#Sleeping diary

[sleeping-diary-the-fic]

Sleeping diary (a pink aftermare story)

Chapter 9: What in carnation???

First Previous

Orchid stood there, a few feet away from the grass circle, staring, glaring in a seemingly random direction, full of nothing but darkness.

His candy floss colored kitten slippers thumped against the vaguely solid ground.

He swore he heard something that way.

He kept staring for a while, his stillness only broken by this incessant stumping.

One could never be too cautious around here. 

A noise in the save screen, that didn’t come from him or the faint but constant buzzing of the checkpoint, was very suspicious.

The monster wasn’t sure if he preferred it to be from Gaster deciding to visit the periphery or something else entirely.

His hands, tucked in his coat’s pockets, picked at the inner fabric in a nervous fidget.

Maybe he imagined that.

Maybe that sound solely came from his fragile mind, sleething its way out by a fissure that would never close fully.

Orchid took his hand out to readjust his scarf and sighed.

Getting poetic again, lonely guy?

Finally deeming an investigation was not worth trudging away from his only light, he simply sat and picked up his favorite activity.

That book.

Berlingot went to sleep already so he only read back old exchanges and counted the pages they completed so far.

A lot.

Between idle chit-chats and paper games, they had decorated many new pages of small moments of life.

Orchid smiled at that.

Berlingot had a lot of free time or was weirdly invested with talking with him.

He didn’t mind however and wouldn’t probe. It’d felt like breaching that invisible barrier they each put up tightly around some aspects of their identity.

It wasn’t like he wanted to talk about his life or situation, why would he demand that of Berlingot?

A flutter moved right in his mostly blind side. The right side of his face was damaged enough that he barely perceived the world from that eye.

He froze.

This time he was sure of it.

He did not imagine that sound.

Twirling around fast, two summoned blasters fired beams of raging fire towards the source of the noise.

“WH-”

Someone else was there. 

Someone who barely dodged his blasts and was now floating, eyes wide, not so far from him.

It was a skeleton, with a similar build, clothed in a slightly pinkish white robe thing tied by a thin cord. 

Its eye sockets were dark and empty, partly obscured by his hood. The dark pink inside of the fabric contrasted with the pearl white of his bones.

Maybe it was really a ghost this time, he couldn’t see any feet under those clothes.

The apparition whistled before addressing him.

“Well, that wasn’t far… You’re a bit twitchy there, buddy?”

They talked.

“Who and what are you?”

“Maybe we could,” slender fingers gently point to his still summoned blasters, “put away the big guns before we try the whole conversation thing, bucko?”

“Answer my question and I might bring the puppies home, stranger.”

“Ok, ok,” they put their hands open in from of them, “sorry for startling you, I’ll answer your questions, cowboy~”

The floating guy lied down up there and pointed finger guns at him. Confused by the unexpected endeavor, Orchid unsummoned his blasters.

He swore, now was not the time to seem vulnerable.

“Soooo, I’ll admit I’ve been called a fair share of names!”

Their hands fished out squared papers from two colorful bags, hanging from his belt.

“First,” the stranger started folding the paper with a surprising velocity, “my brother calls me Sans. I’m sure you know this name, other me.”

Winking, he put down the origami.

A candy-shaped one.

“How-”

“What, can’t believe there are other worlds than your small one, boo?” 

The doppelganger folded a few similar paper constructs and put them in neat lines.

“I would have thought that with your… history?”, he lowered his voice, “not that I know much about it beside you got a copy in there and you out annnd the fact the bloodiest resets finally stopped… So don’t worry about that, candy-cheek!”

Orchid startled and almost rubbed his cheek where he knew the candy-mark shape rested.

10 small paper boxes had been produced again.

“Can you stop with the weird nicknaming and just come down and explain what’s up besides you?”

The other did a small looping and skillfully hid away  in his sleeves his creations.

“No can do, pal. I’ll come down at the end of our conversation annnnd you didn’t give me a name for me to use? I wouldn’t assume you still go by “Sans”, do you? Oh and,” the floating guy produced a more complex paper construct made of all the origamis he folded earlier, “you can call me Kusudama! It’s better than my work name and I choose it myself!”

The chatterbox seemed like he could be going for hours but Orchid did not relax yet. There was something in those fast-paced words, in this wide smile and empty sockets that just enerved him. How did “Kusudama” enter the save screen and why?

“I do have another name but I ain't sure I trust you so what if you get down there and we discuss how you breached this place and what you are seeking exactly here?”

No use in beating around the bushes, he might as well get to the point.

“Well it all does have a thing to do with my job but frankly I feel like procrastinating some more and believe me Sans-”

“Orchid.”

The correction fuzed before he could stop it, he couldn’t bear this name in this foreign mouth anymore.

“-Orchid, be-leaf me when I say it is in your best interest, flower guy.”

He tssked at the joke, who was he to steal a pun he could have done.

“And what is your job, world’s worst spooky decoration?”

Kusudama giggled and twirled, putting his hands under his shin, the fabric spinning around him in an aquatic dance.

“I wish,” he sighed.

Something in the atmosphere soured. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Kusudama lowered himself a bit, standing almost to reach now.

“I said I had many names and a few are directly tied to my job, whomst I do not enjoy that much on a good day. But I guess someone has to do it.”

Orchid took a step bad, a hand raising in case he needed to summon something fast.

The other raised a hand as well, holding the colorful origami amalgamation. He threw it high.

His bags shook and a myriad of papers flew out, obscuring his vision suddenly.

Orchid tensed but waited.

A chuckle resonated in the empty place.

A glint of a blade grazed his shoulder and tore through his vest before he could react.

“Uhuh, not that fast.”

The view cleared and Kusudama reappeared, a pair of mismatched paper wings decorated his back. A tall scythe rested in his hands, the misshapen wood let place to the deadly blade where the weird origami thing sat.

“Maybe I played long enough. Hello, I’m a reaper, some call me death and I’m here for you, bye!”

Before the words even registered, the attacker lunged in his direction and it was only by reflex Orchid managed to summon his weapons to fight back.

The other was fast and bones, papers and blasts flew everywhere in a chaotic ordeal.

The monster dodged, more and more in extremis, each attack thrown his way, the blade swiping at him every time the death-bringer managed to close the distance. 

A wave of bones made the aggressor tumble farther, tearing through the fragile wing. He didn’t have time to cheer as the hole closed itself using new furniture from the annoying bags and his enemy threw himself back into action.

This couldn’t continue for long.

He would tire.

He would give up.

Could he even die here, when he only had a half-life left, when this place kept him alive when he should have been dust for a long time already?

Another attack barreled down on him.

He side stepped it and grabbed hard on whatever he could touch.

His hand ensnared a wrist and the hardly thought maneuver sent them both flying in the same direction.

They stopped in an awkward heap of limbs.

Both fighters froze, unsure of what to do next. 

After a while, they entangled themselves and stood there observing the other.

Kusudama’s eye sockets were blown wide for some reason and the previously determined to harm stranger stood there, limbs limp, as papers retreated and scythe unsummoned, leaving only the colorful ball he built earlier.

“What?”

Orchid didn’t let go of his sharpened bone stick as he shook in an unstable stance despite the sudden change of endeavor. This could be a scheme.

The reaper inspected his hands before tilting his head to the right.

“...why are you still alive…?”

While he couldn’t figure out what action should have killed him so surely the fact it didn’t produce such a confused face on “death” itself, he might as well answer what he knew.

“Beat me if I know. That place helped I guess.”

“...I’ll… I’ll come back later.”

With that, Kusudama disappeared soundlessly.

“YOU BETTER NOT COME BACK,” yelled the monster to nobody in particular, the sound echoing in the now empty space.

What a weird day.

End of chapter 9! Go to chapter 10?

Aftertale belongs to @/loverofpiggies Reapertale belongs to @/renrink Berlingot, Orchid and Kusudama belong to me

@dragon-tamer-1 @shinechermont

[soulmvtes]

i know its the middle of summer when i have a breakdown about who i am and the passage of time

[salamispots]

dream wip

[bruciemilf]

We as a society need to take advantage of Bruce’s movie trauma more.

First of all, not only is he incredibly apprehensive about cinemas, he’d also be way too busy with Batman and single mom-ing to stay in the cinematic pop culture loop?

I wanna see Bruce who only ever watches recorded Gray Ghost tapes. Name any movie post 2001. He hasn’t watched one.

When the Batkids enter the picture, they hold a contest on who can inflict the hardest psychological damage. Tim tries hooking him on Mean Girls but Bruce is too scared of Regina.

Steph: Okay so, it’s her wedding day and she strategically invites all three of her mother’s exes to find out who her biological father is, but! They all just end up adopting her instead!

Bruce: [Quiet but excited clapping]

Dick shows him Twilight. The resemblance between him and Robert Pattinson freaks him out.

[plasticsandwich]

survived...!!

[mournfulroses]

Anaïs Nin, from a diary entry written c. January 1936, featured in The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol. 2

[stimandbones]

Beige/yellow thinspø 💛

[gael-garcia]

“My journey has been very free. I’ve been able to work in different parts of the world and on projects that don’t necessarily obey a typical journey of a person that wants to be famous or work in film. I want young actors to know you don’t have to follow a set line to have a career. Sometimes the line is drawn for actors from the English language. But in my case I can reinvent myself all the time.” — Gael García Bernal (Total Film, 07/2021)

Also: Uruguay (El ojo en la nuca, 2001), Sweden & Thailand (Mammoth 2010), Canada (Blindness 2008, Zoom 2015), Brazil (El pasado 2007, Zoom 2015), Serbia (Zalet), Germany (Herzog's Salt&Fire 2016), Cuba (Wasp Network, 2019), Dominican Republic (Old, 2021)

[its-never-over-anaed]

Every step that you take

Every bite that you don’t take

WILL move you closer to your goal

[hollypunkers]

Fiyero Failed Flirting Attempt #17: I finally gave Elphaba the romantic poem I wrote her, she returned it with edits and said I’d probably get a B+.

In hindsight, I really should have put her name in it.

Addtl. Note: I never got a grade that high in Poetry before. Feldspur says maybe she graded me a curve because of feelings? So either she likes me or my poetry is improving?

Ideas for Attempt #18:

1.

[justlittlebutterfly]

Why I'm so fucking fat

ew

[sleeping-diary-the-fic]

Sleeping diary (a pink aftermare story)

Chapter 8: It’s nothing to sweet about!

First Previous

Berlingot giggled, closing his diary and putting it aside. That game of "guess-the-word" was truly entertaining ! How could he have guessed "to cornobble" was a true verb that existed ?

He couldn’t wait to try out some other games next time, he had soooo many ideas !

Tick-tack-toe, the hangman, riddles, four in a row, exquisite corpse (what an awful name for such a cool game) or apple tree and nim… He could continue for long, who said you had to have more than a pen and a paper to play games? And if they grew bored of those, he was sure they could create variants or entirely new games!

He had gotten used to conversing with Orchid at any hour of the day (and sometimes night) and he couldn’t help but feel like he had found there an incredible treasure he wasn’t really worthy of.

Orchid was nice. 

Obviously, there were some downsides to having a pen pal that couldn’t physically come here.

They couldn’t play cards or do pillow fights or any of the pajama party stuff he always dreamt off.

But Orchid was there when he was alone.

The other seemed to refuse to talk too much about himself but he was there and they could talk and joke. It made him forget the loneliness and bad days grew apart and a few.

He felt guilty he couldn’t offer much in return.

Orchid was so against opening up, even a bit, he had no idea what the other might need or enjoy.

He had disappeared for days recently, not answering anything he thought of scribbling. Not even to that question about red leaves’s photosynthesis.

The guardian had panicked for a second, the unusual silence shooking him to the core. The first day, he had thrown excuses at his mind, trying to ease his anxiety. The second, he had blamed himself, somehow convincing himself he must have pushed a boundary or misspoke, or talked too much or…something. 

The rest of it, he had walked through it at a snail pace, grieving a relationship he didn’t notice he had grown fond of.

Then, the words came back and Orchid with it, bearing an apology but no explanation (other than yes, red leaves could still harness the power of the sun, green wasn’t the only pigment to do that).

He still felt uneasy about the event but hadn’t pushed, going back to talk and play easily enough.

Thinking once again to the furious game he just left, Berlingot smiled before shifting his position in anticipation of an imminent sleep.

It was a quiet and heavy rest, he did not dream nor even touched the dreamscape. It ended far too soon.

Something woke him up, a feeling, it was watching him, staring.

Night- Berlingot (come on, he shouldn’t get it wrong, he chose that name) looked around sluggishly, absent-mindely noting the way the sun had barely peaked yet. It was still very early.

An unease forced his senses to turn on faster and the guardian searched for the source.

He didn’t find it until he looked up to the branch right above him where Marianne had fallen asleep last night.

He was still there, eyes shut in a weird strong way.

"Marianne, I know you’re awake, why were you staring at me?"

A loud « snore » answered him as his brother shifted to face the other way.

"Come on ! We don’t even snore !"

"Maybe you don’t but I do. I snore loud as thunder and enough to wake up the dead, I am currently sleep-talking. Obviously."

Amused at the other’s antics, Berlingot snickered and declared in a taunting voice :

"I guess if you’re sleeping, you won’t be able to stop me from snooping in your candy reserve and licking aaall the sugar canes I can find, maybe even the big one with the-"

A weight crashing-onto-him-with-the-delicatess-of-a-drunk-elephant stopped his discourse mid-way.

"YOU WOULDN’T," shouted Marianne from his place, haphazardly lying on him, "YOU KNOW I’M SAVING THIS ONE FOR A SPECIAL OCCASION !"

"Look at who’s wide-asleep now ?"

His voice barely reached the air, softened by layers of fabric right over his face.

Marianne froze, silent, for a whole minute (maybe more like 10 seconds but time felt longer with a brother on the face) before moving aside and grumbling.

"You were not obligated to go to threats right away..."

And in a smaller voice :

"You won’t touch it, will you ?"

Berlingot smirked and tutted.

“I’m not sure yet~"

Marianne whined and looked at him with the wettest puppy eyes he could.

“Maybe if you tell me why you’ve been staring…?”

The other opened his mouth, started to make a hand movement before utterly freezing before any sound came out. He quickly sat back more properly, playing with the wrinkles his outfit gained during the night, eyes staring hard on the ground.

“...I wasn’t staring?”

Berlingot tilted his head as innocently as he could.

“Why does this sound like a question.”

“Why doesn’t your question sound like one?”

“Hey there smarty-pants,” Berlingot let a confused silence escape for a few seconds at a sudden realization. "What are you even wearing?”

His brother didn’t waste the opportunity to latch on another subject and stood up and twirled, showing off a kind of half blouse, half pajamas kind of thing, with frilly decorations on the sleeves and a mess of fabric reaching his knees. It was pale yellow and blue with touches of pink in random places. It was… hard to describe…

“Well, do you remember Matina? The not-a-tailor-but-black-belted-in-sewing mongoose? I brought her back her lost cat and she offered to sew me a thing with her newly-bought machine and of course I didn’t mention her cat only got out because I left her window open after checking that pie I was not allowed to touch so she did me that! Behold my new pjs!”

Another twirl made some pans of fabric lift and revealed 6 dark ribbons hidden along the back of… a part? 

“You know you can refuse gifts you don’t like, Mar’?”

“You’re awfully rude, I drew the design myself.”

Ah, that was why it was like that. His brother was an awful drawer despite the energy he could pour in each strike. Maybe, it did not help either…

They bantered for a while until the sun rose higher and they each took a time to dress up (begone evil pjs) and eat the rest of a bread loaf they kept from a former meal.

Then Marianne sat back next to him and they stayed there for a while.

Usually he liked those moments where they just stopped for a minute.

They’d sit where all they could see was sky and trees and all they could hear were the birds’ song and the insects’ buzzing lullaby. The wind would make the surroundings dance and live and they would feel closer than ever, without a word uttered.

But this time, it felt itchy. Eyes kept sliding up and down, rounding and tumbling all over him and something else.

He couldn’t focus on anything else.

“WHAT!”, he angrily sputted in the other’s direction.

Probably thinking he was discreet, Marianne jumped and remained silent shocked for a moment.

"You can’t continue that, tell me your thoughts or I’ll truly lick that thing," he idly gestured toward where he knew his brother’s secret stash was.

"Now you’re just being mean."

“Quit it, you’re the one who’s acting strange.”

A sigh passed between them and the voice of the other reached a higher tone as he uttered what may qualify for some answers.

“I… was just thinking about the… gift I gave you? The notebook.”

Berlingot straightened slightly.

“I saw you scribble in it and I wondered what you decided to write in it in the end? Is it a story?”, his gloved hand pointed right to the carefully tucked away diary.

That hand seemed inquisitive, curious and hesitant or, at least, it was what he thought he could read through the gesture.

“No it is not a story, not really.”

“Oh, and may I ask what you’re writing then?” Marianne scooted closer, “Is it a secret?”

Should he tell him? 

Now?

The guardian looked into those soft eyes and pondered.

He opened his mouth, experimentally thinking about the right sound association to explain this particular situation.

I am talking to a pen pal through my book.

Would he want to talk to Orchid? Would they get along? 

I am talking to a pen pal through my book.

What if they didn’t ?

I am talking to a pen pal through my book.

The words didn’t reach the outside.

I am talking to a pen pal through my book!

His mouth was open but nothing tumbled out, he closed and opened it again. Nothing.

The chewed up phonemes seemed to have twirled so hard in his mind they just tangled up and were now far too big to get out. 

Too big.

“Yes, it’s a secret.”

Two pink candies floating in icy lakes silently looked away.

He’ll tell him later.

End of chapter 8! Go to chapter 9?

Dreamtale belongs to @/jokublog Berlingot and Orchid belong to me Marianne belongs to @yuriyuruandyuraart ❤️

@dragon-tamer-1 @shinechermont

[animenekos]

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto 2nd Season; The Apothecary Diaries Season 2 - Episode 1

[salamispots]

dream from several days ago

[lanasangelsblog]

me 24/7 ₊˚⊹ ᰔ

[riseandfallofsecunit]

The Cracker Wrapper in the Sink Incident

From “Murderbot Impersonates an Augmented Human Security Consultant,” circa 3477