I am a very simple person, and if you had the time for it a first kiss fic would be amazing <3 I don't mind if it's before or after canon, your choice :)
I hope you enjoy!!
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Pearl is so careful with when and how she touches Cleo, now that she’s told her everything. Before, when they were just two humans living together in a ruined town, she had been so casual about it. Her hand found Cleo’s constantly, she grabbed her shoulders to direct her gaze, she snuggled up to her when they were still sleeping on the floor. But after everything, Pearl has become deliberate. She keeps her hands where Cleo can see them and always announces when she’s going to touch her.
Cleo appreciates the gesture, of course. Anyone who spent as long without control of her own body as she did would. But it’s starting to drive her a little crazy. She doesn’t need to be treated with kid gloves. She misses when Pearl would just grab her like she wasn’t made of glass, when she would touch her like it didn’t mean anything because at that point to Pearl it didn’t. And Pearl is so nice to touch. She’s warm for one, being a werewolf as well as a vampire means that she hasn’t adopted the corpse cold of the undead. She’s also strong and buff, and Cleo can’t say she doesn’t appreciate the feeling of Pearl’s strong arms wrapped around her when they sleep. She just wants those casual touches back.
If Pearl won’t do it, Cleo decides, they’ll just have to start initiating contact themself. So they do. They grab Pearl’s hand (long fingers, callouses, fitting perfectly wrapped around Cleo’s shorter and wider hands) to “make sure she doesn’t get lost”. They tuck their head under Pearl’s chin at night, snuggling in to let Pearl know it's okay to melt into them too.
It takes two months before they work up to their first kiss. They’re both exhausted, having spent the night searching the woods for any more hidden crypts with potentially resting threats. Between that and the rebuilding, there’s been no rest for Oakhurst’s guardians. The sun is nearly risen by the time they make it back to the castle.
“I’m beat,” Pearl groans, carefully navigating the still broken bridge towards Cleo, who had gone ahead.The pinks and oranges of the sky behind her outline her with a glow. Her eyes are catching the sun in a way that makes her natural blue irises shine just under the red, the color shifting as she turns her head. She’s been sweating and the light glistens on her face and her toned forearms which are exposed since Pearl had rolled up her sleeves earlier. Pearl puts out her arms for balance, and Cleo watches with no small amount of interest as her biceps strain against the white fabric of her dress. She was already muscular before, and being turned has only made her stronger. It’s a damn good view, in Cleo’s opinion.
Pearl smiles at her with a big grin, dopey and exhausted. Cleo thinks of the books she had snuck into her room in the compound with protagonists who described butterflies in the stomach. It’s not quite right. There’s no butterflies, just warmth and light that reaches to the furthest parts of her. She doesn’t know how she could ever deserve this. The love is nearly bursting out of her skin, and she needs it to go somewhere.
When Pearl makes it across the bridge, hand hesitantly reaching for Cleo but waiting for her to close the gap, the warmth explodes. Cleo acts on instinct, she’s got no experience with this sort of thing, but she’s read about it. She grabs at Pearl’s collar, pulling her head down, and their lips meet. There’s no fireworks, no burst of song, no magic. But it’s so nice. It feels like home. Pearl’s hands wrap around her back, one sliding up to tangle in Cleo’s hair. Cleo moves her own hands away from her collar and to the back of her neck. Pearl guides her, lips moving against Cleo’s in a way that she tries to mimic. A couple of times their fangs click together, or their noses meet, and they lean back for just a moment to readjust. But they stay close and wrapped up in each other.
She’s not sure how long they’re together before they pull away. They don’t need to breathe anymore. It’s only when Cleo feels her skin start to sizzle as the sun has fully risen that she breaks the kiss fully. She pulls the two of them inside, reluctantly breaking their embrace. They don’t lose contact entirely, and she guides Pearl to sit on the couch in their sitting room.
“I love you,” She breathlessly sighs, pressing her face against Pearl’s shoulder. Pearl laughs.
“No really? I couldn’t tell,” She jokes. Cleo whines at that and pouts, eliciting another laugh, “I love you too,”
“I trust you, you know? I don’t mind if you want to touch me,” Cleo looks up, meeting Pearl’s eyes. “You don’t have to be so careful,”
“I don’t want you to ever feel like your body isn’t in your control,” Pearl responds. She’s playing with a strand of Cleo’s hair unconsciously, “It isn’t mine to touch, it’s yours,”
“How about this, you have blanket permission to touch me, because I trust you and love you and want you to 99% of the time, and if I’m uncomfortable with what you’re doing, I’ll tell you in the moment?”
Pearl pretends to think for a moment. Her hand moves to Cleo’s cheek, holding her so much more gently than Cleo has ever imagined they would be held.
“Alright. I agree to your terms. But only because you’re such a good kisser,” Pearl teases. Cleo laughs, giving her another quick peck.
“I’m glad, I’ve never kissed anyone before. I was nervous I would be bad at it,” They admit.
“I’ve only kissed a couple of other people, and that was years ago,” Pearl reassures.
“Oh, is there someone I should be jealous of?” Cleo turns and leans into Pearl’s chest. She has to strain her neck to look up at her when she responds.
“I was ‘dating’ a stable boy for a few weeks when I was 16, and I had one kiss with a guy at my debutante ball,” Pearl runs her fingers through Cleo’s hair. Cleo can’t help but snicker.
“A debutante ball, eh? Fancy,”
“I think there’s a ballroom in the castle, that room with all the broken tables in it? If we fix it up we could have a ball of our own,” Pearl gets that far away look that she gets when she’s planning something great. Cleo’s learned to trust it, even when it gets her in trouble. She’s learned to trust a lot of things.
When the Waynes leave, Danny can finally relax. Even if he's once again hit with a lingering regret that worms itself into his core like a little parasite. The final night that they're there, Bruce Wayne is not downstairs waiting for him, much to Danny's faint, lingering disappointment. He kinda liked talking to him, even if he kept it brief. Probably for the best.
Damian was still there when he returned with a sprained ankle and more ectoplasm burns. Danny tries not to make his limp obvious when he enters, and his clothing smells faintly of sulfur and burnt fabric.
Damian tells him he stinks, and Danny tells him he ran into a ghost. "The Phantom took care of it." He says, gripping his mask in his pocket tightly and avoiding putting weight on his injured foot. His thermos is pressed next to it. His fingers are freezing.
"Ah yes, your vigilante." Damian replies, "The one with the bat." And Danny can see the outline of his eyes narrowing at him.
"Can we really call him a vigilante when the people he's fighting are ghosts?" Danny asks, avoiding the 'bat' comment and leaning against the back of the kitchen chair.
"Did you actually lose your bat, Fenton?" Damian's fingers tap against his arm, refusing to move on. "Despite your ridiculous behavior and attempts to avoid my father and I, I find it hard to believe that the son of two ghost hunters would be as foolish as to forget his only weapon of defense against ghosts."
Ah, so he noticed that. Danny was half tempted to mutter that the bat wasn't his only weapon of defense. He still had his beloved jawbreakers. He's quiet, wondering how to respond to implication that he might be Phantom -- he can't believe Damian picked that up in only a few short days when nobody has caught on in little over a year -- before shrugging.
"I may have given it to the Phantom instead." He says, propping his arm up to put his chin in his hand, trying to look innocent while his heart skipped an anxious beat.
It's probably not the answer Damian wants, but when his word is the only proof he has, Danny doesn't think he should be too worried about it. Even if it meant that a second person outside his friend and enemy circle knew his identity.
He excuses himself shortly after, leaning heavily against the railing to try and hop up the stairs.
(Much to his surprise, Damian follows and lets Danny put his weight on him. He complains that its because Danny will wake his father if he allows him to bumble up the stairs on one foot.)
(Danny ruffles his hair again when they reach the top, and limps towards his bedroom.)
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Its three months and a handful of new injuries before Danny thinks about the Waynes again. A new ghost appeared in town who called itself Riftgate and he was capable of creating teleport portals to anywhere in the world.
He was a fucking pain in the ass to fight, costing Danny three hours of his night where he could have been sleeping and nearly his hand. Danny gets dragged through the other side before finally shoving Rift inside the thermos.
But he also ends up nearly 900 miles away in fucking Gotham of all places on the top of an empty roof. Great, juuuust great. Danny is tired, he is grumpy, and he is in a city so laden with ectoplasm that he can all but taste it on his tongue. Or maybe that was just the air quality.
He can't even see the stars here, and his mood worsens.
Well, he's too fucking tired to bother handling this right now. There's no way Sam or Tucker are able to help him considering their distance, and right now Danny just wants to sleep. Maybe after that he can figure out a way home.
So he does, sort of. He walks over to the door and doesn't bother trying to open it, even if there was a 50/50 chance of it being unlocked. (This was Gotham after all.) Instead he sweeps the ground with his foot and curls up at door and he's out like a light.
....Only to be woken up by hissed muttering close to his ear and a gloved hand pressing into the pulse of his neck. "No I don't know if they're dead but I don't think so." Says the unfamiliar voice, and Danny opens a bleary eye.
"He's breathing, but his pulse is too slow to be normal. I think he needs help." The voice, a boy, -- no, Red Robin, great -- continues, and Danny looks beside him to see who he was talking to. No one. "He's probably part of some kind of gang, his mask kind of reminds me of Hood's."
Danny just barely remembers that he's still dressed up as Phantom before he tiredly signs, "I'm not part of a fucking gang." and pushes the boy's hand off.
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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 4.5 (Dani interlude) Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 7.5 (Dan Interlude) Part 8
Anytime my health issues or my mental health issues act up I just go and read the comments I've gotten on the fanfiction I write and immediately feel better in an emotional way
I just want you to know that I get giddy whenever I read the Luke/Friar Errol/Stefan fics so much. I'm kicking my feet and all that.
I'm just thinking maybe the aftermath of the last fic. With Friar Errol still feeling new things from their relationship, and he gets shy when others start to know (Ben-Hwa is jumping around with joy as they're getting the news). He still questions the Holy Convection if where he is now is the right place for him and his heart, and all things point to the two men having a lovey dovey time, as if the heavens are telling him "Yes." And the feelings overwhelm him so much he cries out of joy for the chance of even being loved.
So what if I cried and didn't want to respond to this ask bc I'm scared to lose it
What if I actively sob that someone out there ready my lil fics and got thoughtful 🥺🥺
