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purplefyragon · 2 years

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How Deep Will You Go?

Basically a Dark ending for ISWM. Idk lmao. Meh.

Sooo I wrote this before? Mark said Engineer!Mark isn't Actor. This is a universe where he is. Multiverses and all that. Fucko only gave us the shoe & a hand so I said 'Bet'. Also I absolutely hate this and most of what I write in general so yknow.

Rating: General/SFW

GN!Reader

Pairings: Very mild implied DA/Damien, more one-sided to him now as you don't fuckin remember shit

Warnings: canon typical angry void man, attempted/failed hypnosis, he kinna stinky & kisses you without your consent

Word count: 3600+

~~~

Over and over again.

No matter how many wormholes you jump through or universal resets your soul survives, you always end up back here.

This time though?

This time, something feels different in the way the Engineer looks at you. There is weight behind it. A terrible weight that you can’t put your finger on, but you nonetheless feel bearing down upon you.

You still go through the motions; recoiling from the fire extinguisher strike to your head, the loss of the crystal, ‘Don’t.’, etc.

Yet…

Considering how much you’ve been through- how many cycles was it now? You’ve lost count- it is now second nature to grab his hand before the wormhole drags him into its depths. The Head Engineer fights back, begging for you to let him go as he tries to wrench his hand from your hold, but you stay firm. Gravity drag threatens to pull you in too, so you hook your leg around a guard rail and hold on for dear life. Mark’s begging finally makes it through the cacophonous, eldritch droning of the Wormhole above you.

“--Captain, please! Why won’t you let me go? I know how to stop this! I can save everyone- everything!” he cries as he tries to wrest his hand from your own.

That’s different.

You shake your head, expression contrite. He sure sounds convincing, but you’ve been through too much to let him go on the assumptions of his expertise. He said it himself; you don’t have to understand how something works to use it. He also said it himself- ‘Stop me from going back, Captain- no matter what it takes!’

“Why?!”, he continues, “Surely, I can fix this! Who else even can now!? It’s my fault- I did let you pilot my ship, after all. I have to fix all this, reverse everything you did!"

There’s so much wrong with that assumption- so damn much wrong with the Engineer’s logic. It infuriates you, really- you didn’t do any of this! You never asked for the Warp Core to choose you! You don’t even have control over the jumps half the time! You don’t have time to argue with him now, and you doubt he’d believe you, anyway. The universe is collapsing around you, and you have less than a minute to make a decision.

You could Let Go: send your partner hurtling into the lifeblood pathways of the multiverse to a time and place unknown in the foolish hope that he can fix this.

You could Hold On: heed his older self’s plea and deny his quest to go back, tossing the Crystal into the abyss instead and setting forth an unknown chain of events that could either save or destroy all reality as you know it.

Or…

You could J̶̠͌̌u̷͇̿͌ͅm̷̛̱̽p̸̬͝ ̵̮̯͐̚Ị̵̰̅n̸̤̩̆ with the Crystal, leaving the overloading Warp Core- the original Warp Core- to self-destruct.

It’s as if your body has already decided for you. You reach out for the Crystal even as Mark screams for you not to, accusing you of wanting to destroy the universe. The man doesn’t understand what you’ve seen throughout all this. You’ve spent your own eternity through hell.

You’re tired. So very, very tired.

"Universal Collapse Imminent. Please Resolve Paradox.” The voice of the Core rumbles its final warning out, mechanical and cold.

Mark makes eye contact with you, his gaze both accusatory and pleading. You focus back on the Crystal but lose your balance, losing your grip on the guard rail and stumbling toward the Warp Core. The hand in your own is no longer trying to lessen your hold, but tightening its own. Mark is trying to use his weight against you now, thrashing and pulling you up with him into the chaotic portal.

In that instant, you see something else in his eyes, backlit by the electric blue- something darker. Frustration and desperation twisted into a rage- into something… something red-

You aren’t following the Script, Captain.

You let go.

The Event Horizon of the Wormhole cuts off Mark's yelp of surprise as he spins head over heels into the twisting crescendo. Somehow through all that out-of-control movement, his eyes manage to find yours before the blue glow engulfs his form.

In that same beat, you reach down and snag the Crystal from its mooring, tossing it up into the yawning chaos after the Engineer. You follow suit, launching yourself off the ground and into the twisting abyss before the portal collapses.

This time, unnatural darkness meets you upon falling into the wormhole. Rushing wind and foreign sound still buffer your remaining senses, offering some semblance of familiarity. The sensation of your entire being shredded and put back together seems far more visceral this time.

Something feels wrong, more wrong than hurtling through the space between planes, extant where reality is not.

The sickening-yet-familiar flight finally ends, both an eternity and far too quick. Your sight returns to you too late for you to catch yourself plummeting out of the wormhole. Unforgiving ground rushes up to meet you, knocking the breath from your lungs. Coughing roughly, it takes a moment before you can force yourself to your knees and take a look around.

It is an immediate sensation of trespassing in a place not meant for you. The Warp Core sits before you, illuminated in that same haunting blue light as it was when it first ‘chose’ you for this ‘mission’. However, the Crystal is nowhere in sight; nor is there Dorlene to cryptically chide you, no Core Voice to request a host, or Old Man Mark to gloat in your face about stopping you.

The 'ground' beneath your hands and knees changes, rippling like the surface of a pond from the slightest movements. To your surprise, no water clings to your skin or soaks into your jumpsuit. Looking around, you note that the heavy darkness around you terminates into a vast, endless sky of red and blue stars. Whole galaxies swirl above you in the endless gloom.

It hits you all at once how small and out of place you feel, how foreign this all is, a dawning realization that-

… You are alone. Completely and utterly alone.

Is this what the end of the Multiverse looks like?

“Will you ever tire of these meetings?”

You scream before you can stop yourself, scrambling to your feet and whirling about to face the origin of the voice. That would be easy were there anyone to face in the starlit abyss, and had the voice not come from everywhere at once.

“I know I would.”

The mysterious voice echoes out again, warping and doubling on itself. It hurts to listen to, bringing with it a high-pitched ringing that you try to block out with only a modicum of success, hands clasped over your ears.

When you turn back to the Warp Core in another panicked scan of the immediate area- you see them. A figure stands on the other side of the machine, partially blocked by the apparatus.

They- he? A humanoid figure, in the loosest terms possible- step into view from behind the Core, leveling you with a stare of neutral indifference. He is painful to look at, edges blurring in such a way that has your vision dancing, eyes watering. Clad in a formal three-piece suit, the ‘man’ is out of place, and more importantly, out of color. His presence seems to drain the very life out of the area around him, swamping it in a void deeper than the one you currently stand in.

Upon making eye contact with you, he grins- wide and unnerving, eyes too open, stance too stiff, too many teeth-

This man- no, entity- is a walking black hole, though far more alien. Just looking at it triggers alarm bells in your mind. This being is dangerous.

His grin then morphs into a sneer. “They are an ever-present reminder that we are not done yet.”

The entity takes a few steps forward- does he? You don’t remember seeing him move. The water-ground doesn’t ripple from his steps, unlike yours- and bends down to pick up the Core Crystal resting on the ground in front of you.

Wait. When the hell did that get here-

The entity sighs and turns on his heel, holding the crystal out to his side, studying it. Once again, you don’t see him move- he is standing beside the Warp Core now, regarding it with disdain. “All that trouble… all for something so small.”

He reaches out to the Core. From such a simple brush of his fingers, the Warp Core is crumbling, desiccating, falling in on itself with an otherworldly whine. You watch in shock- or is it relief?- as the origin of all this insanity withers to dust in no less than a few seconds.

“Down... down... down… ever further into another hole you’ve gone, little rabbit, always expecting a different outcome." The being turns to you once more as he speaks, frowning at you. There is tension behind it, like a failing dam holding back a deluge. His form morphs with force, cracks, two splinters of himself separating from the whole and reaching out- screaming- before you blink, and he is whole again.

What the fuck-

With a sneer, he brushes the hair from his face and roughly readjusts his suit. "You never considered that the snake was already in your den, did you?” he muses, punctuating 'snake' with a jab in your direction.

He can tell by the way you are staring at him that you have no idea what he is talking about. Of course you wouldn't. His hold on you is too great.

"Confused? Fine. Allow me to elaborate.”

You step back when he advances, but he doesn’t exactly walk to you. The entity circles around you instead, analyzing you. Gooseflesh skitters across your skin from the new proximity- you very much feel like prey right now, every muscle taught and poised to run.

Where the hell would you run? There’s nowhere to go.

“You keep jumping into wormholes over and over again while expecting a different outcome, an end. It is almost comical, in a way." He sighs, heavy and burdened. "Almost." The entity finally pauses from his circling, studying the crystal that once embedded itself into your palm. "You never stopped to consider that the problem- the source of your issue... jumped into that wormhole with you."

Is he talking about Mark? While yes, Mark is the origin of this particular problem- … how did Mark build the original Warp Core? What got him trapped in that eternal death loop? How long have you been trapped?

Eyes locked on the ground, you are so lost in your spiraling thoughts that you don’t realize he is right in front of you until you do-

“You don’t remember,” he breathes, a statement more than a question. “Or, perhaps you do, but you don’t want to face the reality of this situation, just as I did once.”

Such proximity is overwhelming, but you can’t move. Why can’t you move?

“Mayhaps I need to remind you, Little Monster.”

He leans in, and for some reason, you feel compelled to look up at him. Frigid hands trail up your arms, icy breath ghosts over your cheeks... those depthless black eyes pulling you in, down, down-

A tug at the back of your mind snaps you out of whatever hold he had on you, staggering backward, almost falling to the ground. You refuse to think about how your face burns, and not from the cold radiating off him. Your tongue darts over lips still tingling from the icy brush of- did he fucking kiss you?

He sighs, and you look to him again only to find him watching you with remorse. "Aren’t you tired, old friend?”, he murmurs, speaking as if he knows you. That concern in his voice… does he know you? You sure as hell don’t know him-

… Or do you?

“Do you even remember the last time that you slept?”

You blink. … You don’t remember. You have no idea when the last time you slept was, even from before the first Warp. Though it’s hard to remember when your mind is still focused on- he absolutely fucking kissed you. What the fuck-

“How many faces have you worn,” he interrupts your thoughts with more questions, stepping closer, “how many lifetimes of false memories has He forced you to bear?"

His expression turns grim. “How many times have you died because of Him?”

You frown in confusion. ‘He’? Who the hell is ‘He’, though? Mark? What did Mark even do to get this being's attention?

“Do you not see? With as much as you’ve been through, how can you not see how pointless all this is?! There is no END!” The despair in his voice mixes with rage, and he’s splintering again- one, two, three, you lose count, shielding your eyes from the cacophony of color and sound, shrinking down to somehow hide.

When everything is silent again, you take the risk of looking. He’s fallen to his knees, eyes screwed shut, body contorted in pain. Part of you- a deep, lost part of you- cries out at the sight, and it takes more than you expect to stop yourself from trying to help him.

Why do you care?

“I suppose you don’t.” He snarls through grit teeth, wiping at his mouth and nose which drip the same black substance that constitutes the ground you stand on.

“Unfortunately for you, your choice of propelling yourself into the original wormhole has you back at square one. Again.” He hums. “You’ll only end up back here. I suppose that’s good for me, at least.”

Something glitters in the darkness near you, just in your periphery. You look and- yep, it’s the Crystal. He must have thrown it when he was falling apart. You glance at him, and he’s still focused on himself, not even looking at you. Taking the risk, you reach out for it-

Everything glitches.

You are standing now, facing him. He is no longer crouched, standing tall and glaring at you. The black ichor still seeps from his nose and mouth while he clutches the crystal at his side.

“Looking for this?” He laughs mockingly, holding up the crystal in your direction. You don't like that smile. “What? Do you think securing the Crystal again will help you here? No."

The crystal flares a bright blue before it starts to hiss, smoke billowing, light flashing sporadically. The hiss becomes a whine, then a crack-

… It’s not like you could stop him, anyway- and you once again wonder if it is relief you feel. Yet, it does make you wonder what you are dealing with, that he can destroy both the Warp Core and the Core Crystal-

That smile sharpens as he opens his hand, letting the blue dust scatter from his palm in an unfelt wind. “It's a prop. Nothing more. It has no power here.”

It’s a rush, fight-or-flight is coming back full force, to the point that you can’t think of anything else. If he can desiccate that, what chance do you have against him? You turn on your heel, sprinting into the black. Is it pointless? Maybe. But you’ll not die here without at least trying.

“Neither does He.” The entity purrs as he teleports before you, covering that distance in the blink of an eye. With no time to react, you barrel straight into his chest, only for him to trap you in his arms.

Despite your squirming, you do not budge in his iron grip. He chuckles at your efforts as he leans down to growl into your ear. “Neither do you.”

Something wraps its way around the back of your head and neck, forcing you to look him in the eye. It’s as cold as his touch, but slithers against your skin like… a vague memory of snakes hits you, forcing a shudder of revulsion to bubble up.

“This is my domain, and we have all the time in the world to get acquainted once again. Isn’t that wonderful?”

You can’t tell if he speaks to you directly or if his words echo inside your head. Those eyes pull you in, no longer only depthless black but a kaleidoscope of colors, swirling and dancing. They drag you in and down, alien thoughts pushing at the edges of your consciousness.

Stop fighting. Just let me in.

A mantra in your head, over and over, dragging you further and further down. Your struggles and shouts eventually die down to squirming.

He steps back and releases you while keeping eye contact. What holds your head spreads down your body, entrapping you in its grip and forcing you down to your knees. You only push back for a few seconds before your body falls limp in their hold.

He smirks. Your brow furrows. The voice in your mind only gets louder.

Stop fighting me. Just let me in. It’ll be much easier this way.

Down and in. Down and in. Down and in.

The further you drop, the looser the tentacles hold you- until that final barrier falls and lays your mind bare to him. When this happens, he smiles, resting a hand atop your head and brushing his fingers through your hair. You lean into it.

Like a pet.

He feels only the slightest push of indignation from the core of your being, still fighting his control. How cute.

“Don’t worry, my friend. I’ll help you remember. You’ll understand in time.”

Will you?

...

An ear-piercing BANG thunders its way through the void, sending shockwaves rippling through the ground which sends you both off balance. You hit the ground with a cry of pain while he staggers back with a curse, looking around wildly. The impact snaps you out of your spiral, but it’s the return of that pull from before that brings you back to yourself and damn if it isn’t incessant now.

The entity returns to his feet with a snarl, turning to where the Warp Core and Crystal once were. You follow his gaze, only to find that they stand without a scratch as if he never touched them at all.

That… scares you more than it should. Nothing should scare you now, but…

“That bastard- I thought we had more time. Damnit. Y/N-”

You don’t look at him. You can’t, attention taken elsewhere. There are cracks in the sky, in the ground…

Cracks that look like they splinter across the surface of a mirror-

Your grip on reality is fading again. How ironic. It feels like you are being pulled into a wormhole, but the pull is deeper, on your very soul. Only when you feel a hand grip your arm do you realize you are floating. Huh. Isn’t that interesting?

“Listen to me. I will find a way to end him and free us- all of us, Y/N.”

You look down to that painfully familiar face… down to that stranger’s face. Who is he again? Why are you here?

Why does he look so sad?

“Y/N?”

Y/N?

You are the Captain.

You open your mouth to say as much, but the blue light of a wormhole engulfs you, stealing him from your sight and memory.

Your mind files the ordeal among the lifetimes of struggle you’ve lived through. Once you open your eyes in the cryopod again, it’s as if it never happened at all. The door opens with a hiss as the Computer greets you, happily detailing how the ship’s status is absolutely catastrophic.

Shit. Well… here we go again.

#my writing #darkiplier #ISWM #damien the mayor #iswm y/n #sfw #when i say i've had this in my docs for 3 months #i mean i've had this in my docs for 3 months #i hate it but i'm not going to make it any better by staring at it lmao #help #iswm captain #actor mark #engineer mark #gender neutral reader #gn!reader

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gwagwagwagoogoo · 10 months

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Spilling yourself to a void, stapling your organs on the wall for display, is a cathartic eurphoric relief few can indulge in

I do Not expect myself to be watched here, underneath certain scrutinizing eyes I only expect the eternally comforting relief of nothingness

Its like screaming into nothingness and having nothing reply back to you, not a single remark or question, and it is fulfilling and lovely to simply suffer no consequence

No essence of guilt, safety in absence

Its humbling, and soul crushing, to realize Your permanence to others ultimately when the void suddenly forms into a lively ocean, and the reminder and weight of your words and actions come crumbling down

But I know only few here, and they are my closest, I’d let them see me at my worst for i am assure of our position- I know them and they know me

And the rest are strangers whom I mingle with in passing, like stray brushing of elbows with strangers in public, even then they do not know me, I do not know them, therefore there is nothing to fear

The true fear is in the between, what lies between famailarity and sudden unknown, the worst stages where you can’t predict how much you can say nor be trusted with. The weight of consequence is stronger, as you weasel your way through what is comfort and what is resentment

The ocean seems dim upon the surface, without light, simply moving without purpose but inside is a network of connections that will react. And then suddenly the void seems less scary, the quiet unfeeling abyss, rather than beauty and life

I close my eyes and then ignorance is bliss, I feel the ocean lap at my toes yet I pretend there is nothing. So when I scream out, I show no fear, and no remorse and then I get it out. It will crawl up my throat, ravage my ribs, and pull my tongue out. It is humility and torment, for it is what comes from within me. Even if it is nothing bad, it still comes from me, so it is bad. Will comes with a horrible price, value within yourself comes with an ego you’d be willingly to kill for. There is no balance, it just is, it sways and fluctuates, as does what comes within me.

With every word and manner, it is inconsistent. Am I allowed inconsistency, or must I present constantly, or am I allowed to enjoy the pretend void in which I scream in even if it crashes against the shore in acute reality.

Abstract and nonlinear thoughts through preparation, to give myself a sense to solidify, before I pry my eyes open and force myself to look into the ocean

I don’t know why I wrote all of this shit nor do I even know what I mean, sometimes I want to write it vaguely and abstract to feel something about it and comprehend it differently

Or to turn my confliction into odd art and be okay with it

#INSANELY WEIRD POURING OF MY GUTS

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saltedsolenoid · 1 year

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Ahshes! by SaltedSolenoid

Fandoms: {MCU: Mutual Cinematic Universe} {Witch's Heart}

501 words

[Archer looks at his thoughts about Ashe and has a 'revelation,' i guess?]

(It had been 288 days now.

Being an oversimplified character in a fandom full of theorizers, perhaps Archer sympathized with the fellow. Perhaps they found him silly. Internally, in his own only slightly-beating heart, Archer was able to see that it was all an act, of themself and of Ahse, the one that he held so close.

To be different, Archer thinks, is what’s necessary for Ahshe to be so compelling.

A suncatcher turns the rays of that star ever so far away into rainbows, spattered on the walls and ground. It diverts the layers that the Sun holds and turns them into what can be seen in a different way, metaphorically and physically.

Archer would love to hold Ass to the sun and watch him burn and scream, watch the colors he beholds.

How putrid!

With an arm previously acting as a pillow underneath her head, Archer sat up, admiring their Crocs. Teal, almost metallic, reminding him of Ashie’s gorgeous locks. He looked around his room; a poster saying “Him I Love” in barely-readable, scrawled cursive, and nothing else on the walls. It was dim in here, and felt empty. So strange!

Archer thinks to themselves, head in their knees. Xe could bother Piper, in the other room, but fleur’s likely too busy either strangling Ash or staring at a picture of Claire they hung up on the wall.

Sighh… nothing to do. But! Think about Ashehe, Archer thinks, kicking their feet with excitement.

They think, and think, until he finally realizes he can think of Ashe no more. Wbat… what?

What the hell is this? Had her brain run dry? Ashe was always there, cheering xem on, being spun from the ceiling fan by his brain, what was this? This couldn’t be happening.

Archer stood up, shaking, searching for Ashe. Behind the Him I Love poster? No. With Piper? No. Outside the window? No! Flushed down the toilet! No, no, thousand times, no! What’s going on? What’s going on, Archer can’t stand any more, seeing the hell of No Ashe opening up before her eyes, hands trembling, he reaches out, ripping open the abyss, searching for any semblance of comfort left.

But there was none there. Ashe had taken it all. Ashe had run from the mansion that was Archer’s heart, and left a void.

A void, and in the corner of that void, was hope. Would Ashe truly leave with no trace, Archer realized, and thought further into the idea? No, no. He’d leave something behind. He isn’t one to not say goodbye… or is he? Remember the conclusion, remember the mansion, remember his family. Remember.

“Remember what?” ahse spoke from behind Archer.

They turn around with a fright.

“I wouldn’t leave you. So unlike me!”

Ashe shook hands with Archer, still in awe of what had just happened. Is Archer just supposed to take this as something that happened?

Yes, yes he is. And he’ll find the strength to move forward, in the end of it all. )

AUTHOR'S NOTE

sorry about this lol! i summoned this out of thin air in less than 30 minutes right before i went to sleep, thus has a lot of headcanons, hope this works!

#this actually ended up being longer than the original stripes #huh #i like stripes more but. whatever!#things that i write

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theangelandthejerk · 1 year

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2/7/2023

some days, it still hurts.

some days I wonder what went wrong.

but mostly, I’m thankful that I was forced into a situation of learning to be self sufficient.

gone are the days of codependency, gone are the nights spent crying because I couldn’t be what he needed.

it’s been five years, and I still remember his laugh.

but in those five years, I’ve built something so much stronger.

five years.

it feels funny on my tongue - surely we haven’t been together that long? but it’s true. october 2017.

a hookup, turned fling, turned best friend. it happened fast, but... I guess I’m used to that. at first, it was out of necessity; a lifeline, desperately clinging on to hold myself back from the abyss.

but then you started to better yourself for the sake of the relationship.

you learned new things, discovered why all those problems you’d had in your previous relationship were happening.

turns out, polyamory was the answer all along. (oh and, yanno, enjoyable sex with a competent partner /shrugs! who would’ve guessed!)

you’ve known for a long time that your love was too much for just one person.

you tried to shove yourself into a mold that society (and the man you loved) would accept.

funny how different things may have turned out if only we had been mature enough to have that conversation.

(conversations, plural! god, the sex was bad, and we both desperately needed therapy.)

funny, too, how right you were about that situation. humans are so disgustingly predictable. a relationship born out of a lie will never last.

liar. cheat. some days, it still hurts.

but it made me stronger.

here we are, five years later, and I’m finally saying goodbye hell on earth arizona, hello colorado. maybe ontario in a decade or so? who knows.

finally have a set career path ahead of me, too. a lucrative one. after all this time spent relying on someone else to stay alive, I’m finally going to be able to support myself. it’s long overdue.

alex erickson, LMT.

my life has changed so drastically that I couldn’t even hold on to my own name any longer.

that person is gone, dead. I will always mourn her, knowing how much better she deserved from her family and so-called friends. but I learned what happens when you spend too much time living in the past.

I spent... fuck, two, maybe three? years living in the memories of him. it took that long to fall asleep without that name coming to mind.

and along the way, I stumbled into so many horrible temporary relationships, chasing that high of being someone’s almost-fiancee.

I don’t know if that part of me is dead yet.

it still hurts. that part will always hurt.

artificial light. thinking out loud. honeybee. acolyte.

it’s fucked up that I still miss the people who ruined good music.

(I know it’s a stretch to call ed sheeran good music, but it’s the principle of the thing, yanno?)

(and "miss" isn't quite the right word, but I can't think of a better one.)

“what is it about me that drives good men to cheat?”

“they weren’t good men.”

“why did my parents treat me that way?”

“they weren’t good parents.”

you were a real one, janet. or whatever your name was. I remember your face, and your dumb essential oils that have long since evaporated but are still in my purse.

you told me to keep a journal, and I don’t know why I’m so bad at that. I love writing. maybe I’m just allergic to emotion.

(I know I’m not, I feel everything so deeply that it threatens to consume me. it’s getting those feelings out into the world that is so difficult.)

this is just word vomit at this point, as usual.

I don’t even know why I’m writing this.

no one will see it.

but maybe that needs to be enough.

maybe that’s part of healing.

screaming into the void.

throwing pointless thoughts into an abyss.

it feels good.

my life is good.

my past isn’t.

but I’m learning to let that go.

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greyshadesofvoice · 2 years

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Void Ch.3

The Static

You'll never be good enough.

just suck it up and be tough.

you're a pushover. move.

just weak and cowardly too ,you know i speak the truth.

No, I'm begging you to listen , just let me talk to you.

I'm shouting through the static. my words and feelings can't come through.

Been screaming for days. something must be missing. been crying out so long. yet you only hear the whisperers.

The void is thick, numbing your pain in its mixture.

Blocking my voice out and hiding my message.

Oh, Don't worry you'll be okay just push them and all that pep talk away.

they won't understand your feeling either way, bundle it up bury it deep inside the abyss bay.

you'll be okay you'll be okay.

Your agony is just a parody. you're the star of this play.

a tragedy so sad it's a comedy. Calling it The Fall of Aje.

Hope isn't gone, you can't be serious. Those people love you just ask if you're curious. speak out please! Something is wrong. stay here too long and you'll never see the truth. forget the dark past of your youth.

Life is a struggle but you can make it through.

lies you tell. you know you're condemned to hell.

four walls of steel cell, it's okay you know it well.

sit anchored deep inside this well. with nothing but time to think and dwell.

spiral down the enchanting spell.

so low down no one can hear you yell.

they can't hear you well.

Hear me well, no one is coming to save you.

It's too late now so go ahead and dig deeper.

tunneling in the void what's the difference just a bit steeper. it's getting easier, it's easier.

You have to listen.

Your stories still need to be written.

You have to listen.

Your soul is worth redemption.

you have to listen…

Shut up, shut up with these voices I've had it.

these voices in my attic. building up metal traffic. I can't hear the good through the static. So I'm falling for the magic. numbing my pain in practice. I have no hope . It's tragic..

This angel is falling rapid.

#poetry #spoken word #heartbreak #conversation #poemsociety

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lolita-lollipop · 3 years

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yandere other mother x reader- Coraline au

warnings- yandere behavior, platonic yandere, manipulation, slight infantilism, mentions of neglect, false reality,

this one really isn't bad, but just to warn you, if any of these things trigger you, please don't read!

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“Y/n this is insane! Can’t you see that she’s crazy?!” Coraline yelled at you from inside the dusty room while the three ghosts watched, their mouths had been sewn shut long ago, so they weren’t able to intervene. You stood there, feeling like you wanted to cry, this “other mother” was amazing, your real parents never showed much affection, going far enough that it could be Called neglect, so when your other mother held you in her lap, and braided your hair, and gave you warm hugs, and kisses on the cheeks, you felt happy. Your other father was just as amazing, but still, their treatment of you felt similar to one of a baby’s, always treating you like a young child who can’t think for themselves. Coraline noticed this far earlier, while you remained happy and oblivious, the buttons for eyes were the last straw for her.

“I know okay! I just, she’s so nice, I don’t even know what to think anymore, you know what it feels like to actually have parents… I don't, my entire life I’ve been shoved in a little blue house down the stairs and told ‘don't disappoint us’ by my parents! I just want to feel loved… it’s just, it’s just not fair” you spoke, lip quivering, you couldn’t even remember the last time you allowed yourself to cry, you weren’t supposed to love the “other parents” but you did, they were the parents you never had, and you just had to live them. At this point silent tears were trailing down your cheeks, Coraline remained fuming at you, not even sparing a moment to acknowledge the two small black buttons that seemed to appear out of nowhere, peeking through the wall.

“That doesn’t matter, do you really want tiny little needles poking in and out of your eyeballs? Do you really want to leave your real parents behind? Do you want me to leave you behind?” She seethed, you shook your head, letting out a few small whimpers and sobs under your breath, you hated that she was right, you hated it so much, you couldn’t just leave everything in the real world for this parallel universe void of life, you should want to back there right? where no one cared about you, where no one loved you, where you were nothing.

“Coraline? Is that any way to speak to your friend?” A soft voice rang from behind your form, the few lost souls floating in the room ten up, showering to the far corners where the other mother couldn’t see them, then you felt warm hands engulf your waist, pulling you closer to the women’s chest, you subconsciously leave into her warmth, she glared down at Coraline, stoking your head lovingly. In reality, she hadn’t wanted for you to get pushed down here, but Coraline was getting in the way, and you just got caught in the crossfire, she did make sure that your landing was softer though, while Coraline's was harsh.

“You don’t get to tell us what to do, you aren’t her mother.” Coraline breathed out, slimming her eyes into a harsh stare at the woman in whose chest you were sobbing into. One moment, you were in the cold cellar-like room, the next, you were back in the baby pink room that was yours in this place, your true room was a boring white, with a ritzy mattress in the middle, and a small cabinet that served as a closet. Although you didn’t particularly like the color pink, it was nice to know that someone cared enough to bring true colors into your life. The other mother continued her embrace, picking up and cradling your head against her shoulder, you felt a wave of drowsiness overtake your senses, it hit you like a pound of bricks, and you squeezed the back of the women’s shirt to see if you were dreaming or not, her hold just felt so… comforting.

“Was she mean to you darling? Don’t you worry your little head about it, shhhhhh, just fall asleep, mother will take care of everything.” She spoke, bouncing slightly up and down with each step she took towards the large bed that was displayed in the center of the room. You barely muttered a small “wait” before falling asleep in her arms. She tenderly placed your body under the silky sheets, wrapping you up with the soft fabric and placing a small pig plushy next to you, keeping an eye on her precious’s little daughter while she tended to some “housework”.

The second you went unconscious you slipped into a weird dream, you were walking on a thin sheet of water, in a pitch dark room, it was so cold like someone had dunked you in a bucket of ice, you stared out into the nothingness, gradually growing more anxious, where are you?

“HELLO! IS ANYBODY OUT THERE!” You screamed, only to be greeted by the echo of your own words, nothing more, nothing less. You started to swivel around in a moment of panic, having just about no idea what could happen to you in this dark abyss. That was until you dek the floor below you disappear, and you popped into existence into a completely different place, it was a medium sized room, the layout was similar to a grocery store, multiple shelves made the room feel smaller, what was odd about it, was that all the shelves were packed with hundreds of snowglobes. You admired the pretty glass structures as you slowly walked down the aisles, each had a completely different design, with little figures inside, you found it adorable, ogling at the pretty things. That was until you heard quiet clicking of heels, and your other mother came into view.

“There you go, now don’t be rude to me! You are a very lucky girl that I’m even letting you live, you should know much better than to taint my daughter's mind with your filthy voice, oh you make such a great addition to my collection! Enjoy your stay, forever” she chimed, you were positive that she couldn’t see you, mainly because you were standing frozen directly in front of her, and she hadn’t acknowledged you. At least you weren’t freezing anymore! You tiptoed closer to the snowglobe that was just placed among the collections, wondering why your mother was so enthusiastic about it. And saw nothing special about it, other than the bright yellow raincoat that adorned the figurine.

you remained completely unaware. of the thousands of button eyes that watched you from the globes, begging to be shattered, and set free.

“Pretty” you muttered to yourself before the world faded again, and you were back into your body, snuggled up under the covers, clutching the pig plushy close to your chest, you felt awake, but also very asleep, forgetting your entire dream the moment your eyes opened, slightly surprised to see that you were still in the pink room, in the other house. You could hear the feint sound of your bedroom door opening, the creak rang through the room. And the other mother smiled softly at your lovable position, cooing under her breath, trying not to be too loud and wake you up.

“Darling, we have to get up now, oh I know I know your still tired, but it’s dinner time, you can’t stay in bed all night, little sleepyhead, my little sleepyhead.” She spoke, rubbing your shoulder while you groaned at the sudden speaking and noise. You didn't know how long that dream lasted, but you did know that it was odd, so odd that in fact, it made up your mind for you about the whole button eyes thing.

“Uhm- Mother? I-I’m sorry, but I- I don’t want to put buttons in my eyes.” You muttered, awaiting a harsh reaction, but instead, getting another one of her sweet smiles, she picked you up again and sat you in her lap, your small frame getting engulfed by hers.

“Oh is that what you were worrying so hard about? Don’t worry honey, you never were going to have to sow buttons in your eyes, it was just to see if I could trust you, and I know that I can trust you now.” She stated, calmly, a little too calmly. So… she lied? You got in a fight with your best friend because she wanted to “see if she could trust you”?

“Oh- okay, where coralline though? Can I talk to her? Please, mother?” You started begging after seeing her stoic expression, why did you want to see her? Was she not good enough for you? Coralline was mean to you, she hurt her little girl! Why did you want to see her? We’re you going to leave your mother for a snobby brat? She tightened her hold on you, pressing you closer to her, whispering little “shh” or “stay with me” in your ear, for some reason, you couldn't place what Coraline's face looked like, even though you had seen her just earlier, any memories of her were slowly dimming, fuzzy spots started appearing in any of those memories, and like turning of a staticky tv, they disappeared. You couldn’t even remember the name “coralline” after a few minutes of being cradled in this women’s lap.

“Cmon darling, let’s go eat dinner now, your father made it this time, I’m surprised he hasn't burn down the kitchen!” She spoke, getting a few sleepy giggles out of you. After helping you down the stairs she led you to the dining room, where you went on and sat at the large table next to your two parents. And so, you forgot about your “real” world, staying young forever here, even growing younger and smaller as time went on, forgetting about coralline, and your parents, and the small door, you lived your life happy, dressed in frilly pink clothing, learning to lobe your mother as she grew more obsessed with you, she got what she wanted in the end

You stayed mother’s little girl forever

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have a great day today :)

#yandere x reader #coraline #yandereothermother #other mother #yandere x y/n #cuddling & snuggling #buttons #snow globe #yanderecoraline #alternate universe #platonic obsession #platonic yandere #darling #infantilism

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popi-the-fatui · 3 years

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CHILDE BF HCs

(that no one asked for but here they are anyways)

A/N: this man needs some luv. Long post, there is a whole iceberg under the “read more”. Also, I tried to keep a Gender Neutral reader so pls DM me if there are any mistakes!!

TW: DESCRIPTION OF AN ANXIETY ATTACK, SPOILERS FOR THE REX LAPIS QUEST AND CHILDE’S PAST, a little bit of angst

🐋 Let’s bust some myths first: contrary to popular belief, Childe has no experience at relationships or intimacy at all. Non. Cero. The Venn diagram of romantic/intimate stuff and things Childe has done is a void. But it’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s just that he hasn’t had the time to experience any of these things because he is a busy man: between fighting, training and being a Harbinger, there is not a minute left for him to indulge in other things.

🐋 The problem with this is that Tartaglia is a people’s person. He WANTS to be able to have someone that he can do these things with. At the end of the day, when he comes home tired after a mission, all he wants is someone to be waiting for him with cuddles, hugs, kisses, reassurance, caresses, or just a simple “how did your day go?” Because of this, he has a lot of pent-up love that he has not been able to give.

🐋 In that note, he is also incredibly touch-starved: not only does he want someone to give that love to, but Childe also craves to receive it. When was the last time he was touched by someone in a context that was not a fight? He loves fighting, obviously: he has trained for a big part of his life to be able to defeat everything and everyone. But he is also just a human, and there are limits to how long a person can go without a loving touch.

🐋 So when he finally falls victim to the first signs of infatuation, this poor whale man will have an internal battle: do I reach for them? Would they be better off if they never meet me? Will they accept me? Has my reputation already ruined this for me before it even began? How do I approach them? Do I look presentable? Am I going to scare them away? Childe will be torn between wanting to protect you from himself (as the Fatui business is not an easy pill to swallow for everyone) and protect himself from you (his heart would not handle rejection/disgust very well), and wanting to KISS YOU AND HUG YOU AND KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU BECAUSE ARGH WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO ADORABLE.

🐋 So he finally decides to compromise between these two stances, and let YOU decide whether you want him as a friend, a lover or a stranger. He starts greeting you whenever he sees you in the streets, subtly asking if you would like him to join you in your commissions, inviting you for lunch/dinner after a mission so you can recharge your energy, asking if you want to go and share drinks with him and Zhongli. You know, friendly stuff friends do. And he doesn’t even try to hide the happy smile that escapes him whenever you say yes to him: when it comes to you, there is nothing he needs to hide. Well, except for that one thing.

🐋 He knows that you know he is somehow associated with the Fatui, if his constant trips to the Northland Bank aren’t enough to tell. Usually, Childe dislikes going around things as he much rather hit straight to the point (being the point a fight, a deal or just a simple conversation). But he has grown so addicted to the sensations you make him feel that he can’t help but to try to postpone that tiny little detail about himself for later. He has never had anyone who genuinely wants to spend time with him and that can keep up with him. Childe knows he can be quite intense and that rumors about him aren’t really rumors but WARNINGS, and to finally have someone, even if you’re just friends, that is actively trying to get to know the real him means so much, and he doesn’t want to let that go as selfish as he knows it is because there’s a chance you could get hurt (emotionally and physically).

🐋 Unfortunately for him, everything that goes up must go down, and that fateful day comes when his plans to take Rex Lapis’ Gnosis blows back to him. After that brief, tense conversation with La Signora and Zhongli, Childe’s ego can’t be any lower: it’s not often that he loses, and much less often that he loses while feeling like a fool. He wants to scream, fight, punch, kick. Anything to take out the impotence and anger he is feeling right now.

🐋 You found him in this state while you were looking for him to see if he was alright because a WHOLE ASS PALACE JUST FELL FROM THE SKY and you’re very concerned for him as you haven’t had any news directly from him and all you know is that apparently Childe was the cause of it?

🐋 As soon as he sees you, his blood-lust disappears and he no longer wants to fight something: he wants to cry from shame. Shame at being found in this state. Shame at failing. Shame at what you would think of him now that the cat’s out of the bag because from the look in your face is EVIDENT that now you know how far his relationship with the Fatui goes.

🐋 He falls to the ground, tears finally coming out and he is crying ugly sobs while hiccuping nonsense about how he is a weak, pathetic, disgusting failure and it’s not fair it’s not FAIR IT’S NOT FAIR IT’S NOT-

🐋 “Look at me” you softly call to him, but he is panicking and hyperventilating and not responding to anything that’s outside of his head, so you decide to sit on your knees in front of him, gently cupping his face with your hands, caressing his tears away with your thumbs.

🐋 “Childe, look at me. Please?” You try again, carefulness in your tone as to not startle him. And when he finally reacts and looks up, you don’t see Tartaglia the 11th Harbinger, nor Childe the fatui flirt. All you see is a broken man that carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, exhausted from constantly fighting against everything the world has thrown at him, and your heart aches for him and wonders how long this man has suffered alone, how long has he suffered in silence.

🐋 “It’s okay, Childe. You’re okay. Can you breathe for me?” You position yourself behind him and put your hands on his shoulders, rubbing circles with your fingers to further calm him. “Breath with me, yeah just like that. Now hold it for a bit and then release it. Keep going, I’ll do it with you. I’m here”

🐋 Childe finds himself finding it easier to breathe with each inhale and exhale, and when he is finally going down from his high, catharsis hits him HARD. Is this what he has been missing all of his life? Is releasing all that pent-up frustration supposed to feel this good? And he feels a little selfish, because he knows he doesn’t deserve your comfort after the stunt he pulled, but Childe can’t help but become putty under your tender touches and your soft words, and he wishes for a different context, for a different past in which he never fell into the abyss, never joined the Fatui, never felt that the only way to survive was to fight. Instead, he wishes for a past in which he is traveling because he wants to, and he meets you, and he courts you and makes your cheeks heat up at something he said. And you are not touching him because he had a panic crisis that he himself caused. No, he imagines the both of you after a dinner date in Liyue. The sky is dark and the stars are shining but the streets are still full of people laughing and talking and the light from the lamps are reflecting beautifully in your hair. You are walking near the harbor, and you are holding his hand and he is giving you a kiss on your forehead because he can’t help himself. In another life, he would have found you and loved you the way you deserve and the way he needs.

🐋 But he knows that now is too late, and all he has left is a mind full of regret because he did, in fact, hurt you. How could you trust him after this? How could you WANT him after this? So imagine his surprise when the first thing that comes out of your mouth is a soft “Are you ok now, Childe?”

🐋 “I- how- what?” He mutters in disbelief. Why are YOU asking HIM that? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

🐋 “You had me very worried back there. I thought you would stop breathing at any moment. You are not hurt, are you?”

🐋 And he laughs. A high-pitched, almost maniac laugh. “You know I was the cause of all of…” he says, moving his arms to signal, well, everywhere “...this, right? I believe you now must know what my real business in Liyue was, and that I’m not just some random Fatui officer”

🐋 “Well… I kind of suspected it? How many ‘random Fatui officers’ are carrying a Vision, huge amounts of Mora and have so many ‘meetings’ at the Northland Bank with the Qixing themselves? I mean, I didn’t know you were a Harbinger, but I did know that you were a higher up in the organization. I’m not dumb, you know?” you answer light-heartedly.

🐋 “Then why would you keep hanging out with me? If you knew all of that, then you for sure must have known that people tend to keep me in a ‘do not trust’ list. People are wary around me, and they should! If you knew of the things I’ve seen, the things I’ve DONE. The reputation surrounding the Fatui, especially the Harbingers, wasn’t built on nothing, you know?”

🐋 “Don’t get me wrong. I do have somewhat of an idea of the things you do for a living. And let me be clear: I certainly do not condone it. And to be honest, I know that things between us would be easier if you weren’t a Fatui and I actually wish you weren’t one” you can feel how his whole body deflated at that, and even if you are sitting behind him, you just know he has a pout on his face, so you resolve for hugging him from behind and rest the side of your face between his shoulder blades, and continue.

🐋 “But in the past weeks, I also had the opportunity to get to know you. Not Fatui you. But human you. I know that you have a family that you love very much and you do everything in your power to protect them. I know that you haven’t had it easy, and that some scars you have still hurt. I know that you absolutely can’t eat with chopsticks, but your pride refuses to give up and you try anyway. I know that you’re a passionate man that holds his dearest people close to his heart. I know that you hate when I’m sad so you’re willing to make a fool of yourself if that means I’ll end up laughing. I know how you wait outside of my building until my window lights up after you get me home so you are sure nothing happened to me. I know by the way you sometimes disassociate from the world around you that you are thinking of home and returning to your family” as you speak, you feel something wet falling on your upper arms, and realize that Childe is silently crying. You have half a mind to stop, but you also know that he needs to hear this, so you tighten your hug a little in reassurance.

🐋 “I also know that whenever I see you with a new wound, I can’t help but worry for you and my first instinct is to check if you are okay. I’m now familiar with the way my heart skips a beat whenever I get to see one of your genuine smiles, especially when the reason behind them is that you get to spend some time with me. I know my eyes soften when I see you talking about something you’re passionate about. The truth is, I care for you, Childe. I really do, Fatui or not. Harbinger or not. And yes, while I would rather you not be one, I still can’t help but long for your company because you make me happy. Because I love you. So don’t underestimate me. I’m strong and so are my feelings. You being a Fatui is not gonna change that”. After this, you two sit in silence for a few minutes, but it’s not an awkward one despite your confession. You know he is gathering his thoughts so you move one of your arms that is wrapped around Childe’s torso to card your fingers through his hair, mindful of the knots that had appeared after the battle. If he doesn’t believe your words, then you sure hope he trusts your actions.

🐋 Childe is the one who breaks the silence when he asks “How could you possibly love someone like me?”. If you weren’t sitting that close to him, you wouldn’t have heard it. He says this so softly, so gently, almost as if he was trying to convince himself and not you.

🐋 “Silly boy” you laugh warmly. “Did you hear anything I just said?” You ruffle his hair, and finally, FINALLY, you can hear him giggle a little. “You don’t get to decide who I love. That’s my choice, and I choose to love you”

🐋 No kisses were shared that day. No grand, magnificent romantic gestures were made. Only the silent promise of two young lovers to love and cherish each other as they were. And maybe, just maybe, you could work things out, together, to build yourselves a brighter future.

🐋 So after all has been said and done: congrats! You are now the proud s/o of Teyvat’s biggest simp.

🐋 Childe is your number one fan. Everything you do is carefully recorded in his mind for later use. He has to go on a mission away from you? Be prepared to be pampered and being taken on several dates the previous week so this clingy man has something to hold on to.

🐋 Also: he is shameless. He will not be afraid of making out with you in plain daylight on a busy street. But fear not! If you happen to not be a fan of PDA, he will try to be low-profile. You are, afterall, a person he treasures and can’t live without, so your comfort comes before his needs. Now, I say “try” because he will still demand to hold your hand and give you the random kiss on your cheek.

🐋 HUGS. FROM. BEHIND. Watch him giving you hugs like Oprah. You are buying something? Cooking? Chilling? Expect to feel a pair of long limbs wrapping from behind you in a tight hug like a koala. It’s his hourly vibe check.

🐋 Very jealous and protective of you. He is very afraid that one day you’ll realize there are plenty of people better than him and you’ll leave him, so please remind this simp that he is more than enough for you.

🐋 He also has nightmares from the time he spent in the abyss and will take sometime for him to realize that he is no longer there, so give him a few minutes for him to come to his senses and then please for the love of the Tsaritsa cuddle the life out of him. Also on this note, I have the headcanon that he prefers being the little spoon. That, or facing each other and he rests his face in the crook of your neck while leaving little pecks there.

🐋 Also you discover, to your surprise and as stated at the beginning , that this man has absolutely no idea how to do relationships. To compensate for this and to give you only the best of the best (as you deserve), he spends time in his travels to read romantic novels to have an idea of what to do, so don’t be surprised if he says or does something corny or cringey.

🐋 The most chaotic “meet the family” you’ll ever have. As soon as he takes you to Snezhnaya, you will have all of his siblings running and tackling you into a bear hug (he sends A LOT of letters to his family about you and if you read them you would not be sure if he is talking about you or a deity).

🐋 He also tries to keep you out of anything regarding the Fatui. It’s a relief that you finally know about how deep his person runs in the organization, but he also wants to spare you from the details of what he does unless something is really bothering him.

🐋 All in all, this golden retriever is your biggest hype man and the most loyal boyfriend. You will never get bored with Childe, as everyday is an adventure with him and he will make sure you to make you as happy and loved as you make him feel.

#childe #childe x reader #tartaglia #tartaglia x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin #genshin impact #mine #tw axiety #tw anxiety attack #genshin spoilers #genshin impact spoilers

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helliontherapscallion · 3 years

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Phantasmagoria (Adrenaline Junkie Part 16)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 17

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: swearing, mentions of injuries, death, depersonalization, grief

REMINDER: you are real. the topics discussed in this is fiction and not reality. you are loved and valid, hydrate and eat 3 meals a day <3

Word count: 2,645

You were in and out of it for the next few days. Whenever your eyes would crack open and you would even slightly move your arm, you would be in immense pain before you would pass out again. You could sometimes hear the voices of your family talking to you, but never Arthur. Good, he definitely shouldn’t see you like this.

Whenever you heard Philza, he would be talking to you about all the journeys he’s been on in his hundreds of years of living. Oh yeah, you found out that he was an immortal being that can’t die. Your brain was too tired and clouded to contemplate it.

Whenever you heard Technoblade, his monotone and deep voice always eased your worries. It gave you something to focus on; if anything, his voice was the one that cut through the fog the most. He would always recite Greek myths to you, often telling you that you reminded him of a few characters.

Whenever you heard Wilbur, all you heard was him asking you questions such as ‘how was your day’ or ‘what do you think of someone-so’. He would talk to you as if you were conscious, often having one sided conversations with you. Sometimes he would bring his guitar and compose new songs, asking you if he should keep a lyric or if he should throw it away.

Whenever you heard Tommy, it broke your weak heart. It was like your little brother was a completely different person; his usually loud and upbeat tone was reduced to a quiet and broken one. He was the one that wouldn’t talk much, instead he would sit with you and eventually after a day or two (you think) of silence he would play his jukebox. But whenever he did talk (which was rare) he would tell you how scared he was seeing you like that on the table.

As time passed, you could feel yourself slipping deeper and deeper into your subconscious. It was like you were fading away, but you couldn’t fight against it. You wouldn’t fight against it; you could feel your pain fading and it was a great relief. You only wished you could hear your family’s voices before you completely left them, they were fading as well. Eventually, everything slipped into nothingness and you felt… euphoric.

When you opened your eyes, everything was black. You were sure that you had your eyes open, so why was everything so dark? Was this the afterlife? You expected it to be more… heavenly. However, you weren’t complaining; your entire body felt light and you felt waves of peace waft over you. This was nice. You didn’t have much time to relax while you were living.

After a while of staring into nothingness and just peacefully floating in one place, you became restless. Sure this was nice, but your hands itched to tinker with something. You’ve never done well with sitting in one place for too long, that’s always been your weakness. You tried to push your body off from anything so you could at least float around, but that proved useless when there was nothing to push off from. When you tried flapping your wings- well, wing- you only succeeded in spinning in circles. At least you thought you were spinning in circles, the inky abyss was unchanging and it was starting to mess with your perception. Your senses felt like they were deprived, but the worst thing about it was the overwhelming silence.

So, you talked to yourself to fill the ringing silence. You were merely voicing your thoughts, repeating your lessons you’ve taught Arthur over the last few weeks. After a while, you were running out of things to talk to yourself about. So, you sighed and crossed your arms. They were very pale, you were actually dead this time, huh? You could only wait to see your brothers and Arthur when it was their time, hoping that they wouldn’t come to you too soon. It pained you to remember that you would probably never see Philza again, but who knows; the universe has a strange way of working.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, (y/n).” You screamed at the soft voice that cut through the overwhelming silence and whipped your head around. There stood a woman that looked to be in her early thirties with long black hair and tanned skin. You could not see the upper half of her face as it was covered by a crow mask, however her eyes glowed a bright white. She was smiling at you with melancholy and bittersweet happiness. The two giant white feathered wings sprouted from her back were glowing slightly. The powerful and intense aura that loomed around her was the complete antithesis of the gentle smile she was giving you.

“Calm down,” she flew over to you and wove her hand in the air. You immediately felt a wave of calm ease over you. “That’s better. You’ve been through so much, my little fledgling.” Her little fledgling? That was something you’ve recently started to call Arthur.

“Who are you?”

“Oh where are my manners? I’m Kristin, the Goddess of Death. I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I’m here for your life.” You hummed, “that makes sense.” She tilted her head slightly and somehow the eyeholes of the mask morphed into an eyebrow raise. Was that her actual face? “You’re not scared of death?”

“No, I’ve already died twice- no, three times already. But this is- it’s different. Is that because I’ve lost my last life?”

“You’ll find out in due time. Ender, you’re everything Phil described you as and then some.”

You perked up slightly, “you know my Dad?” Her airy chuckle brought you even more at ease, “of course I do, he’s my husband.”

You gaped at her, “so does that- does that make you my mom?”

“Only if you’re comfortable with it, I wouldn’t want to push you into something you didn’t want.”

“I’ve always wanted a mom. D-don’t get me wrong, Dad’s done more than enough for me he’s an amazing parent-”

“I understand and I’d love to be the mother of someone so smart. You’re destined to do great things one day, my little fledgling.” You tilted your head slightly, “greater than being an inventor?”

She nodded, her black locks swaying with the movement, “greater than being an inventor. Our time together is coming to a close.” She flew over gracefully and pulled you into a hug. You reciprocated it. Her hug felt warm and welcoming. It was hard to believe that she was the Goddess of Death, you always thought Kristin would be ruthless and cruel.

“You will face many trials and tribulations and you must persevere through them. This is indeed your reality, but you share it. Do not be afraid to ask for help. The world can be a lonely place, but remember that you are never truly alone.”

She pulled away from you and placed a gentle kiss on your forehead, the beak of her mask poking you. Suddenly, the weightlessness feeling disappeared and you felt a tugging sensation from deep within your chest. Your body was sent flying through the abyss, the gripping sensation you felt in your inner chest felt very intimate somehow. After a bit of screaming, you were still flying through the void. You had no idea how long you were flying for, but eventually you just crossed your arms and went limp in the mysterious embrace. Aaaanny time now.

Eventually you saw a pinprick of light far off into the distance and it was rapidly approaching you. You sighed out a drawn out “finally.” And watched as it came at you at mach speed. After you crashed into it, everything went white.

You jolted up with wide eyes and looked around panting. You saw the walls of your childhood room? So you didn’t die? Then what the hell were you doing in the void? You were so sure that you died permanently. That you lost your last life. When you glanced out the window, everything was dark. When you sat up, you felt the familiar tugging sensation of the scar tissue around the base of your wing, except it was less intense and you had less mobility in your right shoulder. You glanced at the hearts on your wrist expecting to see three empty outlines. Instead, two ruby red hearts stared at you.

Impossible. Impossible. You were in your last life so even if you didn’t die, you should still only be in your last life. Your second life was taken from you in an explosion. It should not show up on your wrist. Furrowing your eyebrows, you ignored the sound of the door opening and footsteps rushing towards you. You ignored hands appearing in your vision and hovering unsure above your hand.

You only looked up when the hand grabbed your wrist and blocked the two perplexing ruby red hearts. You saw Philza with a look of immense relief on his face. “How’re you feeling?”

“I don’t know.” You looked back at your covered wrist and took it out of Philza’s grasp, staring at the two red hearts again in confusion. “I-I should only have one life. Where’s Arthur? Ender, he’s probably so scared. Did you leave my prosthetic in the cave?” Your rapid fire questioning was stopped by a hand on your shoulder.

“Slow down, you only just respawned.” You threw your hands up in frustration (well, you tried with your right arm, it only moved to about two thirds of your full range of movement before you felt a slight pain and a stretching sensation), “how the hell do I respawn when I was on my last life?”

“You aren’t-”

“Yes I am! Fuck man, how do you forget that?! First time: Warden. Second time: explosion! I know I just died for the last time, so how am I still here?!” You glared up at him. It astonished you that he just forgot about the first two times you died. Who forgets their own kids’ deaths? It takes a real monster to forget things like that.

“(Y/n), you’ve only died once and that was because the infection you got was too severe,” he put a gentle hand on your shoulder and pulled you into a hug. You pushed him away and seethed, “How do you not remember! Ender, did the last two and a half years just escape you? You’re fucking immortal, almost three years is nothing to you!”

“Two and a half- (y/n). Two and a half years ago you were fourteen and you were barely just learning how to do tricks midair.”

“No, I’m twenty years old! How the fuck do you forget your own kid’s age?”

“You turned seventeen six months ago, (y/n).”

You ran a frustrated hand through your hair and laughed sardonically, “I’m not dealing with your bullshit right now. Where’s Arthur?” You stood up with shaky legs and swatted his hands away. “I don’t know an Arthur. Please lay back down, you’re-”

“First you forget my deaths, next my age, and now Arthur?! What the actual fuck is wrong with you? Where is he?” You gritted the last sentence out through clenched teeth.

“Who-”

“Curly red hair, freckles, always smiling, about yay high,” you flailed your hand from side to side rapidly at your mid torso, “your grandson. That ring a bell?”

“No because I don’t have a grandson. Sit down, I think I know what’s happening.”

“No. Not until I see Arthur.” You brushed his shoulder as you walked by him and out of the room. You could hear him following behind you, but you ignored him. After you ripped Arthur’s door open, you paused in the doorway.

The entire room was decorated with Wilbur’s belongings. Instead of random bags of redstone dust and small contraptions that Arthur was too proud of to throw away, piles of sheet music and the occasional book was strewn about. Instead of the poster of you Arthur had hung up on the wall (you had laughed at it at first, he still geeked out over you even though you were his parent), a picture of the family was there. Despite it being a sweet picture (it was one of the very few ones of the family where everybody was smiling at the artist and not moving around), it shook you to your core. “A-Arthur?” You whispered in a broken voice. What was going on, where was he?

You faintly felt someone put a hand on your shoulder. You however stood frozen clutching the door handle in your hand until you walked over to the nightstand. It was completely barren except for the glasses case sitting near the lamp. This isn’t right, this isn’t right at all. Arthur’s things should be there, not Wilbur’s.

“No, no, no, no this isn’t right.” You broke off into mumbling while staring at Arthur’s (or Wilbur’s?) nightstand desperately trying to find the feather hidden somewhere. Once again, you felt a hand on your upper arm. “Everything’s right, (y/n).” You said nothing as you stared at the glasses case on the nightstand. “C’mon, let’s go sit down.” You barely registered him leading you gently back to your room and handing you a glass of water. “(Y/n)?”

“Why is his stuff just- just gone? Everything was there before I left.”

Philza was silent for a moment, his feathers ruffling and brushing against your arm. “...Sometimes when a person’s been through something traumatic and they’re about to die, they sort of… make up their own reality without knowing that they’re doing it. It’s the brain’s way of coping.

“This reality could last anywhere from a few days to years for them with the events seeming real, but in actuality only a few minutes have passed and nothing that the person thinks happened actually happened. It’s just the person’s subconscious mind playing out scenarios that they think would happen or wished had happened.”

You felt like you were previously walking on a stable sheet of ice before you were plunged into the icy abyss of unknowing. You felt several emotions coursing through your veins ranging from anxiety and frustration to grief and disbelief. The cup of water in your hands became incredibly blurry before you were pulled into his chest. He wrapped his arms and wings around you tightly and held your face securely against his shoulder. He started rocking you back and forth as you felt the tears silently leave your eyes and your breathing shudder. You felt yourself start to sob when a barrage of thoughts came and the reality of the situation hit you.

None of your inventions actually existed.

L’manberg doesn’t exist.

Your name was unknown.

The last two and a half years were pointless.

Arthur doesn’t exist.

Your precious Artie, the little boy that idolized you, begged for you to teach him everything you knew, followed you around like a little duckling, held your feather against his chest as he slept, enthusiastically asked you if you could take him flying, your little fledgling, your pride and joy, your son, didn’t fucking exist. You were never going to see his smile again. You were never going to laugh with him as you took him into the clouds. You were never going to cook breakfast with him again. He was never going to give you magnets again. He was never going to ask you to teach him something or ask you to help him with his own inventions. He was gone and there was nothing you could do to get him back.

“I- I prom-mised him that I’d never leave him.” You sobbed into his shoulder, clutching onto his shirt. “I fucking promised him and I’m never gonna see him again.”

(A/N): ok so a little explanation, chapters 4-mid 15 didn’t actually happen. It was in the reader’s mind as after they passed out in chapter 3. There was foreshadowing (esp in chapter 4, I consider chapter 4 to be the chapter where the brain is getting used to the illusion it set up (hence the title “what is real”)). It explains why the reader couldn’t remember their own death. The line “You were probably still in the cave bleeding out as your delirious mind turned stone into the comforting walls of your home. You were probably imagining hearing your dad’s voice in a last chance to comfort yourself as you neared your impending doom” was pretty self explanatory. In the last chapter, the souls saying “wake up, we need to get you out of here” and “don’t leave me” were Philza’s voice cutting through (”The voices ranged from... familiar to unfamiliar”)

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ganymedesclock · 3 years

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[enters the cat door.] Pale King? :)

PK is great because while we get a lot of impressions of what he's capable of, overwhelmingly his work is left for us, self-evident and finished, in such a state that we are not given hints on how he did it or what he did. This obviously has a lot of canon significance to who he is as a person-

(especially when the nature of much of that work is itself somewhat inscrutable; how exactly does he record his voice in whispering stones that only speak to certain parties when the rest of the setting is limited to actually writing things down?)

-but basically what it amounts to is that it's headcanons all the way down, baybey.

PK is... obsessed. This, to me, is the thing that stands out to me at an immediate glance of anything he was capable of. He fashions himself as a rational arbiter; possibly even a thing emotionless, unbiased, but really, it's obvious that certain ideas drove him so powerfully that anything, including unimaginable agonies and cruelties- barely factor. His mind as we explore it has very few guards that try to drive us out and kill us, few true barriers that stop us from moving forwards- but an enormous, vicious, whirling mechanism, beautiful and terrible, that polices every inch we move. You can proceed, the white palace says, if you're perfect. If your timing is perfect, if you never dare the metal teeth that surround you, if you choose exactly the right things and move only as the space is designed to move- and if you are willing to suffer, truly and awfully, then you can proceed, the palace is yours, it is open and the barest adversity will stop you.

This is not the mind of a person who lets things go easily. This is not the mind of a person who is actually detached. This is a beautiful machine, elaborate, precisely calibrated, and it makes miracles.

And it is, quite frankly, an absolute inhospitable nightmare. It might as well be the surface of the moon, not for alienness, but for the sheer ludicrous notion that anyone could live or love there. His mind is a haunted house to end all haunted houses; it'd be a fine locale to find in Silent Hill. The few rooms that actually seem like recollections of real places- the nursery, the workshop, the throne room- are all unsettling in different ways.

The nursery is the loveliest and also the most unattainable; a place for two people who are never coming back to the person who left them behind in the first place and didn't even set a chair for himself- the workshop is cluttered, creepy and miserable, nowhere you'd expect a god to make miracles; the throne room is bleak and dark, and has pillars set like fangs and the only chair so hard and uncomfortable it won't save your progress or give your player character a second of rest.

There is only one mention, anywhere in the game, of coldness associated with anything even adjacent to PK- the description of the pale ore characterizes it as "emanating an icy chill"- and when I remind myself of this, actually go looking for it, it shocks me. PK, to me, is so powerfully and intensely an ice person. Not just in the superficial senses- oh, he's cold, oh, he's callous, oh, he suppresses his emotions and opposes the fiery, sun-aligned Radiance; but that while neither of these gods have any ability to "get over it" whatsoever, the way they hold onto things is drastically polar opposite.

Radiance boils. Simmers. Screams and writhes and rages and pulses to her emotions. Those infected by her plague begin to feel as if they are burning alive the more her influence extends. She is a heat that stokes itself higher and higher and higher, to frenzy and fury, and the coldest it can get is if she methodically banks herself down to coals to pretend for a single utilitarian moment she's not as angry as she is, so she can whisper sweet words just long enough to coax someone onto the cinders.

PK... freezes over. He holds onto things perfectly, as if they never left, as if they never changed. When you walk over the nursery memory it looks just like White Lady could come by and put an infant Hollow in the cradle and sit down to rock them to sleep. It's so clean. So expectant. So empty.

And yet, there's something completely inhospitable to life about it. How could anyone live here? How could anyone be happy here? The game Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has a theme of a happy childhood frozen over in invading ice; that's very much what comes to mind here, even if Hollow's childhood was troubled long before they'd have anything to do with this room. PK ices over, is a person who stopped his own heart at one point just to serve another purpose and, superficially indifferently, left that body behind to rot without any sort of respect or acknowledgement. @rukafais drew a headcanon a very long time ago to the idea that PK could just will his own blood to stop flowing, and that's long one I've stuck with- a living person who is at odds with himself because of this absolute glacial inhospitality.

PK is also... clever. Inventive. One could almost argue too clever for his own good. If there's one way his obsessions are utterly unaffected by this ice and sense of detachment, it's that while Radiance is revolted by, fears and hates the void, PK... was fascinated by it. It's probably the most dangerous non-Radiance thing in the kingdom to him and yet he built his palace right next to the abyss; built a great lighthouse and a smaller alcove room that- unlike the spaces in his own mind- you can actually imagine him sitting, maybe for hours, maybe for days- just staring at the void sea. Dropping things into its grasp only to fetch them back out. Pouring it into shapes, and seeing how it held.

This also seems to convey itself in the shapes that his magic takes, or that similar pale white magic in other places (such as around the dreamers' monument) form; they are extremely intricate. Impossible filigrees of light that dangle in the air. Nowhere is this more obvious than the Pure Vessel fight, the moment where Hollow is remembering what they once were- at the point they were trying to be everything PK wanted of them, everything PK cares about. Hollow's attacks in that fight are beautiful. Ornate. The temporary spikes summoned from the ground have the same woven, 'watered' pattern that we see on the Pure Nail once Ghost acquires it.

So these ideas, of PK- icy stillness, obsessive detail, and insatiable curiosity- condensed for me a lot into how I imagine him fighting or handling situations. I imagine him as fighting with a spear very keenly- not just long reach, but that I associate PK very strongly in my mind with the concept of dissection and vivisection. Everything in its place, labeled, named, and known, consecrated by the light with identity and purpose- the hungry, predatory curiosity of a hunter picking apart prey, but with enough academic backing that they're looking for something more than the juiciest pieces to eat.

So, I imagine PK fighting with spears, and impaling or cutting implements... in that I imagine him fighting like a surgeon, pinning and mounting something or herding it into place.

#Hollow Knight #the Pale King #readmore #haha imagine a lance sentry but with a boss fight's health pool and a complex attack pattern

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ruthlesslistener · 3 years

Text

Not sure if I ever stirred up an actual controversy or if I'm just being paranoid of misinterpretations here, but just a note of clarification here, me saying that PK and WL aren't colonizers doesn't mean that they're exempt from being responsible for some nasty shit they did when establishing their place in Hallownest. Colonization merely a subset of conquering, and while they don't fit the requirements for colonization (the beetles they ruled over were natives, the White Lady seems to have sprouted in Kingdom's Edge due to the abundance of roots there, so she also came from Hallownest, there's no evidence of any attempts to establish colonies in lands outside of the City of Tears/Dirtmouth pipeline [the Deepnest tram doesn't count, thats transit/trade], and the different tribes in the caverns ARE able to establish borders and barter with them, which would NOT happen if they were intent on colonization), they're still responsible for:

-Conquering the Radiance's lands, then turning a good chunk of them into crystal mines (assuming, ofc, that the Crystal Peak was once the home of the Moth Tribe)

-Assimilating their moths into their culture and encouraging them to destroy what they had of their legends; the Seer blames this choice on her ancestors, and there is no proof that it was forceful, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't coerced

-Annexing huge chunks of Greenpath to mould into the Queen's Gardens and Fog Canyon (ofc, this could have been bartered for, but either way the Mosskin were driven back or changed, and what would one elder god be against two younger ones?)

-Getting involved with intertribal politics between the Mantis Tribe and Deepnest

Additionally, this is NOT to say that people cannot interpret what they did as colonization, or to write or produce fanwork with that mindset. Pretty much the worst thing in fandom is when there's a monopolization on people's views of a character, and Hollow Knight lends itself very well to fluid interpretation. I personally tend to default to a more biological/ecological interpretation than sociopolitical myself, because PK having a beef with Radi and WL and Unn fighting for reasources screams 'same niche, different species' competition to me. I'm merely pointing out that the original story of Hallownest appears to be more in line with a vague message about damning the cycle of different powers conquering others and abusing each other rather than anything explicit.

Additionally, I am wary of the concept that claiming that the Pale King and the White Lady are colonizers will downplay the horrors of what the Radiance did to all of the tribes of Hallownest, even those who were politically independent and had no stake in the war between the Gods of Light. There's also the matter of the Void Civilization coming before Hallownest; we don't have much information to definitively prove anything about their fall, but what we DO have seems to point to the Radiance doing the same thing, with the Knight reclaiming their birthright, purpose, and land when they ascend as the Lord of Shades to tear her to shreds, explicitly against their parent's will

So tdlr: yeah I did write up a very long angry post once about PK and WL not being colonizers, but that's only because I'm a stickler for details, not because I think they're innocent. It's like the difference between venom and poison- both will kill you, just in different ways. Also I feel like those who tend to go for the 'PK and WL are colonists' narrative tend to overlook the fact that there was a whole other civilization of people who worshiped a different god who seem to have been totally- or at least mostly- wiped out by the Radiance. And ngl I kind of think those would be the snails bc that rock where you get the Abyss Shriek that can be dreamnailed is full of rocks in the background that look like a fuckton of the snail shaman's charms/spells, + they are the only ones other than vessels to use void magic

So basically no matter how you view it, Radiance = The Pale King = The White Lady in terms of war crimes, genocide, and body count. Unn is just vibing. The Lord of Shades

#sorry if this comes off as condescending i just really dont wanna be seen as a pk or a wl apologist ahaaaa #im just. the void civ is right there! and none of what i see points to good things!!#hollow knight #long post #the pale king #the white lady #the lord of shades #the radiance #i also personally dont like the woobification of radi i see with that #theres like one person ive seen who writes some baller content with pk and wl as colonists #where nobody is woobified (including radi)

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rcksmith · 3 years

Text

Spring breeze part.4 — Spencer Reid

Icon by @obiwansjedi

Part.1 Part.2 Part.3

Sumarry: After the breakup, Spencer and the Reader follow different paths and lives. But, after 8 years, Gideon's death brings an avalanche of emotions, putting the two face to face again in a reencounter that could break their hearts again — season 10 —

Couple: Spencer Reid /Gideon's daughter!reader.

Warnings: mention of death, mention of violence, death of the father, depressive thoughts, murder, crying, swearing, a lot of anguish, mention of love, fluff (but it has a very fluff too, I'm not a monster)

Word count: 5k.

A/N: This is the most sad chapter that has, I promise that the next will be very cute.💖

I saw Gideon's death episode again to make it as faithful as possible for you guys. I used the original Criminal Minds chronology too, being 8 years from Gideon's last appearance until his death.

English is not my first language, so I so sorry if have a mistake.

Let me know if you want to be added for a taglist for a specific fandom (Criminal Minds, The Umbrella Academy, Riverdale, Roman Godfrey, or all)

Requests are open. Love you ❤️

— — — — —

Hunting bandits. Save people. Improve the world a little bit every day. Those were the three things Spencer believed it was worth to be at BAU. It was worth fighting for, holding on, staying sleepless for days, being haunted by murderers by day and nightmares at night. For what it was worth looking at the abyss, even when it looks to you

Reid could deal with human perversion, with the thousand and one ways to practice heinous crimes, the sowing of evil and cruelty. He could cope with constantly being inside insane minds, learning his whys and mechanisms. He could take it. He put up with it day after day, case after case. He endured being tortured, stay being held at gunpoint, having a piece of his essence plucked with red-hot iron month after month. Spencer knew he could handle it.

But he couldn't handle death. Goodbye. It shattered his soul far more than difficult cases, pushed his own sanity to the limit. Perhaps burying his feelings as deeply as possible was just a method of delaying the wave that would drown him at one time or another. Inevitably.

Each farewell took a piece of Reid away. His father, his mother, Ellie, you, Gideon, JJ, were just a few of the people who left, living their lives elsewhere. But what about those who died? The victims, the children, Hayley, Maeve, Emily (even if only for a short time) and so many others. These took much more than a piece of him. Maybe costu his whole soul.

Spencer felt himself harden over the years, the cases, loss after loss, day after loss. He felt the purity of his own heart slip through his fingers like sand, the faith in humanity to be put to the test. Sometimes even faith in himself.

Was that the price to pay for that job? Being constantly vulnerable? See his life and the lives of the people his loved most at gunpoint?

It was worth?

Maeve's death shook him more than any other, sucking all the pink glow from his world, leaving him with only the cold feeling of hopelessness. A very deep void. It took a long time for memories of she not to hurt like red-hot iron, for his breathing not to be heavy. It took a long time to be happy again.

And when Spencer felt healed from the deepest wounds, the most visceral pains, he was hit again. Deeply. If Maeve's death was a wave that brought him down, Gideon's death was the tsunami that destroyed him.

“It's Gideon.” Hotch's voice confirmed the fear of everyone in that cottage.

Then Spencer felt shattered. Torn apart. Torn like a rag doll and placed on the fire. He wanted to scream, to scream so loudly that he would never regain his voice. He wanted to break something, destroy some, run away.

But run away from whom? From what? That pain or himself? If Spencer had been able to tear off his own skin at that time and be someone else, he would not have hesitated. Not having dropped to his knees in that cottage was a miracle, because Spencer no longer knew what was holding him upright.

Jason Gideon, in many ways, was all that Spencer had. He knew that they took different paths and traveled different roads, living different lives, but he believed that they always end up on the same, even one they was old. Spencer was sure that if he was dying on his knees, Gideon would be to rescue him. For all those 8 years, it was extremely comforting to think that Gideon was out there, living life, finding the hope he had in college, finding the brilliance the world had.

And Reid knew that Jason had you. And you had Gideon. That was the most soothing and comforting thought. No matter what, he knew that you would take care of Jason, just like he would take care of you. But now... now Spencer's world had dissolved in the air. Like a sandcastle knocked over by the wind.

And the pain was surreal.

When he realized, he had left the room, close to the... body. If he could, Spencer would have moved away from himself. How would he take it? One more death, another psychopath. How many other people he love will are died at the hands of the work he did every day?

The answer to all of these questions was frightening, and Spencer wasn't sure if wanted them.

The trip to the coroner was the worst Reid had ever done, talking about the body was the worst conversation he had ever had. And when Morgan put his hand on his shoulder and said that he couldn't close himself now, that they were going to get that son of a bitch, all Spencer wanted to say was that he couldn't take it anymore. That he couldn't breathe. The emptiness was too oppressive. So much visceral pain.

But that was not what Spencer said. He just clung to the only lifeguard in the middle of the rough and deserted sea: justice. Gideon deserve it.

Reid doesn't know how he managed to get back to the Gideon’s house, how he managed to hear Hotch and Rossi talking about what could have happened. But he was there, standing, by some miracle.

“Do you know who might want to have done this?” Hotch asked Stephen, who had arrived, his eyes red from the crying he struggled to hold.

“No. I know he had a list of things he wanted to do before he died... That's how we came back to speak, one of the things was to get back in touch.” His voice was so reminiscent of Gideon's that it was stabbed in the heart of Reid.

“Didn't he talk about being chased? Feeling anything strange?” Rossi commented.

Reid watched Stephen's expressions carefully, first because he reminded Gideon a lot, and second because he looked for any clues in his reactions.

Stephen took a second to think before saying: “No, but we both don't keep in touch daily, you know?” He swallowed a sob, probably with regret, but then his eyes lit up with some information: “'But Y/n surely know, they both spoke to each other every day, if my father was thinking differently, surely she know.”

The mention of your name hit Reid with a very different wave. Bringing a very different feeling than it should. At that moment, he felt himself holding the air.

For a second, a lapse of consciousness, Spencer had not connected any of this with your physical presence. The notion that you were Gideon's daughter was obvious but, for some reason, Spencer didn't think about the fact that you were going to be there. That you would share the same air with him again, the same place...

“We will have to call her, bring her here to see if something has been left, or taken. If there is anything important on the scene.” It was Hotch.

“I called her as soon as you guys called me.” Stephen said “She arrived from California the day before yesterday, my father and she were going to travel.” He tried to swallow the crying, his eyes trembling.

"And you weren't going?" Rossi added.

“I have a son and a wife.” He gave a smile broken by the sadness of the mourning “They would stop by before I go… Y/n was going to tell me the news, since our schedules hardly match much, she works as an astronomer in…”

“Caltech.” Spencer completed, without even realizing it, like a thought out loud.

“Yea.” Stephen agreed.

Spencer felt a chill go from head to toe, and another ton of feelings were thrown at his back. The reality that he was going to see you again hit him hard. Like an arrow. Suddenly, Reid wanted to get out of there. Run as far as possible.

He couldn't see you. He had no ability to deal with those feelings now. Not now, when his life was so overwhelmed with emotions for Gideon’s death that he still hadn't dealt Not when you aroused the feeling of... hope. Spencer can’t could hope, of any kind. Not for them to be taken from him with visceral force. Reid was already hurt enough for handling another fall.

“... But I don't think it's a good idea for my sister to be here, anyway.” Stephen continued to speak.

Rossi and Hotch frowned: “Why?”

“They were very connected. Seeing this scene is not going to do her any good...” he sobs this time “Y/n is not like me… she is sentimental, emotional. ”

“As long as you're trying to stay calm, she'll be the opposite.” Hotch completed.

“I just don't want my sister to suffer anymore and...”

But it was too late for Stephen to complete. It was too much for Spencer to escape. It was too late to be born again, in a different life.

A gray car moved forward on the stone road, at too high a speed not to have washed several road fines. That was so much typical of you who hurt Spencer's heart pieces more than he thought possible. More than he thought he could feel at the time. You were always so wild at the wheel. But Reid didn't have time to finish a thought, not even Rossi, Hotch, Morgan who was with them or even Stephen. Because car brutally stopped it, the door opened and…

And it was as if the sun came out from behind the clouds after years. As if summer had finally come after decades of overwhelming winter. In a burst, everything you've ever represented for Spencer has come back for him once again. And he felt the same thing that he felt when he first saw you, 8 years ago. And he was catatonic.

You got out of the car in a very hurried and desperate way. And as much as there were tears in your eyes and redness in cheeks, Spencer has never seen anyone so beautiful. Your hair was longer, in a brighter shade, maybe you had dyed it. Your features were more lyrical and beautiful, and Reid thought that the passage of time had no effect on you. While he considered himself just less clumsy over the years, you proved to be blooming like Romania's most superb rose.

“DAD!” But that was when your desperate voice brought Reid's consciousness back to earth.

You weren't calling your brother, you weren't asking why, you weren't in mourning. You were in denial. Disbelieving. You called out to your father, with the certainty that he would show up. And the despair in your eyes hurt Reid more than being shot.

But before the agents could do anything, you were running towards the house and Stephen ran towards you, taking you in his arms, trying to keep you from getting inside.

“LET ME GO, STEPHEN!” You struggled, trying to get rid of your brother's arms, your hair messing with the wind, tears streaming down your eyes. “They are wrong! It's not our father! Let me fucking go! DAD!”

“Y/n” Stephen had a broken heart in his eyes, some tears streaming down his eyes “You need to calm down before you get in there !”

“LET ME GO!” Yours sobs broke the hearts of the four agents over there “DAD!” You was cryng out, almost like a prayer, in a desperate call.

"He's gone, Y/n.” Your brother kept his arms stronger in you, trying to contain you while you struggle in trying to break free and go inside the house, under the illusion that you would find your father there.

“NO!” Now your crying was continuous “I spoke to him yesterday! It's not him, Stephen!” Then your brother turned you to him, holding you tight, and you melted into a visseral pain “It can't be him!”

“I know...” he sobbed, looking at you with the same shared pain “I know...”

So you gave yourself up to a painful, loud and desperate crying, the kind that won't let you breathe. And, unlike Reid, you fallen down. Your knees found the stone and grass floor, your hands clasped on Stephen's shirt, who knelt on the floor with you, delivered the pain you both shared.

You knew what your father's risks were in working in such a dangerous profession. Expose yourself to constant and frightening danger. You always knew about the risks, you just tried to ignore them all your life, sinking your fears about your father not coming home at night. Then, when he let the BAU, that fear dissipated. You felt a colossal weight being lifted off your shoulders, like tons of lead, and you let go of a fear so great that you didn't even know you had it.

For 8 years you thought that the chances of him not coming home were over, that the chances of seeing him the next day had increased dramatically. For 8 years you two traveled together, stopping at every type of diner for milkshake, chocolate ice cream and mint - his favorites - For 8 years you had your best friend, the only thing you knew you had in the world. You always knew that if you were drowning in the ocean, it would be your father who would give his lungs for you to breathe.

You didn't see a life without Gideon.

For you, you were crying for hours in what one day was your father's backyard, totally devastated, but for the rest of the world it was a matter of minutes.

Your sobs were so loud and real that Hotch and Rossi caught themselves with watery eyes, perfectly understanding the pain you were going through, the devastation. The two had lost many people, many of them being essential pieces to be able to continue breathing. Many of them felt wounds that would never heal.

But it was Rossi who approached you, the pain at the top of his throat, his mind wandering the day Gideon said he was going to have a little girl. Unlike Stephen, Rossi never saw you in person, but the sparkle in Jason's eyes whenever he talked about you, or with you on the phone, was enough to know that you were one of the essential pieces to keep breathing.

“Hi, my name is Rossi.” He knelt in front of you and your face went towards him, your cheeks and nose as red as your eyes.

“M-my dad talked about you."” You were still sobbing, slowly letting go of Stephen's shirt.

"Good things, I hope.” The two of you laughed like a sigh, and soon the pain returned to your eyes in a visseral way. “I know this is not fair, and I know it is asking too much, but I need you to go inside and try to find something out of place. Something that whoever did this to your father may have taken or left. ”

You closed your eyes in pain, tears streaming as you sobbed. Your hands, trembling and cold, went to your face, perhaps trying to hide from reality, perhaps wiping away tears. Maybe both. When you looked back at Rossi again, you saw the pain in his eyes too.

"I don't know if I can do it.” You admitted, your voice shaking.

"I know.” Rossi took his hand to yours, squeezing comfortingly “But only you can help us now, help other daughters not lose their father to the same killer. Being inside in the house can bring information that is in your subconscious. I promise you will make it, we will all be here with you.”

His handshake got stronger, and it reminded you of your father. That should have been the same way he comforted the victims' relatives, the way he was supposed to act with people.

'Everyone is somebody's son.' That's what Gideon said. It hit you like an atomic bomb. And, for a moment, you thought it was possible to die of sadness.

You squeezed Rossi's hand tightly, as if you were looking for courage. When you opened eyes again, you gave a weak nod. Carefully, as if any sudden movement is capable of causing you more pain, you stood up, your legs wobbly, your heart bleeding, sadness clouding your vision. Rossi put his hand behind your back, in a way to make sure him were there, as an anchorage in reality that would not let you get lost in the valley of sadness and pain.

As you walked up to the house, you didn't see the other agents, you didn't see the trees, the cars. At that time, you didn't even know what color the sky was anymore. It was like a suspended moment, when the world is in slow motion, the hemisphere is terrified. The sadness was palpable in the breeze, in the way that the rays of the sun did not reach the ground. The whole land looked like mourning.

As soon as you stepped inside the house, the smell of home and Gideon hit your nose, and you felt your face tighten in an expression of pure pain. You didn't notice the agents coming in behind you, you didn't notice Penelope and JJ. You just saw the furniture, the decor, his stuff. As if Gideon had just left for the market and was going to come back.

Everything was in was there. Minus the most important thing: him.

You did not notice when Rossi left you, you did not notice who approached. Everything was in a haze of pain.

But that's when you saw the strong blood marks on the floor, stuck to the wood with possession. A cold shiver as sighed from death ricocheted through your entire body, bristling all over your skin. In a burst, like the bursting of a violin string, the mist dissipated, the state of tupor burst, and reality hit you with overwhelming force.

And then the plug fell.

Jason Gideon had died.

You fell again, barely noticing the sobs and loud crying starting to come out again, the most desperate and painful in you life. But this time the arms that took you were different, bringing with you sensations that you haven't felt in a long time. That a long time ago you forgot that you could feel.

They were long, thin, and contained a vigor hidden beneath the thin facade. The smell of his presence was… heaven. That feeling was your anchorage on the high seas, in the valley of despair, and you clung to him for fear of drowning, of not finding your way back home.

You didn't have to see it to know who it was.

You turned to the arms that took you, now Spencer kneels with you on the floor, and you cried in a way that you never cried before, with a visseral pain. Your hands went to the brown cardigan he wore, closing there as if the fabric was your only chance for salvation.

So you looked at the immensity of the his brown irises.

"He was the only thing I had, Spen.” You sobbed loudly with the crying, gently swaying his coat, your voice utterly torn.

Spencer felt his eyes sting, his throat lock and the remains of what was his heart ache in a hideous way.

“I know.” He felt a tear run down his left cheek, his hands on your arms.

At this time, the two of you supported each other. Gideon meant a lot to you two. An irreplaceable role in yours life. And Spencer knew that was what you were talking about when you said:

"He was the only thing we both had.” You closed your eyes, your hands still firmly on his coat, your heart pounding.

But this time Spencer's voice was just as broken when he said: “I know.”

Then he hugged you.He hugged you for everything. He hugged you because it was a pain that only you two could understand. He hugged you because you needed it, and because he needed too.

Jason Gideon had a special connection with you two, a connection that only the two of you had ever experienced. Each relationship with Gideon was different, special in different ways, but only the two of you had him as a protector, mentor, a much more paternal and confidant figure. He was the kind of person you could leave your life in his hands, the kind who would teach you the secret of the worlds, show you what goodness was and at the same time strength. And you two had that.

You stained Reid's coat with tears, and Reid stained you with the strong smell he had. He stepped far enough away to be able to see your face perfectly, at a considerable distance, and, against everything he had ever done before with anyone, he took your face in his hands, his eyes fixed on your in pain shared.

“We will catch how did it.” Reid assured you, as if he had tattooed this words on your skin. You closed your eyes in pain, but he brought you back “Hey, keep looking at me."

So you did it. Because you would always follow Spencer. To hell if he asked.

"Don't take your eyes off mine, okay?” His voice was so sweet, so gentle, and you couldn't have done anything but agree. “When was the last time you spoke to Gideon?”

“Yesterday.” You replied “We were going to travel to the beach today, I took a vacation from work.”

“Was he at home when you two talked?”

The team looked at each other, with several questions in those look.

You denied it, the hiccup now because of the shortness of breath you had because of the crying.

“He stopped at Roanoke for...” and that's when you seemed to remember something.

Your eyes widened softly, your lips trembled, and you let out a stammering sigh as you try to remember something very important.

“What do you remember?” Spencer stroked your cheeks with his thumbs, trying to calm the beating of your heart that went back to being frantic and making you focus on the question, not the sea of emotions you felt.

“He…” was when your eyes fluttered before meeting Reid's again. “He said he saw a woman on the news who was found dead. And ... and that he had to make sure of one thing ”

Rossi looked at Hotch, who gave an attentive and objective expression.

“Did he tell you why?” His eyes closed again and you sobbed. Reid moved closer, bringing your face back in his direction again “Look at me, Y/n.”

As soon as you did, he gave you a gentle smile, but contained all the pain in the world. He understood what you were felling.

“Why was he interested in the case?” He changed the question.

“I-it was something about...” you searched in your mind “Girl named Tara. I don’t know. He mentioned about a blue butterfly tattoo on her ankle as well, and that it was something to do with a… a case or something.”

“1978” Rossi interrupted and everyone looked at him “Gideon and I worked on a case in 1978, the suspect was never caught and Tara was a teenager who we thought had been kidnapped by him. The killer left dead birds in the hands of the victims ”

“But he didn't mention birds and...” That's when your eyes, fluttering, darted around the room and you stopped abruptly.

Spencer turned his attention to you again, seeing that you were staring somewhere. His hands slowly left your face and he asked:

“What?”

“The board.” You pointed to your father's board, which had a beautiful brown bird.

“Does say anything to you?” Rossi turned his attention to you.

You shook your head, your body too exhausted to go to the painting and examine it.

“He shot the board.” You looked at the agents “My father loved that painting, he never would have done that. Even though my father is stunned, he has the best aim I have ever seen.”

“The devil is in the details." Rossi went to the pinting and, after two seconds, turned to the team and said “I already know who did this.”

You let out a gigantic sigh of relief as the agents split up to continue the case, speaking so fast that you couldn't keep up.

“I helped?” You looked at Spencer, tears still shining in your eyes.

He smiled and nodded “Very.”

But when he got up, you took his hand, making Reid turn his attention back to you again, a questioning look on his face.

“You're going to get it, aren't you?” The sob invaded your voice "Promise me that you will catch him, Spen."

Reid took his hand in your, giving you a strong, comforting squeeze before saying:

"I will. I promise.”

And then he left, along with the other agents.

- - -

You thought you knew what pain was, the loss, the tightness in the heart. You thought that your many relationship breakdowns showed you what it was like to suffer. But you have never been so wrong. None of that compared to how you were now, to what you felt.

You would trade that feeling for anything in the world.

This was terrible. A cold, coercive, brutal and cruel feeling. As if you were at the bottom of a black ocean, unable to breathe, falling deeper and deeper, consumed by the overwhelming cold of the water.

It was impossible to say in words how you felt. But if it were you had to define it in one word you would say: pain. A pain that bends you, a pain that makes you want to scream, that pierces your lungs so that it is not possible to breathe, but that even so, you fight for air.

It was pain at its rawest, most brutal, sharp and atrocious like a dagger blade. You would go through Dante's hells for eternity instead of living one day with that pain.

Since Spencer and the agents went after the person in charge, you have sat on the steps of the front door, watching the nature, the shaking of the trees, but your attention was so far, far away. Perhaps unattainable.

Gideon always loved watching the seasons go by, and in that moment, you wondered if looking at the same thing he looked at every day would make you feel close to him. Feel with him. It had only been three days since you last saw him, when he picked you up at the airport, but you felt like you were past three lives. How would you go without it? How were you able to think of living without it?

You pulled your knees up against your chest, hugging your legs, the metallic, atrocious and icy taste of devastation stuck to yours in your mouth. The trees shook hard, forcing the birds to fly away, but you didn't feel cold. You were not feeling the cold breeze hit your body, nor were your muscles contracting in exhaustion from the hard wood of the steps you were sitting on.

The hunger, the cold, the heat or the craving could not reach you, as if the pain had paralyzed all your system. Probably your soul.

You didn't see when Stephen put father's blanket over your shoulders, nor did you hear his sobs for seeing you so devastated. But you smelled Gideon, and the warmth of the blanket was like having his arms around you again. Then the rest of the water in your body found its way to your eyes and crying was as automatic as breathing.

You were clinging to Spencer taking the son of a bitch who did it, trying to chase away any other thoughts that weren't about that. You didn't want to think about what would happen after he was caught. Which meant his capture for you. It would bring justice to Gideon, honoring his name, his life, but it wouldn't bring him back. What was taken from you would not be repaired, regardless of the end of that damned man.

When he was caught, you would have nothing else to focus on instead.

You don't know how long you stayed there. Hours? Days? The those peach and gold tones in the sky is from dusk or the dawn of a new day?

You had lost track of time, as if your watch had stopped since the time Gideon died.

The sound of cars on the road was the only thing that pulled you out of your fucking valley, and as soon as the black SUVs stopped, you stood up as if you had been waiting your whole life for that moment. The blanket fell from your shoulders, heart accelerated at an alarming rate, and for a second, everything was gone from your mind.

Rossi was the first to get out of the car, but yours eyes darted to Reid. You wanted to run, ask what had happened, listen to the answers. But you were paralyzed in place. Afraid of the truth, of reality.

What would become of you after that news?

Spencer came towards you without hesitation, and you couldn't take your eyes off him for a second. He didn't say anything, nor did he explain anything. It was not needed. The way he reached out his hand and placed your father's rings in your palm were enough answers.

Your whole body shook and you looked at Reid with more emotions than askers.

"He is dead." He told you, and it made you fall down again.

But this time you fell into his hugging, clinging to him in despair. There were many meanings in that embrace: gratitude, relief, fear, pain and grief. And Spencer hugged you back in the same way.

You two stayed that way for a while, even when the agents went to talk to Stephen, even when Garcia and JJ left the house, even when the cold wind hit you both.

“Thanks." You heard yourself say it, and Spencer shook his head, signaling that it wasn't necessary, and the two of you moved away.

So you went to Rossi, and hugged him too. In that second, Rossi could feel Gideon in that hug, and it took a second to not cry.

“Your father was a great man." He told you when the two of you walked away, and you agreed on a sad smile.

"He was." You looked down at the rings in your hand, staying a second there before turning to the agents and saying: “You guys are going to the funeral, aren't you? I ... my dad would like it w-very much.”

"Of course." Rossi guaranteed it.

As they walked away and went back to the car, heading for their own houses, your eyes met Spencer's and he whispered in the air to you:

“I will see you at the funeral."

You nodded, giving you a sad, grateful smile. And while everyone was leaving and you were looking at the rings in your hand again, you had a feeling that your story with Spencer had just started over.

A/n: I also lost a very important person to death, and for everyone who went through it too, I mean that no one is alone! My message box is open if you need anything! Love you❤️

Tagged @gublersuvula

@peculiarinsomniac

@measure-in-pain

@nobutalsoyes

🍒 @misshale21

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saphirered · 3 years

Text

I Don’t Hate You (Vagrant pt3.)

The lady at the front desk gives you a dirty look as you come straggling in, leaving a wet trail behind you, boots sopping with an equally disgruntled expression on your face. You toss her a coin, if only to be done with it all and go back up the stairs. There you see, Fjord is no longer sitting in the hallway and probably either has gotten himself a room of his own or Molly’s taken mercy upon the half-orc and let him sleep peacefully and undisturbed in their shared room. A sense of dread still lingers as you approach your door and you take a sip from the opened bottle in your hand, hoping to find some courage to push you over the edge and just get it over with. You can see the hint of orange light bleeding through the small gap.

When the door opens Caleb looks up from his book, or well, your book. You look like an absolute mess and he knows you know you do. It’s an unspoken agreement to not comment on this fact made in that brief moment of eye contact, for both of your sakes.

“Do not question my terrible life’s choices, Widogast.” You grumble as you let yourself fall backwards on your bed. You don’t even have the energy to magic away the remainders of the rain that kept you company from your soaked person. Well, that or the fact that the droplets rolling down your skin hid the tears from the panic attack and brief existential crisis you had on that rooftop before you came down.

Caleb puts down the book, gets up from the bed and slowly and carefully inches over to your side of the room. He hesitantly sits down on the edge. You have half the mind to kick him off just because but can’t find the energy to do so. Despite your distaste for magic users like him, being alone after your mental breakdown you just experienced, really sucks. Caleb pats your knee awkwardly in an attempt to comfort but not wanting to cross any boundaries. It’s pathetic, he knows because one can hardly fix a stab wound by slapping on a bandaid. His own past experiences have left him a tad bit at a loss when it comes to comforting a person in pain, especially one so stubborn and crass as you have been towards him.

Still, Caleb has figured out your hatred isn’t directed at him personally. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out it’s people with abilities like him that have played a part in your past causing you pain and suffering and the wound is still very fresh, hence your trauma being reflected onto him, despite his complete lack of involvement in your before the moment you met. It may not have helped that your hostility towards him hasn’t exactly encouraged him to try and build a proper relationship with you. He hardly even knows you yet still he feels as if he knows your tells, the things you go through and why you act like you do. He may not know the details of your life but he feels safe to say he knows you better than any of the others.

It’s not his lack of knowledge and insight into your life beyond what’s surface and what he can read off you that holds him back. It’s the fear of what he might find within you that will tear open wounds of his own he’s worked so hard to cover up. It’s the fear you might be one step ahead of him in a similar story and there is no hope for people like you and him after all. It’s the fear those you run from are the same people he has tried so hard to escape. It’s the fear of you, that you might be each others’ salvation, or undoing because he knows what he has the capability to become, what you could become.

But here you lie, upon your bed curled up, traces of tears long since fallen, possibly even ran out, tightness in your throat, indents of your nails in your palms from clenching too much, frustration and anger in your eyes is still overwhelmed by pain and hopelessness and a wish the void would just come and claim you, where you no longer fear the consequences of running and will be able to obliterate those who caused you so much hurt, or die trying in the process. Caleb is reminded of himself in that cell of his own, for years, a broken mind piecing itself together from the shambles it was left in, barely a shell of what it used to be.

When he promised himself he would do anything and everything in his power to take down these tormentors and their accomplices so no one would ever have to suffer like he had, still is suffering, Caleb didn’t expect to find you. He still remembers himself begging, praying, screaming just to not be alone, to have someone tell him there is still hope and not all is lost. There’s still good in this wretched world and if the world turns bleak, it’s up to you to be that good despite everything. Those were the pretty words and empty promises of a dreamer but does that make them a lie?

“Don’t patronise me. I’m not some fragile broken child in need of mothering.” Caleb retreats his hand, clasping them together in his lap as he studies your face. Your eyes are cold, your expression matching. A mask, he knows. A way to protect yourself.

“Good. Because I have no intention of doing so. I want you to be blunt and truthful and I don’t want you to hold back. I want you to humour me and answer some questions.” You raise an eyebrow expecting there to be something behind Caleb’s request but his stare is unreadable, like a practiced mask of his own.

“You want me to be blunt and give you a peace of my mind?” You humour. You’ll tell the asshole okay. You’ll bicker and fight and quarrel if that’s what he wants no problem. Maybe a battle of wits and words will get you back into your groove.

Little do you know that is in fact not what Caleb is looking for. Not exactly. He isn’t looking for a fight. He’s looking for answers, how to help you despite your differences because no one deserves to go through this, especially not alone. So because of that, he will not humour you in turn with his usual reply to your attempts to push him. He doesn’t intend this to end in another futile empty argument. Not now. So he’ll drop the game and go straight for the jugular.

“Why do you hate me?” You freeze at the abrupt and sudden question. Caleb knows you don’t really hate him personally but coddling you won’t work and some things you’ll have to realise by yourself first. Finding the strength to lean up on your elbows you tilt your head at him as a half smirk creeps upon your lips.

“Because you’re an egotistical self-serving bastard who cares for nothing but himself and the people useful to him, until they outlive their usefulness.” The words are meant to cut like knives and usually you’d get a rise out of Caleb by such a statement but when you don’t see any response to your words, nothing but those blue eyes staring into yours so… unbothered, it feels as if those knives are turned onto you instead. You’re not quick enough to get rid of that tiny hint of guilt slithering across your features.

“Why do you hate me?” Caleb asks again, voice still calm like it’s the most unremarkable question ever. He could have asked you about the weather with that tone.

“Because you’re an asshole.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“Seriously? I already gave you an answer. Was I not clear the first time?” That guilt in your stomach starts growing, festering. There’s something in your mind pushing through but you try to fight it off, not liking the thought of being faced with those emotions. You’ve worked too hard to push them away.

“Just answer the question. Why do you hate me?” Caleb sees you struggle. Your first answers where in the blink of an eye, a defence mechanism slipping into place. That works, for a while, until it doesn’t, until you start questioning it and give yourself a moment to think.

“Because…” Because you’re a coward. Because you run from your problems. Because you leave other people to swipe up the mess for you. Because you’re a monster to blame for the pain of others. Because you’re to blame for your own pain. Because you couldn’t save them. Because. Because. Because. Those are not reasons you hate Caleb. You take in a sharp breath, clenching your jaw in anger, nose scrunching holding at bay the curses from passing your lips and the threat of all your emotions from spilling out like a breaking dam.

“Why do you hate me?” The words now, do not sound void of emotion, but instead are filled with a warmth and pity. Damn him! Damn him to the hells and abyss! When you don’t answer he repeats it again. Caleb gives you amicable time to answer, leaving a long silence to give your mind the time and space to think for itself, analyse and process and you hate every second of it because you can’t stop it. The cracks in the walls you’ve tried to hard to build become more apparent by the second. He asks again.

“I don’t bloody hate you!” You shout, pretty sure you may just have woken up the entire floor. The silence after the words leave your lips is deafening.

“Then what do you hate about me that causes you to act the way you do?” Your hands clench back into fists, your nails pressing down again in the still tender skin from but minutes ago. You don’t want to say it. You really don’t but that pain raging through your body wants to get out and you feel the floodgates opening inch by inch despite your efforts to fight it. Then there’s that voice in the back of your mind; maybe speaking the unspoken will give you some peace.

“I don’t hate you! I just hate what your remind me of. It’s like you’re here to personally torture me so please just leave me alone to suffer, get over it and move on.” You don’t want to remember the last time you pleaded for something, and had hoped to never plead for anything again yet here you are.

“I am going to give you a choice and I’ll only offer it once, so listen very carefully.” You’ve never seen Caleb look so intense, so genuine, and so determined. You can’t do anything but listen so you nod, signalling him to continue and that you’re paying attention to his every word and not to twist them for your own amusement for once. Whatever previous relation, or rather lack thereof you’ve had is gone now. There’s only you two, in a place of vulnerability and without judgement.

“You’ve got two options. One; you tell me to piss off, like you usually do. I’ll go back to bed, back to sleep and leave you alone. We will never speak of this again, never mention this and go our separate ways. We will remain cordial when interacting and won’t let our own grievances get in the way of the others.” You take in the words, nodding to confirm you understand.

“Or two; you and I are going to talk. You are going to tell me what you wish, and can tell me provided it’s the truth and I will listen. If you wish to tell me your life story I will listen. If you wish to tell me all your troubles I will listen. If you wish to share your pain, I will listen. And know that I will help you if you’ll allow me to. Because if you keep doing this on your own, let the guilt and grief and pain swallow you whole, I know exactly where it will lead. Do not allow it to be your undoing, or turn you into a person beyond your recognition.” Midway through his offer your eyes have closed and your brow furrows. You bit your lip and that combined with the movement of your eyes behind your eyelids are the only indication to Caleb you’re still listening to him.

Caleb gives you time. He doesn’t expect an answer right away. That’s not how this works but he does study you, attempting to get an inkling of what’s going through your mind. He feels warmth wrap around his wrist, glancing down to notice your fingers have wrapped around it and hold on tightly. You’re holding onto a lifeline and he knows it.

“Why?” Your, words a pained choke, you don’t dare open your eyes, don’t trust the look in Caleb’s eyes to tear down what last defences you had up and turning you into even more of a broken mess.

“Because despite what people might have you believe, there is still good in this world.” You’re unable to stifle a sob, feeling a tear slide down your cheek.

“I’ve not known much kindness in my life but I feel confident in saying this is the kindest thing anyone has ever offered me. It’s why my pervious actions and words towards you make me feel like an absolute ass even more. I hope you find it in yourself to forgive me.” You release Caleb’s wrist, feeling grounded once more despite the buzzing in your head and twiddle with your fingers awaiting a response, the tense air slowly lifting as you sit in peace and silence.

You nod, wiping at the corners of your eyes before you open them, a bit more red and puffy than they were before you entered the room. You finally look at the wizard and take in a deep breath before nodding again. If it were anyone else, any other moment you might have said no. You’d even have laughed at whoever tried this emotional shit on you. But it’s time. You’re not getting any better nor can you repress everything forever. It’s time to face some of these troubles head on. Luckily you won’t have to do it on your own. It will take time and effort and it’s going to hurt like hell but it has to be done. You have to move on and learn how to live. You owe it to yourself, if not the people you’ve left behind.

“Now this doesn’t mean we’re going to be best friends from now on. You’re still an asshole and so am I so don’t think I’ll let you off easy for your comments and the trouble you cause.” The corner of Caleb’s lips turns up slightly as he speaks and you mimic his expression.

“I don’t think anyone else could handle it, so I’m sorry to disappoint but you’re definitely stuck with me, Widogast.” You muster a smile, exhausted. It’s mutually understood the conversation as per your agreement won’t happen right here, right now but instead when you’re both ready. For now, at least you won’t pretend to hate each other anymore and start over.

“Hey, Caleb?” You ask.

“Yes?” He answers but before he knows it your arms wrap around him and pull him into your embrace. Caleb’s form goes rigid shocked by not only the gesture but by the physical touch itself. After a good few moments he finds himself ease just a little, enough to return the embrace lightly.

“Thank you.” You whisper.

#critical role x reader #critrole x reader #mighty nein x reader #caleb widogast x reader #caleb x reader

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tossawary · 3 years

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I just want to say that I love the dynamic between Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua so much in your story. It always bother me how Shen Yuan acted towards Shang Qinghua, blaming him or being a bit harsh on him, then Shang Qinghua acts scared or something. In a way it’s kinda refreshing to see Shang Qinghua act differently compared to other fanfics when it comes to dealing with Shen Yuan. Love your story, it’s definitely my favorite fanfic!<3

To be slightly fair to Shen Yuan, SVSSS Shang Qinghua is an asshole. He’s INCREDIBLY blasé to Shen Yuan’s situation and everything Shen Yuan is going through + everything Luo Binghe is going through (the abuse, the abyss, the insanity-inducing sword). Because at this point SY is like 4 years ish into his transmigration and Airplane is 40 years ish minimum into his transmigration.

When I first met Airplane, reading SVSSS for the first time, I was like, “WOW, this guy is mentally fucked up! He is totally detached from this! This man is probably disassociating through 75% of his life!”

(No fucking wonder Mobei-Jun is making, like, almost 0% progress here.)

And part of what I find interesting about Shang Qinghua’s character is I kind of read the dude as basically internally screaming into the void: “MAKE ME CARE! MAKE ME CARE! I don’t give a shit about anything and it’s killing me! Give me something to care about in this fake world full of fake people who hate me before I go fucking insane! At least, anymore insane than I already am!”

So when Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua finally clock each other as transmigrators, and Shen Yuan is ready to clock Shang Qinghua across the face for everything, Shang Qinghua is kind of like, “FINALLY!” It’s like SY’s presence snapped the guy awake. Shang Qinghua is a dick to Shen Yuan sometimes, a real asshole of an ally and a fucked-up friend to have, but he helps! His priorities are completely skewed and his worldview is ruthless, but he has enough humanity in him still to help Shen Yuan!

Like, I don’t really want to call them friends sometimes? They’re two people in a really, really fucked up situation who have no hope of being understood so completely by anyone else in the world. It’s an “you’re all I have” situation.

And SVSSS doesn’t really... go into this in detail? Neither SY or SQH end the story by actually opening up to each other, so we get the surface level of it all, in which SY harshly blames SQH for everything and SQH laughs at many of SY’s personal difficulties. Which didn’t so much bother me (SVSSS has lots of flaws to be bothered by, imo) as direct me on how I wanted to engage with SVSSS as a fanfiction author: I wanted to explore Shang Qinghua’s relationship with his world and the people he only sees as characters, plus the face he puts on for other people (the coward and the traitor) versus his surprising fearlessness and personal loyalty.

And I wanted to explore Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan (on this note, holy shit, does SY as SQQ have his emotions locked the fuck down where no one can get at them, not even him, most of the time) opening up and supporting each other more directly. I agree with you that a lot of people don’t always focus on (maybe it’s not what they’re interested in focusing on) the soul-deep trauma of being stuck on what’s essentially an alien world, with only one person from home, who you might have said you wouldn’t hang out with if they were “the last person on Earth”. Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua each wear so many masks, they have so many available paths, that their dynamic can shift very easily.

Anyway, thank you! Thank you so much for following my fic and letting me know you enjoy it! My fic “pride is not the word I’m looking for” is very much me going, “HEY! Is anyone going to explore this concept that is very important to me and possibly only me?” And then not waiting for an answer.

#anonymous #ask tossawary #tossawary svsss #pride is not the word #shang qinghua #shen yuan #cucumberplane #svsss #Anonymous

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kellanswritingblog · 3 years

Text

The blade sank into flesh. Jon’s fingers clutched Martin’s shirt with the initial shock and pain, but as his breath grew shallower, they began to fall slack.

Even above Martin’s sobs and the sound of the explosion closing in, static began to reverberate in the room until it filled the panopticon. Martin shut his eyes as it grew louder and louder until it was the only thing left.

As the heat of the burning Archives engulfed him, the static stopped.

Martin looked around to find a void the colors of an oil slick, with thousands of cassette tapes stretched into the distance to reach words unknown and uncharted. He still held Jon in his arms and had no intention of letting go.

They were falling. Or perhaps they were rising? They were moving, and tapes attempted to bar their path. Martin passed through them with no trouble, as if they didn’t affect him, but they clung to Jon’s body and pulled at him, trying to catch him and yank him away from Martin’s grasp.

No. He would not let go.

He clung tighter to Jon and wrapped his legs around him too in order to hold on as tight as he could when the tapes threatened to take him away from him, to suspend him in an abyss where nothing existed save for the screams that traveled along the web of film.

Martin continued to fall – or rise, or move – though the tapes caught at Jon’s body. As Martin traversed this plane between worlds, his desperation dragged Jon with him, snapping lines of film. With each tendril threatening to claw Jon away from his grasp, he only held on tighter.

And then, as suddenly as it had stopped, the static began again, roaring and cacophonous, inundating every one of Martin’s senses. All he could feel was the noise and the limp form of Jon in his arms.

With eyes shut tight, Martin let out a yell, and then he slammed to a halt with echoes of static in his ears.

When the static faded, there were… birds? It sounded like birds. Chirping and singing like they used to, before the world went wrong. Was this heaven? Martin didn’t really expect to get into heaven, not after his involvement in the literal apocalypse.

He carefully opened his eyes to find himself in what looked like an empty living room. However, he didn’t take any more time to examine his surroundings, as all his attention turned to Jon.

“Jon? Jon! Please…”

Martin had been squeezing him so tightly through the abyss, and now he loosened his grip to look him over, searching for any sign of life. He couldn’t lose him, he couldn’t.

He killed him.

Before Martin could give up hope entirely, a quiet, tiny breath escaped Jon’s lips.

“Jon! Alright, hang on, Jon, I’m going to get help. Just keep breathing, just… please.”

He didn’t know if Jon could hear him, or if the breath had just been a figment of his imagination, but he had to try. Martin stood and raced from the living room and into the street outside, where birds continued to sing as if everything Martin had left wasn’t about to be stripped away.

“Please! Someone call an ambulance! He’s been stabbed, I need help, he’s barely breathing!”

He realized that it probably wasn’t a good look to be screaming in the middle of the street while covered in blood – Jon’s blood – but it was his only chance. He didn’t even know if they had ambulances in this reality. All he could do was scream and hope.

At some point, Martin collapsed on the pavement and started to sob. His adrenaline had been running so high for so long, and finally the realization of what he’d done hit him like a train. Jon was going to die, the Fears were loose upon the multiverse, and it was all his fault.

He barely heard the sirens approaching or the squeal of a vehicle screeching to a stop. Someone bundled him inside the back of the ambulance, and, a few moments later, a stretcher was wheeled in beside him. The doors slammed shut and the vehicle started to move as the people inside shouted instructions and asked questions of Martin, but he couldn’t understand any of the words. He could only focus on Jon and the slow beeping from the machinery.

He was still alive.

***

Martin had grown accustomed to the sounds of the hospital, so when the machinery started to hum and beep in a different way, he awoke from where he sat and looked around anxiously.

It had been days. He had already spent so long at Jon’s bedside, in another time, in another world, hoping beyond hope, just as he did now. But Jon woke up then. He survived before.

And, against all odds, he survived again.

His eyes blinked open, and he tried to move, before his body gave out and he slumped back into the hospital bed with a grunt of pain.

“Hey, take it easy, you’re alright,” Martin said as he lunged to Jon’s side. He was already crying as he took Jon’s hand into his own.

“Wh… where are we?”

“I have no idea. I think it’s London, somewhere,” he explained. “But I can’t tell you more than that.”

Jon’s roving eyes finally settled on Martin’s, and he smiled.

“We made it? We actually… ended up somewhere else…”

“Seems like it. I don’t know how. And you barely made it.”

Jon looked down at the bandages that crisscrossed his chest. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Tears clattered onto their joined hands.

“It’s okay. You did what had to be done. And we’re together. Besides, it’s not like I don’t have plenty of other scars.”

Martin choked out a laugh between his sobs. “This one is a little different though.”

“I suppose. What matters is that we’re here. Together.”

Martin couldn’t look away from Jon, so full of surprise and awe that he was alive. After a bit, though, he reached behind him and pulled his chair closer, so that he could sit beside Jon and still hold onto him. Even if they didn’t feel the exertion while trekking through hellscapes, Martin’s body was starting to feel it now.

“How are you?” Jon asked. “I know I’m the one that got stabbed, but… I doubt you got away completely unscathed.”

“I got some burns, but they’re nothing serious. We were pulled through before the panopticon could really start to fall. But I’m exhausted. I think the whole walking through domains and not sleeping or eating for who-knows-how-long thing finally hit me. Even though we did get some rest in the tunnels and Salesa’s, that didn’t make up for it all. And I’m starving; I have eaten so many chocolate pudding cups.”

Jon let out a laugh, then grimaced and gripped his chest.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t make you laugh.”

“No, no, please. I want to laugh. I want to smile and hope and live. And I want to do it all with you. Maybe we have a chance for that now.”

“I hope so,” Martin said with a wide smile, then he added, “Well, there is the slight issue of explaining how you ended up in some random house with a stab wound, and how I found you… There have been a lot of questions about that.”

“Oh.”

“But we can deal with that later. Right now, let’s just focus on both of us being alive and safe.”

Jon nodded. His eyes were glistening with tears.

Martin lifted Jon’s hand to his lips kissed it slowly, then held it against his cheek and breathed him in.

“I love you,” Martin said.

“I love you too. It’s a new start for us.”

“It is. I’m both excited and terrified to see how it all works out.”

“Martin,” Jon replied softly, “as long as you’re with me, it’s going to be perfect.”

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #tma spoilers #tma 200 #mag 200 #yes I will write them being okay in every reality and no one can stop me #stabbing cw #blood cw #hospital cw

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