random dexter rambling.. i miss rita.
instead of her dying, dexter saves her in time. she doesn't remember much about the assault but she swears she saw him kill her attacker before she loses consciousness. she wakes up in the hospital, he's there by her side. his hands trembling as he holds hers, brows furrowed, unable to meet her eyes. he mumbles "im sorry" and they sit in silence. she's trying to remember what happened but it's a blur. debra comes in and checks on her, gives them the bad news that trinity is in the wind. only, he's not and dexter knows it. he's at the bottom of the ocean, rotting in a trash bag. he's grateful for that at least, but he feels so guilty for what almost happened to rita. weeks pass, things are *different* between them to say the least. strained, painful. almost as if they can't look at each other anymore. he tries to talk but the words won't come out.
one day, rita has a dream of the attack, and clearly sees dexter stab trinity. she decides to follow him one night. she isn't sure why she hasn't ever done this before, he's always out so late.. and she's never quite sure what he's really doing. she watches with wide eyes as she sees him heaving what looks like a body in his trunk. he drives to an abandoned looking house. the moment he's inside with the body she shuts off her vehicle and follows him. she's peeking through the windows but can't see anything, so she sneaks inside quietly.
it's then that she sees all the plastic sheeting, curiously, she peeks behind it. only to reveal dexter, in all his homicidal glory, shoving a knife into some random man she's never met. the look in his eyes terrifies her and she lets out a gasp, almost tripping over something and falling back. his head snaps up and he can't believe his eyes. before she even gets a chance to run he's grabbing her, covering her mouth so she can't scream.
"it isn't what you think i promise- i was only-"
he can't think of a reasonable excuse, instead he just starts begging her not to leave him. he doesn't even care if she turns him in, he can't kill her. a million thoughts are running through his head and the biggest one is: "i can't lose them. my family. my wife. i won't lose them."
she's crying, her tears running onto his hand. the way she's looking at him makes his chest ache. he isn't sure what that feeling is, maybe hurt?
he takes his hand away slowly, "please.. rita. i can explain."
she shakes her head and looks away from him. she can't speak. she can't move, too terrified of the man she thought she knew. the man she married, the man she loves. loved? she doesn't even know anymore. was everything a lie?
he begins kissing her tears, salty on his lips. his hands, always so gentle when they touch her. even now, when they are covered in someone's blood.
"please," he begs again, his voice desperate.
she's shaking against him and she rasps out, "you killed him.. didn't you? the.. man who hurt me? i saw you.."
he nods and swallows the lump in his throat, "yes.. and this man. he hurt other people too. i only kill the ones who deserve it. i swear, i can prove it to you."
as if that justified him, as if that would make her stay. she finally looks up at him, and he can't tell what she's thinking. she's searching for something, he thinks, in his eyes. deceit, truth. every moment that passes is like an eternity until finally she stops shaking and her eyes soften. it's all beginning to click for her.
"this is your addiction, isn't it?"
he wants to say yes, because for the longest time it had been.. but the fear he just felt when he thought he could lose her told him otherwise. he kissed her, expecting her to pull away in disgust. only she didn't, she let him melt against her. shedding the mask he had put on for his entire life. someone finally saw him.. and she didn't leave.
She answers his question. He asks her if she’ll ever fall inlove with him. It’s an insult to her. Oh, if you ask this, then can you remove the tree where you carved our bed? No you can’t. You can never do that, unless you took a knife and carved it out of its hold. Then why do you ask me such a stupid question? Can you tell I’m going insane with this song????
Writing Tips
Punctuating Dialogue
✧
➸ “This is a sentence.”
➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.
➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”
➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”
➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”
➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”
➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.
“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.
“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”
➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”
➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”
However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!
➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.
If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)
➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“
“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.
➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.
➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”
➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.
“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”
➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.
“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”
Jared: I want to wake up with you for the rest of my life
Kim: I wake up at five
Jared: I want to fall asleep with you..
I bet Tim thanks the forces of the universe everyday that Bernard was annoying in high school, because a smart guy with cooking skills, who can fight and dresses well was not going to be single if that wasn’t the case
Jason should have come back to the manor post-lazarus pit and revealed himself as Jason Todd but not told the rest of the family that he’s also Red Hood. can you imagine how fucking funny that would be.
Nightwing: honestly! my family is fucking INSANE! i swear the only good one is my little brother, he died and came back and decided to ditch the vigilante life.
Red Hood: oh shit really?
Nightwing: honestly probably the smartest one out of all of us, he’s reading in bed while we’re all out here on stakeouts!
Red Hood: interesting. tell me more about how this brother is the best of all of you.
~
Red Hood: so what are you guys getting the smart handsome not-vigilante brother for Christmas?
Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin:
~
Batman: now i need all of you to have an equal share in the clean up-
Red Hood: yeah sorry, you aren’t MY dad, so i’m gonna dip. have fun cleaning!
the funniest part is when Dick and Tim decide that since Red Hood and Jason are so similar and Red Hood CLEARLY seems to like what he hears about Jason, that they should try to set the two up.
Jason, calling Roy at 4am: i need you in Gotham within the next hour so you can dress up as Red Hood and we can pretend that I’m sleeping with myself.
Roy:
Roy: i’m gonna get caught sneaking out of your bedroom with lipstick on your helmet
Jason: this is gonna be the funniest thing we’ve ever done.
Danny had a problem. If it was a big one, he couldn't tell yet but he was partially sure Clockwork was at fault for this. Or at least he wanted to blame his ghostly godparent who most likely just wanted to cause some chaos for entertainment with the pretext of helping Danny. Which was a very likely reason for why Danny had a problem right now.
As it was the former Fenton now Fenton-Wayne boy was pacing his room in the Manor trying to think what is next step should be, because as it was his 'new' family –Did new still apply if he was living with them for a little more than a year now? – knew him under three different Identities now. And to top it all off they were not aware that the three identities were all pretty much connected as one.
For one. His family, knew him as Danny, the space obsessed kid, who became a meta because of his ectobiology science obsessed parents and his teenager recklessness. A kid that was actually a genius if you gave him enough time for school and could make you anything out of a ancients be damed toaster. That was the Danny they mainly knew. The Kid they took in, let in on the family business and then chose, to the happiness of Alfred and dismay of some of his 'new' siblings, normal life over vigilante life.
Then they knew Phantom. A dead ghost hero that was helping the Justice League and Young Justice to help them deal with the aftermath of the huge fallout caused by the GIW, Guys in White or rather Ghost Investigation Ward. And while Danny didn't know he had apparently worked with nearly his entire family and that time he knew it now. Which was awkward because he had pretty much pestered one of his elder brothers about his condition until Red Hood, aka Jason, let Phantom help him. Ancient, things might get awkward if that secret is lifted. He had done a lot of things Batman, Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, Orphan and Robin had scowled him for. Thankfully they only thought of him as a dead teen hero and didn't know what a Halfa was. So they didn't make the connection, and he had yet to meet Signal, aka Duke as Phantom.
Now came the third identity, which totally did not happen by his choice. After all officially he hadn't accepted the throne yet and would only get it once he was dead dead not half dead. To bad ancient texts don't care about formalities. So when trouble hit the fan really hard the Justice League Dark had the bright Idea of getting some other worldly help. Which in other words was summoning the Ghost King. Oh boy, was it fun to learn that way that Danny could get summoned against his will. Clockwork did not give him that warning when he told him about the future of his afterlife. But best of all? Oh he doesn't get summoned as Phantom which would have made things maybe a bit easier, oh no. Life wasn't easy. He got someone's in some as a super weird black-green mass of a formless eltrich body with sharp teeth, claws and glowing green eyes with no pupils or irises. Hell Danny even scared himself when he saw his own reflection in a window and he didn't have a single idea how to change his form.
Let it be known that Danny acted then on purpose like he didn't know a single person in that room he had been summoned in right out of his bed and that he wasn't staring at his adoptive father like he needed help who interpreted his stare as the ghost king sizing him up. And Danny knows this because Dick had a good laugh about that at the dinner table with the rest of his siblings.
Now a smart person would probably come clean to his family and explain to them the three identities they knew him under and how they are connected.
To bad Danny wasn't 'smart' when it came to things like that. No in his panic and newfound awkwardness of the situation of what he had done on separate occasions with his identity as Phantom AND Ghost King, he decided to keep acting like he didn't knew them personally like the truely does. Really how hard could that be? Besides he liked the way his family threaten him now. He didn't want to get threaten differently because he was half dead, or a Ghost King. He liked that his family was treating him as plain old Danny who had an obsession with space and was their quirkily little brother with powers.
So that gave him even more incentive to keep the act up. Even if it was hard at times, especially if he got summoned out of nowhere. It would be easier if he could get a hang of the duplication power. He even had played with the thought of getting one of his ghost rogues to help but his family was perceptive. Maybe not perceptive enough to realise that all three identities were one and the same person but they would notice if Danny acted just slightly different or if Phantom was more of then usually. But somehow he still managed to keep it up.
But it was the hard way that he learned, Danny was bad at doing the 'talking' and realized that maybe Jazz was right and he was going to slip up one day causing huge misunderstandings like right now.
He stared down at Batman and Nightwing in his Ghost King form. Red Hood had his guns pulled on him, Wonder Woman and Superman looked like they where going to try to pull back Batman any second now while Nightwing, maybe at first was going to try to calm down the bat but Danny was pretty sure the eldest bat kid was now fiercely glaring at him too. He was also pretty sure the only reason he didn't see Red Robin or Robin threaten him too was because their super friends were somehow holding them back. For their own or his safety he doesn't know at the moment.
Because apparently the Bats did not fear fighting otherworldly beings to protect one of their own.
"What did you just say about Danny Fentons death?!" Batman grunted out and Danny just knew his adoptive father was glaring at him. Ancients Danny cursed his brain to mouth filter right now. As he had the collective hero scene before him staring at his Ghost King form. Would this be a good or bad moment to come completely clean or maybe he should find some kind of philosophical bullshit of 'All things death belong to him'....
Johanna: Annie's eyes are blue?
Finnick: They're a sea green, more aquamarine than blue.
Johanna: When was the last time she smiled?
Finnick: This morning, we were talking about starfish.
Johanna: When's my birthday?
Finnick:
Johanna: When's my birthday, Finnick?