feel like myself. But it does feel, well, good but in more ways than just that. 

It’s the way he looks at me when we’re together, running his eyes over me that makes me want his fingers to follow. He caresses my scars instead of scoffs at them because he can match them. He doesn’t mind the mistakes painted on my body.

I wonder if he knows how much he heals me with that touch. And his words. He makes me feel beautiful in all the cliched ways and more. 

I was a different person before everything. I didn’t need any reassurance with who I was or how I looked. I wasn’t shy before the Mistake. My mistake. I didn’t know how much I’d been holding back since returning. I guess dying tamed me.

But Jason doesn’t tame me. And his arms around me, warm skin against mine, I feel sexier than ever. I am Stephanie again. 

[drabblebatsss-blog]

Some Nights

Even Robin fic

She has nightmares. Those nights when sleep evades his reach, he’ll stay close by and listen to her moans. She flinches from unseen hands and sweats from fighting her terrors. He doesn’t wake her. She’s trapped in her dreams but the real world isn’t freedom.

Sometimes she wakes with a loud gasp. He wakes too, from medicated rest to hear her stifle the sobs but doesn’t hold her to avoid her more embarrassment. In the morning she might smile but if he’s lucky she’ll stare into her coffee without pretending she’s okay. 

He doesn’t do anything because he knows there’s nothing to do. He could say it will get better and it would be a lie. He could kiss her and it won’t mean a thing. He could hold her but even Jason can’t protect her from that. So he lets her cope in whatever way she chooses to and he goes on coping in his.

Nothing will change the past but she has a better chance than he does. She has friends in the daylight and possibilities in honesty. And when she comes over he feels both better and worse to see her with a quip and kindness. And some nights she has nightmares.

So he pulls out the box of waffles he stashed in the freezer and lets them burn in his toaster and pretends it coincidence to have strawberry syrup. He watches her shoulders relax as she eats while they talk about other things. She doesn’t expect tenderness from him and he doesn’t expect fake smiles. 

[drabblebatsss-blog]

Batfamily. Early morning rush.

At 5:30 the first morning smells began drifting through the Manor. Coffee beans hit the grind as fruit blended with Alfred’s choice of protein in the kitchen. Tim woke at 6 on good days with three hours sleep and made his way tot he gym where Alfred met him with his shake. 

Damian’s curtains were drawn at 7 whether the boy was awake or not and required the more durable platters for the days he chose to test the butler’s nerves. An unfortunate steel bowl held the regular oranges, bananas and other fruit in season to lure the boy from his training while the hot breakfast stayed in the kitchen, warmed by the stove until the young master cared to consume it.

Bruce took coffee whenever he made his way back to the cave and Alfred paired it with turkey and avocado sandwich. When he retrieved the dishes around ten, it was chance whether he found them untouched or dusted with crumbs.

As Tim went through his morning exercises and Damian mocked him at every turn, Alfred started the baking for the day. On rare occurrences when Miss Brown wandered down from the upper rooms - from numerous circumstances over the years - she kept him company with chatter and endearing, sometimes crude, jokes. 

Dick slept well into noon and awoke with a hunger Alfred found only matched by Cassandra’s. While he ate half a box of cereal, the young lady consumed most anything Alfred provided as a breakfast-lunch feast. 

There were occasions, though, those mornings when internal clocks altered by injury and schedules pressed together that brought them down at once. Dick preferred to cook during those moments of chaos, flipping pancakes onto plates and burning eggs. Tim forgot dietary benefits and Damian’s taunts were stunted by fatigue. Bruce ventured in at the smell of coffee and food disappeared at the turn of a back to the delight of a black bat. 

Those days Alfred had very little to do at all, really, except enjoy the feeling of movement within a very still house and clean the spills  a family made.

[drabblebatsss-blog]

She woke with a shiver as the night air brushed against naked skin. She blinked away the sand and rolled slightly into the mass next to her. Jason was sound asleep, wrapped in the covers. Any deeper he might have started snoring. She’d never seen him so exhausted, so sound in his dreams. 

She felt the smile on her lips. As groggy as she was, the early morning brought clarity and she was suddenly scared to realize everything she felt. Her heart tugged toward him, like she couldn’t handle how close they were anymore. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. All the words, all the moments and she had felt giddy before but this wasn’t the light love feeling of dancing on clouds and smiling until it hurt. This was a deeper feeling, that terrified her to look at the man she knew to be a killer, to be darker than she admitted sometimes. It was the fear of losing him, of ever sleeping alone in her bed again without his weight pulling her to the opposite edge of the bed, into his arms, next to his heart. She worried she’d never trace his scars and feel better about her own. She’d never be understood fully, so completely, the way he understood her anger. 

She shivered again, her tank and shorts doing little to combat the night’s cold air but she didn’t want to steal his peace away from him. Her trembles felt real and took away that fear of being too far out into an ocean to swim back to shore. She was gone now.

A warm arm tugged her free of the abyss. 

[drabblebatsss-blog]

The halls of the manor were dark with only echoes of light from the large living room washing the walls. Despite the early season, a fire had been lit to fight off a cold that would never truly warm. The doorbell rang at strange intervals as visitors came and left to pay respects or confirm the news. The family was gathered in the den where the TV was ignored in favor of mourning.

“And that’s when I realized I had the comm on the entire time,” Stephanie said with a airy laugh as the story concluded. “I felt so stupid, he finally gave me a chance, I must’ve talked his ear off. But he just said ‘It’s okay. I like the company.’” She smiled into the warm cup of tea Alfred had handed to her ten minutes prior. She hadn’t taken a drink from it and it was starting to get cold. “Looking back, I don’t know how he could stand me. Well, I guess he often didn’t.”

She glanced over at Tim who sat on the far side of the couch. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t said anything since the hospital. She couldn’t imagine how it felt, to be left orphaned a second time, and couldn’t find any story to help lift his spirits. 

The other Wayne kids were in a similar mood. Dick was haunting a corner somewhere, painting a strong face on whenever someone found him but hiding so it wouldn’t become an issue. He stayed for his brothers, to keep an eye on them, to be there for them. 

Cass hung close to Stephanie on one side, listening to all the stories of her adopted father with interest, fighting against an uncommon enemy of loss like this. Last time he left, she had orders to follow and that had helped. But this time it she was alone to decide her actions and she wanted very much to see how her new family went about it.

Jason hung to Stephanie’s other side, starting a story long forgotten until that moment. Stephanie was glad he was talking, was scared of him shutting off like Tim. She couldn’t take care of them all, couldn’t help all of them at once.

“But why is she /here/,” a sneer came from behind and Stephanie turned to see Damian glaring at her. “She should be with the others, those impostors calling my father friend. Why is she here with us?”

“Damian,” Dick tried, his face cracking slightly to reveal the pain. “We’re all family-”

“We are not! My brothers and sister may have proven ourselves but she hasn’t. She didn’t know him, Grayson, not like we did.”

Jason’s hand tightened around Stephanie’s but she rose. “It’s okay,” she said. “Yeah, I’ll just be around if anyone needs me.”

“Steph-” Dick tried but she saw his exhaustion and she didn’t want it to be a problem. Offering a smile, she reassured him it was fine, Damian was right, she’d go see if anyone was lurking in the cave and left.

[gothambeats-blog]

Once Upon a Time

“Will you two hurry up?!”

The forest was getting dark and the two nuckleheads kept side-tracking. It was all well and good Stephanie freed both Jason and Mia before they had killed each other but not everyone had famous Gotham luck. 

“Calm your quiver,” Jason said between curses. The brambles were getting thicker and sharper the deeper into the woods they got. He couldn’t squeeze through the thicket as easily as the girls. “Princess isn’t going anywhere.”

“But the others could be,” Steph said as she slashed at the plants with her broom handle. Her dress was ripped and fraying from the journey and where it once lit up like moonlight it started turning dull. She had ditched the glass slippers first thing after awakening from the spell but there was only so much of the fairy tales they could circumvent. “And I think I’m disappearing at midnight.”

“So keep up Riding Hood,” Mia yelled. Moonlight shone through a hole above them and she set to climb higher until finally the sky appeared and she could see the land all around them. The village still ablaze in flames from the chaos of the curse. The forest set in soon after that with echoes of screams from the dark woods. But Mia was looking for the stone castle in the dead of thorns and a lone tower glowing gold. That was their goal.

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