#penguin || danny williams

[ruginite]

Picked up from [ x ]

Sixty years. A life time to those bound by time’s normal standards, a blink to creatures like him. Because the average life expectancy for him? Is measured in centuries, not decades. And how unbearable the weight of that seems now, where once it hadn’t. How deary and uncolored his future. Because he’s sitting here. Forced to watch the love of his inevitably longer life, die. Watch as what he can’t fight off and protect Danny from, draws the witch farther and farther away. And it hurts, in a way you don’t get over.

And there’s a tightness to his throat. A burning at the corners of his eyes. Because even at the end Danny is lying there trying to comfort him. Trying to tell him it’s going to be alright. And it isn’t lost on the werewolf, the irony of that. That Bastian had been upwards of seventy when the witch had been born. That he was over a century old when they met. Though some how Penguin had always been the wiser. Always been better at being an adult...a man. 

Because Bastian might have the years but Danny...he had the mileage. And now at the ripe old age of one hundred and sixty-five--Bastian was destined to live for ages more without Danny there. Now the wolf was going to be the one with the mileage. Be the one that stayed hands and offered advice when it was asked for (and maybe sometimes not when it was asked for because Charlie was his dad’s son up one side and down the other, and bull headedness seems to be a Williams trait.)

But he smiles anyway. He smiles because the memories are there. He smiles because while he isn’t really sure where the next place he will go is, when ever it is that he does die, Danny seems so sure. So positive they’ll see each other once more. That this is simply a ‘I’ll see you later’ instead of an finite ‘goodbye’. And how can he do anything to damage that belief? How can he possibly argue it when it seems to be a comfort. The answer is he can’t. So he doesn’t.

Instead a hand is reached for. Instead he offers that firm unwavering grip he still possesses. Because by his kinds standards, he’s still young. He’s still got his youthful strength. Where blonde hair has turned to silver grey,  where care lines have taken hold; and age has taken its toll in his love--he is left utterly untouched. Much the same as he had been when they met, save a few scars, a few laugh lines. But how Bastian felt had never changed, even though Danny had. To him he only ever saw the person, not the shell that person resided within.

 There’s a chuckle at the joke, a smile that reaches his eyes. That threatens to push the grief from them. But still the damn holds. Still he is what Danny needs right now. An immovable object that loves and protects him. Especially now, here at the end. That only grows more stubborn, more desperate in its panic. That he can not punch this, he can not tear it to shreds. That for as powerful as he is, as powerful as Danny is--this is not a thing that either of them can stop. So when a hand reaches for his cheek he moves.

Lifts the other up, wraps him in an embrace that nothing in this world could shatter. Buries his nose in hair that is still kept and soft. Still smells like everything Danny Williams has ever been. A love. A home. A mate he never deserved. A protector when Bastian failed in protecting himself. A comfort when ghosts crawled from their graves to haunt and terrorize him. Everything that Bastian had ever wanted or needed--all wrapped up in this human being. And somewhere between the tear that finally cuts a path down his cheek and the breath upon which Danny slips away....

              “...whatever y’say, Penguin.”

They say that Hawaii doesn’t have wolves. But every now and then, when it’s quiet and the moon’s showing its face to the world in full. People say that something cries. Something that shouldn’t be. The locals say it’s just an owl, but one particular blood line knows different. One particular family that holds a secret close to their chests. That know they are safe, verses only believing it.

Because Hawaii doesn’t have wolves. 

It has one. 

One that made a promise, that he means to keep.

Always.

[ruginite]

Picked up from [ x ]

It’s anchoring the arm around his shoulders. The kiss pressed into his hair the tie that secures him to what’s real and not the mess in his head. And maybe he revels in it a little too greedily. Maybe leans into the attention more obviously than he realizes. But he can’t really be blamed for it can he? Maybe should be commended that even through the hellfire he’s walked through--he’d let someone in. Let two in. Or maybe that was all Steve and Danny and he’d never really stood a chance.

But honestly? Danny sounds a hell of a lot like Bastian’s mom right now. And that’s hardly an insult. His parents...he’d never stopped looking up to them. Even after he was grown. Even after he graduated Ranger school. After he’d made it clear he was an adult. That had done something with his life. They both still stood on pillars, that he never believed he could reach. And their death...their death had only made those pillars stronger and higher. Utterly unreachable.

So when he thinks that Danny sounds like his mother? It’s one of the highest complement he can bestow on anyone. But he doesn’t word that does he? No, like so many things he keeps it to himself. Settling against the other a little more. A breath to try to calm the wrenching in his chest. That’s wound so tight it makes his skin want to shake and crawl off his bones. But Danny helps with that. Helps ease the tension. Quiets the voices and stops the images that haunt him. And until Danny and Steve? 

No one and nothing had ever done that.

And that quiets the doubt that Danny’s talking about just now. Crushes it. Has him thinking that maybe one day it really will be alright. And the stubborn son of a bitch, with skin thicker than desert armidillo that he’d used to be...maybe he’d come back. Maybe the old him wasn’t quite broken beyond repair. Maybe just maybe he was still in there--somewhere.

But then brows are furrowing a little. Because Danny’s talking about depression and medication and...he sits up a little.Not much more than shifting his head really. Gaze tracking the generalized space of the other’s face because it had never occurred to Bastian that Danny was struggling. And he suddenly feels a little more guilty doesn’t he? For being the sizable burden he knows he is. It can’t be helpful at all. Having two war torn people be the people you love. And it might just have moved Danny a little closer to saint hood in Bastian’s mind.

Yet he knows what that feels like, feeling like there’s no way out. And it’s...a comfort that Danny apparently does too. Though he hopes Danny never took it quite as far as he had. Had never slipped so far down into the dark that the only escape you believed would work, was one that wouldn’t see you seeing tomorrow. And the skin of his right forearm itches at the reminder. Bastian only just managing not to rub at it beneath the sleeve wrapped around it. Focusing on saying something instead.

        “Wouldn’t think it, lookin’ at’cha, Penguin....                      --m’sorry f’I make it harder t’handle sum’times.”

[ruginite]

✩

My character has died and is now a Reaper. They must escort a certain number of souls over to the other side before they may rest in peace themselves. Send me a ✩ and my character will react to yours being the last soul they have to take. Status: Acceptin’

If you had asked him when he was alive, younger and lost–if this is where he would be, what he would be doing–he’d have thought you more cracked than he was. He would have laughed it off. He would have thought for sure it couldn’t be him you were talking about. Because he was alone, forgotten, guilty of things that maybe weren’t his fault, but he’d never been able to completely convince himself of that.

He’d slipped away in his sleep. That old heart of his that had been through far too much, just finally gave up the ghost. Literally. And he watched as the people that had become the corner stones of his life, become his family–mourn the loss of him. Watched silently as they laid his body to rest, and little by little stopped making the long trip to see him every year. Little by little moved on with their lives. As he moved on with other things.

Of guiding the fallen and the sick into the life after whatever limbo this was he was stuck in. Soul after soul after soul, drawn from the pain of life ending. Sending them on their way without words, but a lopsided sort of grin that those he’d come to love, knew all to well what meant. The sort of smile that though small reached his eyes. And in his form now. Washed clean of all the mistakes and the pain and nightmares, how much brighter is shines.

Fish had been collected by someone else. Bastian never did know who. And how much harder his job became. Knowing that Penguin was alone in that house. Kids and grandkids and maybe even great grandkids by now–but they weren’t around all the time. But he keeps to the job he’s been dealt. Keeps to the rules that frame his existence, in this in between. But now and then…now and then he checked in. 

But there is something…almost finite in the way his steps carry him today. As if they echo against worn carpet and linoleum, though that is perhaps impossible. For how can a ghost hold weight? But blue takes in every facet of the house. Incorporeal fingers trace the counter has he moves passed it, out the door towards the ocean. The twitch of lips, that two empty chairs still stand there, on either side of the occupied on. And for a moment he simply…enjoys the view, along with his unsuspecting company. Until the draw pulls at him. Makes his fingers itch. And he knows….oh he knows why he’s here.

It’s slow and easy, with a hand that no longer trembles and quakes. That’s steady as ever it had once been. That ghosts fingers over a shoulder and down an arm. That coaxes the other from the body that can no longer sustain him. Watches with a captured sort of expression, as the years melt away. Watches as the care lines, fade; and hair that had long lost it’s color turns a familiar shade of blonde. 

A hand held out. That lopsided never quite his whole mouth smile, hitching up his features. And there’s an easy sort of toss of his head, behind him.

              “C’mon, Penguin. S’get outta here.”

[ruginite]

“The world will eat you if you let it. That’s why it’s everyone for themselves. But here, you’ve got loyalty.”

DARK/VIOLENT STARTERS Status: Acceptin’

The words are spoken with a level of experience, that only comes with seeing the worst in people. Something he knows Danny must see (Steve too) on any given day of the week, considering what they do for a living. And he wonders exactly when it was that Danny figured out most people are good might just be a lie. How young he was or how old, that most people only look out for number one became a reality. Because Bastian knows the precise moment it dawned on him. He was fresh out of Ranger school. Got his first taste of combat with his unit, and he learned fast the difference between most people and his team.

The barest move of a lip, that catches a bit between his teeth. He knows what Danny’s trying to say. That even though Bastian’s team…his family…are gone. He’s not alone. That the world is going to continue to play for keeps, but they’re not going anywhere. That they’re going to stick beside him no matter what. That they are his new team, his new family, that aren’t going to become just another memory to haunt him when it’s quiet. 

But to know fault of their own, that pin prick of doubt is still there isn’t it? That worry that one day they’ll get tired of the hassle. The constant…everything wrong that he causes because he sometimes he just can’t.  That one day enough will be enough and he’ll be right back where he started when he met them. Lost. Alone. Confused. With no safe harbor from the monsters inside his head, and no anchor to keep him from drifting out to sea in a permanent sort of way.

But he doesn’t say it. He holds it in, and pushes it down. Blue tracking up from where it had settled in the floor between the couch and the coffee table. Focuses on the hand on his shoulder, that’s weighted but not in a bad way. Focuses on the face across from his own. And it’s a few precious seconds before he’s just leaning forward. Resting his forehead against Danny’s shoulder. Because he may not entirely believe it, but he does a little. Wants to believe it completely. And maybe someday he will. But for now he will take what he can get.

            “Sum’one should tell it t’go on a diet then…cuz m’tired a gettin’ chewed on                               cuz it thinks there’s sum’m left a me t’peel off.”

Is it a terrible joke? Yes. But humor never really had been his forte.

[ruginite]

♔♔

Send me ♔♔ for a photoset/edit/gifset of our muses Status: Acceptin’

We are never so lost that we can not find each other.Because our home shelters heart beats.That echo into the eternity of our breathing.Of our being alive. Of our knowing it’s all of us or none.

[ruginite]

The steak came from the best butcher (that Danny could afford anyway, the nerve of some people and the prices they asked for a piece of cow), carefully selected and worked over to perfection. It was how the Williams family expressed their love, celebrated a special occasion, a well-cooked meal for the recipient, chosen to suit their tastes. While Baz had quite the palate for anything that happened to be food, steak seemed to suit him well, coupled with a risotto. A plate presented with a smile.

He could smell it two miles off from the house. It’s what had him tearing up the private beach, to get back to the house much faster than he had been moving. Nearly flipping tail over snout into the pool, but just managing to alter his course so he rolled (more or less) through the open pool house doors.

A few moments later and he’s emerging, with far less fur and properly clothed. Taking the stairs of the veranda two at a time, and trying to be as casual about coming in the back door as possible. Which means…he really wasn’t. Not even a little bit. Not even at all. 

Blue fixating on the plate first, and then the smile that rest above it, and then the face behind that. And there goes his own. Hitching up one side first and then growing into something wide. That has slightly elongated canines catching over his lower lip. A deep inhale that took in every single scent inside a three square mile radius; thought he only ones he lets himself notice are the ones right in front of him.

The steak smells like heaven, and it’s cook like sin but that isn’t…stop. But he can’t, because his tongue’s already sliding over his lips, his teeth. And for a few minutes? He really can’t decide which he wants bite into first. But for the food’s sake he chooses the one he can literally tear into. The plate lifted from the hands that offer it, and a nuzzle for the chef that created it.

             “Thanks, Penguin. Smell fu—” 

He looks around for a moment. A far more shallow sniff. Ensuring there were no small ears.

               “—ckin’ amazin’.”

[ruginite]

Picked up from ( X )

          “Ain’t r’fault if yer comfy, Penguin.”