#tw disassociation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elementaskylos345 · 3 months

Text

Dread Within the Cabin

An Island of the Slaughtered fanfic

In an effort to seek temporary sanctuary from the torment of Wawanakwa Island and its restless and angered spirits, Chris McLean falls head first out of the kettle and into the fire.

|TW| firearms, disassociation |TW|

Chris slammed the door behind him, breathing heavily as he backed away from the door, eventually bumping into a workbench and leaning on it. His eyes flicked to look towards the busted window - wisps of thin light crept around the side closest to the door. All then fell silent.

The light then faded, leaving Chris alone. After at least a minute he finally let go of the breath he was holding, lightheadedness swimming in his skull.

“Fucking hell…” He murmured as he fell to the floor. He groaned and shifted himself, resting his arms on his knees, staring at the ground. His face was dirty, bruised, and cut while his hair was rugged and unkempt. He'd spent… two or so days lost and unable to find his team. Even where he knew they'd be, they weren't there. It's as if the island itself was keeping him away, tormenting him with spirits.

He left them here with a killer, he knew he did, but he was coming to save them now. Doing the right thing in the end is what matters, right? Like living a life of sin but turning to Christ - God will forgive.

He let out a stressed laugh. Then a chuckle. And then more laughter.

Chris didn't believe in God. But he was still right by coming here and rescuing the remaining teenagers. Hell, maybe after they all get through this he could do some interviews and finally get eyes back on him-

Chris jolted as a TV in the corner flicked on. Its screen was cracked and bloodied… as well as the cart it sat upon. He squinted as he slowly stood up and inspected it from afar, not daring to get any closer. It wasn't just blood that was on the TV there also seemed to be… hair… maybe a bit of flesh… on the corner. Chris felt sick to his stomach.

Death was all over this island now yet he hadn't grown numb to it. Maybe it was the constant terror, maybe it was his mind still not being caught up.

Through the static Chris saw… something. A face maybe? Glasses? He couldn't quite tell, not at this distance. The screen then turned off before flicking back on again. He tilted his head in confused suspicion, taking in the now clear image. It was an image familiar to him. A hint of nostalgia surrounding days in the arcade came to mind.

The familiar green vector graphics on that black background with the angular text. Battlezone. He'd spent far too long in the arcade playing this - it was very impressive back then. He snapped back to reality and to the fear he should be feeling. Chris squinted his eyes and slowly approached before stopping, looking out the window… he felt the need to block that off… he just felt eyes on him from over there. Be it Beth or Justin he didn't care either way he didn't want anyone looking at him without his knowledge.

So Chris took a few minutes to crudely cover the window with a nearby tarp, using a few nails quietly hammered into place to keep it up. It wouldn't last but it would do. As he stepped off of the ladder he nearly had a heart attack when he noticed the cart and TV had moved to be next to him. The ladder clattered to the floor in response to him practically jumping off of it. He took a moment to breathe, staring at the ominous mechanical box before him. The days old blood that lined the left side of the TV and pooled at its base made him uneasy.

Chris huffed as he finally gathered himself, more closely inspecting the TV while still not daring to lay a hand on it or the cart. The first thing he noticed was the atari controller sat gently on top of the box TV, inviting him to pick it up and begin playing. His eyes followed the cable downwards to the atari console. Then the consol plugged into the TV. All was well so far.

But the TV wasn't plugged in. It didn't have a cord to plug with and this shack currently had no power.

Chris shuddered at the realization. As if the situation couldn't get more supernatural. His eyes fell onto the controller and how it beckoned for him. It insisted. It was for him. He nearly picked it up… but hesitated. If he's going to be distracted he needs to be able to defend himself… that's partially why he came here in the first place - to arm himself.

So he left the TV and moved back over to the workbench. There were what you'd expect - hammers, saws, screwdrivers, the like… but there were also a few firearms. Hunting rifles and a shotgun. Damn. He'd forgotten to move them into his home before filming… or maybe this was one of the restricted shacks used for set building and such? It didn't matter now and he didn't care to remember. He just picked up a crowbar and walked back over to the TV to grab the controller.

…

“What am I doing?” He asked himself before stepping away. Yeah, what WAS he doing? He huffed. “Playing a clearly haunted game on an island full of ghosts that want to kill you, good job McLean.” he scolded himself before turning his back to the box and moving to the door.

The moment he laid his hand on the handle a sheer noise erupted from behind him, like the dying wails of a beast put through so many filters it came out like garbled static. He whipped around and swung the crowbar, wracking the TV right on its side with a resounding thud. He stared at the TV and the TV stared back, a faint static hum in the air. Sweat rolled down Chris’ brow as he swallowed the lump in his throat - he could swear he saw eyes behind those pixels.

He then noticed the missing controller. He eyed the surrounding area before realizing that the controller was at his feet… this spirit was no longer asking but demanding. He stared into the vector graphics for a moment before finally nodding in agreement.

“Alright… alright… I'll play.”

He shakily picked up the controller before gently pushing the cart back about a foot so he could sit with his back against the door and still see the screen. He was below the TV screen but he had no idea how long he'd be kept here so he might as well get comfortable. He laid the crowbar across his lap and pressed the button on the controller, starting the game of Battlezone.

Chris immediately noticed that the environment was off. A scene of distant mountains and green squares and triangles as obstacles was no more. The background was all but gone and the obstacles now resembled infinitely tall rectangles. Immediately the hair on the back of his neck rose but he nonetheless familiarized himself with the controls.

Not only had it been several decades since he last played but he was used to the arcade cabinet and not the atari version. The arcade cabinet had two joysticks that controlled the two treads of the tank the player drove, using the position of the two joysticks to determine how the tank moved. All that was now condensed into one joystick.

You'd think that would make it easier but all the skill he built up all those years ago was severely hampered. He turned his attention to the top left to see where the enemy tank would be.

[Enemy is to th rigleft]

[Enemy in rangeft]

[Enemy is to the lefange]

[Enemy ]

That was very helpful. His eyes went back to the battleground. He began to scan the area to his left, deciding that maybe the word left showing up in most of the messages might’ve meant something. The background scrolled as he turned, revealing more of the nothing and nonsensical line placements. He also saw more infinitely tall rectangles… but no enemy tank. He also didn't hear any missiles coming. So he continued spinning.

The radar feed in the top left continued to spit out nonsensical garbage as he turned. As he spun around to the right he could finally see some geometry that made sense - a large mountain off in the distance, much like the one on Wawanakwa. He'd now scanned the entire area and still didn't see the enemy tank and his nerves were at a fever pitch. He took a moment to look at his surroundings to see if perhaps all of this was a distraction.

Then he heard the sound of something firing in the game. He jolted and began reversing and his eyes snapped back to the screen, hoping he was being shot from the side. He witnessed the bullet whiz, by the front of his tank. He sucked in some air and began to strafe to the left - where the bullet came from. More bullets flew past the front of his tank. As he continued to strafe he began to dread more and more what the enemy tank might look like, unable to tell if horrifying vector graphics would look better than… whatever else might show up here.

It was a slow process but he eventually moved backwards enough to see the enemy at the left side of his screen. It was a lot tamer than he was expecting as it was just a corrupted tank model. That being said, considering how simple the graphics are this felt like an abomination from hell.

Nonetheless he was still in a terrible position. Like first person shooters after it, in Battlezone you can only fire from the center of the screen. The enemy was to the left. Not good.

Thankfully, he hadn't fired once in this whole process and there's a firing delay, about half a second. It'd be tight but he might be able to turn the tank after the enemy fired and hit it before it can shoot him. It's far more likely he'd die but it was worth a shot. He then backed into an obstacle and died. He blinked. He forgot that could happen.

Once he respawned he turned to the right and saw the corrupted enemy model. He made sure there were no obstacles in the way before lining up the shot and fired. However, the enemy moved out of the way. He hummed and moved forward to make chase. Now that he was in the prime position he was able to close the distance and destroy the enemy, causing the enemy “tank” to explode into corrupted vector chunks.

With his death and the death of the enemy tank leading to no horror brought him some comfort. A small part of him considered that maybe this spirit just really wanted to play some Battlezone. So, the back and forth continued. Playing against an intelligent being was certainly very different from playing against ai. There was even a moment of peace where the two of them “danced” by driving forward and reversing rapidly before continuing the battle. It was… nice.

After constant torment this moment of peace and, honestly, fun was refreshing. He'd almost forgotten the danger he was in, the nostalgia and newfound comfort in the game lulling Chris’ anxieties.

Honestly, after a while, he was convinced that this spirit - who he figured was probably Harold - just wanted someone to play with. It was so strangely wholesome… though, he should probably leave soon. He'd lost track of the time and still had to find out how to get back to his crew.

But he just couldn't pull himself away from the game, enthralled by the activity, he and Harold now trying to see if they can shoot each other's projectiles.

Shoot

The image of one of the hunting rifles popped into his mind, almost as if he was looking at it at that moment. He blinked, a fuzzy feeling filling his mind, causing him to lift his thumb off of the controller and stop all movement in game. He groaned and rubbed his eyes… his hands felt full… like a weight was in them. He looked down at the controller then past the TV to the dark environment around him. It suddenly didn't feel real.

He rubbed his eyes again and shook his head, fully dropping the atari controller. What the hell was going on? He felt detached from himself and from the things around him, like he was floating in a void. He looked back to the screen only to be met with the barrel of the enemy tank, his eyes half lidded and confused. He waited for the tank to shoot.

Shoot

Chris blinked into awareness, his body once again feeling like his own. He was standing in front of the workbench, staring at the ceiling. He furrowed his brow and looked around to catch his bearings. Everything was as he left it - tarp on the window, tools displaced from his rummaging, haunted TV in front of the door to the outside… but one of the hunting rifles was missing. He looked down at his hands, quickly dropping what was held within them.

Well, he found the rifle. He was holding it to himself, clearly with harmful intentions. Chris just stood there for a moment to catch his breath. How close was he to death just now? Was Harold just toying with him?

After a moment he steeled his gaze with a huff before turning to leave. He grabbed the cart with the TV and thrust it aside, just barely throwing the TV to the ground. Turns out he'd lost at some point while he was hallucinating. Chris waved his hand dismissively towards the box and picked up the crowbar before leaving, slamming the door behind him.

As he left he reminded himself that he was doing the right thing. He was saving who was left. The police were here combing the island for the killer. This anger was justified - maybe - but his conscience would be clear. These spirits would NOT kill him.

They would NOT be the end of him.

He refused to die on this island.

#elementa art #digital art #fanfic #island of the slaughtered #total slaughter island #fanart #td chris mclean #tw gun mention #tw disassociation #my art #td harold

90 notes · View notes

sandswirls · 6 months

Text

Having an existential crisis

#artists on tumblr #my art #deltarune #digital art #deltarune fanart #fanart #art #kris dreemurr deltarune #kris dreemurr #kris deltarune #tw blood #tw gore #tw disturbing imagery #tw blade #tw knife #tw disassociation #tw existential dread #tw existential crisis #horror

102 notes · View notes

ihave-toomanyfandoms · 4 months

Text

So uh what if Etho and Bdubs' actually manage to be final two?

***

Etho was fraying at the edges. It was evident in the constant jittering of his hands, the churning of his stomach at the mere mention of food. There were days were he woke up so hyper aware of his surroundings that he wanted to pull himself apart, every sound echoing tenfold in his head, the cacophony drowning out every thought. It was suffocating, paralyzing and he could do nothing but to stay rooted to his spot on the edge of the bed, desperately trying to keep himself from unraveling completely. Bdubs usually kept his distance on these days and Etho was grateful for it. The thought of him hovering around him, or even worse, touching him in this state made his skin crawl.

There were other days, where he woke up but didn't feel like he did, a thick blanket of fog between him and the world. Etho had regarded these as his good days, even though he sometimes startled back into his body in strange places with no memory of how he'd gotten there. It was dangerous, of course, to be so disconnected from himself, from reality. Once he had found himself standing on Bdubs' side of the bed at night, hands hovering inches away from his throat. He had stopped thinking of these days as his good days after that and lived in silent, agonising fear that one day he would wake up to his hands around Bdubs' throat or a bloody knife in his hands.

It was on one of these days where he had snapped back to the sound of his own name ringing in his ears and a hand gripping the back of his jacket, choking him as he leaned precariously over the edge of a ravine. He had a moment to marvel at the swooping feeling of vertigo in his stomach before he was yanked back, nearly tumbling to the floor. Bdubs' hand was steady against his back.

"Woah there, watch your step." He said and pulled his hand away again. Etho turned around to face him.

"Bdubs." He rasped, his throat itching like he hadn't spoken in days. Judging by the way Bdubs' eyes lit up at the sound he probably hadn't.

"There you are." He whispered with a smile and reached up to cup Etho's face with his hands. "Thought I'd lost you there for a second."

It wasn't clear wether he was talking about the ravine or the static that was still threatening to suffocate him again.

"I'm still here." He muttered and let himself be pulled down into his arms.

That night, they spend two tense hours lying in silence, Etho feeling less like a human and more like a loose collection of strings, trying it's hardest not to shake apart, until Bdubs' finally gets up with a sigh and pulls him outside.

It's a moonless night, the star seemingly twice as bright in its absence and Etho is unsure if lying out here on the grass is better, his mind threatening to untether itself to float up into the endless sky above them. He clings to Bdubs' hand like a lifeline, the weight of the body next to him the only thing still grounding him in this world, in his own body.

"Etho." Bdubs' says into the quiet and Etho rolls onto his side to look at him. There's a quiet, exhausted smile on the other's lips as he carefully reaches out to smooth his hand over Etho's forehead. He nearly winces at the contact, his skin burning where Bdubs' fingers slide over it. He still leans into the contact.

"I'm sorry." Etho forces out around the lump in his throat. Red static dances at the edges of his vision. "I don't think I can hold on any longer."

"It's okay." Bdubs whispers and leans forward to press a burning kiss to his temple. Etho let's go of his hand in favour of cupping Bdubs' face. He stares at him, searching for a hint of resentment, of anger, of anything that would make this any easier but there is nothing but understanding and forgiveness there. Etho has never loved him more than in this moment and he hates himself for it

"Thank you for trying anyway." Bdubs says and splays his fingers against Etho's cheek, wiping away the tears in the corner of his eyes. "I know it was hard for you."

"I'm sorry." Etho repeats, because it's the only thing he can say right now, the only thing he has left to say.

"It's alright." Bdubs says as he grabs Etho's wrist and pulls them down, forcing Etho's hands to curl around his throat. Red floods his vision as his fingers dig into the tissue, nails breaking the sensitive skin.

"I told you I wanted you to win anyways."

Etho squeezes.

#ethubs #secret life #trafficshipping #hermitshipping #them <3 #this is very rough and not edited and not formatted #it's also a bit fucked up #so uh #don't judge me too harshly i just woke up from a haze and had these 800 words in a text document #tw disassociation #gave myself pretty bad brainfog with this so i added a tw #my writing

55 notes · View notes

unionize-aromantically · 1 year

Text

I love car seat headrest for his dissociation swag

beast monster thing (love isn't love enough) / fill in the blank / deadlines (thoughtful) / America / Something soon

[ btw there's more in reblogs]

#feel free to add to this #< as always lol #csh #musicblogging #dissociation #tw dissociation #tw disassociation #car seat headrest #csh dissociation #cshr #mentally ill posting

273 notes · View notes

lucrezianoin · 7 months

Text

This take got me in trouble on twitter but I'm glad the first Astarion sex scene doesn't show much. I know some people like the idea that he was already falling for Tav but given the context, well, he was not. Not in a romantic sense i think, because all the extra dialogue you get is not romance specific. And his happy face when you roll your neck for him? That's just big body standard face, if you play as buff his face is much more distrusting.

And yeah, given you can call him out for being not all there, it would make no sense to add that option but not show it in the scene. And honestly, I don't want to see it? Because I don't have the option to allow my Tav to stop or check on him.

#Bg3 spoilers #Astarion spoilers #Tw disassociation

75 notes · View notes

bluefall7 · 25 days

Note

[A quick Teleport to Blue is all it takes for Bee to be there. The tall leafeon hybrid is still clearly dressed for Hisui.]

First modern house I've been in in months.........

Hey? Blue?

[The houndoom hybrid is sitting on the floor, playing with it's tail. He looks up at Bee, eyes wide but not really focusing.]

Oh....hi......?

#self insert faller #tw disassociation #pupnapped #rotomblr #pkmn irl #pokemon irl #pokemon rp #roleplay

26 notes · View notes

girlscoutbrownies · 6 months

Text

Fandom: School Bus Graveyard

Word Count: 1241

Summary:

What do people say again? Time flies when you’re having fun? They’d be right, except he’s not really having fun right now.

He’s not really having much of anything. He’s just… there.

Additional Notes + Content Warnings: Descriptions of disassociation, mild forest horror. Aiden is very much an unreliable narrator here.

This is not posted on ao3.

—

Aiden Clark does this thing where time flies sometimes.

That’s not really the right word for it, though, because saying that time is flying implies that he knows that it’s moving. He really doesn’t.

He blinks and he’s lost hours. He loses time. Yes, yeah, yeah - losing time. That’s the term.

( Actually, he’s been told that it’s disassociation. He doesn’t really care for those big words, though. )

Something’s off, he thinks, the first time.

His room is dark. It’s always dark in his room. Very, very dark. Dark, so that he doesn’t have to see the empty cans on his table and the stacks of cup ramen.

It gives off, automatically, the sense of someone is sleeping here, but they’re not living.

And maybe that’s corny, but is he alive?

He doesn’t feel alive right now. Alive people feel the mattress under their feet and the blanket over their legs.

God, his inner monologue is always kind of depressing. Seasonal depression, maybe? It is winter.

It’s always winter, though.

Maybe the seasons are changing, and he doesn’t know, because the sky outside of his window is dreary and sad and depressing and he’s not quite sure when the cold stops and the warm begins, because he doesn’t know what warm is like.

The monitor is dark, too. He thinks that sometimes, all he does is watch himself lay in bed, from inside some inner world where nothing can hurt him, the childhood monsters-in-his-closet latching onto him like some fucked up koala. No, koalas aren’t the ones that latch. Those are sloths.

He’s alive, actually. That’s kind of sad. Wait, no, it’s not. No, no, no, Aiden. Being alive is good.

( Sometimes he wonders what it’s like to die. It’s not in a suicidal way, though. Not really. )

He wonders if dead people still need to eat and live and breathe and order things at restaurants, except he’s seen enough movies and read enough books to know that the only dead people that do that are the zombies.

He wonders if zombies have to make eye contact and ask for consent before they bite people. But only alive people do that, because alive people know what it’s like to feel bad. Corpses don’t make eye contact.

Corpses don’t feel anything at all.

( If he thinks ahead, outside of this memory, he wonders if all of his intentional eye contact is just a weird way of him scrounging up whatever sense of identity he has left, a way of saying I am here and alive and you will have to look at me, or if it’s just another byproduct of never interacting with other people his age, not until Ben. Maybe it’s both, actually. )

He is alive. He feels his heart beating sometimes, a steady familiar song that he knows the exact tune to. You’re not supposed to hear your heartbeat, though, are you? Not unless you’re in a hospital, strapped to wires and stripped to the bone like a weird fucking mannequin on display.

That’s funny.

Well, it’d be funny, except he’s not laughing. That’s typically the baseline for something considered humorous.

He’s not doing much of anything. Right, what was he doing again? The blanket. It’s there. He feels the blanket, bunching it up in his hands. It feels fake, but he knows it’s real. The world isn’t advanced enough for something like that, not yet at least. It feels like something sheared too quickly and never processed and rough and it’s a disgusting horrible shade of gray and—

Right, what was he doing again?

Five senses. He can feel his veins twisting underneath his skin and blood flowing in an unending path to his heart to keep him alive. That’s not quite how you phrase it, he thinks.

He turns his hand. It’s pale and the blue lines stand out prominently, not faintly like a normal person’s would be. They snake under his bones like vines in a forest, grabbing hold of his bones and muscle because he can’t have anything, he’s surrendered it to rot in this room and he’s suddenly sharply thrusted out of this shitty memory—

( He doesn’t really like the forest. Maybe he did, once before, but a long, long time ago, he’d been told that bad parents send their children to the woods to die and that really, he should be grateful he has a house and a place to stay in.

The forest swallows up everything. It’s a wonder humanity hasn’t burned it all to the ground, honestly. Setting ablaze to his nightmares, the ones he has when it’s getting particularly bad and he sits in a dark clearing and watches nature reclaim its score. This was never their place to live.

It gets worse after the phantom dimension. Pillars of rock soaring into the sky, something that shouldn’t be possible because of the “laws of nature,” but nature follows its own set of rules, doesn’t it? It doesn’t care about us. He’d envisioned, the night after, when he’d finally managed to drift off, the forest grabbing onto Tyler and never letting go. Sinking into mud and dirt and decaying to the bone.

He doesn’t really like the forest. )

Right, he was doing… something…

Oh, he’s in bed. He’s in bed and the shutters have been pulled wide open, bright sunlight filtering through the glass. Wasn’t it just dark out?

“Aiden?”

His eyes snap towards the voice blocking the doorway. No, that’s not right. The voice near the doorway. His therapist told him to stop treating everyone like video game obstacles. Oh, well. Who was she kidding? It’s not like he told her anything, anyways.

Ashlyn is standing there, looking worried enough that he almost feels warmed by the concern. Almost.

They make eye contact, too prolonged and too vivid. He thinks he’s making her uncomfortable. That’s a shame.

Five senses. He can’t feel the blanket. It’s soft, isn’t it? He combs through his memories, knowing what it’s supposed to feel like. It’s silk or something, or maybe it’s fleece. He doesn’t know which one this is; they’re all the same colour, and he can’t feel. The texture is wrong.

It doesn’t feel like anything. He’s supposed to feel things. That’s his whole—pardon his redundancy—but that’s his whole thing. He’s the bouncy one, up and alive and too many feelings, to compensate for when the others are down.

Off topic. He’s getting off topic again. This isn’t a lecture, though; he’s not following a lesson plan. He’s just here.

“Um… are you… okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” he says with little hesitation. He thinks to himself that he really doesn’t care for speaking right now, but the familiar words roll off his tongue like…

He’s not that great with analogies. Similes. Whatever.

“You’re still in bed. It’s nearly two in the afternoon.”

Is it? He hadn’t realized time passed so quickly. Or, flew. Disappeared.

“Ben said that you were probably sleeping in, but, well…” She looks over, rather confusedly, at his unmoving form. He’s been sitting here for a while, hasn’t he?

“I’m hungry,” Aiden announces, pushing himself off the mattress. He feels it under his hands, which is good. It’s not the same softness as it should be, but it’s still there. It’s there, and this is real. He’s real.

“Do we have anything to eat?” The wood paneling is hard and cold under his feet. He wishes he’d gotten carpet.

It’s still cold in here.

#sbg #aiden rambles #school bus graveyard #school bus graveyard (webtoon)#aiden clark #tw disassociation #my fics #my writing #not on ao3 #forest horror #ish

48 notes · View notes

marlinspirkhall · 8 months

Text

My friend died from cancer on Monday. He was a musician and we'd collaborated on some stuff together earlier this year. I've been cycling between feeling numb about it and feeling nauseous. I wasn't sure if I should make a Tumblr post about it, but I finally have the spoons to do it right now.

#personal #tw death #tw disassociation #just in case #not entirely sure if I'm disassociating because it's been 3 years #but I just stood in the supermarket staring at a shelf for a full 5 minutes earlier and was like uh oh

62 notes · View notes

treasure-goblin · 1 month

Text

I exist

#i do #i do...#...i do #i really do #im real #...im real #it doesn't feel real #it feels empty #i feel empty again #i was lying #i lie all the time #not real #tw depersonalization #tw derealization #tw disassociation #goblin vents

15 notes · View notes

hmshermitcraft · 1 year

Note

Grian gets low.

He doesn’t mean too, but after several sleepless nights gripped tight with nightmares of eyes- too many eyes there’s too many

Well, he hasn’t had the best month, and the only bright side was that the hermits (his lovely partners) hadn’t noticed beyond some teasing for his “fixated builder eyebags”.

This was, of course, until a prank went too far and it was blamed on him by the surrounding people. It was only then, with Xisuma lecturing him with words he couldn’t hear over the ringing sound in his ears that he just, couldn’t handle it anymore.

Grian leaves his body, and it instantly collapses like a puppet with its strings cut.

He leaves, watcher form (his real self, if he’s honest) just, needing to ghost around for a bit. Take a break from being a person.

Meanwhile, the hermits are panicking because they know Grian is a watcher but he hasn’t spoken much on what that entails exactly and oh boy they should’ve asked. They really should have asked.

-TeratoTomato (Polyhermits - watcher dissociation be like *leaves corporal form*)

It’s been getting too much. Everything is starting to feel too much. Then it feels like not enough. And then it’s too much again. And it switches back and forth and back and forth and.

Grian hasn’t been able to sleep. Grian hasn’t been able to eat. Grian hasn’t been able to focus. Grian hasn’t been able to exist. Grian hasn’t been able to rest. Grian just wants things to stop for a while. He just wants everything to stop.

Grian is good at hiding things he doesn’t want to be seen. And the hermits don’t seem to see how much stress and anxiety is building up in him apart from the “fixated builder eyebags” and he’s glad he’s not making them worried for him, he really is! But why does it hurt when they don’t worry?

Then something happens. A prank. Someone did a prank. And there was a lot of deaths and respawning and damaged builds and then the people around were blaming him because “it had to have been Grian, he always pulls pranks who else could it be” and then Xisuma started scolding him and Grian was supposed to be listening but he couldn’t because his mind was so loud and the ringing wouldn’t stop and, and, and-

And then Grian forces and pushes away his corporeal form and things feel better. If only slightly. And he only needs his eyes. He only needs to see. He doesn’t need his other senses. He only needs to watch. He’s going to go away for a bit in this other form. He’ll be back. Eventually. For now, though, he’s just going to go watch some random mobs do their own things.

…

Xisuma was lecturing Grian about how dangerous his prank really was, even if it was an accident, when Grian just. Collapsed. He fell to the ground. He would have face planted into the dirt if it wasn’t for X’s reflexes for catching exhausted hermits kicking in.

It takes X’s mind a moment to catch up and process what just happened. When it does, they softly say the smaller’s name. No response. X shifts Grian in their arms to better hold and look at him, but when X does, Grian’s face is blank. Void. The hermits made jokes about how his eyes were soulless or “had not a thought behind them”, but looking into them now, his eyes were hollow.

His face is neutral and his eyes are half lidded and his body isn’t even trying to hold itself up and he doesn’t even seem to be breathing(a quick check showing that he is breathing brings a slight sigh of relief) and he just. Empty. Like a shell. Or like a doll. Or even a puppet with no puppeteer.

Was X too harsh in their scolding? What just happened? What caused this? Is this… is this a normal thing for watchers? Is this a watcher thing that happens? They’re really starting to wish they asked Grian about what being a watcher entails or, or at least tried to do some research on their own, if they had they-

No. No, X can’t go blaming themself right now. Right now, they and the fretting hermits around them need to take care of Grian until he recovers from… whatever this is.

No one knows how much time has passed that’s a lie, they do, they do know how long it’s been: 6 days, 17 hours, 43 minutes, and 9 seconds by the time Grian comes back to them. There’s tears and reassurances and apologies from both Grian and the hermits and hearts are spilt and promises are made and things. Things are going to be okay. They’re all going to be okay.

But that’s later. That’s in the future. Right now, the hermits are taking turns caring for their partner. The bed he’s in with so many blankets and get well presents and cards. There’s always at least one hermit with him there’s always more waiting for him to wake up so they can alert the others when he does. Until he wakes up, though, they can only watch.

#hermitshipping #ask #grian tag #polyhermits #Mod Sleepy…#tw disassociation #teratotomato anon

96 notes · View notes

arts-and-drafts · 9 months

Text

AFK (Limited Life)

(A tiny little snippet I wrote after Martyn confirmed in his Lore that Grian's AFK session was the work of Watchers. Enjoy!)

CW: Death mentions, disassociation(?)

Joel fretted back and forth in front of Grian's rigid form.

He and Jimmy woke up to a sunny sky, a fresh harvest on Bread Bridge, and a very still Grian sat atop a llama in a boat. His arms were slack at his sides, and he stared straight ahead in a worryingly blank expression.

Every once in a while, his eyes had swirled with a purple magic that put Jimmy right on edge, though he wouldn't say why; he just told Joel "not to say their names". Whatever the bloody hell that meant.

He looked frozen in time, almost, if Joel hadn't confirmed that the clock was indeed still ticking down on Grian's inner forearm.

The Boogeyman thunderclap rang out above Joel's head as he was preoccupied keeping Tango and Impulse away from Grian's body (gods know what they would do if they realized what a state he was in) and a chill ran up Joel's spine.

There was a chance it could be Grian.

Joel frantically started theorizing how they would even do that. Grian could be moved, that Joel already figured out, and Joel highly doubted that his friend had just happened to fall asleep in a mob in a boat.

Grian was probably expecting this to happen to him, whatever this was, which meant he was probably expecting his fellow Bad Boys to figure out what to do if he had in fact been selected Boogeyman.

Okay, fine. Maybe Joel could make a sort of 'piggyback' arrangement where Grian's hands were wrapped around an axe and he was wrapped around Joel, and Joel could just puppet him around to kill people. Yeah, maybe that could work. Joel was pretty strong.

You are...

NOT The Boogeyman.

Joel didn't feel any relief. He whipped around to Grian after seeing his own message, staring him in the eyes to see if there was any change. Maybe there's a flash of red that he'd never noticed until now. Something like that.

Grian moved.

Joel fell off the boat edge he was perched on in shock.

It was really more of a spasm, but it was more movement than Joel had seen out of his friend since they woke up.

"Grian, are you the Boogeyman?" Joel asked, his voice hitching with desperation. Could he hear him still? Nothing he'd tried before had illicit any response, but maybe that's because Grian couldn't respond.

Grian twitched again, a jerky motion that could vaguely be interpreted as a shake of the head.

Well, definitely more of a shake than a nod. It was good enough for Joel.

"Alright," Joel sighed, and prayed to whoever was left that he interpreted that right. Grian was not the Boogeyman, and Tango and Impulse weren't either, if their words could be trusted.

Which they couldn't. Joel ran them back through the portal.

Grian did the mental equivalent of an exhale of relief, his mind stinging from the lengths it went to to just move his head. Joel had thankfully correctly interpreted what little Grian was able to do with his body before he was once again forced out of it, and he at least put that worry to rest.

Grian had bigger problems to deal with now, he mused with annoyance, as he turned his attention back to the massive web of purple magic he was encased in.

This was going to take a while.

END.

#it was a lot of fun writing in joel's pov i hope i get an excuse to do it again sometime #meraki post #3rd life fic #limited life #bad boys #t.i.e.s #tw death mention #tw disassociation #just to be safe lol #i dunno how else to describe what afk is

48 notes · View notes