Just Me

Jenny Green and Tragic Mick (Tongue & Tusk)

It’s an effort, to bring her head back to a more comfortable position. She’s panting by the time she’s done with that, everything below her neck heavy and numb. She doesn’t feel like moving beyond that, now that the crick in her neck has been resolved. (Distantly, she’s not sure she even could.)

She blinks, and time slips, and maybe it’s only a second later but maybe it’s a whole fucking hour by the time she realizes there’s a man standing above her, staring down at her battered form. It takes her another indeterminate stretch of time to realize it’s not the jogger from before. This man’s wearing a shirt, for one, a frayed denim jacket stretched over that, a beanie on his head. 

Jenny doesn’t know how long it’s been, but she knows the staring isn’t helping anyone. “Hello… hello to… you… too,” she snarls out, coughing, throat scratching, surprised at the croak in her own voice. She spits onto the pebbled beach beneath her and doesn’t look to see if there’s blood on it.

The man raises a single eyebrow, glances behind him, and then looks at her again. “Nasty fall,” he says, tone half-cautious, half-sympathetic. 

“You think?” Jenny manages to get out. Moving seems a little easier now, or maybe just a little more worthwhile, her brain a little more alert and aware. Her limbs twitch, a few rocks skittering away from her. Fuck this guy for not even offering her a hand up. 

Just as the thought crosses her mind, he crouches down and leans forward. “Here,” he says, easy as can be. 

-justafandomfollower, Tongue & Tusk

tardisheart134 • Dec 5, 2022 Is there a numerical range or total that you should be aiming for that demonstrates a healthy self-care rating? kerink • Original Poster • Dec 5, 2022 @tardisheart134 no, you take each item at face value. there's no score, no cut-off, no goal. you can leave spaces blank if they're not for you, you can write in your own choices. a 3 can mean something different depending on what a healthy "frequency" looks like for you for that item. this is meant to generate ideas and inspire hope and give people easy wins and help people see their life holistically. its a conversation with yourself. no need to score or rate or grade

op in the comments also provided a link to a pdf version that allows you to type in your responses. the formatting and some wording is a bit different, but the main concepts are all there.

image ID of worksheets from the original post are below the read more.

Summary: Charles keeps waking up in places he has no memory of going to, with no idea of how long he's been gone or what he's done, and no good answers for Edwin when he makes it back to the office. Meanwhile, they've picked up a case - faceless ghosts are causing trouble in all sorts of places. Or, five times Charles disappears and turns back up on his own, plus one time Edwin goes and finds him first.

Summary: Newly-dead Paul Rowland turns up at the Dead Boy Detective Agency, looking for answers about his son's death. Charles insists they take the case, and use it - and Crystal and Niko's help - to expose as many of the deaths St. Hilarion's has covered up as possible.

(Is this how it works, I have no idea)

Tagged by @justafandomfollower, which is flattering, considering that I have literally zero works posted as of today. Let's hope it'll change in the foreseeable future. Here is a sneak peak at my dbda fic where a powerful magical entity basically uses a dog whistle on Charles and Edwin is not having it (he is having a midafterlife crisis instead).

"So he is your..." Mr. Darnell trailed off, looking past and slightly above Edwin's shoulder where Charles had finally left his futile attempts to walk through a solid wall and moved on to wandering the aisles. Out of recently acquired habit, Edwin also turned and watched him walk along the shelves that displayed an impressive array of trombones, candlesticks, and chamber pots. Not only were they all made of brass but if he were to check the cards attached to the items, Edwin was quite sure they would turn out to be of the same historical period. He appreciated this little touch that made the already intricate classification even more complex. Edwin could've appreciated it even more if he didn't have a pressing matter at hand. The matter in question tapped a large old-fashioned flugelhorn and gave a contented sigh at the resulting jangling sound. Edwin turned back to Mr. Darnell. "Charles is an associate of mine," he said, clasping his hands in front of his chest. "And quite competent at that. He is usually a bit more—" A deafening thunder erupted somewhere out of sight. It sounded like someone just knocked down a pile of neatly stacked hollow metal objects and now they were repeatedly hitting the floor, bouncing off of each other. Edwin squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, waiting for the noise to slowly dissipate into the stale air of the room. Eventually, it died down, giving way to a soft tune that Charles was absentmindedly humming under his breath. Edwin opened his eyes. Mr. Darnell stared at him without blinking. "—present," finished Edwin.

Thank you to @coraline-piange for the tag! From the Ghostcat binding potion fic I'm working on for Potions Week:

“Are you his partner?” Archie Fletcher asked the Cat King again. The Cat King ignored him, focused on Charles with a too-toothy smile. “Sorry, am I interrupting something? Honestly, I was hoping you wouldn’t be here and if you were, I figured you wouldn’t be up to anything interesting.” “I work here,” Charles told him. “Some of us have bloody jobs.” The Cat King scoffed. “You try overseeing 158 cats sometime.” “Thought it was 146.” “Ms. Frizzle had kittens. Again.” Charles was about to point out that it sounded like someone hadn’t been overseeing his 158 cats very well when there was the sound of shattering glass. He just had time to look down at the broken bottle of dark red liquid forming a small puddle on the ground between him and the Cat King. For a moment, he thought it was blood, or maybe wine, before a plume of red smoke surged upwards, wrapping around him and the Cat King. For a moment, all he could see was smoke. Somewhere, the Cat King was swearing viciously. “I bind you!” Archie Fletcher’s voice rose above the Cat King’s swearing. “Restless spirits, my will is yours. You will obey—” Eyes watering, Charles reached forward through the smoke, his hand finding his desk. He grabbed something—Edwin’s paperweight, he thought—and hurled it in the vague direction of where he thought Archie Fletcher was standing. He got lucky; there was a yelp and the chanting stopped. The smoke dissipated and Charles found himself staring down at Archie Fletcher, who was sprawled across the ground, unconscious. “What the absolute fuck?” The Cat King patted himself down. The smoke had made a wreck of his hair, Charles noticed with grim satisfaction. “This is my second favorite coat!"