tära

tara, 18

[raomera]

— tara, pronounced like zara, 18, korean, b jun.30

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may contain 18+ content

no taglists

i do not consent to having my works reposted in any way, place, shape or form.

masterlist, guidelines, requests open but no guarantees

[raomera]

So, I'm back, kind of

been working on a few drafts but I don't see an end in sight or any of them so I need to get a oneshot out for my sanity

You get to decide what it'll be on title alone!

honestly I don't have anything in mind for any of these, just pick one based on the vibe... not saying who the characters will be for these bc the Jason lovers always win. Like I love him too guys but gd

title

Immortal She

Mary

I'm falling in love, do you wanna break up?

Somebody New

Voting ended onJan 23

[raomera]

to the anons in my inbox and the comments i get from time to time... i'm not ignoring yall i swear :(( i read compliments and just dk what to respond cuz i'm too awkward ab it 😭

cat?

[raomera]

“Your eyes are so pretty.”

Damian barely looked up from his desk. “…thank you.”

You’re sprawled across the tops of two desks pushed together, Damian’s uniform blazer draped over your legs. You’re stuck in that sweet spot between sleep and consciousness, feeling as though you’re floating, watching everything happen through a lens. “No, really. They’re beautiful, Damian.”

He tilts his head at that, studying you from the corner of his eye for a moment before his pen starts scratching on paper again.

It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before. The press usually fixates on these sorts of things — Dick’s perfect smile, Jason’s sculpted body, Tim’s glassy skin. Just about every feature of his has been picked apart for the world to see by middle-aged men and women who have nothing else to do with their lives except talk about how attractive famous kids are, or how gorgeous they have or will grow up to be.

It’s nothing you haven’t told him before, either. Not at all like the media, but in earnest. Things only you could see, like the crooked slope of his nose or the two moles dotted along his left shoulder — “like a vampire bite.”

But right now, in the empty classroom you’ve taken for yourselves because it’s a free period and all the designated areas are loud and too bright, it feels different. The school day’s almost over and it casts a cool glow into the room, the light left off intentionally because you like the natural kind better. Everything is softer. Muted. All except for you.

He doesn’t even know what to call this. What to call you. You’re his friend, but not in the way Jon is. He doesn’t want to look his best for Jon. He doesn’t carry his books either, or offer his coat when the breeze starts to chill.

“…I’d rather they be blue.” He says offhandedly, turning the page. Your lips pull into a frown.

“Why? I think green suits you.”

“Perhaps, but the rest of my family’s are blue,” he takes a moment to consider his next words, choosing carefully just how vulnerable he’s willing to be. “..I admit, I feel rather.. out of place, in photos.”

Because while yes, he is undoubtably his father’s son, he still looks a great deal like his mother. His complexion, his nose, his eyes, all reminiscent of the woman he’s so conflicted on even now. The press is quick to point that out, some titles labelling him as the ‘black sheep’ on looks alone when he belongs there just as the rest of them do. They comment of Bruce Wayne’s apparent ‘affinity’ for adopting kids with dark hair and blue eyes, that he must have been disappointed when his own flesh and blood didn’t inherit those features of his.

Bruce is quick to shut those rumors down before they can get any wind under their wings, but Damian still sees them.

You shift to lie on your side, one arm under your head, your free hand playing with the material of his blazer on top of you. The light from the windows shade his face in a way that makes it feel like he’s in a coming of age movie that’s mostly style over substance.

“..y’know what the color reminds me of?”

His eyes flicker to meet yours, a slight quirk of his brow following. “Enlighten me.”

“Duckweed,” your words are slightly muffled by the way your cheek is smushed against your arm. His eyebrows rise further. “In a pond. In a forest. Not, like, a weird, creepy forest, either. The kind that little calico cats live in because the trees have enough shade to hide, but let enough sun through so it’s nice and cozy.”

“…you’re comparing my eyes to flora named after waterfowl?”

You respond with a tired hum, eyelids drooping considerably more than before. “It’s fitting. Besides, ducks are cute.” You squint at him before closing your eyes. “You’re cute too, but more cat-cute. I don’t think I could imagine you as a duck. You can be the calico, I’ll be the duck.”

“There were no ducks in this scenario.”

“The plant is called duckweed, Dami, the existence of duck is implied.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips despite him. Then again, he hasn’t really been trying too hard to prevent them lately. “Just the one?”

Your eyes crack open again to glare at him with mock suspicion. “You got other ducks to worry about?”

That earns you a real laugh. Something softer than in has any right to be, like cat fur in a bird’s nest or light summer rain pattering onto soil and growth. You’ve yet to earn a belly laugh from him, but that’s fine. It’ll come in due time, you’re persistent.

“No, I can’t say that I do,” there’s an amused lilt to his voice now. “But I seem to recall you saying calico cats. As in plural.”

There’s a little smirk curving your lips as you reply. “I like cats.”

“So you would keep more than one as company?”

“More the merrier.”

“Unbelievable. I am taking the blazer back.”

Tightening your grip on the fabric, you roll onto your back, the other arm now draped across your eyes dramatically as if you’re in a terrible stage play of some Shakespearean sonnet. You add a sigh for good measure. “Betrayal. Treason. Might as well get the guillotine out, why don’t you.”

He puts down his pen, leaning his head on his hand with a smirk. “I should. You’d deserve it, with all your crimes.”

“What have I ever done to you?” Many, many things. Still, you huff indignantly.

He stands from his chair, walking towards you with deliberate slowness. “For one, you steal my desserts.”

“You offer me those!” The protest falls on deaf ears.

“You insist on joining me at the library, which results in much less actual work being done.” He’s within arms’ length now.

“Well..”

“And most importantly, you hog Alfred the cat’s attention when you come over. It’s infuriating.” The soft look in his eyes says otherwise.

“I can’t help it if cats love me,” your voice gets quieter as he stands over you, leaned over with his hands on the desk. He shifts his weight onto one arm, freeing a hand to reach down and brush your hair out of your face.

Any words die on your tongue as he just stays there, observing.

Is his face getting closer?

Your eyes are about to flutter closed when the bell rings, cutting off any moment the two of you were about to have. He pulls away and you sit up hastily, taking his hand that’s been extended almost automatically to help you hop off of the desks you were lying on, even if it’s not necessary in the slightest.

His blazer is still draped over your arm as he walks you to the final class of the day, the subtle scent of his pine tree body wash clinging to you as it finds its way onto your lap once more after you’ve taken your seat.

[raomera]

clark kent x reader where reader writes the gossip column of the daily planet? (idk if they even have one but let's pretend they do), sort of enemies to lovers?

'o'

yes

no

Voting ended onSep 28, 2025

[raomera]

Hey, quick question,

In an AU story, do you prefer the side characters being from other parts of the lore or just OC’s?

ex) mer! Dick Grayson x human!reader, with characters from the original Teen Titans as human side characters

Which do you prefer?

Characters from the lore

OC’s

Voting ended onSep 19, 2025

[raomera]

Just wrote a huge chunk of dark curls, watercolor eyes pt2 and saved just like usual, only to have tumblr fuck out on me and revert to an earlier draft. Kms ig

[raomera]

“Why do you never tell me you love me?”

He’s drunk. Almost unreasonably so, because somehow he thought it was a good idea to compete against a speedster in drinking. He’s been leaning half his weight on you while you walk him back to your shared apartment, nearly tripping over his own feet three times in the past five minutes.

He’s quiet tonight, which is unusual for him. Normally when he’s drunk, Dick can’t stop talking, babbling on about anything and anything that catches his attention — which is usually you. He’s rambled about how many shades your eyes actually hold, or confessed he uses your shampoo when you’re away because he misses your scent. He’s even tried to serenade you on the fire escape with a blanket tied around his shoulders like a cape and a ridiculously expensive guitar he picked up on the way home without even haggling.

Which is why the question that slips from his mouth feels like getting caught in an avalanche.

You’ve never been one for words of affirmation. You need them to function, of course, but giving them out makes your tongue feel like it’s made of lead, phrases just on the verge of slipping out but never making it all the way.

You don’t know why it’s so difficult. It just doesn’t come naturally; which is unfair, you realize, to your boyfriend, who smothers you in praises and terms of affection daily.

But you’d tried to show your love in other ways. He had to know you love him, right?

And really, he did. It was in the way his sleep clothes were freshly washed and dried after texting you about a grueling day at work, even if it was nowhere near laundry day. How his favorite cereal never ran out in the pantry, or how you’d shy away from everyone else’s touch but seek his out, making him feel fuzzy with pride and something warm, like earning the trust of a stray cat he’d spent weeks looking after.

But contrary to that one famous saying, sometimes actions didn’t speak louder than words. Sometimes, he just needed to hear it straight. Not deciphered from between the lines of body language. He longed for the quiet ‘I love you’s whispered at night, when you thought he was asleep, or when you got caught up in the moment and those three little words slipped out without your realization. He wanted to drown himself in your voice, let it fill his ears and lungs when his own thoughts got too loud. However many times you said it would simply never be enough, because he yearned to hear your voice assuring him of his worth in the background of his mind every second of the day, nestled in between the low buzz of the city. Like slivers of sunlight that kept him going whenever the rest of the world felt too dark.

Yes, he knew you loved him. In hindsight, what he’d said was only prompted by a sudden sense of longing he’d felt when he’d tried texting you something or another, which led to him to scrolling through your history and realizing just how many times he had been the one to initiate verbal affection. (He’d denied any trace of a pout to Wally, though he didn’t bother hiding the way his bottom lip stuck out.)

In the morning, when Dick woke up to a killer headache and a dry mouth, a water and a bottle of pills sat already waiting for him on his bedside table. He’d been changed into his favorite sweater and a pair of worn plaid pants, and vaguely, he remembered your hands on his skin, nails scratching slightly against his scalp as you’d run a bath and washed his hair. The warmth of your touch was still settled on his waist, your arm draped across him as he sat up to fix his headache.

His hand finds yours instinctively as he lies back down, squinting at what little sunlight filters through the blinds as they illuminate your face and waiting for the medication to kick in. The pounding in his head is easily forgotten as he gets distracted at just how soft you look in the morning, chest rising and falling rhythmically as you sleep, more exhausted than usual after taking care of him in the crack of dawn much earlier — or later, depending on perspective — than the time he returns from patrol.

Fingers intertwined, lies flat on his back and pulls you on top of him by your arm, smiling softly when you stir from the movement. Your eyes crack open for a moment, dazed, squinted from the light and from your cheek squished against his chest. The weight of you is comforting in a way that screams home as you sigh sleepily and settle even closer against him.

He lets you be for a few minutes before you start to squirm.

“Morning,” he hums, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“Mhmm..” he bites back a laugh when your voice cracks.

Slowly, agonizingly, you adjust your position, pulling yourself up and staring down at him with eyes that won’t open all the way. An adorable sight, he thinks, even if you’ll deny it til the end of time.

Your hands find his face, cupping and squishing his cheeks as your mouth opens slightly and closes again two or three times. He’s just about to make a comment, something about how you’d make a perfect goldfish, when your voice finally does its job.

“I love you.”

His breath hitches. A whispered confession, but nowhere near unsure. Just a little shy, because it’s only meant for him to hear. The rest of the world can suck it.

“I love you too,” he murmurs, a dumb smile spreading on his lips.

His arm tightens around your waist when you lean down to kiss him, as if there’s any way to physically pull you any closer than you are. You move from his lips to his cheeks to his nose and forehead with tiny little butterfly kisses that make him laugh in that way that makes your heart flutter.

“I love you,” you say again, near his ear as you rub your face against his cheeks when kisses don’t feel like enough. “I love you so much.”

Dick grabs you by the chin to look at you properly, and for a moment you swear his pupils are dilated in a way that looks like mini hearts. “I love you too, more than you could imagine.”

“I’m sorry I don’t say it much.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’ll try harder.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I want to,” you insist, leaning into his hand that’s cupping your jaw now. “For you.”

His thumb brushes under your eye. “Okay.”

A beat passes. The scent of your shampoo lingers on both of you.

“..you know I love you, even if I don’t say it, right?”

“I know,” he smiles, kissing your forehead and leaving you to rest your head on his chest, tucked under his chin. “I know.”

[raomera]

Dark curls, watercolor eyes

tags; mer!au, slow burn, angst and fluff, mutual pining, purely self indulgent, i have cryptid batfam brainrot how can i not, was supposed to be one big long thing but got way longer than i originally thought so cut it into peices

When you were eight years old, you snuck out onto the docks. Young, curious and emboldened by warnings that felt more like fairy tales in your head full of flowers, the dark, murky waters of the harbor were not something to be feared.

You hid behind huge buckets full of water or fish to stay out of the adults’ sight. There were more people today than you’d ever seen come and go around here from the window of your apartment at the very edge of the city. They wore thick rubber overalls and connected boots that were smeared with a dark substance you assumed to be oil or the usual muck that clouded the water here.

A haggard-looking man shouted something from the oncoming boat, prompting most of the people here to rush towards him and providing a distraction for you to make it the rest of the way to the dock furthest from the city, right next to the giant pile of dirt and boulders dumped from ongoing construction around the area. Some of the planks were rotting and a bit unsteady, but all worries about safety were abandoned the moment you saw something move from the corner of your eye.

You kneel at the edge pf the dock, peering down into the water below. It’s so black you can almost use it as a mirror, your own reflection peering back at you with the same curious expression. As you stare, your reflection slowly fades and morphs, turning into someone you don’t recognize. By the time you realize this isn’t your reflection at all, you’re flinching back from the water, a hand clutched to your cheek where tiny, sharp claws have caught you.

There are tears in your eyes as you start to cry, but barely a whimper leaves your lips before something grabs your ankles, pulling you into the water with a small splash. A clawed hand is clamped to your mouth, the other arm wrapped around your front, over your arms, restraining movement.

Scared rigid, you still in the creature’s grasp. You tremble both from fear and the cold quickly eating through your clothes and seeping into your bones, but after a moment, you realize you’re not the only one shaking.

You take a chance, turning your head slowly to the side. The hand covering your mouth curls its fingers, claws digging into your skin, but not enough to cut again. Looking over your shoulder at the adults on the docks is a boy.

He’s not human, you can tell that much. In the scarce light the moon offers, you can see a set of four softly colored slits on the side of his neck, and his eyes—the same shade of blue only the clearest waters have—reflect a little too much light. If he were human, you’d guess he were around your age, though he’s bigger than anyone in your grade judging by his hands.

“Don’t move,” he hisses, quite literally. His voice is filled with a kind of anger you didn’t know was possible in kids.

The claws of his other hand dig into your arm. You vaguely feel a sharp sting.

His eyes are fixed in a glare yet his expression is one you’ve seen before on a classmate who had lost both her grandparents in the same week. Lost, sad, scared, confused.

The adults haul something into a large truck and send it off by pounding twice on the locked door. There’s really no telling what it was, but you think you see two fish tails larger than any fish you’d ever seen in your life. You hear his breathing grow heavy, his chest heaving against your back.

His grip on you tightens.

The truck has driven out of sight when his head suddenly snaps towards you. The hand on your mouth drags down, leaving a cold, clammy trail in its wake, before settling on your throat. Now you realize that his hands are bigger than any of your classmates’, a fact that is all too apparent when it starts to squeeze.

Snapping out of your trance, you thrash wildly, legs kicking at nothing as you try desperately to break free. It’s a minute or two before you start to feel lightheaded, that along with the cold seems to drain the fight out of you rapidly.

He’s staring at you while you struggle.

This is how you are going to die.

More tears gather in your eyes and start to roll down your cheeks in rivulets, his gaze locked onto yours becoming blurry with the mix of water and oxygen deprivation.

Your crying seems to trigger something in him.

He lets go, freezing in place. The storm in his eyes are gone, replaced with something akin to regret. Hastily, he hoists you back up onto the rotten dock before disappearing under the water.

There’s a second of quiet before you get up and run home, going faster than you ever have, even with legs numb from the freezing ocean.

You don’t need to go far, though, as you see your parents around the midway point between the harbor and your apartment. Your mother scoops you into her arms, holding you tight as she sobs.

“Oh, my baby…” she chokes out, her hand running repeatedly up and down your back. Your father hugs the both of you with a couple muffled cries of his own.

Later, at home, dried, fed and warm, your parents ask you what had happened.

You’re not sure what compels you to lie. You tell them you tried to rescue a feral cat that had fallen into the harbor.

At around age fifteen, you’re not ashamed to admit you had made mermaids your entire personality for years after the incident, even if it had caused you to develop a severe case of thalassophobia. You have scars on your cheek and upper arm from the encounter—barely there, but still felt when you ran your fingers along them.

But now, you can confidently say that, that phase of your life is over. You no longer obsess over people who are half-fish. You don’t constantly peer out of your bedroom window at the harbor, hoping to catch a glimpse of something. Anything. You’re no longer afraid to step foot on the docks; not that you’d go anywhere near them now, mind you, but the thought of being on the wooden planks no longer makes you sick.

As if to prove just that, you’re on vacation at your grandparents’ beach house. It’s nothing fancy, more like a cottage than those billion dollar mansions that just so happen to be by the beach. It’s quaint and homey, built by your grandpa and filled with furniture handmade by your grandma.

Two weeks. You take a deep breath, feeling the sand beneath your feet. Two weeks you’d be staying here.

The clear blue of the ocean here is a lot less daunting than the harbor back home, the difference almost startling considering your hometown is only two or so small cities away.

You spend the first couple days wandering the expanse of the sandy beach or venturing into town a moderate bus ride away. There’s an antique shop you stopped by once, a silver ring the shape of a seal curled into a loop having caught your eye. The owner sold you a tale about a selkie and his bride, claiming they lived on an island not far from here only decades ago.

You find a cove on the third day. It’s on a rocky part of the beach where no one really goes for the simple fact that the rocks hurt like hell if you step on them wrong. That, plus the risk of slipping and bashing your head open was a major turn off for most people.

It’s well worth the risk, in your opinion. The place feels like something out of a fantasy novel. The water that washes inside the small cave casts pretty blue-ish lights on the stone even at night, and the calming sounds of the ocean bounce off the walls in such a way it sounds almost like a song.

You find out later that another reason why locals avoid the cove is because of the strange rumors floating around, ranging from ghosts to mermaids to monsters. You’re inclined to believe them, but at this point the place has become your favorite spot here. You keep going back.

One afternoon, after begging your grandma to take you to the night market in town and waking up early the next morning due to seagulls fighting right outside your window, you’re so tired that you fall asleep in the cove.

You wake up to a face hovering above yours.

Instinctively, you scream, shoving whoever is looming over you and scrambling away. Unfortunately, ‘away’ in this case means further into the cave, backing yourself into a corner.

The person who’d been watching you doesn’t say or do anything, staying a couple feet away from you as you so clearly want, but not willing to back further away.

When you look again closely to gauge the situation—and possibly your chance of survival—you finally notice it.

His tail.

A giant fish tail. Where his legs should be.

“Fuck,” you breathe out, unable to really formulate any other thoughts.

The mermaid—merman? merboy?—tilts his head in the same kind of way that dogs do when they’re confused. He crawls closer with his arms, the scene honestly like something straight from a horror movie with the way he moved, too fluid to be normal for humans.

Your gut tells you to run but your legs remain frozen still. There’s no way to bolt past him to the relatively small mouth of the cave without him grabbing your ankles or tripping over his tail or some shit. The only thing you can really do at this point is stay still and hope he isn’t hostile.

He doesn’t seem to be. The adrenaline in your veins tells you otherwise.

He stops a foot away from you and just.. stares. For a while. Long enough for you to really take in the sight of him after calming down just a little.

His hair is wavy, the wet strands falling in a way the boys at your school wish theirs did. His skin is a healthy shade of tan, scales scattered from his shoulders and more running down his arms, leading to clawed hands that are webbed at the first knuckle. His eyes seem to glow in the dark, not in the murky green way mammals’ do, but his retinas actually glow with the faintest light of the same color, which in his case is a very pretty blue.

Pretty. That really is the word to describe him.

Y’know, if you weren’t so busy fearing for your life.

There’s almost something.. familiar about him, too. Your mind flashes back to that boy back in the harbor. But what are the chances of running into the same mer twice, right?

Then again, what are the chances of running into a mer at all?

You feel his gaze run over your face. It stops at one spot and he furrows his brow. This eyes roam lower to the exposed skin of your neck.

“…I’m sorry.”

Your mind short circuits. “..what?”

“‘M sorry,” he repeats, gesturing vaguely at your neck. Your hand comes up almost subconsciously to rub at the scars there. “..for doing that to you. I really am..”

His lips press together in a line before he looks away at the ground, like he’s ashamed.

So he is the same boy.

“…I’m not ready to forgive you yet,” you mutter back. He tried to kill you. That warrants a lifelong enemy, at least.

He nods, eyes flickering over to you before looking back at the sand again.

“I, um.. usually hang out here,” he says, like he feels the need to explain himself. Or maybe he just can’t stand the awkward silence. “I won’t bother you again though.”

You nod slightly and he crawls back into the water. The beach in the cove gives way to deeper water pretty close to the shore, so he’s gone in seconds, the shimmer of scales on his blue tail the last thing you see of him. You’re still trying to process what’s happened when you hear your grandpa calling you for dinner outside.

Over the rest of your stay, you kept away from the cove. Although the mer had promised to stay away from you, you were still skeptical.

That didn’t mean you couldn’t feel his presence, though.

It was the little things. The prickling feeling of being watched on an empty beach, the shimmer of a tail too big for a shallow water fish in the distance.

Most prominent though, are his gifts.

While walking along the beach, you’d find little things in your path. Seashells of pretty colors in too perfect shape to have just washed up naturally, pearls the size of your fingernails, even a gold coin sticking out from the sand one time. And though you don’t want to see him again—yet, anyway—you’re not going to turn down things like these if they’re presented to you.

It’s your last night here before you know it. An inside pocket in your messenger bag is filled with treasures from the sea.

It’s a bit of a stupid decision, but you decide to visit the cove one last time before you leave. Maybe you just need closure, maybe you’re just not content leaving without visiting the place that looks like a literal fairytale.

Either way, it’s just supposed to be a quick trip since night comes early here and the moon’s already risen. You have a pepper spray in your bag you bought the day after you met him again though, just in case.

There’s a splash of water when you enter the cove, which is weird since the waves are just little ripples. You feel his gaze almost instantly. There’s a large oval-ish spot and shallow trail of wet sand near the cave shore.

“…you can come out,” you call, against your better judgment.

Around a minute passes before he emerges from the water. The sight of a human head just appearing from nowhere is a bit heart attack inducing.

“Hi,” he says, almost sounding sheepish.

He really is pretty, isn’t he?

“Hey, stalker.”

Honestly, the fact that he’s literally been stalking you should put you on edge. But it feels fine, in this case, somehow. It’s not like he can follow you home or anything. Y’know, inland.

His cheeks grow dark at your comment. “I’m not—” he objects before he cuts himself off, not able to really deny the claim. “..sorry..”

You shrug. “It’s okay.”

The silence lasts a bit too long.

“..I liked your presents.”

His face seems to light up, a small smile tilting the corners of his lips. You wonder what a genuine, full smile from him looks like. Must be as bright as the sun. “Really?”

“Yeah, some of the shells were my favorite color.” You offer a little smile of your own. Finding a dryish rock near the water flat enough to be comfortable, you sit, beckoning him closer. He obliges, still semi submerged, pulling himself up onto the sand while his tail stays in the deeper part of the water.

“You’re a mermaid?”

“Merman,” he huffs indignantly.

“Merboy,” you compromise. There’s still a little pout on his lips.

It’s about time to address the elephant in the room.

“Why’d you try to kill me when we first met?”

He flinches. Bright blue eyes travel from the ground up your neck, stopping for a moment before continuing to your face, landing in your cheek. He stares for a moment before he realizes you’re looking at him, waiting for an explanation. He blushes again.

“I..” he tries a couple times, mouth opening and closing before he finally finds the words he’s looking for. “..I was mad, I guess.”

“At me?”

He shakes his head. “At humans.”

You tilt your head, beckoning him on. He sighs shakily.

“That night. The boat, my.. my parents were on there,” he says quietly, his hand playing with the sand to distract himself. “They were killed by poachers.”

“…I’m sorry,” what else can you really say? “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s fine.. I owe you an explanation.”

“You’ve told me more than enough.”

“I…” he hesitates, looking up at you from his spot on the shore. There’s a vulnerability in everything he does right now, from his place being lower than yours to this softness in his eyes. “…can I tell you about them? Please?”

“..Alfred says it helps when I talk about it,” he adds. You don’t know who Alfred is, but you nod anyway.

The world seems to narrow down to the small space of the cove as he tells you about his parents. What they were like, what they did, how he grew up. He tells you about his travels back when he was little, to the tropical regions, or to the arctic sea, even to the Mariana Trench once, though that was just him sneaking off for all pf a minute before he was caught and swiftly pulled away.

He tells you of how his parents loved him. How his dad took both of his hands and flung him out of water to teach him his first flip. How his mom taught him how to hunt, and how to string shells with seaweed or abandoned nets to decorate his waist. He’s getting more and more animated as he talks, more expressive, and you think you catch glimpses of his true brightness every now and then.

“After that night when I met you, Bruce took me in,” it’s a bit into the night when everything’s out in the open. You’re not mad at him anymore, not really. You’re not scared of him either.

“He’s been good to me. More than he should have, really, I was a nightmare when he first met me. Alfred’s been a saint, too.”

“Who’s Alfred?”

“Our butler. He’s family though. Like my grandpa, really.”

As if on cue, you hear your own grandfather in the distance, calling for you to come home. You stand up and dust yourself off but hesitate. Just leaving him now feels.. wrong.

“I never caught your name.”

He shifts on his forearms, looking up at you hopefully. “Does that mean you’re planning on seeing me again?”

You bite the inside of your cheek.

“Next summer. I promise.”

“…it’s Dick.”

You press your lips together to keep a little giggle from slipping out, instead giving him your name, too. You dig through your bag, muttering a small victory under your breath when you find what you’re looking for without much trouble.

A necklace with a tiny clover incased in a thin circle of clear resin as its pendant. You’d made it yourself a month or so ago after hunting in the sun for four leaf clovers. It’s something you’d miss but wouldn’t be devastated about if lost.

Without much thought, you crouch down in front of him, your shoes are getting wet but you pay it no mind as you clasp the chain around his neck. Your hands brush against his hair at the base of his skull and you swear he shivers.

“For insurance,” you explain, pulling back and straightening up again. “So you’re sure I’ll be here next year.”

He nods, a bit of color tinging his cheeks once more. It’s easy to make him blush, you think.

True to your word, you come back next year, and the one after that, and after that. The visits become more frequent over the years too, trips to your grandparents’ place going from only once every summer to an additional week in spring break as well. Each time you step into the cove, Dick greets you with a bright smile and a breathless little ‘you’re back’, like he didn’t think you’d really show. Every time.

The waves are colder in the spring, threatening to bring back memories you’re not so fond of, but the presence beside you chases them away with what little body heat he has. Ironic, when he’d been the ones to cause them in the first place, but you’re not complaining. Your head finds rest on his shoulder, the rest of you pressed against his side like a heat-seeking missile.

He’s changed noticeably through the years. Yeah, he’s always been pretty, but his jaw is sharper now, more angular, the muscles of his torso much more defined. You’d been caught staring more than once. He doesn’t seem to mind, but the teasing after is relentless. His hair falls into a tousled, perfect bed head sort of look without effort and his tail is sparklier than ever, around two and a half times as long as his torso. More if you count his fins. They flare out in a way that reminds you of expensive tulle or silk.

It moves in the water absentmindedly, scales catching the light. The necklace you’d left him with a few years ago is wrapped around it, just above where his caudal fin starts.

Your feelings towards him have changed just about as much as you both have over the few years you’ve actually known him. There’s a tiny spark burning deep in your chest, one that comes alive whenever those sky blue eyes meet yours. You don’t know when it got there, but it is, and it’s staying no matter how much you try to get it out. Maybe it started when you were sixteen, and your friends started getting into relationships. Most of the ones who weren’t were still mildly boy crazy, talking about things they’d heard from their older siblings. That was when you’d learned why it was nearly essential to compare hand sizes.

Or maybe it was when you were seventeen, when you were invited to your cousin’s wedding. You were never one to dream about your own wedding gown, but you still wanted to find someone to walk down the aisle to, whether that be in a wedding venue or just doing your weekly shopping together at the the grocery store.

Or maybe it wasn’t a specific moment at all. Maybe it had been collected in tiny pieces, little drops of water that gathered at the bottom of your heart until it formed a well too deep to drain. The well that seemed to get just a little bit deeper every time you caught sight of the shells decorating your shelves, when you snapped a photo of somewhere inland where you knew he’d love to visit, when he smiled at you like you were something special. Droplets that run down your cheeks when reality hits.

You know it’ll lead to nothing. But when you’re with him, you allow yourself to just forget that little detail and hope that maybe, just maybe, things will work out in your favor.

Somewhere along the line, his hand ends up half on top of yours. You pick it up out of boredom. His hands are big, it’s always been like that, you assume all mers are the same way since it helps with swimming. An evolutionary thing. Still, you put your palm against his, wanting to see the difference.

“Why’d you stop talking?” You ask, glancing at him in the corner of your eye when his voice dies down in the background. His eyebrows rise slightly, lips curving into a lazy smile.

“You weren’t listening,” he replies, fingers curving forward slightly, just enough to slot between yours but not quite closing around your palm.

“I was, though.”

“Don’t lie to me, you’re awful at it.”

In the corner of your brain, something your friends had said once lingers.

The hands are proportional to a man’s d—

You cut it off, sighing dramatically as you hide your face in his shoulder.

His smile turns into a smirk as Dick seems to read your mind. “Y’know, my ring finger’s longer than my pointer, too.” He hums, pressing his palm closer against yours.

You don’t give him the satisfaction of responding.

Your fingers find their way down until you’re holding his hand in yours.

He’s glad you can’t see his face when it happens. You’re warm. And soft. Two things mers very much are not. Before you came along, he didn’t understand the ones who would swim up to the surface in the middle of nowhere, just to find a sunridden rock to lie on. But the warmth of you against him is rare. Addicting.

Trying his best to ignore the blood rushing rapidly to his cheeks, he reciprocates.

You risk a look up at him to find he’s already staring. His face is too close to yours.

‘What are we?’

The question dies at the tip of his tongue. Not because he doesn’t know the answer, but because he knows nothing can come of it.

“Prom’s in like, a month,” you hum, turning away, staring at nothing in particular. Beside you, Dick’s shoulders slump slightly.

“That’s the party thing before you graduate, right?”

You nod. “A couple guys asked me. I dunno who I’ll go with, though. I have to find a dress online too, which is more than a little risky..”

There’s an unusually long pause before he responds, his head coming to rest on yours. “You’ll be fine. You’d make a trash bag work if it came down to it.”

“You’re such a cliché.”

“Only for you, dear.”

There’s something bothering him. You can tell by the way his lips form the slightest pout, the way he breathes in deeper than usual.

He’s a mer. He can’t go on land, even being here right now is technically forbidden. But still, he selfishly wants to be the one to take you to prom. He wants to be the one at your door in a fancy suit, the one who gets to see you all dressed up, the one to take you out and walk you home. Maybe even take you back to his place.

But that’s not in his cards, so he just keeps his mouth shut and smiles, telling you more about his little brother.

Prom is better than what you’d been expecting. The school has been cleaned of its usual muck, and what remains is easily hidden by the ‘mood’ lighting that had replaced the usual fluorescent white.

Your ‘date’ ditches you for a college girl he’d been texting for weeks. Apparently she’s in town just for him. You don’t mind, you didn’t really know him anyway, and your friends are a lot more fun. By the time you’re walking home, it’s a little over an hour before your curfew. You decide to take the scenic route since you have the time, feeling a bit melancholy now that you’ve left the loud music behind.

You’re walking along the pier and humming a melody stuck in your head from the party when it catches your eye. A shimmer in the moonlight that most definitely should not be here.

Dick?

Your mind blanks. Dick’s at the harbor. Why? Wouldn’t he want to stay away from the place where his parents got killed? It was why you’d never asked him to visit you here, the reason you assumed he never offered. So why was he here now?

You rush to where you saw it, at the last dock, where you’d first met him, but your feet come to a dead stop at the last minute. You don’t know what you were expecting, but it wasn’t… this.

Dick is.. simply put, an absolute wreck.

His hair is flattened in some parts and sticking up in every direction in others, the whites of his eyes are red like he’s been rubbing at them for the past ten minutes. He’s gripping onto a pillar for dear life, not caring if the barnacles dig into his skin. From what you can see, there are dark red scratch marks on his arms. They look self-imposed, except for one set deeper than the rest.

Taking off your heels, you walk the rest of the way, deliberately making your footsteps louder as to not startle him when you sit down, legs over the edge of the dock.

“…you okay?”

“…”

He doesn’t look at you, holding onto the pillar tighter. There are barnacles cutting into the skin of his cheek.

Taking a deep breath, you leave your shoes and jacket on the ground before slipping into the water. You’ll figure out an excuse as to why you’re soaked later. Hovering near him by holding yourself on the dock, you slowly move one hand to his shoulder.

The reaction is near instant, a series of things happening all at once. He tenses under your touch for a moment before he turns his head the other way, but the next moment you’re in his arms, being crushed against his chest. Your arms wrap instinctively around him, one hand rubbing his back while the other snakes its fingers into his hair. He buries his head further into your neck, a broken sob muffled against your skin.

The warm buzz from colored lights is gone now, leaving you exposed to the elements. You don’t feel cold, though. All you feel is him.

You hold him as he lets everything out, shoulders shaking violently even though he can’t shed tears.

It feels like forever before he can formulate words.

“He’s gone,” he gasps, hands fisted tight in your dress. “Jason.. he’s— it’s my fault, it’s all my fault…”

You comb your fingers through his hair. “Dick.. I’m sure that’s not—“

“Yes, it is!” He shouts, suddenly pulling away from you like you’d burned him. The force with which he pushes you away dunks your head underwater, and you flounder for a moment before familiar hands find their way around your waist, lifting you up. “Fuck, I’m sorry— shit..”

He holds you an arms’ length away, like he’s not quite sure what to do. In the end though he pushes you back onto the dock. A hand closes around your ankle and he presses his cheek to your calf, taking a shaky breath as if steeling himself to take a hit. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice hoarse, before he disappears into the depths.

You think you felt a fleeting kiss on your leg before he left.

[raomera]

Dark curls, watercolor eyes

tags; mer!au, slow burn, angst and fluff, mutual pining, purely self indulgent, i have cryptid batfam brainrot how can i not, was supposed to be one big long thing but got way longer than i originally thought so cut it into peices

When you were eight years old, you snuck out onto the docks. Young, curious and emboldened by warnings that felt more like fairy tales in your head full of flowers, the dark, murky waters of the harbor were not something to be feared.

You hid behind huge buckets full of water or fish to stay out of the adults’ sight. There were more people today than you’d ever seen come and go around here from the window of your apartment at the very edge of the city. They wore thick rubber overalls and connected boots that were smeared with a dark substance you assumed to be oil or the usual muck that clouded the water here.

A haggard-looking man shouted something from the oncoming boat, prompting most of the people here to rush towards him and providing a distraction for you to make it the rest of the way to the dock furthest from the city, right next to the giant pile of dirt and boulders dumped from ongoing construction around the area. Some of the planks were rotting and a bit unsteady, but all worries about safety were abandoned the moment you saw something move from the corner of your eye.

You kneel at the edge of the dock, peering down into the water below. It’s so black you can almost use it as a mirror, your own reflection peering back at you with the same curious expression. As you stare, your reflection slowly fades and morphs, turning into someone you don’t recognize. By the time you realize this isn’t your reflection at all, you’re flinching back from the water, a hand clutched to your cheek where tiny, sharp claws have caught you.

There are tears in your eyes as you start to cry, but barely a whimper leaves your lips before something grabs your ankles, pulling you into the water with a small splash. A clawed hand is clamped to your mouth, the other arm wrapped around your front, over your arms, restraining movement.

Scared rigid, you still in the creature’s grasp. You tremble both from fear and the cold quickly eating through your clothes and seeping into your bones, but after a moment, you realize you’re not the only one shaking.

You take a chance, turning your head slowly to the side. The hand covering your mouth curls its fingers, claws digging into your skin, but not enough to cut again. Looking over your shoulder at the adults on the docks is a boy.

He’s not human, you can tell that much. In the scarce light the moon offers, you can see a set of four softly colored slits on the side of his neck, and his eyes—the same shade of blue only the clearest waters have—reflect a little too much light. If he were human, you’d guess he were around your age, though he’s bigger than anyone in your grade judging by his hands.

“Don’t move,” he hisses, quite literally. His voice is filled with a kind of anger you didn’t know was possible in kids.

The claws of his other hand dig into your arm. You vaguely feel a sharp sting.

His eyes are fixed in a glare yet his expression is one you’ve seen before on a classmate who had lost both her grandparents in the same week. Lost, sad, scared, confused.

The adults haul something into a large truck and send it off by pounding twice on the locked door. There’s really no telling what it was, but you think you see two fish tails larger than any fish you’d ever seen in your life. You hear his breathing grow heavy, his chest heaving against your back.

His grip on you tightens.

The truck has driven out of sight when his head suddenly snaps towards you. The hand on your mouth drags down, leaving a cold, clammy trail in its wake, before settling on your throat. Now you realize that his hands are bigger than any of your classmates’, a fact that is all too apparent when it starts to squeeze.

Snapping out of your trance, you thrash wildly, legs kicking at nothing as you try desperately to break free. It’s a minute or two before you start to feel lightheaded, that along with the cold seems to drain the fight out of you rapidly.

He’s staring at you while you struggle.

This is how you are going to die.

More tears gather in your eyes and start to roll down your cheeks in rivulets, his gaze locked onto yours becoming blurry with the mix of water and oxygen deprivation.

Your crying seems to trigger something in him.

He lets go, freezing in place. The storm in his eyes are gone, replaced with something akin to regret. Hastily, he hoists you back up onto the rotten dock before disappearing under the water.

There’s a second of quiet before you get up and run home, going faster than you ever have, even with legs numb from the freezing ocean.

You don’t need to go far, though, as you see your parents around the midway point between the harbor and your apartment. Your mother scoops you into her arms, holding you tight as she sobs.

“Oh, my baby…” she chokes out, her hand running repeatedly up and down your back. Your father hugs the both of you with a couple muffled cries of his own.

Later, at home, dried, fed and warm, your parents ask you what had happened.

You’re not sure what compels you to lie. You tell them you tried to rescue a feral cat that had fallen into the harbor.

At around age fifteen, you’re not ashamed to admit you had made mermaids your entire personality for years after the incident, even if it had caused you to develop a severe case of thalassophobia. You have scars on your cheek and upper arm from the encounter—barely there, but still felt when you ran your fingers along them.

But now, you can confidently say that, that phase of your life is over. You no longer obsess over people who are half-fish. You don’t constantly peer out of your bedroom window at the harbor, hoping to catch a glimpse of something. Anything. You’re no longer afraid to step foot on the docks; not that you’d go anywhere near them now, mind you, but the thought of being on the wooden planks no longer makes you sick.

As if to prove just that, you’re on vacation at your grandparents’ beach house. It’s nothing fancy, more like a cottage than those billion dollar mansions that just so happen to be by the beach. It’s quaint and homey, built by your grandpa and filled with furniture handmade by your grandma.

Two weeks. You take a deep breath, feeling the sand beneath your feet. Two weeks you’d be staying here.

The clear blue of the ocean here is a lot less daunting than the harbor back home, the difference almost startling considering your hometown is only two or so small cities away.

You spend the first couple days wandering the expanse of the sandy beach or venturing into town a moderate bus ride away. There’s an antique shop you stopped by once, a silver ring the shape of a seal curled into a loop having caught your eye. The owner sold you a tale about a selkie and his bride, claiming they lived on an island not far from here only decades ago.

You find a cove on the third day. It’s on a rocky part of the beach where no one really goes for the simple fact that the rocks hurt like hell if you step on them wrong. That, plus the risk of slipping and bashing your head open was a major turn off for most people.

It’s well worth the risk, in your opinion. The place feels like something out of a fantasy novel. The water that washes inside the small cave casts pretty blue-ish lights on the stone even at night, and the calming sounds of the ocean bounce off the walls in such a way it sounds almost like a song.

You find out later that another reason why locals avoid the cove is because of the strange rumors floating around, ranging from ghosts to mermaids to monsters. You’re inclined to believe them, but at this point the place has become your favorite spot here. You keep going back.

One afternoon, after begging your grandma to take you to the night market in town and waking up early the next morning due to seagulls fighting right outside your window, you’re so tired that you fall asleep in the cove.

You wake up to a face hovering above yours.

Instinctively, you scream, shoving whoever is looming over you and scrambling away. Unfortunately, ‘away’ in this case means further into the cave, backing yourself into a corner.

The person who’d been watching you doesn’t say or do anything, staying a couple feet away from you as you so clearly want, but not willing to back further away.

When you look again closely to gauge the situation—and possibly your chance of survival—you finally notice it.

His tail.

A giant fish tail. Where his legs should be.

“Fuck,” you breathe out, unable to really formulate any other thoughts.

The mermaid—merman? merboy?—tilts his head in the same kind of way that dogs do when they’re confused. He crawls closer with his arms, the scene honestly like something straight from a horror movie with the way he moved, too fluid to be normal for humans.

Your gut tells you to run but your legs remain frozen still. There’s no way to bolt past him to the relatively small mouth of the cave without him grabbing your ankles or tripping over his tail or some shit. The only thing you can really do at this point is stay still and hope he isn’t hostile.

He doesn’t seem to be. The adrenaline in your veins tells you otherwise.

He stops a foot away from you and just.. stares. For a while. Long enough for you to really take in the sight of him after calming down just a little.

His hair is wavy, the wet strands falling in a way the boys at your school wish theirs did. His skin is a healthy shade of tan, scales scattered from his shoulders and more running down his arms, leading to clawed hands that are webbed at the first knuckle. His eyes seem to glow in the dark, not in the murky green way mammals’ do, but his retinas actually glow with the faintest light of the same color, which in his case is a very pretty blue.

Pretty. That really is the word to describe him.

Y’know, if you weren’t so busy fearing for your life.

There’s almost something.. familiar about him, too. Your mind flashes back to that boy back in the harbor. But what are the chances of running into the same mer twice, right?

Then again, what are the chances of running into a mer at all?

You feel his gaze run over your face. It stops at one spot and he furrows his brow. This eyes roam lower to the exposed skin of your neck.

“…I’m sorry.”

Your mind short circuits. “..what?”

“‘M sorry,” he repeats, gesturing vaguely at your neck. Your hand comes up almost subconsciously to rub at the scars there. “..for doing that to you. I really am..”

His lips press together in a line before he looks away at the ground, like he’s ashamed.

So he is the same boy.

“…I’m not ready to forgive you yet,” you mutter back. He tried to kill you. That warrants a lifelong enemy, at least.

He nods, eyes flickering over to you before looking back at the sand again.

“I, um.. usually hang out here,” he says, like he feels the need to explain himself. Or maybe he just can’t stand the awkward silence. “I won’t bother you again though.”

You nod slightly and he crawls back into the water. The beach in the cove gives way to deeper water pretty close to the shore, so he’s gone in seconds, the shimmer of scales on his blue tail the last thing you see of him. You’re still trying to process what’s happened when you hear your grandpa calling you for dinner outside.

Over the rest of your stay, you kept away from the cove. Although the mer had promised to stay away from you, you were still skeptical.

That didn’t mean you couldn’t feel his presence, though.

It was the little things. The prickling feeling of being watched on an empty beach, the shimmer of a tail too big for a shallow water fish in the distance.

Most prominent though, are his gifts.

While walking along the beach, you’d find little things in your path. Seashells of pretty colors in too perfect shape to have just washed up naturally, pearls the size of your fingernails, even a gold coin sticking out from the sand one time. And though you don’t want to see him again—yet, anyway—you’re not going to turn down things like these if they’re presented to you.

It’s your last night here before you know it. An inside pocket in your messenger bag is filled with treasures from the sea.

It’s a bit of a stupid decision, but you decide to visit the cove one last time before you leave. Maybe you just need closure, maybe you’re just not content leaving without visiting the place that looks like a literal fairytale.

Either way, it’s just supposed to be a quick trip since night comes early here and the moon’s already risen. You have a pepper spray in your bag you bought the day after you met him again though, just in case.

There’s a splash of water when you enter the cove, which is weird since the waves are just little ripples. You feel his gaze almost instantly. There’s a large oval-ish spot and shallow trail of wet sand near the cave shore.

“…you can come out,” you call, against your better judgment.

Around a minute passes before he emerges from the water. The sight of a human head just appearing from nowhere is a bit heart attack inducing.

“Hi,” he says, almost sounding sheepish.

He really is pretty, isn’t he?

“Hey, stalker.”

Honestly, the fact that he’s literally been stalking you should put you on edge. But it feels fine, in this case, somehow. It’s not like he can follow you home or anything. Y’know, inland.

His cheeks grow dark at your comment. “I’m not—” he objects before he cuts himself off, not able to really deny the claim. “..sorry..”

You shrug. “It’s okay.”

The silence lasts a bit too long.

“..I liked your presents.”

His face seems to light up, a small smile tilting the corners of his lips. You wonder what a genuine, full smile from him looks like. Must be as bright as the sun. “Really?”

“Yeah, some of the shells were my favorite color.” You offer a little smile of your own. Finding a dryish rock near the water flat enough to be comfortable, you sit, beckoning him closer. He obliges, still semi submerged, pulling himself up onto the sand while his tail stays in the deeper part of the water.

“You’re a mermaid?”

“Merman,” he huffs indignantly.

“Merboy,” you compromise. There’s still a little pout on his lips.

It’s about time to address the elephant in the room.

“Why’d you try to kill me when we first met?”

He flinches. Bright blue eyes travel from the ground up your neck, stopping for a moment before continuing to your face, landing in your cheek. He stares for a moment before he realizes you’re looking at him, waiting for an explanation. He blushes again.

“I..” he tries a couple times, mouth opening and closing before he finally finds the words he’s looking for. “..I was mad, I guess.”

“At me?”

He shakes his head. “At humans.”

You tilt your head, beckoning him on. He sighs shakily.

“That night. The boat, my.. my parents were on there,” he says quietly, his hand playing with the sand to distract himself. “They were killed by poachers.”

“…I’m sorry,” what else can you really say? “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s fine.. I owe you an explanation.”

“You’ve told me more than enough.”

“I…” he hesitates, looking up at you from his spot on the shore. There’s a vulnerability in everything he does right now, from his place being lower than yours to this softness in his eyes. “…can I tell you about them? Please?”

“..Alfred says it helps when I talk about it,” he adds. You don’t know who Alfred is, but you nod anyway.

The world seems to narrow down to the small space of the cove as he tells you about his parents. What they were like, what they did, how he grew up. He tells you about his travels back when he was little, to the tropical regions, or to the arctic sea, even to the Mariana Trench once, though that was just him sneaking off for all pf a minute before he was caught and swiftly pulled away.

He tells you of how his parents loved him. How his dad took both of his hands and flung him out of water to teach him his first flip. How his mom taught him how to hunt, and how to string shells with seaweed or abandoned nets to decorate his waist. He’s getting more and more animated as he talks, more expressive, and you think you catch glimpses of his true brightness every now and then.

“After that night when I met you, Bruce took me in,” it’s a bit into the night when everything’s out in the open. You’re not mad at him anymore, not really. You’re not scared of him either.

“He’s been good to me. More than he should have, really, I was a nightmare when he first met me. Alfred’s been a saint, too.”

“Who’s Alfred?”

“Our butler. He’s family though. Like my grandpa, really.”

As if on cue, you hear your own grandfather in the distance, calling for you to come home. You stand up and dust yourself off but hesitate. Just leaving him now feels.. wrong.

“I never caught your name.”

He shifts on his forearms, looking up at you hopefully. “Does that mean you’re planning on seeing me again?”

You bite the inside of your cheek.

“Next summer. I promise.”

“…it’s Dick.”

You press your lips together to keep a little giggle from slipping out, instead giving him your name, too. You dig through your bag, muttering a small victory under your breath when you find what you’re looking for without much trouble.

A necklace with a tiny clover incased in a thin circle of clear resin as its pendant. You’d made it yourself a month or so ago after hunting in the sun for four leaf clovers. It’s something you’d miss but wouldn’t be devastated about if lost.

Without much thought, you crouch down in front of him, your shoes are getting wet but you pay it no mind as you clasp the chain around his neck. Your hands brush against his hair at the base of his skull and you swear he shivers.

“For insurance,” you explain, pulling back and straightening up again. “So you’re sure I’ll be here next year.”

He nods, a bit of color tinging his cheeks once more. It’s easy to make him blush, you think.

True to your word, you come back next year, and the one after that, and after that. The visits become more frequent over the years too, trips to your grandparents’ place going from only once every summer to an additional week in spring break as well. Each time you step into the cove, Dick greets you with a bright smile and a breathless little ‘you’re back’, like he didn’t think you’d really show. Every time.

The waves are colder in the spring, threatening to bring back memories you’re not so fond of, but the presence beside you chases them away with what little body heat he has. Ironic, when he’d been the ones to cause them in the first place, but you’re not complaining. Your head finds rest on his shoulder, the rest of you pressed against his side like a heat-seeking missile.

He’s changed noticeably through the years. Yeah, he’s always been pretty, but his jaw is sharper now, more angular, the muscles of his torso much more defined. You’d been caught staring more than once. He doesn’t seem to mind, but the teasing after is relentless. His hair falls into a tousled, perfect bed head sort of look without effort and his tail is sparklier than ever, around two and a half times as long as his torso. More if you count his fins. They flare out in a way that reminds you of expensive tulle or silk.

It moves in the water absentmindedly, scales catching the light. The necklace you’d left him with a few years ago is wrapped around it, just above where his caudal fin starts.

Your feelings towards him have changed just about as much as you both have over the few years you’ve actually known him. There’s a tiny spark burning deep in your chest, one that comes alive whenever those sky blue eyes meet yours. You don’t know when it got there, but it is, and it’s staying no matter how much you try to get it out. Maybe it started when you were sixteen, and your friends started getting into relationships. Most of the ones who weren’t were still mildly boy crazy, talking about things they’d heard from their older siblings. That was when you’d learned why it was nearly essential to compare hand sizes.

Or maybe it was when you were seventeen, when you were invited to your cousin’s wedding. You were never one to dream about your own wedding gown, but you still wanted to find someone to walk down the aisle to, whether that be in a wedding venue or just doing your weekly shopping together at the the grocery store.

Or maybe it wasn’t a specific moment at all. Maybe it had been collected in tiny pieces, little drops of water that gathered at the bottom of your heart until it formed a well too deep to drain. The well that seemed to get just a little bit deeper every time you caught sight of the shells decorating your shelves, when you snapped a photo of somewhere inland where you knew he’d love to visit, when he smiled at you like you were something special. Droplets that run down your cheeks when reality hits.

You know it’ll lead to nothing. But when you’re with him, you allow yourself to just forget that little detail and hope that maybe, just maybe, things will work out in your favor.

Somewhere along the line, his hand ends up half on top of yours. You pick it up out of boredom. His hands are big, it’s always been like that, you assume all mers are the same way since it helps with swimming. An evolutionary thing. Still, you put your palm against his, wanting to see the difference.

“Why’d you stop talking?” You ask, glancing at him in the corner of your eye when his voice dies down in the background. His eyebrows rise slightly, lips curving into a lazy smile.

“You weren’t listening,” he replies, fingers curving forward slightly, just enough to slot between yours but not quite closing around your palm.

“I was, though.”

“Don’t lie to me, you’re awful at it.”

In the corner of your brain, something your friends had said once lingers.

The hands are proportional to a man’s d—

You cut it off, sighing dramatically as you hide your face in his shoulder.

His smile turns into a smirk as Dick seems to read your mind. “Y’know, my ring finger’s longer than my pointer, too.” He hums, pressing his palm closer against yours.

You don’t give him the satisfaction of responding.

Your fingers find their way down until you’re holding his hand in yours.

He’s glad you can’t see his face when it happens. You’re warm. And soft. Two things mers very much are not. Before you came along, he didn’t understand the ones who would swim up to the surface in the middle of nowhere, just to find a sunridden rock to lie on. But the warmth of you against him is rare. Addicting.

Trying his best to ignore the blood rushing rapidly to his cheeks, he reciprocates.

You risk a look up at him to find he’s already staring. His face is too close to yours.

‘What are we?’

The question dies at the tip of his tongue. Not because he doesn’t know the answer, but because he knows nothing can come of it.

“Prom’s in like, a month,” you hum, turning away, staring at nothing in particular. Beside you, Dick’s shoulders slump slightly.

“That’s the party thing before you graduate, right?”

You nod. “A couple guys asked me. I dunno who I’ll go with, though. I have to find a dress online too, which is more than a little risky..”

There’s an unusually long pause before he responds, his head coming to rest on yours. “You’ll be fine. You’d make a trash bag work if it came down to it.”

“You’re such a cliché.”

“Only for you, dear.”

There’s something bothering him. You can tell by the way his lips form the slightest pout, the way he breathes in deeper than usual.

He’s a mer. He can’t go on land, even being here right now is technically forbidden. But still, he selfishly wants to be the one to take you to prom. He wants to be the one at your door in a fancy suit, the one who gets to see you all dressed up, the one to take you out and walk you home. Maybe even take you back to his place.

But that’s not in his cards, so he just keeps his mouth shut and smiles, telling you more about his little brother.

Prom is better than what you’d been expecting. The school has been cleaned of its usual muck, and what remains is easily hidden by the ‘mood’ lighting that had replaced the usual fluorescent white.

Your ‘date’ ditches you for a college girl he’d been texting for weeks. Apparently she’s in town just for him. You don’t mind, you didn’t really know him anyway, and your friends are a lot more fun. By the time you’re walking home, it’s a little over an hour before your curfew. You decide to take the scenic route since you have the time, feeling a bit melancholy now that you’ve left the loud music behind.

You’re walking along the pier and humming a melody stuck in your head from the party when it catches your eye. A shimmer in the moonlight that most definitely should not be here.

Dick?

Your mind blanks. Dick’s at the harbor. Why? Wouldn’t he want to stay away from the place where his parents got killed? It was why you’d never asked him to visit you here, the reason you assumed he never offered. So why was he here now?

You rush to where you saw it, at the last dock, where you’d first met him, but your feet come to a dead stop at the last minute. You don’t know what you were expecting, but it wasn’t… this.

Dick is.. simply put, an absolute wreck.

His hair is flattened in some parts and sticking up in every direction in others, the whites of his eyes are red like he’s been rubbing at them for the past ten minutes. He’s gripping onto a pillar for dear life, not caring if the barnacles dig into his skin. From what you can see, there are dark red scratch marks on his arms. They look self-imposed, except for one set deeper than the rest.

Taking off your heels, you walk the rest of the way, deliberately making your footsteps louder as to not startle him when you sit down, legs over the edge of the dock.

“…you okay?”

“…”

He doesn’t look at you, holding onto the pillar tighter. There are barnacles cutting into the skin of his cheek.

Taking a deep breath, you leave your shoes and jacket on the ground before slipping into the water. You’ll figure out an excuse as to why you’re soaked later. Hovering near him by holding yourself on the dock, you slowly move one hand to his shoulder.

The reaction is near instant, a series of things happening all at once. He tenses under your touch for a moment before he turns his head the other way, but the next moment you’re in his arms, being crushed against his chest. Your arms wrap instinctively around him, one hand rubbing his back while the other snakes its fingers into his hair. He buries his head further into your neck, a broken sob muffled against your skin.

The warm buzz from colored lights is gone now, leaving you exposed to the elements. You don’t feel cold, though. All you feel is him.

You hold him as he lets everything out, shoulders shaking violently even though he can’t shed tears.

It feels like forever before he can formulate words.

“He’s gone,” he gasps, hands fisted tight in your dress. “Jason.. he’s— it’s my fault, it’s all my fault…”

You comb your fingers through his hair. “Dick.. I’m sure that’s not—“

“Yes, it is!” He shouts, suddenly pulling away from you like you’d burned him. The force with which he pushes you away dunks your head underwater, and you flounder for a moment before familiar hands find their way around your waist, lifting you up. “Fuck, I’m sorry— shit..”

He holds you an arms’ length away, like he’s not quite sure what to do. In the end though he pushes you back onto the dock. A hand closes around your ankle and he presses his cheek to your calf, taking a shaky breath as if steeling himself to take a hit. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice hoarse, before he disappears into the depths.

You think you felt a fleeting kiss on your leg before he left.

[raomera]

waking up alone isn’t favorable to anyone.

unfortunately, you’d gotten used to it ever since meeting your fiancé.

it’s his night off though, he’d promised you that much, and damian wayne is rarely a man that gies against his promises with you.

the cold bites at your skin as you pull yourself from silk sheets, leaving goosebumps in its wake. you grab a throw blanket from the lounge chair, draping it over yourself as you pad out into the hallway.

it’s easy to predict where he would be if he had stayed home like he’d said. you’re in front of his home office a moment later, the light seeping out from under the door clear indication that damian is inside.

he looks up from his desk when the door is pushed open, tired eyes softening upon landing on your blanket clad form. he’d already heard your footstep coming.

“beloved,” he says, the deep, silken timbre of his voice drawing you closer. “you should be in bed.”

you’re too tired to really say anything. you mumble something incoherent, just enough to express your displeasure at him not being in bed with you while not breaking your half-asleep state. you slip onto his lap like you belong there, his hand not gripping his pen automatically coming up to splay across your lower back.

he doesn’t try to send you back, all too content to have you with him. the scratching of his pen on paper and his hand moving soothingly along your skin lulling you to sleep soon enough. Your head rests on his shoulder, face hidden in the crook of his neck as your body slumps against him.

he listens as your breathing evens out, matching his own to the rhythm subconsciously. his thumb rubs circles on your back, vaguely wishing the blanket wrapped around you were gone so that he could slip his hand under your shirt, skin on skin.

he puts his pen down mid-sentence in favor of wrapping both arms around you, tilting his head to press his cheek against your hair. The scent of your shampoo fills his lungs as he’s stricken with the realization that you’re here and so painfully real.

he holds you tighter than he normally would, feeling your pulse beating beneath your skin. pulling away slightly, he leans you backward just enough for him to push your hair out of the way and press his mouth against the column of your throat, pressing kisses firmly where he can reach.

“younī, albī, ḥayātī…” he whispers each word against your skin like a promise or a vow, sacred text dedicated only to his own little deity.

abandoning his paperwork, he bundles you up in his arms, carrying you down the hall you came and back into the comfort of your shared room. you stir slightly as he lays you back down on the bed, carefully ridding you of your throw blanket, eyes cracking open to meet his. he lets you pull him down with you, settling next to you on the mattress and pulling the sheets up to cover you both.

he curls around you like a large cat, letting you bury your face in his chest as he tangles his legs with yours. he kisses the top of your head, letting himself linger there as he holds you against him.

“you have no idea what i’d do for you,” he’d said to you once, when he was younger, when things with you were still unfamiliar.

now, though, now he knows better.

you know exactly how far he’d go for you. the people he’d hurt, the cities he’d burn, all if you only asked.

yet you don’t ask. you don’t want the dark knight to wrought justice in your name, you don’t wish the demon’s head to make the world kneel at your feet, you don’t even ask him to cover you in jewels and luxuries only a wayne could afford. you only want him, for him to stay beside you, to love you, as if it’s a gift he’s given you and not a privilege you’ve granted him, one he holds more dearly than his own heart.

and now, he lies beside you as damian. just a man. letting your heartbeat silence his mind until he slowly lets sleep wash over him, hoping to see you even in his dreams.

[raomera]

masterlist

Dick Grayson

but i love you so..ㅣhe left without saying goodbye. you think he’s done with you. he comes home two months later.

dark curls, watercolor eyesㅣmer! dick grayson

drabbles

love fool

vampire!auㅣcoming soon..

heteroerotic friendsㅣcoming soon…

talon!auㅣcoming soon..

Jason Todd

new best friend (met him at the bar)ㅣyou meet a stranger at the bar.

drabbles

loving him

flowers

werewolf! jason

Tim Drake

drabbles

comforting him (batsib!r)

Damian Wayne

drabbles

he loves his fiancée

duckweed

Bruce Wayne

Wally West

[raomera]

New best friend (met him at the bar)

tags; probably inaccurate depictions of drinking and drunkness, written while sleep deprived, no beta

It's 2 a.m. and you're sitting in some dingy bar in the bad side of town, hand covering your fifth? drink of the night.

It's a little hole in the wall no one really knows but always stumbles into whenever they need it. You’ve only been in here twice before. The bartender is an older woman with not much makeup save for a dark brownish rouge on her lips. She’s nice enough, though. She gave you a bowl of cheap candy after your third drink.

Your eyes fall on the man on the far side of the counter. He's almost impossible to miss, what with being one of the three other people there, but he's also massive, which doesn't really help him blend into the shadows of the corner he's sitting in. His hair's in need of a trim, a little shaggy in some parts and almost covering his eyes, but it's clean and fluffy in a way that makes you want to run your hand through it. He's in a hoodie that's a little oversized even for him. Prime estate for any partner.

You've been staring a little too long, though. Seemingly feeling your gaze, his eyes flick up, meeting yours through the white strands in the way. He looks tired. Not too tired to send a glare your way, though.

But he’s pretty, so you decide he’s interesting.

Taking your glass and your candy, you walk the long, wobbly journey to his end of the table. The bartender keeps an eye on you, probably deciding to cut you off for the night. Bummer. In hindsight though, she probably should have done that a while ago. The hangover’s going to kill you tomorrow.

The man doesn’t acknowledge you when you sit down on the stool next to him. He doesn’t bat an eye when you keep staring either.

You scrunch your nose a little when the smell hits. “You smoke?”

You wonder if he’s just going to keep ignoring you when he shifts a little, angling himself away from you. “..go away.”

You rest your hand on your palm, taking a candy from your bowl and sliding it towards him. “It’s bad for you, y’know.”

“I don’t care. Go away.”

“Sweet things help.”

“Leave me alone.”

His voice is deep, but not in an ‘I chain smoke every day’ kind of way. Puberty must’ve hit like a bitch. A social smoker then, maybe. He doesn’t seem the social type though.

You sigh, taking a piece of candy for yourself. Your friends are social smokers. Well, ex-friends, but that sounds kinda silly. It’s a little melted and it sticks to your teeth and tastes like fruit flavored plastic. You shrug and enjoy it anyway.

You can feel him watching you out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to be left alone, you’re not that oblivious. The alcohol in your system makes you bolder, though. And apparently makes your stranger danger alarm go away, because you suddenly realize you’re sitting next to a grown ass man you don’t even know, and who’s twice the size of any guy you’ve seen around. Normal you would have left the bar as soon as he walked in. It’s Gotham, after all. Never too safe.

“…how many of those have you had?” His voice snaps you out of your thoughts, and you go to answer but have to finish chewing first. You’d apparently stopped when you drifted off.

“Like… at least two,” you shrug, glancing at the small bowl. It had been nearly full when the bartender had given it to you. Now it’s just about half empty. “Yep. Definitely at least two.”

He looks at you like you’re stupid. Rude. “..I can see that.”

“Your hair’s white.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Stressed much?”

Again, no answer.

“I am.” Your arms are crossed in the table now, and you lay your head on top. “Wanna know why?”

“No.”

“I cut off all my friends.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, I mean ‘no, I don’t care.’”

“They were real toxic.”

“Okay.”

“Shoulda done it sooner.”

“Sure.”

You grab another candy. His eyebrows raise the slightest bit.

“Those are bad for you.” He says, a little gruffly.

“So’s smoking.”

“That’s different.”

“I’ll stop these when you stop smoking.”

“It’s different.”

He runs a hand through his hair, and you get a clear look at his eyes for the first time. They’re such a pretty green. Or maybe blue. What was the color… teal? Cyan? Either way, they’re pretty. You tell him so.

“You’re pretty.” Your words come out a little dazed. You swear his eyes are glowing in the dim light.

He frowns at your words, gaze a little sharper now. “I’m not.”

Well that’s just ridiculous. “You are.”

“Stop it.”

“Is this some toxic masculinity thing?”

“Shut up.”

“But-”

“I’m not pretty,” he grits out. There’s a finality in his voice that makes you hesitant to push. You notice him looking down at his hands, closed around his nearly untouched glass of whiskey. Not much of a drinker usually, then? Must’ve had a bad day. You also notice the scars littering his skin. His knuckles are the worst, but that’s really only because they’re cut and bruised, not fully healed like the backs of his hands.

“..you fight much?” You ask, a little quieter now. His fingers twitch, like he’s trying not to pull the sleeves of his hoodie up to cover the entirety of his hands.

“What’s it to you?”

“I fought too.”

“With your friends?”

You can’t help but smile at that. “So you were listening.”

“Wasn’t.”

“Sure.” You’re silent for a moment before you down the rest of your own drink, squinting at the bitter burn at the back of your tongue. “..yeah. With my friends. Lotta screaming. My throat hurts..” you pause, “..alcohol probably isn’t helping.”

He’s looking at you. “…no.”

“No as in ‘I don’t care’?”

He shakes his head. You swear there’s almost a smile ln his lips. It’s probably your alcohol-ridden brain seeing things where they aren’t. “No as in, ‘no, alcohol probably isn’t helping.’”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I have common sense.”

“Do you, though?”

“You calling me dumb?”

“I’m calling you drunk.”

You giggle. “Maybe.”

“No, not ‘maybe’,” he rolls his eyes again, glancing at the bartender when she comes over to take your empty glass. “Jess is cutting you off.”

So her name is Jess. You squint at her as she puts your glass in the sink. Suits her.

You reach for another piece of candy when he takes the bowl away from you. “I’m cutting you off, too.”

You groan. “But why though..”

“You’re going to give yourself an aneurysm.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t.”

“So give it back.”

“No.” So bossy.

You glare at him. Some of his hair falls back in front of his eyes. “..you need a trim.”

His eyebrows rise, caught a little off guard. “..haven’t had the time.”

“Can I do it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’re drunk.”

“What if I wasn’t?”

“I still don’t trust you with scissors near me.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know you,” he pauses, considering the half-empty bowl he’s keeping away from your reach. A weird but somehow generic name is printed on each candy. No ingredients, though, just flimsy plastic. “And because you eat Gotham store-brand candy by the handful… I don’t even know what’s in these.”

He looks at the bartender - Jess - with an almost disappointed look. “Really, Jess? You couldn’t even get the good knockoffs?”

“It was on clearance,” Jess drawls, unbothered.

“You do know me, though,” you murmur, head resting on your arms again. The man shakes his head slightly.

“I don’t even know your name.” Okay, fair point.

You give him your name. “What’s yours?”

There’s a minute before he answers. You can tell he’s contemplating just leaving right then. You’re getting a little too close for comfort. You don’t want him to leave. Your eyes shift to look at the table instead.

“…Jason.”

“Jason,” you hum. It suits him.

There’s really nothing to do here anymore. You’ve been cut off from the two things that gave you purpose here. “What am I supposed to do now?”

He shrugs. As if he’s not part of the reason there’s nothing to do now. “Go home.”

Your expression darkens at that, and you muffle a groan by now lying face-down on the table. It’s not sticky, thankfully. That’s really all you can ask of a place like this. “I can’t.”

Jason frowns. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

“The friends I cut off were also my roommates..” Bit of a stupid decision on your part.

“That was dumb.”

“Yes, Jason, I know. Thank you.” You sigh. There’s definitely going to be a shit ton of glitter in all your stuff by the time you get back home. You don’t have the strength to deal with that today. Evil little fuckers.

You’re busy trying to remember if there’s a motel around you can actually trust when it happens. Maybe you looked a little too miserable to ignore. Jason, after a couple minutes of seemingly endless self conflict, blurts out,

“You could crash at mine.”

…

Um…

I mean, yeah, sure. Why the fuck not at this point, right?

“Um… thanks, but, I don’t know..” you decline once to be polite. And also because holy shit, some guy - very pretty guy, but still some random guy - just offered for you to sleep at his place. You’re not getting murdered, right? He’s been nice(ish) up to this point, but…

Jason, apparently also utterly confused on why he’s offering in the first place, adds, “we have a guest room. Probably a lot cleaner than any motel within walking distance.”

“We?”

“My roommate.”

“Oh.”

You sigh again. Thinking too hard about this is starting to make your brain hurt. And you really don’t want to go back home.

The bartender comes over to take the candy bowl. You wave her over, leaning over a little to talk ‘discreetly’.

“You know this guy?” You ask, tossing what your drunk mind thinks is an inconspicuous glance at Jason.

She shrugs. “Yeah. For a while.”

“So he’s safe?”

She raises an eyebrow. “..safe as it gets around here.”

She shakes her head at the skeptical look you give her. “I’ve known him since he was little. He’s a good kid.”

Alright. Good enough.

You turn back to Jason. “..Mind if I sleep over?”

He shakes his head, leaving a twenty under his still mostly full glass and sliding off his stool. He’s even bigger standing up. What did his parents feed him?

You pay your tab and follow behind him, stumbling occasionally. It’s cold when you get out of the bar, you’re sure it has to be, because your breath fogs up the slightest bit. You should be shivering with how thin your shirt is, and you’d neglected to grab a jacket when you’d stormed out of your apartment, but the drinks you’ve had dulls the sense. Your cheeks are warm enough you’re sure there’s a very noticeable blush there.

You stumble on the crumbly pavement, hand instinctively reaching out to grab Jason’s arm to keep yourself from falling. He tenses, but doesn’t pull away. You hold onto his sleeve for the rest of the walk.

He’s nice. Just.. nice. While it may be a catch all phrase to describe someone who doesn’t have much else going for them, it’s also often overlooked how difficult it is to find someone who’s just nice (in a non-creepy way) in a place like Gotham, and especially Crime Alley. Just look at the name.

He finds somewhere clean-ish for you to sit when you’re feeling a little dizzy and entertains your little detours, like stopping at some random convenience store to fill a random cat food bowl on the street because there’s a little left at the bottom, “and that means something’s eating out of it. It’s probably hungry now.”

When you get to his place, you tentatively step inside, looking around but not really taking in much. You’re not comfortable showering here so you just decide to sleep in your outside clothes. Not the most comfortable thing either, but it’s not long to fall asleep after your head hits the pillow, so you don’t have to think about it much.

Vaguely, you feel something soft being haphazardly pulled over your head.

It barely feels like you’ve blinked when the sun peeks through the blinds, dark circles and a pounding headache keeping you company as you groan, trying to make sense of the world again.

You’re in a strange bed. You reach up to rub the sleep out of your eyes when you realize you can’t.

Looking down, there’s a hoodie pulled over the thin top you wore out last night. It’s on in a weird way that you’re technically wearing it, but your arms are stuck inside the torso and not in the sleeves. It smells faintly of cotton, the brownish paper of books and Irish Spring. There’s also the smallest hint of cheap gas station cologne. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest.

You opt to keep it on since it’s chilly. Pushing your arms out the sleeves, you try to stand up from the bed and immediately sit back down, the headache worse with the sudden movement. Your muscles aren’t much better either, some screaming in protest since you slept positioned like a crumpled piece of paper in the night. Taking a moment to recover, that’s when you notice the cup of water and a packet of pills on the bedside table.

Taking the necessary amount, you feel a little heat in your cheeks. The alcohol must not have completely worn off yet.

You sit there a minute before trying to get up again. Success. You reach the door and are just about to turn the handle when you hear voices outside.

“-can’t believe you brought a girl home-”

“She needed a place to crash. That’s it.”

“And you gave her my hoodie!”

“It’s my hoodie.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, was it meticulously stashed in the corner of your closet?”

“No.”

“No! Because it was in mine, and therefore, is mine.”

“You can have it back when she goes home.”

“I want it now..”

“There’s like half a dozen more in the closet. Pick one.”

It’s then that you decide to open the door. It didn’t sound like they were stopping any time soon. Plus, you needed something hot in your system right that minute or you were definitely going to throw up everywhere.

You recognize Jason, but the other man - a ginger in a tank top, well-built but not massive like the former - is new, and he stares at you for a solid minute like you’re an alien creature.

“…hi?” You mumble awkwardly, not really knowing what to say. It’s the first time you’ve been taken to a stranger’s place drunk, with nothing but literal sleep happening after.

“Hey,” Surprisingly, the ginger is the one to move first. He gives you a toothy grin, holding out his hand. Jason pushes it away, but it persists. “I’m Roy.”

You take his hand after a second.

Your eyes flicker over to Jason, who’s already staring at you. He looks a little softer here than at the bar, the natural coming through the small living room window makes him look a little less weary. Or maybe he just had a good night’s sleep. Are the circles under his eyes lighter?

“So…” you start, feeling a little uncomfortably warm under his gaze. “Thank you.. for everything.”

You’re expecting him to kick you out. After all, letting you sleep here in the first place must’ve been an impulsive decision made under the influence of alcohol and pity - god, why had you told him so much?

It’s another minute or something of staring before Roy ‘subtly’ elbows him, apparently bringing Jason back online.

“..can I take you out for breakfast?”

[raomera]

loving jason todd is like caring for an old marble statue.

he looks like something straight out of greek mythology, something pygmalion would have crafted with rough hands and bright eyes for nights on end. scars from battle like ares, or maybe he's closer to hephaestus considering his past.

but time hasn't treated him well, he's been broken and put back together more times than he can count. there are bad days where he can barely feel the parts of him that had once been taken away only to be stitched back on, where he feels like he's missing arms or ribs or even his head, and he feels as if he'd be right at home between nike of samothrace and venus of milo.

those days, he forces himself through the dark, grimy streets, body on autopilot as he watches limbs that aren't his own fight and bruise and bleed.

but then he comes home to you and slowly, slowly he feels whole again.

your fingers gently tap his before tugging at them, digits intertwined as you raise his hand up to your lips. you're just so warm and suddenly he feels his hand again, that fuzzy feeling gently running up his arm like spring water. he's thinking that the way your fingers are laced together reminds him of the crochet pattern he'd been trying to learn last night when before he realizes it, his other hand is moving on its own, finding purchase on your cheek.

it can't be a pleasant feeling, he thinks. he knows for a fact his hands are rough and calloused, years of abuse caked onto them in the form of scratchy white spots and ugly scars. but before he can take it away, you lean into it, nuzzling his palm as if it brings you comfort.

he brings you comfort, he realizes.

he stands there for a while, both hands now cupping your face, careful not to hold on too tight. his thumbs brush over the apples of your cheeks, feather light on each eyelid, one even traces the slope of your nose. you're so soft, flesh easily giving way under his touch and he can't help but feel like an elephant who's been given a kitten to hold.

then finally, he arrives at your lips.

he traces your bottom lip first, one slow, gentle swipe, before giving some love to the top. without much thought, he places both his thumbs over your lips like he's seen people do for stage directions, feeling the little squish when he puts just the slightest bit of pressure. your eyes open narrowly and he finally cracks a smile at the sight of you all smushed.

you open your eyes wider and his smile softens, his gaze locking onto yours. he feels like he could drown in them, drown in you, and he'd die happy this time.

he doesn't realize either of you are moving until his eyes physically can't look at yours anymore due to the sheer distance and the angle, instead slipping closed as his lips meld onto yours. he can feel the warmth in his cheeks and each kiss feels like pure bliss, the contact grounds him so that he feels like his head's on straight again. he's sure you can hear his heartbeat - after all, it's practically thundering against his eardrums - and the rhythm it knocks into his ribcage feels so real that the bones there can't possibly be missing.

jason feels every part of his body. in a good way. everything the world had ripped away from him now returned and fixed back in place by your warm, loving hands. yes, he may be a little weathered. yes, he may never feel brand new again. but really, does any of that matter when you look at him as if he's a masterpiece?

[raomera]

jason todd puts flowers on his own grave.

it wa curiosity at first. after he'd spent a while at the league and mellowed out, formed a proper plan besides simply burning wayne manor to the ground, he wondered what his grave would say. they'd told him there had been a funeral, after all. probably closed casket, with an altered death certificate saying he'd died in a car crash or something. not like bruce could face the truth if it beat him with a crowbar.

beloved son? a generic lie.

loving brother? much the same.

something bitter rises in his throat as his feet hit worn, damp stone. the streets aren't familiar anymore.. even crime alley has changed - there must've been a turf war or something, because those goons following him most definitely aren't black mask's usual pick. then again, maybe old roman's changed, too.

he sighs in frustration when he meets a dead end. gone for just how many years and they brick up an entire street? ridiculous. he hears the telltale sign of weapons being drawn behind him before he turns around with his own.

gone but not forgotten? they'd moved on fine without him. everyone had.

he stashes their bodies behind some dumpsters and moves quick. he's not in much of a mood for a fight right now. he isn't in a mood to do much of anything; there's a strange sense of melancholy in his chest.

he makes it the rest of the way to gotham's main cemetery without another incident. it's relatively easy to find his place there. thomas and martha wayne have a large tree next to their joint grave, and he just assumed he'd be somewhere near them. he's a little surprised to see his headstone right on their left. that spot used to be saved for bruce.

tentatively, he reads the inscription.

jason todd.

...

he shouldn't be surprised, really, what else did he expect? he wasn't in any of their lives for long, they barely knew him. he thought he knew them, he was wrong. they didn't care. the only thing they wanted to remember about him was his name, birth and death date, he doesn't doubt they would've had a blank headstone if they could, hell, maybe there wouldn't even have been a funeral if he hadn't existed in the public eye, he might as well have been buried in an unmarked, shallow grave next to that goddamn warehouse-

a drop of rain tears him out of his spiral.

...inhale...

...exhale.

maybe he'd hoped they cared.

that little boy who died that night deserved to have someone that cared.

...because that boy had cared so, so much.

come next morning, he's gotten himself a shitty apartment in crime alley and there's a small bouquet of flowers in his hand as he visits his grave for the second time. there's none already there, not even wilted ones. but as he crouches down to give himself what he believes to be the first flowers that boy has ever gotten, something in the grass glitters, catching his eye.

his first thought is a used needle, but as he looks a little closer, he realizes it's a little bracelet.

it's a little rusty and definitely made for a kid. the chain is cheap and a bit chunky. but the charm, a tiny, half heart meant to be a matching set to another bff bracelet, brings back a flood of memories.

he knew he'd forgotten a couple things when he'd come back. most of it was unimportant stuff. there's a jane austen book he doesn't recall reading? great, he gets to experience it for the first time again. his favorite color? well, he knows it's not green for sure, and that's really the only thing he needs to know. which floor his room was in the manor? he was never going to go back, anyway.

but how could he ever have forgotten you?

that tiny bracelet, tucked away from prying eyes and grubby hands in the taller grass near his headstone and meant for a boy he no longer was, said that someone had cared. enough to visit him. enough to leave something he would have wanted to take with him.

and maybe, just maybe, if he keeps coming back... he'll see you again one day.

so jason todd puts flowers on his own grave. every week, every day. same time, same place.

for that boy who had cared, and his friend who missed him.

and one day, a little while after his grand plan had gone to shit, there are flowers in his hand again. he doesn't get to place them on his grave, though. when he spots someone standing there - different clothes, different hair, but the same eyes that had been his first love all those years ago… it’s like seeing you for the first time all over again.

something shifts in his mind, clicks into place a way it hadn’t ever since his death. and it feels warm, it feels like coming home, if feels like your arms around him - mostly because they are. when he pulls away after a few minutes, trembling hands press cheap gas station flowers into your own.

he still buys flowers. they come home to the vase on your bookshelf.

[raomera]

Tim isn’t doing so well.

Hasn’t been for a while.

It’s obvious to anyone, really. Anyone who knew him at all. His sleeping’s getting worse, avoiding it for a week straight then crashing for two days and starting the cycle all over again. He spends most of his waking hours down in the cave, having built a new lab on a level even more underground than Bruce's usual center of operations. It's hidden just around the corner, where no one can find him if they don't know where to look.

He's so confused, all the time. He's not eating, not sleeping, he'll look at the sandwich Bruce has put in front of him or whatever Alfred cooked up like he genuinely doesn't know what to do with it. He'll stop in the middle of whatever he's doing and stare at the wall or a screen for over an hour, this blank look on his face that's honestly a little terrifying for you because you always knew what he was thinking. Always. And now you just... can't, anymore.

The others don't know what he's trying to do. Not yet. You only found out because you'd heard a loud crash from the deepest part of the cave, going down to see what's going on only to find Tim haunched over broken glass and smashed machinery.

You’d thought he needed this back then. Tim solves problems, it’s what he does. He fixes things. He solves problems. He solves problems. He does. He swears he can solve this one. He has to. You’d thought he just needed to see this through. He would take the first couple fails and put things down, finally allow himself to mourn.

But then the first dozen attempts came and went.

Twenty.

Thirty, fifty, eighty-

What is it, something just shy of a hundred, now?

He's dead on his feet as he shuffles around, going over the same equation he's already tried to and thought he did solve tens upon dozens of times over, muttering to himself as he circles the 7-foot tall chamber full of murky green liquid from the only Lazarus pit in Gotham.

Another failed attempt might actually kill him.

“Tim.” A part of you blames yourself for letting things get this far. “You need to sleep.”

It takes a minute for your voice to register. “I can sleep when I'm dead.”

“Which is going to be very soon if you don't go to bed.”

“Great, so you'll get what you want either way.”

The things you're saying might as well be gibberish.

You bite the inside of your cheek. He's going to kill you for this. You know he will. But he's been slowly killing himself over the past few months, and you can't just sit around and watch him anymore. You never should have in the first place.

You walk over to the wall and unplug the computer.

A second ticks by.

He tackles you.

He might as well be feral with how he lunged at you. You narrowly avoid hitting your head on one of his machines on the way down, air ripped from your lungs as nothing breaks the fall. Your head hits the stone floor and there's a weird squelching sound from where your teeth had been gnawing on the inside of your cheek. You taste copper before the sting registers.

You don't stop him, though. He needs to get everything out of his system.

But then he's confused again. He sits there, one hand bunched up the front of your top and the other raised in a loose fist, ans he just.. stops. As if he's not even the same person who'd tackled you down here just a second ago. Your hands are on either side of you, not bothering to block any hit that might come your way.

He thinks. Or doesn't think. Everything feels wrong. His clothes are too clean. His hair is too greasy. The computer is shut off and that constant hum that has been poking and prodding at him brain for the last few months is suddenly quiet. He's on top of you. He shouldn't be on top of you. He doesn't want to hurt anyone. Except maybe himself.

There's broken glass on the floor again, remnants of the world's best mom mug Dick had gotten for Bruce scattered all over the floor, pearly white amongst weirdly thick black liquid that can hardly be called coffee anymore. It reminds him of stars.

Stars.

Like the studs on Conner's leather jacket.

Like the one diamond earring he always wears.

Wore. Past tense.

The hand he has in the air trembles. There's water in his eyes and he can't breathe - he thinks he is drowning. It's cold. Too cold. His clothes are too clean. Why are they clean?

He flinches when you grab his wrist, slowly lowering his hand. The other is still tightly clutching the front of your shirt, fist sitting on the uppermost part of your sternum. His knuckles press down, hard, hard enough to bruise. He doesn't want to hurt you. He doesn't. He doesn't know why he's hurting you.

Make him stop.

Make it stop.

Make it stop—

He sobs when you finally manage to pull him down close enough to wrap your arms around him.

You haven't seen him actually cry since the day Conner died. He's lived on a self-sustained numbness until now. Maybe it was his mind protecting him. Because it knew he couldn't handle feeling all the things he secretly is.

“It was my fault,” he chokes out, struggling to breathe. He's drowning again. Don't let him drown. “I- I told him to keep fighting. I should have told him to go home.”

You don't say anything. He's not going to hear you like this. Instead you rub his back, taking deep breathes so that he can feel the slow rise and fall of your chest. His breathing slowly, very slowly, evens out, now matching yours with the occasional hiccup.

“It's not your fault,” you finally tell him. He probably doesn't want to hear it. It's all people have said to him regarding the incident since it happened. “You helped him save the world, that’s all. It’s not your fault.”

He doesn’t say anything against it, but you know he doesn’t believe it. His heart doesn’t. His brain.. probably doesn’t, either. But he lets you hold him, and you try your best to let him process, hopefully start to realize that he wasn’t responsible for anything that happened.

Your arms are tight around him and your legs are falling asleep from the way he’s sitting on them, but that doesn’t matter.

“You saved everyone. Every person who wakes up and has someone to care about? They have you and Conner to thank.” A pause. “…you’re not helping Conner by trying to bring him back, Tim. Not like this. You’re killing what he gave his life to protect. It’s important you live. If only to make sure he didn’t die for nothing.”

“…I didn’t want to save everyone, I wanted to save him.”

[raomera]

just saw this video of a huge dog biting his human's leg bc he’s just excited and wants to play and uhhh

thinking about the huge, fluffy, puppy of a werewolf that is jason todd.

now, to be clear; fully turned werewolves - not the half-and-half amalgamation they turn into during the full moon, but just fully wolf - are usually smaller as a canine than their human selves. most clock out at around the size of an eastern timber wolf, with the tallest ones reaching up to 6 feet in length.

but werewolf!jason was brought back from the brink of death using a supernatural puddle of water.

the same puddle that made him come back just a little bit.. unconventional.

werewolf!jason todd who, fully turned, measures in at a full 7 feet in length and then some.

werewolf!jason todd who is about the size of a huge timber wolf, somehow bigger than his human self.

his paws are big with almost owl-like sharp claws you sometimes trim when he just wants to cuddle and they get in the way. your hand doesn’t even cover half of the space between his ears when you pet him (something he not so begrudgingly enjoys after the first couple times). his fangs are almost as long as your fingers, and he has to be careful his tail doesn’t accidentally bludgeon you or any unsuspecting furniture when it inevitably starts to wag at the sight of you.

werewolf!jason todd who always stays inside during the full moon, because as much as gotham has an unusually high percentage of creatures living among the human population, the criminals don’t need to know that red hood is a werewolf. there are only so many in the city; it’s a potential clue about his identity that might lead to you being in danger.

werewolf!jason todd who initially absolutely refused to spend the full moon at home the first few months of you dating, not wanting to hurt you. yeah, he was sort of in control when he’s full dog. key words: sort of. he can’t take that risk.

werewolf!jason todd who, when you finally convince him he won’t hurt you and you trust him and you just wish he would stay home, caves. as he always does for you. after he gets a taste of what being around you fully turned is like, he never wants to miss the opportunity again.

werewolf!jason todd who goes crazy at your scent. especially when he’s turned. yeah, he loves your scent as a human, but the full moon maxes out his senses and suddenly he’s just so overwhelmed by the scent of you. not the perfume you wear or the shampoo in the bathroom of your shared apartment, just.. you. your natural scent. he nearly salivates as he insistently nudges at your throat with his nose, letting out a little whine when you laugh, complaining it tickles, and settles for resting his head on your chest instead.

(he hides your perfume for a while after turning back, wanting to catch your natural scent easier now that his senses are a little more dull.)

werewolf!jason todd who bites down very, very gently on your whole thigh when he gets a little too excited or overwhelmed. it does not matter how thick your thigh is, he is massive and his jaws will fit around your leg.

the first time it happened, it was an accident. he was growing restless, pacing a small parameter around you, body feeling like his skin was buzzing at every new sound and smell that he unfortunately picked up. and you were just sitting there. in shorts. thighs squished against the couch cushions.

slowly, he stalked over and sat on the ground in front of you. he rested his head on your lap like he often does and you thought that was the end of it. your hand was going to run through his fur when his head tilted, jaws slowly opening.

it was a small bite at first; his fangs scraped your skin so lightly it only tickled. then his mouth opened wider and before either of you knew it, your whole thigh had fit in his mouth.

jason, just as surprised as you, didn’t pull away. he can be soft mouthed, he always is when it comes to you. your flesh gives way just a slightest bit under his teeth and suddenly the sounds and colors and smells aren’t as bothersome anymore.

plus, he just really, really likes the feeling.

werewolf!jason todd who, after he gets comfortable around you when he’s fully turned, will act like a literal lap dog. is he not, in fact, tiny enough that putting his full weight on you won’t have actual consequences for your circulation? no, no he is not. does he care? absolutely the fuck no. he will crush you with all 260 pounds of fluff. resting his head on your lap when you’re on the couch? he never misses the chance. literally lying on top of you when you both turn in for the night? the moment he settles down you will have the air squeezed from your lungs, good luck. he’s not totally unreasonable though, he wants you to be comfortable, too. he will shift and turn until he finds an angle that’s just right for the both of you.

werewolf!jason todd who holds you so close after every full moon because turning hurts. it’s hard for you both because you’re in pain watching him in pain, unable to do anything about it.

werewolf!jason todd who will build you a whole nest when you’e feeling sick, letting you hoard all the soft blankets and pillows and hoodies while he makes soup by the pot full.

werewolf!jason todd who’s still bitey even when he’s human. he will still bite your thighs, even if he can’t fit them all anymore, your fingers, shoulders, collarbones… he allows himself just a little more force when he doesn’t have a whole mouth full of pointy fangs, loving the slight indent he leaves behind.

werewolf!jason todd who loves loves loves it when you mark him back in any way possible. and it’s really any way possible. bite marks, lipstick stains, scratches, everything, because as long as it comes from you, he knows it’s because you love him.

werewolf!jason todd who takes your stuff as an ‘emergency stash’ of your scent in case he’s ever unable to be near you for some time. hair ties, necklaces, bracelets, even clothes that are compact enough to fold and keep in his jacket pocket. he plays with whatever object of yours is on his person, wishing you were there next to him. but for now, he’ll tuck his nose against the hair tie on his wrist, just waiting until he can finally go home.