#i apologize for not including a lot of puffy's stream :(

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (March 1/2021) - Breaking Point

Sam has been unable to find a cause for the security breach, leaving Tommy trapped. A heated argument in the cell escalates to a horrifying end.

As the rest of server mourns, the Eggpire celebrates. With their biggest obstacle in the way of their objective gone, it’s time for the next step.

It’s the start of the Final Stage.

---

VOD LINKS:

HBomb94

Ponk

Tommy

Tubbo

Ranboo

Jack Manifold

Connor

Badboyhalo

Captain Puffy

---

- HBomb hosts Foolish and Jack Manifold’s episode of L’Cast!

---

The Prison Stream

(This portion of the recap will be more detailed than normal since it’s one long conversation and there are many important lines here, including a couple that were hard to hear during the stream)

---

- Tommy’s stream starts with him making sounds and singing “Roadtrip.” Dream tells him to stop, he’s trying to write a book.

Tommy: “What are you writing, Dream? What are you writing?”

Dream: “None of your business.”

- There’s a little gray and white cat sat on the chest. Tommy says it’s annoying.

Dream: “No he’s not...he’s actually the best thing that’s happened to us.”

Tommy: (Trying to lead the cat away) “Come with me, come with me...you know what I named him, don’t you? Pussboy, Pussboy!”

- The cat returns to its spot on the chest

Tommy: “Oh, Pussboy, you are so ugly.”

Dream: “C’mon, you’re being mean!”

(Tommy punches the cat)

Dream: “Tommy! Stop!”

- Tommy starts singing “Roadtrip” in autotune. Dream tells Tommy that if he can be quiet, he’ll give Tommy more potatoes.

Dream: “I think that...the cat is the best thing that’s happened to us.”

- Sam joins the call to say hello and ask how it’s been going. He’s come to drop more food into the cell. Tommy also picks up a new clock.

- Tommy asks to be let out, but Sam says he still hasn’t found out what the security issue is. Dream asks how long Tommy will be in here for. Potentially for a while, but not forever.

- Tommy protests about how bad the prison has been. He threatens to get lawyers on Sam, he knows Big Law.

Tommy: "Sam...you know I don’t deal very well in...close quarters situations for a long time, Sam. Sam, you remember when you visited me in exile, Sam? Alright, this is worse than that, Sam...let me out. I don’t like this. Let. Me. Out. Sam.”

- Sam insists he’s doing the best he can and leaves.

- Dream tries to say that it’s not that bad. He’s been in there for a long time, but now it’s better! Tommy writes a book to Dream, signs it and throws it to him.

Dream: “I have company. I have a cat -- I mean, technically it’s not my cat, technically it’s your cat, but still! It’s just as good, keeps me company when I write and everything, we talk sometimes -- ‘cause you’re annoying a lot of the time--”

- Dream throws away the clock in the lava, saying they don’t need it. Tommy punches the cat again.

Dream: “Tommy, hear me out, hear me out...what if...we get out together, okay?”

- Tommy is not a fan of the idea, Dream shouldn’t be let out too. He goes over to the cat and shouts at it for being in his spot. He punches Pussboy twice.

Dream: “Tommy...TOMMY, STOP!”

Tommy: “Excuse me! Come this way, come this way, excuse me Dream I’m trying to right-click Pussboy--”

(Dream moves to get in front of the cat)

Dream: “Tommy.”

Tommy: “Come here, come here! Do you like this cat, Dream?”

Dream: “Yes, I do.”

Tommy: “Why?”

Dream: “Because he -- Tommy, he keeps me company --”

(Tommy punches Pussboy again and leads him towards the lava)

Tommy: “Pussboy, this way. Pussboy, this way. Let me show you the light--”

Dream: “He’s probably low, he’s probably low!”

Tommy: “Oh what, you love him? Do you love him? Do you love him?”

Dream: “Yes, I do...Tommy, he’s made things better in here -- okay listen! When you leave, can you sit him down and leave him here?”

(Tommy goes over and punches Pussboy again. He tries to lead Pussboy away again, but when the cat doesn’t come he punches Pussboy twice more, killing him)

Tommy: “Yeah. And that’s what happens when you love something, bitch.”

...

Tommy: “See, now when I leave, when I leave, you’ll have nothing! ‘Cause you are lonely, and you’re m-m-manipulative, you’re a fuckin’ twat, and I mean that.”

Dream: “Tommy...I’m gonna get out! And you just motivated me -- you motivated me all the time, you just -- that was hope, right? The cat was hope -- the cat was hope that I could live a nice life in here--”

Tommy: “And now it’s dead, now it’s dead.”

- Dream insists that he’ll get out, and when he does, he’ll get his revenge on everyone who wronged him. Tommy asks if he’d kill Tubbo. 

- The subject goes back to Dream’s plan of escape.

Dream: “I have a plan. And the thing is, Awesamdude’s never gonna believe you that I have a plan because he thinks it’s unbreakable, unescapable--”

“I have a plan. And you know, there’s a certain someone who owes me a favor, but -- that might be a part of it, but...I do have a plan.”

- They argue about the conditions of the prison again. 

Dream: “I’ve been in here a for hundred times longer than you, and you sit there trying to tell me that it’s so horrible, that it’s so bad -- yeah, it was! But guess what, we have each other to talk to, and we had a cat until you fucking killed it!”

Tommy: “Dream...Dream, and listen to this -- fucking engrave this on you, write this into your arms, Dream...You don’t have me. You’ll never have me. We don’t have each other, alright? I am me, and you are this fuckin’ loser who goes around manipulating people, lying to get what he wants. You are a fuckin’ no one, man, alright? And when I’m going to leave here, you’re not! You might have a favor -- you think, who is it, Technoblade’s gonna be able to come in here to let you out -- Technoblade, he doesn’t like governments, but he likes self gain! You think he wants to piss off the owner of the most POWERFUL building on the entire server, just so that he can get a video that BARELY scrapes the five million view mark -- NO, Dream, alright? You’re a fuckin’ asshole, you’re deluded, you’re delusional, and I fuckin’ hate you.”

Dream: “Okay...yeah, but I have something Techno would want, so...it means knowledge, alright?”

- Dream says that even when he’s in here, he’s more powerful than Tommy outside. Tommy replies that if he wanted to, he could kill Dream right now. The only reason he doesn’t is because they need the revive book.

- Dream says that he will never use the revive book to help Tommy or his friends. Ever.

Dream: “So kill me. Go ahead, come on.”

- When if Tubbo dies, Dream says, they’ll come begging for Tubbo to be revived, and Dream will ask to be let out.

- Tommy then says that this isn’t worse than exile, because in exile, Tommy thought Dream had all the power, and Tommy knows something...he thinks the revive book isn’t real. Jschlatt was just a drunk, why would he have this book?

Dream: “Jschlatt gave me the book -- why else would I switch to Jschlatt’s side?!”

...

“I’m not lying! Jschlatt gave me a revive book after...before he died....because...he said--” (he cuts off here)

- Dream asks why he would be lying about that.

Tommy: “You’re a liar! You’re a liar, and really, through your Netherite armor and skin, I look at you and you know what I see? I see a sad little man who’s insecure about the fact that this server has gotten so far ahead of him that his only little glimpse of power in this world is gone. And I see an insecure, sad little man. So fuck off. You stupid green lad.”

Dream: “Your life...is literally in my hands. Does that piss you off? Does that make you mad? Does that make you so mad that I -- if you kill me -- I MIGHT AS WELL BE A GOD, TOMMY! YOU CAN’T KILL ME, AND I CAN KILL YOU! So what does it mean, that you can’t kill me because of the revive book -- what does that mean? If you can’t kill me, does that make me some kind of god?”

Tommy: “No Dream. I could kill you right now. If I wanted to.”

Dream: “Okay. But you won’t. But you won’t! I could kill you if I wanted to! I could kill you right now, actually.”

...

Tommy: “I don’t think this revive book is real. Schlatt? He’s fuckin’ dead. I’ve seen his grave! His grave is real, his corpse is there!”

Dream: “Okay...Why don’t you go see him then?”

Tommy: “NO -- stop it stop it stop it st--”

--- ---

CANON DEATH: TOMMY

Cause: Punched to death

--- ---

End of stream.

---

- Tubbo, Ranboo and Jack see Tommy’s death message in game chat.

- They go to the prison and Sam is there to tell them what happened. Sam couldn’t get there in time. He didn’t think Dream would actually kill him. They’re all in shock. 

- Tubbo and Ranboo think Tommy will be back. There’s no way he’s actually dead, right? 

- Jack Manifold is in celebration. He got what he wanted! He thought Dream would want Tommy alive, and killing Tommy himself would be an extra jab in the chest for Dream, but apparently not? And now he has a hotel!

- He decides to check on Tubbo and makes sure he’s okay. 

- Jack walks down to the shore and looks up at the prison, and...it hits him. He’s spent months plotting to kill Tommy. Jack realizes his victory feels hollow. Even now, Tommy and Dream have managed to take away this from him. 

- Of Ze Haus, he says that this place no longer means anything to him. He gets a flint and steel and sets it alight, watching it burn.

- He passes by Tommy’s house and finds Ranboo planting red and white flowers outside.

- Jack switches into his L’manburg uniform and walks along the Prime Path.

Jack: “I remember the day I joined the server. The day after the first war. L’manburg was still a big hole, and we built it up. And Tommy invited me to join. And I betrayed him (laughs), so really this has all come full circle.”

“Maybe I was always really just upset because I always felt like he cared more about the discs than...anyone. And I guess I just enjoyed it when we were friends...and...I’ve not really had any friends...since...then, really. Never really wanted any.”

- Jack later speaks with Foolish and tells him that Tommy’s never coming back from prison. Foolish didn’t know him too well, but he’s still a bit sad. When anyone passes, it’s sad.

- Jack heads back out into the wilderness, wandering to the beach area at the edge of the forest where Quackity had his argument with Badboyhalo a while back. There’s something just beyond the hill.

- Quackity meets him there and escorts him back home, telling him he was heading too close to something, could have gotten “a nice view of it.”

- He’s been thinking of writing up a draft of their contract. He also sees the new McPuffy’s.

- Jack tells Quackity that Tommy’s not in the prison anymore. Quackity says they need to talk to him and make sure Jack keeps his hotel. As the rain pours, Jack tells him. Tommy didn’t make it.

- Quackity and Jack have a moment in front of Tommy’s house. Though upset, Quackity says it’s time to get back to work.

Quackity: “Jack...don’t let this affect business. The train doesn’t stop.”

Jack: “No, it only goes faster.”

- Jack also speaks with Antfrost. Antfrost gives his condolences, and says he’ll put together a celebration “of life.”

Ant: “Bad and Sam will be happy...to attend, of course!”

- Afterwards, Jack heads down into Karls nightclub and ends stream there.

- Connor speaks with Sam Nook at the hotel.

- Bad meets Ant at the Holy Land. Ant asks if the church would be a good place for a celebration. Ant sits Bad down to tell him. Bad is overjoyed. 

- Bad says that now, they don’t even have to do any preparations: 

They can move into the Final Stage.

- They get milk for the cake and decide to throw the party at Tommy’s house!

- They meet with Sam at the prison entrance. He sounds dejected.

Sam: “I didn’t think Dream would ever actually...try and kill him”

Bad: (laughs) “Is this the same Dream we’re talking about? It’s Dream, Sam.”

Sam: “I mean...Dream had...I thought I had...broken the will out of him, to do something like that. But he...he did.”

- He says they need to find out what it was -- he wandered around the prison several times and couldn’t find any sign that someone had done something.

- Ant and Bad try to reassure Sam that Tommy signed the waivers, he went to see Dream, and Sam shouldn’t blame himself. Sam doesn’t see it that way.

- They say they’ll talk to Sam later and leave the prison. They see Sam Nook at the hotel. Sam is excited about the new upgrades for the hotel! Tommy will be so excited to see them!

- They return to Tommy’s house and speak with Punz as they make a party floor and sing the Crab Rave song in dudududus.

- Meanwhile, Captain Puffy is grieving, feeling like she failed Tommy. As she logs on, Bad and Ant decide that Puffy might want to join them for the party! 

- Punz meets them there, and they tell him that Tommy’s dead. Punz isn’t sure how he feels, it’s bittersweet.

- Puffy arrives and angrily tells them to leave. What’s wrong with them?!

- The Eggpire sees Sam Nook at the hotel and goes up the floors to find a place to party. Puffy comes up and tells them to find another place to party. They argue again.

- Foolish arrives to visit his room in the hotel. Puffy leaves them. They quarrel about who has the room for the night.

- Puffy mines down the Eggpire’s meeting room. She’s noticed that being a hero hasn’t worked. Sparing people, being merciful, it hasn’t worked. She might need a change of perspective. 

- The Eggpire decides to visit the Egg and break the news to it. They see the wreckage, but Puffy is in the Nether by the time they get there.

- Puffy visits Logsted.

- The Eggpire goes down to the Egg Room and finds the pathway blocked up with obsidian...is this why the Vines have been slower to grow lately?

- They break the barrier and find the Egg drenched in water. They wake up the Egg and it speaks.

“This world is mine. It belongs to me.”

“No no no, I know, but we’ve got something to tell you!”

“I see all...I...am...all...”

“Oh so you--”

“I know all.”

“You know then! Guess -- well, we’ll tell you anyway in case you don’t know -- but guess what? Tommy’s dead! Dream -- the green guy, you met him -- killed him in the prison! I guess Tommy got stuck there, and Dream killed him! Are you happy?"

“Feed me...I require nourishment.”

“No no no, don’t worry -- that’s coming soon! We’ll take care of that! We’re already gonna begin the preparations, right guys? Yeah, we’re gonna begin the preparations, and we’ll send out the invitations, we’ll let everyone know...and the final stage can commence! This is wonderful!”

- Once on the surface, Bad announces that with a little more preparation, they’ll all get exactly what they want. The final stage is about to commence. 

The day of celebrations, the day they’ve been preparing for, the day the Egg has been preparing for, is about to happen...

- Bad goes down to the Egg Room one last time and stands at the Egg to give a final speech.

“Everything leading up to this point, EVERYTHING, all the way going back to the discovery of this...beautiful, luxurious Egg, okay...we had it all planned. As soon as we found it, we knew what was gonna happen. We knew the objective...”

���We may have forgotten what it was, forgotten the ultimate goal as soon as we boxed the Egg up in obsidian. But guess what -- that didn’t stop the Egg! Boxing it up only made it STRONGER, and LARGER, and more powerful! And the Egg’s been storing up that energy, okay? You may have been thinking the Vines have not been spreading...but that’s because we haven’t WANTED them to spread. We have been working, storing energy, storing power...in preparation for the final plan. The final objective. And there were only a couple people getting in the way. But guess what? One of the biggest obstacles -- Tommy -- is no longer in the way...now that he’s not in the way, we can commence with the final stage...the final party...before it all comes to a conclusion...”

“Brace yourselves...everybody on this server, prepare. Anyone who is anti-Egg...you guys better get ready, because we know who you are. And at the end of the day, the Egg is gonna be victorious. And there’s nothing ANYBODY can do to stop it.”

“Good luck.”

[quicksandblock]

MCYT Demographic Survey Part 2 RESULTS

IT’S TIME!!!

Once again, thank you so much to everyone who participated! 1,654 people total responded to this - about four and a half times as many respondents as the first survey. It’s honestly incredible. I’m so happy the rest of you are as interested as I am in this stuff :D

The increased turnout is also why these results are being posted two days later than I’d intended. I want to give a HUGE thank you to my friend @quincepastey​ and my sibling @orestes-swimming​ for helping me out, and by helping I do mean they did basically all of the technical stuff for me, because my knowledge of spreadsheets was not up to the task. So thank you to Cupid for organizing all the data from questions 3 and 4 into something comprehensible for me, and thank you to Kal for making the charts! They are absolutely the MVPs and everyone reading this should go check them out. Thank you guys so much <3

Reblogs of this post are very appreciated. It would be awesome if the info about the results could reach everyone who submitted a response, so if you reblogged my first post about this survey, please consider reblogging this one as well!

For your convenience, here’s a link to the results of the first survey I did six months ago. Now - on to the results!

Question 1: What is your age range?

Compared to the results of the first survey, we can see that things have changed a bit! Specifically, the fandom has shifted just a little bit older. The solid majority of the fandom is still in the 15-17 year old range, but it’s gone down from almost half to closer to 40%. Almost a third of the fandom are ages 18-20, up from close to a fifth six months ago. 21-25 year olds have increased from about 10% to about 14%. And the youngest segment, 13-14 year olds, have gone from almost 20% of the fandom down to 12% - the sharpest change of all.

Finally, nearest and dearest to my own heart, there are now 26 whole people in the fandom aged 26-30 and 9 people aged 30+. Old Squad is growing, folks. We are... the 2% 😎 Special shoutout to the person who said their 15 year old kid got them into the fandom. I hope you know just how cool you are.

These results are interesting, but it’s also impossible to say how accurate the data is. This survey and the previous one were only posted on my blog, and they only reached a wider audience through the reblogs of my followers. So do these changes reflect actual changes in the demographics of the fandom as a whole, or is it just that my followers (and the people who follow them) have shifted older? To try to avoid this bias in the future, I may reach out to some well-known younger bloggers and ask them to reblog the next survey I do so that I can reach a more even audience.

Question 2: What is your gender?

Apologies for the small text, but there were so many unique write-in answers that I wanted to include them all. You may want to open the image in a separate tab for better quality.

In contrast to the age question, the gender spread of the fandom has remained pretty much the same. About half the fandom is still female, the nonbinary crowd has increased from 20% to 25%, 7% of us are male, almost 7% are genderfluid, and about 5% are agender. Just like last time, most of the write-in responses fell into the vague categories of either genderqueer or questioning.

No surprises on this one! The fandom continues to be overwhelmingly female and queer. Next time I think I’ll include genderqueer and questioning as options to try to catch some of those people into a formal category. All y’all are so valid, especially the person who wrote in their gender as “soup” <3

The results for questions 3 and 4 will be under a cut, because I don’t want to completely destroy people’s dashes.

Before I get into the last two questions, a couple notes. First, I want to explain how I came up with the list of creators, since a lot of people were either excited or disappointed by the fact that a few different people were on there.

On the last survey, this question was a write-in, and I had to transcribe and collate all the answers by hand to come up with the actual number of people who followed each creator. For this survey, I simply took the list that came out of the previous one and pasted it in! I also added a few people who no one wrote in six months ago but who are much more prominent now (Ranboo being the biggest example). So if you were excited to see your favorite small creator listed as an option, they were there because someone wrote them in last time! And if you wrote in your favorite small creator here, they’ll be an option on the next survey. The list is entirely crowdsourced and it will expand with each survey.

That said, the same also applies for more controversial creators. Specifically, I’m talking about CallMeCarson. Several people questioned my decision to keep him on the list - and to be honest, I considered taking him out. But in the end I decided to leave him in as an option for the sake of completeness and consistency with the previous survey. I want to emphasize that this is not me condoning his actions. But for the sake of the data, I felt that it was best to leave him in.

That said, let’s move on to questions 3 and 4!

Question 3: What creator(s) do you primarily follow?

So, it’s harder to compare with the previous survey on this one, and that’s purely because on the previous survey I didn’t have the help I did here. The chart I was able to make for the results back in October was frankly trash. Also, the fact that I split “followed creators” into two questions - primarily and casually followed - definitely throws things off. However, we can still do a certain amount of comparison!

The most obvious change is Ranboo. He straight up was not on the previous survey at all - I think he’d been streaming for less than a month at the time. Now, about 55% of respondents listed him as someone they primarily follow. The Dream SMP itself has also jumped dramatically. Previously, about 5% of people wrote in Dream SMP. That has increased to over half. Quackity has gone from less than 2% to about 30%. Karl has gone from 4% to 30%. Phil has gone from about 8% to a little under 50%. The SBI have jumped from 11% to over 40%.

Techno has gone from about 50% to over 60%. Tommy has gone from 45% to over 55%. Wilbur has jumped from 43% to 55%. Tubbo has remained steady at about 38%.

Dream has apparently dropped some of his following percentage-wise, falling from 50% to about 35%. However, George, Sapnap, and the Dream Team itself have all jumped from 10-12% to almost 30%.

I’m not going to go over the rest of the list, because that would just get way too long. However, I will drop a link to the spreadsheets of data for this survey and the previous one, so anyone who wants to can do some comparison of their own!

Question 4: What creators do you casually follow?

I won’t do as detailed of a comparison on this question, because there’s nothing to compare it to - this question wasn’t on the previous survey. However, it’s interesting to see how many more people follow Fundy, Nihachu, BadBoyHalo, Captain Puffy, Eret, Awesamdude, and Jack Manifold casually rather than as a primary favorite. Out of the top twelve, Karl, Quackity, Phil, and Tubbo are the only ones who don’t have a major discrepancy between the amount of people who follow them casually versus primarily.

I would be curious to hear people’s thoughts on why that’s the case! Personally, I would guess it’s a combination of each of their approaches to lore on the Dream SMP, the frequency and times of day that they stream, and the people they tend to make content with and be associated with by the fandom. I may go into that more later, but this post is already very long, so I’ll hold off for now. Here’s a link to this question’s spreadsheet for anyone who wants to take a closer look!

...And that’s a wrap! Good grief, this got long. Kudos to anyone who actually read the whole thing because I know my attention span would be challenged. I’m already thinking about the next survey - a couple people suggested that I add in questions about orientation and nationality, and while I want to keep the survey pretty tight in its scope, I am considering it. It would be even more data to process but it would be interesting to know!

I would love to hear people’s thoughts on these results! I’m only one person, so I know there’s interesting stuff I must have missed. Please, please feel free to reblog with your thoughts and observations! A lot of work went into this (both from me and from Cupid and Kal! Thank you guys again!), so I’m really hoping to hear what people think about it :D

I plan to reblog this and reply to some of the things people wrote in at the end, so stay tuned for that. And once again: thank you all for your interest in this project of mine <3 See you with another one in six months!

[irrelevant-iguanadon]

Lowkey wanna hear the rant but I want to hear more abt Puffinx sooooo

MY BELOVEDS

FUCKING THEY LOOK AT THEM!! WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR MONTHS. THEY'VE BEEN WAITING FOR MONTHS. FUCK DUDE. IM STILL. GOD.

Let's create a rough little puffinx timeline from memory shall we

Event 1: Pokimaine's Plantonic Love or Host: Here, puffy was a bitch to Qt as a part of the love or host bit. However, instead of clapping back, Qt just went "you're mean" causing puffy to feel the need to apologize to Qt later. This led to then becoming friends.

Event 2: St. Patrick's Day: This is when things officially started. Normally the E-Girl Rejects, made up of Kaceytron, QTCinderella, and Justaminx, stream together every Friday. This particular week however, they instead decided to stream on Wednesday as of Minx's request. That Wednesday was St. Patrick's day and Minx wanted to do an egr stream for the day. What they ended up doing was powerpoints on Ireland's history while drunk and dressedup in costumes, however they decided they wanted a guest. Qt decided to ask puffy if she wanted to join, and puffy said yes, this sealing her fate. Given 1 night to prepare, puffy showed up in a potato head costume waaay to big for her and a scuffed PowerPoint on the great potato famine. The night came and they went through their powerpoints, got more and more drunk, and ended up just hanging out for a bit. Eventually qt and kacey had to leave, leaving just puffy and minx in the call. They got even more drunk, minx said she loved puffy at some point, peed on her leprechaun jacket, and did more embarrassing things I dont remember at the moment. They eventually ended stream.

Event 3: Late March-Early May: tons of stuff happened during this time but I don't remember the particular order of it all. Some highlights include the drunkcasts, puffy, gee, and minx's roblox date while puffy was in a maid dress, puffy putting minx's picture up on the dsmp, and the it takes two streams.

Event 4: The Ireland Trip Announcment and Cancelation: Probably what was simultaneously some of the happiest and saddest memories in puffinx history, this was a big stream for them. Here they got drunk and played couples games I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) before eventually just sitting and talking. At some point they got to talking about wanting to see eachother really badly. Puffy, the simp she was, bought a plane ticket to Ireland right then and there. However the excitement only lasted for about 2 weeks before Puffy announced that they were gonna have to cancel it. At the time covid restrictions were just too tight for puffy to be able to fly there and be able to stream, so they had to cancel it. Puffy actually did it at the beginning of the stream where the supreme fridge got taken down. It was one of two times she had (almost) cried on stream.

Event 5: Shenanigans and The UK Announcement: Lots of things happened during this time yet not many at all. Again some highlights include the 24 minx covid stream among some other little things. That is until one night in July, during a dsmp stream puffy announced that she would be going to the UK, although she wasnt sure if her and Minx's schedules would line up enough to be able to meet her there.

Event 6: Minx Cancelling Her US Trip and The 12 Hour Puffy Alt Stream: There are three things in particular I remember about this time. 1) The stream where puffy streamed on her alt until 5am to make sure Minx got up on time. 2) The nearly 12 hour stream on puffy's alt where minx was there for the majority of the time. And 3) Minx cancelling her trip to the US for something to do with envy. I cant remember whether Minx cancelled it during one of those two streams or a different one entirely, but all 3 events did happen. Anyways, Minx was supposed to be in the US at the same time puffy was in the UK, had even signed a contract that said she had to be there. Her and puffy were talking about it on stream, and at some point minx was like "just ask me to be there and I'll be there." And when puffy said that she did, minx told envy and everyone that she wasnt going to the US, breaking the contract and loosing money in the process, just to see puffy. The 12 hour was also important, including some important moments like puffy crying on stream and puffy and minx calling eachother soulmates.

Event 7: The Present: And here we are, 5ish months later and puffy and minx have finally met up in person. I dont even have words for this honestly /pos.

Tell me if I missed anything important please owo.

[felinedetached]

/roleplay I agree that Quackity is without a doubt, power hungry. I actually think that he is going after Dream not because he is like Tommy who just wants to stand against Dream but because he is afraid. He is afraid of Dream but at the same time, he is so damn envious of him. He wants that kind of power and control too. As much as he wants to dress it all up, Quackity crave power and authority. So, how do you think Festival 2.0 is going to go? Especially the reactions from Dream Team?

Okay first: I think you're spot on about quackity there!! Second: ty so much for asking this bc I have thoughts!!! Under the cut, because my thoughts are long as fuck. (Reminder that this is all rp, bc I'm too lazy to put c! In front of every character name in this post)

Note: for the purposes of this post, everyone who sided with Dream during the L'Manburg Massacre + the Badlands is "Dream Team", soley because I want to talk about Bad, Puffy and Punz too.

First: tommy teaming with Techno is going to cause some strain between Techno and Dream. (I'm very sad about this, because I absolutely love the concept of Dream & Techno as a chaos-causing pair and would love to see more of it.) This is going to cause strain because of the whole thing with tommy not liking to think about Dream, Dream repeatedly trying to blow up tommy, all that drama between those two with the fact that tommy now has extremely mixed feelings on Dream and is soley going after the discs now, which Dream has opposed him on the whole time.

This limits their ability to team up during this festival 2.0.

Second: I think tubbo is a lot more traumatised by the festival than he wants to admit. The fact that he didn't just kill Techno, he specifically tried to have him publically executed, and the fact that he's now also trying to recreate what happened to him in order to kill Dream and Techno is very very telling. This,,, generally isn't great, because a lot of people (I'm thinking mainly Niki, Ant, Eret etc, those who were pretty negatively effected at the festival) are going to have very bad reactions to the whole idea of a festival in the first place, even without knowing it's a front for the murder of Dream and Techno. Additionally, with Ghostbur remembering some,,, interesting things on Phil's stream this morning, there might be some Ghostbur drama!

Third: we've got to remember they're trying to kill god here. Dream is assumed to be the god of the smp, with his ? canon remaining lives, the fact that his only known canon death was a /kill on himself & Quackity's whole conversation with a drunk Wilbur, in which he apologized to Dream while calling him god in VC with Wilbur, which is obviously at best debatably canon, but confirms Techno's joke about the chest Dream gave him being "a gift from god".

Fourth: theseus! I'm sorry, I'm a classics major, I have to talk about this. So Techno was right at the festival but I'm just gonna give a slightly bigger version of the story here.

Theseus was the son of Aegeus, the King of Athens, and every year, Athens had to send young men and women to Crete, to fight the Minotaur. Theseus eventually went himself, promising his father that he'd switch out the sails on the boat that returned to Athens with the bodies of the Athenian youths so that his father could know he returned alive. Theseus went into the Labyrinth, and with the help of Ariadne (the daughter of Minos, the King of Crete) Theseus killed the Minotaur. He returned home, forgot to switch out the sails, and in his grief, Aegeus threw himself off the Acropolis. Then there were a few more adventures, including a battle with the Amazons, the Caledonian Boar Hunt (featuring one of my all-time favourite heroes, Atalanta) and an attempted rescue of Persephone. Eventually, he came back to Athens, where he almost immediately got overthrown and exiled. He takes shelter in Scyros, but the king of Scyros, Lycomedes, kills him.

This myth is really interesting in the context of the dream SMP for a few reasons!! First: who takes the place of Aegeus? Is it Phil, tommy's father? Is it wilbur, who's already canonically committed suicide? Is it tubbo, who thinks that tommy is dead? Second: Techno will take the place of Lycomedes. He owes Dream at the moment, for both the totem of undying and the save at his execution, and Dream is really not the biggest fan of tommy right now. Or like, ever. Additionally, Techno's already shown that he'll cave to peer pressure because of the festival, so if Dream asks, Techno will probably do it.

Back to festival 2.0, with dream team reactions this time! Badlands will be interesting. I honestly don't know if they'll even turn up, considering the whole red vines thing they've been dealing with. If they do, and tubbo successfully takes one of Dream's infinite fucking lives, I think Puffy would be pretty horrified, given that she's shown to consider Dream a mildly creepy baby duckling & appears to be generally fond of him. I really can't tell with George and Sapnap at the moment, but I think it might be a relatively violent reaction. Last I heard, they think Dream doesn't care about them & the trio appears to be splintering slightly, which is heartbreaking, but I think no matter how they pretend otherwise, they still care about Dream. Punz, I think, will start murdering people, which is always fun.

For tubbo, though, this festival is really leaning into the whole "Schlatt 2.0" thing. I think he might start drinking (illegally) because of the whole "thinking tommy is dead" thing, and/or he'll lose his last canon life at the festival.

I hope this answered your question? I know I started rambling a little bit, ahaha.

[bubonickitten]

Summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Chapter 15 full text & content warnings below the cut.

CWs for Chapter 15: mentions of Buried-related trauma (claustrophobia, etc.); a somewhat lengthy discussion of recurrent suicidal ideation (including some informal safety planning); panic/anxiety symptoms; mild self-harm (as a stim to distract from anxiety/intrusive thoughts); swears; mentions of starvation & restrictive behaviors re: Jon’s statement dependence (also some internalized ableism re: the substance dependence/addiction parallels); internalized victim blaming; post-traumatic stress reactions/flashbacks re: Jonah-typical awfulness. SPOILERS through Season 5.

Also, apologies in advance, but ADHD!Jon Went Off for several paragraphs at one point in this chapter and I (and by extension Martin) just let him run with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Chapter 15: What Comes After

Jon sits on the floor with his back to the wall, waiting as Basira helps Daisy wash away nearly eight months of grime. Through the closed door and underneath the rapid drumbeat of water, he can make out a steady stream of murmured conversation, punctuated by the occasional sob or bitten-back groan of pain. The words are indistinct, but Jon doesn’t need to Know what is being said to guess the gist of it.

Eventually, the shower turns off. It takes several more minutes before the door opens. Even though Jon knows what to expect, he has to suppress a sympathetic grimace when he lays eyes on Daisy.

She sits hunched forward on the closed toilet lid, damp hair hanging limp around her face and dripping onto the tile floor. There is a sickly pallor to her skin, mottled with bruising and scrubbed-raw patches of pink. The clothes she’s wearing are her own – Basira never could bring herself to discard her things – but they no longer fit. Her shirt practically drowns her emaciated frame now, hanging loose off of one shoulder and exposing the hollows of her collarbone. The dark shadows under her puffy, bloodshot eyes might just rival Jon’s.

“Better?” Jon gives her a weak half-smile.

“Cleaner,” Daisy says hoarsely, staring listlessly at the floor.

“Your turn,” Basira says, meeting Jon’s eyes and jerking her head back towards the shower. “Left the shower stool in there for you. Clean clothes are on the counter.”

“Thanks,” Jon says, but he doesn't move. Part of his brain is telling him to stand; another, more reasonable part is just now realizing that sitting on the floor in the first place was probably a bad idea.

“Do you, uh – need help?”

“No,” Jon says hurriedly, “that – won’t be necessary.”

“No, I wasn’t suggesting –” Basira sighs, flustered. “I just meant that maybe you want to wait until Georgie gets here?”

Now that the adrenaline is fading, Jon’s skin is crawling with every moment the Buried still clings to him. Every slight movement sends loose dirt raining down onto the floor. He needs a shower.

“If you could just help me stand up, I should be able to handle the rest.”

Basira gives a curt nod, quickly recovering from the awkward moment, and hauls him to his feet. Steadying himself against the wall with one hand, he tests putting weight on his bad leg.

“Daisy still needs to see a doctor, and –” Basira frowns, watching Jon wince as he takes a step forward. “Are you sure you’ll be alright? You’re not going to – pass out and drown in two inches of water, are you?”

It wouldn’t kill me, Jon tries to say, wry and only half-joking.

“Not enough to kill me outright,” he says instead. When he feels that familiar static-laden filter slide into place in his mind, he freezes. Before the fear can properly move in, though, Basira’s voice cuts through his stirring panic.

“You’re alright, Jon,” she says, authoritative but without heat. “Just breathe through it, remember?”

Jon nods distractedly, shutting his eyes and focusing on his own breathing. It takes a minute, but the pressure eventually eases enough for him to hear himself think again.

“Are you okay?” Daisy asks, brow furrowed.

“Yes. Sorry.” Just those two simple words are a struggle to vocalize, but once he manages, the rest of the weight lifts from his thoughts. He glances at Basira. “I’m sorry, it just – slipped out, and –”

“It’s fine.” Basira looks him up and down. “I think maybe you should wait for Georgie, though.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just my leg, and I’m used to dealing with that on my own.”

“I thought you injured your ribs.”

“Archivist,” he says with a shrug – a mistake, he realizes a moment too late, as it disturbs his injuries. He just barely manages to avoid flinching. “I heal quickly.”

The truth is, his ribs are unlikely to fully heal until he gets a statement in him. In fact, the last time, his weakness only started to fade after he’d taken a live statement. He’d rather not dwell on that right now, though.

“Hm.” Basira fixes him with a skeptical look.

“I’ll be alright, I promise. You should see to Daisy.”

“No,” Daisy says. Both Basira and Jon glance over at her. A noticeable full-body shiver sweeps over her, and Basira grabs a dry towel from the small stack on the counter.

“You need professional medical attention,” Basira says firmly, wrapping the towel around Daisy and adjusting it to cover her bare arms. “I’m taking you to A&E.”

Daisy ignores her, raising her head to look at Jon instead.

“I was thinking I could – stay, if you want?” She casts her eyes down again and her voice drops to a low murmur. “It’s just – the shower, it’s – a tight space, and – and it might…”

Jon bites the inside of his cheek. It’s true: the shower stall is tiny. Claustrophobic. The room itself is small and poorly ventilated; steam builds up within a minute of the shower being turned on, turning the air thick and stifling with humidity. The single dim light in the ceiling has a tendency to flicker; the bulb has been known to come loose from time to time, plunging the area into near-darkness.

It isn’t the Buried, but there’s enough here to bring the Coffin to mind on a bad day – and especially right now, less than two hours out of the place.

The last time, Daisy never could manage to use the shower without someone else in the room to keep her company. When Basira was unavailable, she would turn to Jon. Eventually, he got comfortable with her returning the favor. It became a routine, but…

“I’ll be okay,” he says again. Unconvincingly, judging from the way Daisy’s eyes narrow at him.

“Do you really want to be alone right now?”

“I…”

No, I don’t. I really, really don’t.

“Look, I’m not trying to make it – weird,” Daisy continues, fiddling with one corner of her towel. “It’s not like I’ll see you through the curtain. I just thought – maybe you could use some company? Don’t say ‘I’m fine,’” she says as he opens his mouth to respond. “Just because you can deal with it alone doesn’t mean you should have to.”

“Well, yes, but –”

“Do you not want me here? Because if you really want me to leave, I will, but –”

“No, I wouldn’t mind the company, honestly, but –”

“Then I’ll stay.” She looks at Basira, as if daring her to object.

Last time, she did object, Jon remembers. Now, though… Basira simply sighs.

“Fine. But,” she adds emphatically, giving Daisy a severe look, “I’m taking you to A&E as soon as Georgie gets here, and you don’t get to argue.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Daisy says with a tired grin.

“Liar,” Basira says, shaking her head with a fond, amused sort of resignation. “I’ll be just outside if you need me.”

As Basira leaves, Jon catches Daisy’s eye.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

“Thank you,” Daisy says at the exact same time. “For not leaving me.”

Their tentative, exhausted smiles are mirror images of one another as understanding passes between them.

Someone upstairs has a statement.

The Archivist Knew the moment she mounted the steps to the Institute. She was marked by the Spiral, the Hunt, and the Lonely in quick succession, but the Archivist can only barely make out the edges of the story: how she was pursued through a nonsensical, constantly-shifting maze of alleyways by a hulking thing that always stayed one step behind, never letting her escape but never deigning to actually catch her.

There was no one in that place to hear her screams. Now, all she wants is to be heard.

The Archivist can give that to her. It would be so easy, so right. She came to the Magnus Institute of her own volition, didn’t she? She’s here to give her statement. The Archivist can take it from her and preserve her voice and relive her story for the rest of –

Jon twists his fingers in his hair and pulls until it hurts.

“You need to sit down,” Georgie says for the third time in as many minutes.

“Just keeping warm.”

It’s not necessarily a lie. The perpetual damp chill of the tunnels seeps into Jon’s bones in spite of his three layers of clothing and Georgie’s scarf wrapped twice around his neck. Beyond that, though, fevered movement is the only thing keeping him from falling to pieces. If he stops or slows, it will become all the more obvious how badly he’s trembling and all the more difficult to ignore the hunger gnawing away at him.

“You’re not even pacing, you’re just – limping.” When he doesn’t reply, Georgie reaches out and touches his shoulder. “Sit. We have some time before Martin gets here.”

With a sigh, Jon finally capitulates, sinking into the nearest chair. Immediately, he starts to jiggle one leg, fingers tapping restlessly on his knees.

“Talk to me, Jon,” Georgie says, taking a seat opposite him. “What’s on your mind?”

“I… I don’t know. It’s – a lot, and…”

He trails off, unsettled at the sound of his own voice, shaking almost as badly as the rest of him. His mouth has gone too dry to comfortably swallow, and every passing thought feels blurry around the edges, too ephemeral to translate into the spoken word. The only thing coming through loud and clear is the need and the knowledge that he has the means to sate it, if he would only embrace it.

There are no words to describe the experience, nor does he wish to verbalize it in the first place. As for the rest of it…

“Of course now I can talk,” he says with a weak laugh, “I suddenly don’t know what to say.”

“Take your time.”

Jon hunches forward, allowing himself to rock back and forth in slight movements as he tries to gather his thoughts.

“I’m –” Hungry. Terrified. Exhausted. Weak. Hungry, craving, needing, wanting – “At a loss.”

“About why you can talk again?”

Yes. Sure. He can go with that. It isn’t a lie, and it feels like a safer topic than all the rest.

“In part. I don’t understand why I have my voice back, or what that means, and of course my mind is immediately going to the worst-case explanations, and” – now he’s started, he rapidly gains momentum, his speech growing pressured and frantic – “I should just be grateful that I can use my own words again, but I can’t just let it go, because when have I ever been able to just let something go, and –” He tugs on a lock of hair again, letting out a self-deprecating chuckle. “Unsurprisingly, I hate not knowing.”

“Well… how about starting with that? Give me some theories. Might help to get them out of your head for a minute.”

“Most of it comes down to… I don’t know – why now, I suppose? I don’t have an answer to that, which just makes me think – did I have a choice all along?” It’s a question that has been plaguing him for hours, sitting poised and ready to spring in the back of his mind, but as he finally speaks it aloud, a chill comes over him. His voice fractures like a crack spreading weblike through thin ice. “This whole time, was I just… not trying hard enough?”

“I don’t think –”

“It was the same with taking statements,” he blurts out, wide-eyed and wound taut. “When the others discovered what I was doing, I stopped, which means I – I could have done all along, and just – didn’t.”

“You implied before that you were sort of – influenced?” Georgie’s voice is thoughtful, not accusatory; her expression searching, but not judgmental. Jon can feel his shoulders relax just slightly.

“‘Influenced’ is one way to put it, yes. But not controlled, exactly – not quite. It was – instinctual, almost? And once a story starts, it’s sort of like – being in a trance, I suppose.”

“I remember you having a kind of… faraway look to you, when I was telling you my story.”

“It wasn’t like that in the very beginning,” he says, watching his fingers curl on his bouncing knees. “I don’t know when they started having that effect on me. I… didn’t even notice the change. Didn’t notice that I was physically dependent on them until I was traveling. Started to get sick the longer I went without them. And when I woke up… just reading statements wasn’t enough anymore.” He draws in a measured breath. Gathers his thoughts. Exhales slowly. “The first time, I was just shopping. I felt – unwell, hazy. Then he was there, and I just – Asked, before I even realized what was happening. The next time was just after Melanie stabbed me –”

“She what?”

“It was – sort of deserved,” Jon says, waving it off. He continues before Georgie can get another word in. “I felt – drained, after. Thought I just needed some air, so I went for a walk. Wasn’t long before I crossed paths with my next – victim. Didn’t realize until much later that I must have been… hunting, subconsciously. Like a fugue, almost. But just before I Asked, I had this moment where I – I knew what I was about to do, and I just – did it anyway. And then the third time was –”

“After the Coffin,” Georgie guesses. The look on her face is that mixture of sadness and pity that haunted Jon in their shared nightmares for so long.

“Yes.” Jon keeps his eyes downcast. “And the fourth time was after I – well, I tried too hard to Know something, and it sort of – took it out of me.”

“So the trigger is being injured, or weakened?”

“Maybe in the beginning. The last time, though… I was feeling weak, yes, but there was no specific incident that precipitated it. Basira needed me at full strength for a mission. So I Knew where I could find a statement, and I made sure to be in the right place at the right time.” He wrings his hands in his lap. “But the mission was just the way I rationalized it to myself. I was just hungry. I would’ve fed regardless, and reached for whatever excuse was closest to hand, and felt guilty later, and – well, rinse and repeat.”

“You didn’t quite answer when I asked before, but… is it an addiction, or is it sustenance?”

“It’s a… need.” Jon bites his lip in thought. “Feels like addiction sometimes, but the compulsion is worse than nicotine cravings ever were. And when I tried to stop, it – it wasn’t only withdrawal. I actually was starving. Still don’t know if it would have actually killed me, but…” He shrugs. “Suppose we’ll find out.”

“Jon –”

“But I – I need you to understand,” Jon says, jolting up straight in his seat. “I’m not making excuses. I’m done making excuses, there are no excuses, just – explanations. I was influenced, yes, and it often felt like being – enthralled, but I still… I knew that I was dangerous, that what I was doing was wrong. If I thought I couldn’t help myself, I should’ve told the others from the start and they would’ve done what was necessary. I always felt ashamed after, but I still – kept doing it, until I was forced to stop.”

He’s ranting at full-tilt now, breath quickening and heart stuttering in his throat.

“I didn’t just need it, Georgie, I wanted it. I – I liked it. It felt good. And I know for a fact that it still would, if I let myself do it again. I’ve seen the consequences of becoming – that, and I still…” His shoulders sag. “I miss it. I’m afraid I’ll never stop wanting it, I hate myself for that, and it changes nothing.”

“You’re hungry now, aren’t you?” Georgie asks gently.

Jon tsks and pinches the bridge of his nose. “That obvious, is it?”

“Mm.” She gives him a sympathetic smile. “You seem more jittery than usual. And you’re shaking.”

“Ravenous,” he says with a bitter laugh. “Worst I’ve been in – a long while, and it’s only going to get worse.”

He lets his gaze drift to the floor as he briefly debates whether to share the details. She should probably know what manner of monster she’s dealing with.

“Actually, ah – someone upstairs has a statement,” he says before he can lose his nerve. “She was writing it out just before we came down here, and I could See the shape of it, but not the whole story, and now I can’t See her anymore, and I – I need –” He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, scraping ragged fingernails against his scalp. “Christ, Georgie, it’s all I can do not to rush up there and rip it out of her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“Not yours, either. Don’t,” Georgie says, cutting him off when he opens his mouth to launch into another tirade. “I’m not saying that you were justified in hurting people. But you didn’t choose to be… this.”

“I may not have wanted it,” he says flatly, “but I did choose it.”

“How so?”

She sounds genuinely curious, not confrontational, which keeps him from going on the defensive. Instead, the question gives Jon pause.

“I… I don’t know how to explain it,” he says slowly, frowning. “Just – something Jonah said to me, and it – feels right.”

“He said that to you?” Georgie’s eyes narrow as she watches him. “Those words?”

“Yes?” Jon squirms in his seat; sometimes, Georgie’s scrutiny is on par with that of the Beholding. “A long time ago. Before the Unknowing, even. When I realized that I was becoming something – not human, and confronted him about it.”

Georgie taps a knuckle against her lips, looking down at the floor in thought.

“Jon, I’m going to say something, and I want you to think about it – really think about it, don’t just discard it offhand. Alright?”

“Okay?” Jon says, apprehension flooding him.

Georgie takes a breath and looks him in the eye.

“Supernatural flavor aside, that’s just how abusers talk in order to groom their victims.”

Jon recoils as if struck and shoves the information away from him almost as soon as the words leave her mouth.

“Does it really matter?” It comes out far more harshly than he had intended, closer to a shout than a comment, and he cringes. “Sorry. It’s just – he had a point.”

“Jon –”

“No, I chose to keep looking for answers at every turn,” Jon says, gesticulating wildly. “I’ve never known when to just stop, no matter how many times people get hurt from it. I was a perfect fit for the Beholding, the perfect candidate for Jonah to do with what he will, and I – I still am. Doesn’t matter if I wanted this outcome. I still sought it out. Moth to a fucking flame.”

“Doesn’t mean you chose it, and it doesn’t mean you deserved what happened to you,” Georgie says. For some reason that Jon can’t quite pinpoint, the quiet confidence with which she speaks grates on his nerves. “And anyway, it seems to me you’re doing a decent job at controlling yourself now.”

“Yeah.” He huffs. “Only it took Basira threatening to kill me.”

“She what?”

“Not recently. In my future. It was warranted,” he says with a dismissive gesture. Then he sighs, slouching in his seat. “And I don’t know if even that threat would have stopped me forever. Didn’t have to find out. I managed to end the world first, and then I had all the fear I could ever want.”

The moment he stops speaking, his mind once again drifts to the statement ripe for the taking just upstairs. His bitter expression turns anguished and he buries his face in his hands.

“I want to kill the part of me that misses it. That might just kill all of me, but honestly, Georgie, I don’t – I don’t know if that would be such a bad thing –” He chokes on his words and looks up at her with wide, frantic eyes. “I – I’m sorry, I didn’t – I shouldn’t have said –” He takes a deep breath and forces assurance into his voice when he says, “I’m not suicidal.”

“I won’t be angry if you are,” Georgie says evenly, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not suicidal,” he says again, but he looks away as he does, unable to meet her eyes. “I don’t – want to die. I just feel like as long as I’m around, everyone – everything is in danger, and – what right to I have to make that decision for the world? It’s – selfish, and – I really don’t deserve a second chance, especially when part of me still…”

Jon swallows hard. Once again, he wonders if the woman with the statement is still here. He pinches the skin of his arm and twists. Noticing the tic, Georgie frowns and opens her mouth to redirect him, but he carries on speaking, undeterred.

“I think the only reason I chose to wake up again is because I needed to help Daisy and Martin. I think the only reason I’m still alive now is because I don’t want to leave Martin alone. Or – no, that makes it sound out of obligation or – or guilt. It's not that. It's – I – I want to be with him, I do. I actively want to – to have a life with him, just – live, be. If not for that, though, I… I’m tired, Georgie.”

Tired of hurting and being hurt, of watching and being watched. Tired of hunger and want and an existence that hinges upon the misery of others. Tired loss and scars and nightmares. Tired of having to settle for not wanting to die instead of wanting to live. Tired of just surviving instead of actually living.

“I’m just tired,” he says, putting his head in his hands again. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear this.”

“I would rather you talk about it than keep it bottled up.”

“I just don’t want you to think that I’m not trying to get better.”

“Recovery isn’t linear. I’m not going to leave just because you have bad days. It would be different if you were closed off, denying you have a problem, but… you’re not.” When he doesn’t answer, her frown deepens. Her next words sound almost affronted. “I’ve been suicidal, Jon, you know that. Why do you think I’d hold it against you? I know you can’t just flip a switch to make it go away. Why are you so afraid –” Realization dawns on her face. “I left last time, didn’t I?”

“I never regained autonomy in the nightmares, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to you before I woke up.” Jon shrugs halfheartedly. “You didn’t expect me to wake up. Then I did, and I didn’t have any of the complications to be expected from a six-months coma. Not even a coma, really, just – everything but brain dead. A corpse coming back to life – I think it was too much for you. You told me I needed people to keep me human, and by the time I took that advice there was no one left to turn to, and now I wasn’t human anymore. It kept me from dying, but you didn’t think it was a second chance.”

“I said that to you?”

“The, uh, last bit,” he says reluctantly. He doesn’t blame Georgie for leaving, but he can’t deny that her parting words to him on that day still sting, even now – a resounding condemnation that he can’t quite shake. “But you weren’t wrong,” he says, rushing to reassure her when he sees the horrified look on her face. “It wasn’t a second chance, it was just… the next phase of the Archivist’s development. Anyway, you were tired of watching me self-destruct, you knew there was nothing you could to do change my trajectory, and you didn’t want me to drag you down with me. Or Melanie. Her life had – has, I suppose – been nothing but misery since the day she met me. She was trying to get out, to get better.”

“And you?”

“I wanted to, but I just… couldn’t see a way out. I couldn’t leave, but I…” He bites down hard on his lower lip, struggling with his next words. “I don’t think I was choosing to stay involved, either.”

“And I thought you were.”

“You weren’t the only one. And it wasn’t an unfair assumption. I was” – am, his brain corrects – “in too deep. I didn’t” – don’t, he reminds himself –“belong in normal life anymore. I couldn’t” – can’t, he does not say aloud – “reverse the change. Even when I found out how to quit… I couldn’t just leave Martin here alone. Also, I know now that it wouldn’t have worked for me anyway.”

“It would’ve killed you,” she guesses.

“No such luck,” he says with a short laugh, then feels his blood drain from his face. He looks up and fixes her with a panicked, apologetic look. “Sorry, I – that was in poor taste, it’s just – that was what went through my mind when I first realized it.”

“It’s alright.”

Jon clears his throat, still somewhat shamefaced.

“What I mean is that I, ah, tried to blind myself during the Ritual. Turns out I heal too quickly for it to have any effect on my connection with the Beholding. Otherwise I’d have tried it again the moment I woke up in the hospital.”

Georgie says nothing. When he chances a glimpse of her, he sees no judgment or anger, just more of that familiar, gentle sadness. He has to look away again.

“I don’t blame you for walking away back then. You didn’t have the whole picture. Neither did I, but even if I did, I probably wouldn’t have given you all the details, and you knew that. I can’t fault you for not wanting to stay involved when you didn’t know what being involved would actually entail.” He looks up and meets her eyes. “Honestly, Georgie, even if you’d stayed, I probably would have made all the same mistakes. I would have continued putting myself in danger and downplaying it. I would still have gone into the Coffin, and I wouldn’t have told you where I was going beforehand. I would likely have distanced myself from you on my own, because I’d have convinced myself it was in your best interests without asking you how you felt about it. I’ve… changed since then, but at the time, I probably would have continued retracing the same patterns. You would have only gotten hurt, even if it wasn’t my intention.”

“Maybe.” She frowns, chin propped on her fist as she considers. “I can’t speak for a version of me that doesn’t exist anymore. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry you were alone.”

“And I’m sorry I didn’t realize how much I didn’t want to be alone until it was too late.”

“It’s not too late now, though,” she says with a cautious smile.

“No, I suppose not.” Jon’s answering smile fades as he gives her a serious look. “None of this obligates you to stick around, by the way.”

“I know.”

“I’m serious. I’m glad you’re here, but…” It’s more than I deserve, he almost says, but stops himself when he imagines Georgie’s reaction to that. “I don't want things to become – toxic, between us. If it gets to be too much, I’ll understand.”

“If it does, it won’t be just because you had a setback. Just – try not to wallow too much when you do, alright? You’re not good company for yourself when you’re like that.”

“Yeah,” Jon concedes on a long exhale.

Georgie sighs, a pensive look on her face.

“I think I may have given you the wrong impression before. When I made you promise that you didn’t have a death wish, it wasn’t because I was going to leave if you’re suicidal. It was because I don’t want to be lied to about it if you are. I don’t want to be blindsided by your self-destruction, or made complicit in it. It isn’t fair to me.”

“I don’t want that either,” he says softly. “And I – I wasn’t lying before, when I promised you that the Coffin wasn’t a death wish. I just… I thought…”

“You thought you could make the decision to live once and be done with it.”

“Sounds foolish when you put it like that, but… yes, I suppose so.”

“Would be nice if it worked like that,” Georgie says with a rueful smile. Then she sighs. “I’m not expecting you to get better overnight, and neither should you – especially when you’re still in the thick of it. I’m just expecting you to communicate when things get bad, rather than throwing yourself onto the nearest grenade as – atonement, or punishment, or some misguided belief that you have to earn the right to live. I won’t be a party to that. I can’t. I don’t… hold it against you personally, I get it, I’ve been there – but that’s why I can’t be around it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“To be clear,” she says emphatically, waiting until he meets her eye before continuing, “I don’t mind hearing about those thoughts. I take issue with you acting on them with no regard for yourself or the people around you, and then minimizing the consequences. And that – that isn’t a value judgment. It’s just… watching you get trapped in that cycle, it takes me to a bad place.” Georgie chews on her lip for a moment, and then nods, as if coming to a conclusion. “If you were looking for a boundary, there it is. I know you can’t avoid danger entirely, but when you’re feeling like this, can you at least promise to talk to someone before making any drastic decisions? You have to let us know if you’re in a bad way, because it will affect your judgment.”

Jon lets out a long exhale. “I will.”

“Okay. I can live with that.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, self-conscious.

“About your voice, though.” Jon gives her a quizzical look. “I thought it was wholly a supernatural thing, but…” She looks up at the ceiling, gathering her thoughts, and then adopts a delicate tone. “Have you considered that it might also be a – a trauma response?”

“I didn’t before.”

“And now?”

“I… I don’t know. It first started partway through the apocalypse. The more I experienced, the more the Archive asserted itself. I was still me, most of the time, but I was also – more, I suppose? It’s… complicated.” Jon rakes his fingers through his hair as he works on his phrasing. “The human mind was never meant to contain that… much. The Archive’s purpose is to – well, to archive. Every instance of fear and suffering in that place was a statement. Billions of them, every moment recorded live – and when I read or take a statement, I live it vicariously. My own experience of it is… an essential part of the recording process.” He blows out a puff of air. “So I had a lot going through my head at any given moment. The human in me couldn’t be conscious of all of it at the same time.”

“That’s… horrible.”

“Yes. And it felt right.” He rubs one arm absently, looking off to the side. “I don’t think I was meant to survive – the human part of me, that is. I was just one mind; I should have gotten lost in the multitude. And I did, sometimes, but… I always found my way back. Martin always called me back. If not for him…”

If not for him, Jon would have lost his sense of self in the Archive, given up and accepted the role assigned to him, much like he suspects Gertrude would have. When he lost Martin, Jon almost did lose himself as well.

“Either way, I was – above all else, I was still an Archive. I learned to compartmentalize, to an extent, but I was never meant to have my own voice. At some point, it got lost in all the noise. If I wanted to communicate, I could only use the stories hoarded away in the Archive.”

Jon frowns in consideration, actively weighing the most likely theories as he talks himself through the evidence.

“I… don’t think it was purely a psychological response,” he says slowly, gaining in confidence as he speaks the words. “I think it was a consequence of what I was in that place. The Archive was part of that world’s fabric, so to speak. But this reality operates differently than the one I came from. Its natural laws aren’t dictated by the Beholding. It has… less prominence here. Case in point, I’m significantly less powerful now than I was in my future.”

Georgie raises an eyebrow. “How powerful are we talking?”

“I was an apex predator among monsters. A direct conduit of the Ceaseless Watcher. Oh,” he adds offhandedly, “and I Knew everything.”

“What.”

“Well – almost everything. And not all at once. It was more that I – I was able to Know almost anything if I looked for the answer.” He allows himself a small grin. “Post-apocalyptic Google, so to speak.”

“Sounds… useful?”

“In some ways. It’s awful to say, but I miss it sometimes. Having control over it, mostly. I could stop myself from Knowing things about a person, give them more privacy. But I also couldn’t opt out of Knowing entirely. I just… had more control over what I Knew and when. And there were still things I couldn’t Know. The Beholding will hoard almost any scrap of information, but it has a clear preference for the horrific. It was utterly silent on anything related to an after – an afterlife, a reversal of the apocalypse, any sort of escape or release from the nightmare.”

“God,” Georgie murmurs, almost to herself.

“Jury’s out on that one, too.”

“No, I just meant –” Georgie pauses when she sees Jon smirk. “Oh, I see. You’re just being a smartass.” She shoots him a grin and nudges him with her foot. “What about now? Do you still –”

“I don’t have near as much control over it as I used to, no. I can remember the things that I consciously chose to Know then, but… that sea of knowledge, all those potential answers to any hypothetical questions – my access to it is limited now. And I’m Knowing things unintentionally again.”

“What about the Archive – the statements?”

“When I first woke up, it felt – the same as it did in the future. A sort of – wall of static that lowered whenever I tried to use my own words. It lifted in the Buried, because I was cut off from the Eye – from the Archive. I thought it would reassert itself when I came back – and it did for a minute – but now it’s…” Jon stares down at his hands, clenched tightly in his lap. “I still have recall of all the statements I already had archived. Not all at once, more like a – like a database, I suppose, but – they’re there if I look for them. The Archive is still there, and sometimes it slips through, but… it’s not as dominant as it was before. And seeing as I can speak at all, apparently state of mind is more of a factor than I thought. At least right now. Not sure about before.”

“Well,” Georgie says, “even if you have more control over it now, it doesn’t mean you always did. Sometimes circumstances change.”

“Maybe,” Jon says, his thoughts already beginning to stray.

Georgie sighs in exasperation.

“Just because there’s a future where things are better doesn’t mean you’re a failure for things being bad in the present. Jon, look at me.” He does, albeit reluctantly. “What you’ve gone through isn’t something that you just get over. It’s always going to be there. That doesn’t mean things will never get better. It just means that you need to make peace with the fact that you’ll have ups and downs. If you turn on yourself every time you’re struggling, you’ll never notice the moments of progress. And if you see every instance of progress as an opportunity to berate yourself for not achieving it sooner, then, well – I’m sorry, but things aren’t going to get better.”

“I – I know. It’s just…”

“Difficult. I know. I’ve been there.” Her expression softens. “I’m not trying to be harsh. I don’t expect one conversation to change the way you think. It takes years of practice to break that sort of pattern. But when you need reminders – and you will, and I won’t be disappointed when you do – I’m going to keep giving them to you. I’ll ask you to at least consider them each time before dismissing them outright. Does that sound fair?”

“More than,” Jon says, giving her a weak smile.

“Good, because I seem to recall you making the same request of me once upon a time.”

Did I? Jon thinks back and draws a blank. Not for the first time, he curses how unreliable his memory can be.

“Still,” he says, “I’m sorry to be such a –”

“If you say ‘burden’ or anything to that effect, I actually will be cross with you.”

“Noted,” Jon says with an embarrassed chuckle. “But – sincerely, I – I know that right now I’m –” Dead weight, he almost says. Volatile. Fragile. Tiresome. Untrustworthy. A walking doomsday button. Georgie gives him a warning look, silently urging him to consider his next words carefully. “Struggling,” he opts for. “But I do want to be there for you if you need me, in whatever way I can, so… open invitation to confide in me, or ask for help, or – or anything you need.”

“That was eloquent,” she replies with a teasing smirk. Jon rolls his eyes.

“Ironically, I think I was more eloquent when I was the Archive.”

“Eloquent in a poetic sense, maybe,” Georgie says with mock thoughtfulness, “but it didn’t lend itself to clarity.”

Another hunger pang rips through Jon's mind and he clenches his jaw, curling his shaking hands into fists.

“Hey.” Georgie prods his foot with hers again. “You ready to see Martin?”

“I, ah…” Jon gives a nervous laugh. “I want to see him more than anything, but I’m also – terrified? I know things won’t be how I remember them, I know I have to adjust my expectations, but I don’t know what to adjust them to, and I don’t know what to expect from myself, either, and…”

And the hunger is eating away at him from the inside out, an incessant undercurrent of need-want-feed running parallel with every other thought vying for his attention. He brings his hands to his face, puts pressure on his eyes, grounds himself in the ache. Almost immediately, his brain latches onto the words pressure and ground and suddenly he’s comparing the cravings to being buried alive, to drowning in noise, to being suffocated by the crush of stories that was – is – destined to comprise the entirety of his being. He’s being drawn over the threshold of that ubiquitous, baleful door in his mind: hated and feared, yes, but completing him all the same.

Guess that’s the thing about being the chosen one, Arthur Nolan’s words echo in the Archive’s halls. At the end of it, you’re always just the point of someone else’s story, everyone clamoring to say what you were, what you meant, and your thoughts on it all don’t mean nothing.

Jon tries to dislodge the statement, but there is no stop button to corral the Archive, and the story continues on: It seeds us with this… aching, impossible desire to change the world, to bring it to us.

There are hundreds of thousands of words pounding on the door now, none of them his own, an endless stream of them queuing up in his throat, cramming into his lungs – and with a painful lurch, he’s falling down, down, down –

Breathe, comes the familiar mantra.

On the one hand, he’s glad for how quickly and mindlessly that coping mechanism kicks in by now. On the other hand, he wishes he didn’t have so many opportunities to practice that it’s become so ingrained in the first place. There is something different about it this time, though. Usually, he imagines the command in his own voice, or occasionally Martin’s. Just now, he could pick out multiple tones, all overlapping: Martin. Georgie. Basira. Daisy. Himself.

The effect is potent. It allows him to walk himself back from the edge in record time. The hunger still scratches impatiently at the door, but he manages to tear his attention away from it long enough to remember where and when and who he is. When he glances back up, he realizes that only a few seconds have transpired – a storm so brief that apparently even Georgie didn’t register its passing. Instead, she’s staring over his shoulder. She catches his eye, raises her eyebrows, and nods, indicating something behind him.

“Well,” she says with a smile both amused and reassuring, “I think you’re about to find out.”

Another stab of panic shoots through him, shattering his momentary calm. Time stands still. When lightheadedness overtakes him and his vision starts to pixelate, he realizes that he’s been holding his breath. He lets out a juddering exhale, and turns around.

When he lays eyes on Martin, Jon is speechless all over again.

Martin startles when Jon’s eyes lock onto his, still unaccustomed to and unsettled by such direct eye contact. He immediately regrets that reaction when he watches Jon recoil and avert his eyes. The reflexive urge to vanish overtakes Martin then – and he feels himself begin to panic a little more when it yields no results. He had been accessing that power up until moments ago, when he dropped the veil; why is it out of reach now?

“Hi, Martin,” Georgie says, apparently unperturbed by the awkward atmosphere. “I was just keeping Jon company until you got here, but I’ll give you two some privacy now.” She stands, stretches, and brings one arm down to touch Jon’s shoulder. “I’ll be here for a while yet. If you need me, I’ll probably be in Melanie’s usual spot.”

Martin can see Jon incline his head slightly. If Jon sees her reassuring smile, he gives no indication. Georgie gives his shoulder another pat and starts to walk towards the ladder. Martin steps aside, giving her a wide berth – force of habit – and watches until the trapdoor closes behind her.

For what feels like an interminable moment, the stale air hangs heavy with silence. Martin stands rigid, mind drawing a blank. Could cut the tension in here with a bread knife, he thinks to himself, somewhat hysterically.

Jon, for his part, is staring steadfastly at the ground, utterly unmoving – and Martin’s heart wrenches painfully in his chest at the sight.

Of all the adjectives that could be used to describe Jonathan Sims, unmoving has never been one of them. When he’s not running his hands through his hair or scratching at his skin, he’s bouncing his legs, tapping his fingers, biting the insides of his cheeks, pacing, rocking in place – an endless rotation of fidgets and stims, flowing one into the next. When he’s excited, his eyes light up, intense and intelligent and impossible to break away from; he interrupts himself in his rush to translate his thoughts into speech before he loses them entirely; he’s a flurry of animated gestures and borderline manic pacing. Even at rest, his eyes are bright with questions and his hands flutter when he talks; even exhausted and lethargic, his mind is a hummingbird flitting from thought to thought with frantic abandon, eager to catalog every detail and cover every angle.

Sometimes, it’s vicariously exhausting to witness; most of the time, Martin is hopelessly endeared. In all the time that Martin has known him, the coma was the first time he ever saw Jon entirely still. Martin used to wish on occasion that he had more chances to just look at him. Up until that point, he’d had to make do with furtive glances and stolen moments when Jon was too engrossed in a task to notice Martin staring. In the hospital, Martin finally had a chance to really study him freely.

Stillness doesn’t suit him, Martin remembers thinking – and another piece of his heart chipped away.

Unconsciously, Martin finds himself studying Jon again now. He sits hunched forward with his arms folded tightly in front of him, a white-knuckled grip on each elbow, his narrow shoulders pulled in and forward. Judging from the predictably mussed state of his hair, he must have been combing his fingers through it nonstop recently. His lips are chapped and torn from chewing; the dark circles under his eyes seem to have shadows of their own. His multiple layers of clothing do nothing to hide the gauntness of his frame or the frailness of his wrists.

Jon is awake now, yes, but still he looks… distant. Listless. Too close to lifeless for comfort; too reminiscent of deathbeds and silent monitors and grey hospital linens. So Martin breaks the silence.

“Jon.”

He doesn’t raise his head, but his eyes flick upwards to gaze at Martin through his lashes. Sharp eyes, haunted eyes, more and more so with every passing day – and now, they’re downright bleak. Still, though, they’re beautiful: a rich brown, dark and deep enough to fall into, and Martin could lose himself in them gladly. Then, Jon breaks eye contact again, curling in on himself even further.

How is it that he manages to look more run down every time I see him? Martin thinks, and then he notices Jon’s hands, trembling in his lap now.

“You’re shaking.”

“Yes.” The word cracks on its way out, coming out as little more than a croak, and Jon clears his throat before trying again. “Just, ah – just hungry.”

“You’ve been back a few hours now, haven’t you eaten yet?” Martin replies automatically, the caretaker in him taking charge. “Jon, you were in there for over a week, you need to –”

“Not – not that kind of hunger.” Jon finally raises his head, but his eyes still dart away from Martin’s every few moments.

“Oh,” Martin says quietly. “Statements.”

“Yeah.” Jon scuffs one foot against the floor.

“W-well, I can wait, if you want to go record one?”

“No, I –” Jon clears his throat again, sitting up straighter in his seat. “I’d prefer to talk. If that’s alright with you. I’m – I’m sure you have questions for me.”

Martin considers. On the one hand, his instinct is to insist that Jon take care of himself first. On the other hand, he knows how stubborn Jon can be. Arguing about it wouldn’t change his mind, only waste time and ultimately leave him waiting longer for a meal.

“Yeah,” Martin says with a reluctant sigh, “I guess.”

“R-right. Well…” One end of Jon’s scarf trails in his lap, and he runs his fingertips over the weave, in the same way that one might pet a cat. “I – I’ll answer them as best I can.”

“Right,” Martin echoes.

“Would you like to sit?”

Martin nods wordlessly and takes a seat opposite Jon, but his mind goes blank again.

“Georgie said she explained things?” Jon tries tentatively.

“Sort of. She said she was working on an incomplete explanation herself.”

“Yes, that was – that was my fault. I was having some –”

“Speech difficulties, yeah. She said.”

“Which is also why my message to you was so…” Jon sighs. “I would have preferred to use my own words.”

“But did you mean it?” Martin blurts out. He feels his face heat in an instant and he has to look away.

“Yes,” Jon says quietly. Confidently, Martin notes privately, and blushes more deeply. “The sentiment was all mine. I know it may seem – out of the blue, from your perspective, but I – I meant it, all of it.” Jon ducks his head, but doesn’t look away. “I, uh – I still do.”

It’s Martin’s turn to break eye contact, keen to look anywhere other than into Jon’s eyes and the open, sincere warmth living there.

“I’m not the person you remember,” Martin says stiffly.

“Neither am I,” Jon replies, his voice softer than Martin has ever heard it.

Martin’s throat works as he swallows hard.

“I’m not the person you fell in love with.”

Jon’s expression softens and he gives Martin a beseeching look.

“I disagree,” he says, with more of his earlier assurance.

“I’m not,” Martin insists. “I don’t know what the me of the future was like, but I’m not – I’m not him. Whatever he did to make you fall for him, it’s – it’s not me.”

“Martin, I fell in love with this version of you,” Jon replies, his voice tremulous. “With every version of you.”

Martin just stares. Jon smiles at him: soft, sad, sorry, sincere.

“I – I know it’s difficult to believe. I treated you – horribly, and for so long. Took you for granted. Never gave you the respect or care you deserved. I… I don’t think I’ll ever stop being sorry for that.” He maintains eye contact, and Martin once again finds that he cannot look away. “I’ve never been… good at this sort of thing – putting words to how I feel. In retrospect, I was falling for you even before the Unknowing. I just – didn’t realize how much until I woke up and you weren’t there. There was a – an empty space where you used to be, and I couldn’t… I was almost too late. I almost lost you –”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Martin is startled to see the sheen to his eyes.

“I… I did lose you, eventually, and it nearly…” His voice is rough with held back tears. He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, there’s an intensity to his voice that Martin just now realizes he’s missed. “But not – not until much later. Not here. Not now. Not to Peter fucking Lukas.”

Martin lets out an amused huff at the venom with which Jon says the name. Jon looks up, tilting his head slightly – and Martin can feel one corner of his mouth turning up ever so slightly at the familiar mannerism.

“Sorry,” he says. “Just – don’t hear you swear much.”

“Well, he deserves it,” Jon replies, half-scathing, half-embarrassed.

“Can’t say I disagree with you there,” Martin says with a tired chuckle.

“About – about Peter.” Once again, the name sounds poisonous on Jon’s tongue. “He’s lying to you –”

A bolt of annoyance shoots through Martin at that.

“I’m not an idiot, Jon.”

“No,” Jon says hurriedly, his hands fluttering in agitation, “I didn’t mean to imply –” He breathes a heavy sigh, flustered. “I know that I – I underestimated you for far too long. But you’re clever, and capable, and you understand people in a way that I find endlessly impressive.” To his chagrin, Martin can feel himself redden at the unexpected praise. “You’re not gullible enough to trust Peter for a moment. I know that. And” – Jon grins at him with such open affection that Martin wants to flee – “last time, you outmaneuvered him so seamlessly that I – after seeing the look on Peter’s face, I think I fell a little more in love with you, impossible as it seemed.”

Martin’s face is on fire now, must be.

“I trusted you then, wholeheartedly, and I still do,” Jon continues. “I… I’ll respect whatever decision you make going forward. Even if it means you continue working with Peter. But,” he adds, licking his lips nervously, “I have information now that we didn’t have the first time around, and I – I’d like you to know the whole story. It could have implications for whatever strategy you decide on.”

“You’re talking about the Extinction.”

“Among other things, yes.”

“Is it a real thing?”

Jon lets out a long exhale, looking off to the side with a pensive scowl. Martin can feel himself smile at the sight of that oh-so-familiar crease between his eyebrows, a telltale harbinger of a Jonathan Sims dissertation. Resting his chin in his hands and leaning forward, Martin settles in for an earful.

“Yes,” Jon says after a moment’s hesitation, “but – it’s more complicated than Peter assumes. It’s real insofar as it’s a pervasive terror for large swathes of the human population. Justifiably so, I think it’s fair to say. And it’s possible that, given existential threats like global climate change, nuclear weaponry proliferation, pandemics, war, artificial scarcity, structural oppression and inequality embedded in society worldwide…”

He counts off on his fingers, the line between his eyebrows deepening as he builds momentum.

“And of course we have a twenty-four-hour news cycle inundating us all with that reality, and – entire genres of literature and film utilizing those apocalyptic themes… well, suffice it to say, the fear of a world without us might eventually reach a point where it could be considered on par with Smirke’s Fourteen.

“But Smirke’s taxonomy is also an oversimplification. The human experience is far too varied and complex to be split into neat categories. The animal experience, rather. It’s likely that the Fears have existed since before the advent of modern Homo sapiens, and if we consider the origins of the Flesh – it would be anthropocentric to assume that only the human mind is subject to them, and” – Jon shakes his head – “I'm veering off topic. Point is, the Fears bleed into one another. It’s why a Ritual for a single power was never going to work, why Jonah – Elias’ Ritual was predicated on bringing through all Fourteen at once. Or, case in point, perhaps Fifteen. The Extinction did have a domain of its own after the change, it was just… less sprawling than the others, and there were fewer instances of it. And no Avatars dedicated to it, as far as I could tell.”

Jon taps two fingers against his lips, leg bouncing restlessly as he ponders his next words.

“As for an Emergence, though… I really don’t think there is such a thing as a grand birthing event. The Extinction is already here, in a way. Many of the statements feature more than one Fear at a time, precisely because the boundaries between them are so indistinct. Some of the statements that Adelard Dekker collected – I do think that they contain genuine examples of the Extinction as a coherent Fear of its own, just… mixed in with other Fears. I imagine the Extinction’s trajectory might be similar to that of the Flesh – arising as times change, as more and more minds collectively experience that flavor of fear.

“It might be a quick evolution – similar to how anthropogenic climate change has followed an exponential growth curve, aptly enough – but I don’t think that the Extinction is or – or will be somehow more formidable than the other Fourteen.” His speech turns rapid-fire as he bounces from one thought to the next. “It can’t exist independently of the other Fourteen any more than the others can, so a Ritual on its behalf would collapse under its own weight. If there is a grand extinction event – well, when, I suppose; nothing lasts forever, the End claims everything eventually, time continues its slow crawl towards the inevitable heat death of the universe, et cetera –”

Jon is counting off on his fingers again. Martin shakes his head fondly.

“But it won't occur because of an Extinction Ritual,” Jon goes on. “There was an apocalypse where I came from, and it had nothing to do with the Extinction. Just… a very human flavor of monstrosity: the pursuit of power and personal gain, even at the cost of unimaginable suffering for everyone else.” He gives a humorless laugh. “Fittingly enough, though, it all started from a place of fear – of mortality, of subjugation, of the unknown.” Jon’s expression falls, and his voice drops to a near whisper. “And – and my own fear led me to the eye of that storm, so to speak. All of it can be traced back to that foundational fear of the unknown, can't it? The roots just… branch outward from there.”

Jon’s already trembling hands twitch abruptly, as if snapping something in two. He doesn’t appear to notice the gesture, too lost in his own thoughts. Before Martin can voice his concern at the shift in demeanor, Jon shakes his head and forges onward. He reverts to his previous hyperfocused, almost academic manner, but an undercurrent of anxious energy lingers.

“Anyway, I actually suspect that, much like the End, the Extinction wouldn’t benefit from a Ritual even if one could work. It thrives on the potentiality of a mass extinction event, not the fulfillment of one. The Fears will cease to exist when there are no longer minds to fear them. Of course, it doesn’t have to be humans, or any creature currently living. If something does come after us, the Fears will likely survive and adapt, but otherwise –”

Jon finally makes eye contact with Martin for the first time in minutes and stops short.

“Oh,” he says, sounding mortified, “I’ve been… rambling, haven’t I.”

“I don’t mind,” Martin replies, unable to fight back a smile.

“W-well, anyway…” Jon rubs the back of his neck, looking thoroughly embarrassed. “I don’t believe that the Extinction is the world-ending threat that Peter claims, so if you were planning on continuing to work with him because of that…” He shrugs. “Also, his plan for you was never about the Extinction. Not really. He was – is – genuinely worried about the Extinction, but his plan to stop it is to have the Forsaken destroy the world first. But it hasn’t been long since his last Ritual failed; he knows it will be some time before he can try again. His immediate plan is all about one-upping Elias, taking control of the Panopticon, and accruing power in order to increase the chances of success for his next Ritual attempt.”

Jon exhales another humorless laugh, and his voice takes on an odd, breathless quality as he continues.

“Not all that different from Jonah Magnus, really. His allegiance to the Eye began when he realized that his peers would continue attempting their own Rituals. His solution was to destroy the world before they could. So afraid of his own mortality that he was willing to subjugate the entire human population for his own benefit.” Jon folds his arms again, tucking them against his middle and leaning forward, as if trying to make himself smaller. When he speaks again, there’s a noticeable waver in his voice. “Somewhere along the line, he went beyond justifying his actions – jumped right to taking pleasure in them.”

Jon’s sharp eyes go unfocused. The rise and fall of his chest quickens.

“I’m sorry,” Martin says gently. He doesn’t know what else he can say.

“For what?” Jon asks, coming back to himself after an overlong pause.

“Georgie told me what he did to you. I mean, she didn’t go into detail, but she mentioned that he possessed you and used you to –”

“It wasn’t possession,” Jon interrupts, a desperate edge to his tone. “Not in the conventional horror movie sense. It was the same compulsion that takes me when I start reading any statement, just – more intense. I couldn’t – couldn’t control my body, but he wasn’t actually in my head, it just – felt like it, like he’d crawled into my skin along with his words. Then again, I –” Jon laughs, gripping one wrist with his other hand, fingernails digging grooves into scarred skin. “I suppose I was possessed in a way, in the sense of being someone else’s possession. Have been for a long time – haven’t belonged to myself since the moment he chose me, still don’t –”

Jon’s gaze goes distant yet again, and Martin watches with burgeoning worry as his pupils dilate and constrict with the fluctuation of his voice.

“…he posited a future where – humanity was violently and utterly supplanted –”

“– marked me as a part of that, without my understanding. Or consent –”

“Jon?” Martin says, apprehensive.

“– keep me in the dark just so I wouldn’t stop being useful – made me complicit in a thousand different nightmares, and lives ruined for the sick joy of some otherworldly voyeur –”

“– any future I might have had, sacrificed to his –”

“Jon, what’s –?”

There’s a singsong tenor to his voice and an intensity to his eyes now, reminiscent of the look he gets when he records –

Oh, Martin realizes. Statements.

“– I swear I could still feel those – eyes follow me – a grin of victory playing upon his lips –”

“Jon,” Martin says again, more insistently, reaching out on impulse to place a hand on Jon’s knee.

Cognizance flares to life in Jon’s eyes and his hands fly up to cover his mouth. He seems to struggle with himself for a minute, stolen words muffled beneath the hands pressed tight to his lips. He makes a noise that sounds almost like choking, or sobbing; he looks at Martin with wide, watery eyes, then takes a deep breath in. A quiet whimper chases the air out on his exhale, and Martin’s own breath catches in his throat. He’s seen Jon scared, but he’s never heard him make a sound quite like that – not while bleeding out from a fresh stab wound, not with a gash in his neck, not fumbling to apply ointment to a burned and peeling hand, not even with worms burrowing through his flesh and a corkscrew tearing through the tunnels they left behind.

“You’re okay,” Martin says, willing it to be true.

“I don’t – I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” Jon says abruptly, sharply. He winces and shoots Martin an apologetic look. “Sorry, that was – I didn’t mean to sound cross, I just –” He flaps his hands, lips moving wordlessly.

“It’s okay, I understand.”

Jon nods, but his breaths are still coming fast and shallow. One hand seeks out Martin’s, still resting on his knee; he grips it tight, fingers slotting between Martin’s like they belong there. The direct skin-to-skin contact sends pins and needles radiating up Martin’s arm, but he fights the impulse to draw back.

“We can talk about something else,” Martin says, forcing calm into his voice.

Jon inclines his head again, gulping down air. Even as his breathing begins to even out, the shivers coursing through him only grow more violent, the tremor in his hands becoming more and more pronounced.

“You need to eat something,” Martin says.

“N-no, I –”

“Yes, you do –”

“No!” The exclamation cracks like a whip and ricochets off the walls, echoing down the tunnel. Jon’s face crumples and he shrinks in on himself again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout, I –”

“It’s fine –”

“It’s not.”

“We can argue about it when you’re not literally starving. I’ll go fetch a statement, and –”

“It won’t help.”

“What do you mean?”

Jon brings his free hand to his mouth and bites down on his knuckles.

“Jon?” Martin says again, more sternly. “What did you mean?”

“I’m – not just the Archivist, Martin, I’m the Archive. All of the statements stored upstairs, I already have them, every single one of them catalogued in my head, and – re-experiencing them takes the edge off while I’m reading, but as soon as the recording stops, the hunger comes back even stronger, and I want…” Jon gives him a pained look. “Did Georgie tell you about…?”

“She mentioned something about you putting yourself under house arrest because you’re afraid of hurting people.”

“It’s necessary,” Jon says, almost defensively.

“What will happen if you don’t take in new statements?” Jon says nothing, and Martin sighs. “Jon.”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you starve?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t know,” Jon says, pulling his hand away from Martin’s and rubbing his eyes furiously. “It feels like starving, but I don’t know if it will actually kill me. But I don’t want to hurt people just to keep myself from hurting. I don’t want to be like –” He cuts himself off with a sharp intake of breath. “I’ve caused untold suffering as it is. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

“There was a woman giving a statement upstairs earlier –”

“I’m not taking her statement.” Jon’s reply is automatic, almost like a practiced line. It sounds as if he’s trying to convince himself more than Martin.

“I wasn’t suggesting –”

“Her name is Tricia Mallory,” Jon interjects. “It’s her birthday next week; she’ll be twenty-eight. She has two cats, and a parakeet, and a girlfriend named Shona, who has an engagement ring hidden in the bottom left drawer of her desk –”

“Why are you –”

“Because I’m so far removed from humanity at this point that I need to actively, continuously persuade myself not to see other people as cuts of meat.” Martin would have preferred snappish to the resigned, matter-of-fact, tired tone in which Jon gives that confession. “Her name is Tricia Mallory,” he recites again, in that same rehearsed manner. “She lost her voice in a minotaur’s labyrinth. She’s finding it again, slowly, but it will never be the same. Her nightmares are horrific enough without adding another monster to the mix. I’m not taking her statement.”

“What about just reading her written statement?” Martin asks. Jon blinks, slow and catlike, and Martin can see the uncanny glint of hunger in his eyes. “Have you already heard her story?”

“No,” Jon says after a sluggish pause. “I don’t think her statement ever made it down to the Archives the last time. And the knowledge of its content didn’t consciously come to me after the change. There were – so many other statements in progress by then. So much to See.”

“So it would be something new for you.” Jon is silent, staring off into the middle distance, unblinking, glassy eyes riveted on something only he can see. “Would that be enough to hold you over for now? It – it won’t be live and in person, but at least it won’t be… I don’t know, stale?”

“I…” Jon’s pupils dilate. Constrict. Dilate.

“She’s probably left by now,” Martin continues insistently. “I can go track down the statement and bring it back here.” Jon looks as if he’s warring with himself. “Please, Jon. It’s just a reading. You won’t hurt anyone.”

Blood wells up on Jon’s lip where he’s been biting it. Eventually, he gives a tiny nod, his shoulders going limp as if in defeat. Jon needs to eat, but Martin wishes it didn’t feel so much like pressuring someone to break sobriety.

“Okay,” Martin says, fighting back the surge of guilt, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Please don’t go anywhere, alright?”

“Alright,” Jon replies in a nearly inaudible whisper.

Martin tosses a glance over his shoulder as he leaves. Jon is eerily still again but for the persistent shaking. He looks small, and haunted, and lost; fragile, precarious, with a posture that brings to mind something broken and taped back together in slapdash fashion.

First things first, Martin tells himself, and tries to focus on the task at hand.

Once the trapdoor closes behind Martin, Jon buries his face in his hands.

That wasn’t how he wanted this conversation to go. Just judging from his demeanor, Martin has shaken off the Lonely more than Jon had expected, but still, Jon should be the one comforting him. It took the Martin of the future ages to acclimate to the idea that he deserved to be cared for, too; to unlearn the reflex to reverse any attempt Jon made to take care of him for once. Right now, Martin needs to be shown that care, and yet Jon can’t manage to redirect his one-track mind away from his hunger for more than five minutes at a time. Selfish, selfish, selfish –

The slow creak of a door cuts through the silence, and Jon’s blood runs cold when Helen’s playful lilt rings out behind him.

“Archivist,” she says with unrestrained glee. “Long time no see.”

Jon had been dreading the Distortion’s inevitable reappearance. He should have known that she would make her entrance when he’s at his most vulnerable. Like a shark to blood, he thinks to himself, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

“Brooding, are we?”

“Hi, Helen,” he manages, struggling to stay impassive.

It doesn’t matter; he jumps anyway, when several long fingers – too many angles; too many joints – curl around his shoulder. As if her touch was an unpaid toll, she removes her hand once he provides payment in the form of that momentary burst of alarm. Her headache-inducing laugh is made all the worse by the acoustics of the tunnel.

“Now, then” – Jon doesn’t look around at her, but he can practically hear her lips curl in a grin – “pleasantries aside, I believe we’re due for a chat.”

End Notes:

Citations for Jon’s Archive-speak: MAG 010; 134/111; 154/144; 098. And Arthur Nolan’s statement is from MAG 145.

I’m hoping Jon’s ramble wasn’t Too Much lmao,,, it is admittedly part self-indulgence (read: shameless projection) on my part, but also: ADHD is just Like That sometimes. I’m still navigating how to strike a balance between having something like that flow well and be, well, readable from an audience perspective, while also trying to capture the reality of how an ADHD ramble often does lack coherence from an external POV, because so much of the associative reasoning never gets verbalized (Thought Train Goes Brrr from Point A to Point Q and Does Not Show Its Work). All this is to say: I know that whole section is meta-heavy NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL TANGENTS. I don’t know if I achieved what I was aiming for, but it was fun practice. Hopefully the end result wasn’t too disjointed or too much of a slog. (I actually edited a lot out, believe it or not, lol.)

Also, in Jon's defense, he Really Needs A Snickers. And he hasn't been able to SPEAK FOR HIMSELF for months. He deserves a little infodumping, as a treat.

Thanks for sticking with me through the slower update schedule. We're back to full shifts at work now, so chapters are taking me longer to write. And apparently I've just decided all the chapters are gonna be 10k+ words now, whoops.

[chasitity]

Our theory about Ranboo's Enderwalk

This is a long article with 1200+ words. It contains spoilers of several DSMP lore streams, including the one on 4.23.

We are DSMP fans who gather in a group chat, discuss the lore, share ideas, and watch streams together. The "three stages" theory was originally stated month ago by C431, one of us, when Puffy and Fundy saw "Ran". As the lore develops, more clues have appeared, allowing us to improve and confirm this theory.

DSMP C! Ranboo timeline

Organized by C431 in 2021.04.21. About 13000 letters are in the original article; I, Lotus, only translated a few paragraphs.

"My memory isn't good as my friends thought; I had my ways to remember things. Thus, the timeline isn't exactly accurate, but I indeed include all the essential details. "– C431.

Annotation:

"Three states of Ranboo" is a personal theory. There are multiple clues in Ranboo's streams, but CC! Ranboo hasn't confirmed yet.

"Boo": A state of Enderwalk. He can be easily confused with CC!Ranboo, usually appears in normal streams which contain small parts of lore. He cares little about his family; hyperactive, liking to prank, going along for the ride when something happens, even mocking others. He might be responsible for the dreamlike, illusionary "prison visit". He seems to be closely related to Dream, and has full, consistent memory.

"Ran": A state of Enderwalk. Silent, passive, similar to a real Enderman. He begins to show himself more recently, learning how to act as a human/Ranboo. He helps Ranboo in the shadows.

"Ranboo": He always appears in lore. Polite, cares about friendship. He wants to help his friends, avoiding harm. He prefers people instead of sides, yet he becomes slightly extreme for protecting his family. He really loves Michael.

For more information, please read this reddit page: https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamsmp/comments/l6p3ex/we_have_already_seen_ranboos_white_side_on_his/

-One day, Philza noticed that Ranboo was (probably Boo) using a strange language (Ender/Alien Language) talking to Fundy. He messages Ranboo for his location, yet receiving answers in Ender, making him confused. He talked to Ranboo again when they met in the front yard of his house; Ranboo still talked in Ender, then saying, "I just realized you probably couldn't understand Ender, well this is certainly awkward!"

-Meanwhile, something was going on between Ranboo and Foolish. Foolish wasn't happy about the conversation between Ranboo and Fundy, for Fundy knows nothing about Ender; he was being teased without realizing it. Foolish replied Ranboo in Galactic Alphabet/Enchantment language, saying, "Everything coming out of your mouth are lies" (something similar). Ranboo ignored Foolish, then was found wandering around Church Prime by Philza. He appeared as someone who just woke up after being hit by Philza, asking him why they are here.

-CaptainPuffy and Fundy witnessed a weird Ranboo around L'Manhole. He wandered around without any words, did not pay attention to anyone, picking and placing grass blocks. Puffy tried to talk with this "Enderman-like" Ranboo ("Ran"), only to found out that she couldn't move when staring at him. Puffy and Fundy freaked out when Ran disappeared within a second; it seems that he teleported away.

-During a "normal" stream, a super active Ranboo, aka Boo, suddenly stated that he needs to do something strange. He then searched for certain items, placing them in his inventory by some order, repeating several words; the first letter of these items and words formed "He is in control of me". Then he regained consciousness, wondering why his inventory was in a mess and went back to his tasks after arranging it.

The signs on the second floor's wall were removed and replaced by mocking and suggests finding the fourth memory book. Ranboo ignored it.

-Ranboo went to Enderwalk state (Ran) during his investigations about reviving Tommy. He silently went to Dream's Attachment Hall, then woke up Ranboo. Ranboo noticed that "he had never been in this place", yet he started to murmur sentences, everyone's conversations during the final war. Ranboo knew that Dream has a "revive book", realizing such power will only hurt others. Evil would again spread across this land. He wanted Dream dead, yet unwilling to kill with his own hands.

-Foolish came to Ranboo (which, unfortunately, was Boo), trying to sell his shulker box and rent in the long-term. Boo realized that Foolish was using him, for if he accepts the deal and the shulker box went missing, only "Ranboo" will lost interest and has to take action. Boo managed to scam Foolish, gaining a mansion and a favour from the god of Totems.

-Boo included Michael when listing his pets. He does not see Michael as his son.

The summaries below is written by Lotus.

-Ranboo was killed by Dream (twice) and Punz (once) when he first joined the SMP. This might be the hint of "Ran", "Boo", and "Ranboo".

-Boo appears more often recently. The title will usually be capitalized when he does, for instance, "THE PLAN FOR RICHES". He is the one who burns George's house down.

Boo likes explosion and lava. He might be a ghast.

-Ran starts to appear. We inferred: in Tubbo's stream "Building Snowchester Defences", Ran showed himself and talked. His tone was lower, much quieter than usual, but he jokes a lot (unlike "Ranboo"). He only spoke if Tubbo started a topic first. Ran hummed a lot, tending to play with himself, and screaming with the same pitch; we assume that he was learning and practicing Ranboo's behaviour.

As for Ranboo's lore stream on 4.23…

The idea of "Boo, one of the Enderwalk states, frequently appears during "regular" streams, pretending to be Ranboo" is proven when Foolish mentioned their deal. Ranboo did not remember it at all. Then some "lessons" appeared in his mind, making Ranboo frustrated.

We deduced that "Ran" is trying to protect Ranboo, for the first four "lessons" were more like guidance. Then Boo stepped in, showing him a book with "DO NOT LET THEM KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE". Ranboo once ignored his request, and now he forced Ranboo to look for the fourth memory book.

After being refused by Sam, Ranboo came back home and tried to turn into Enderwalk state by harming himself with water. He thought he only has ONE Enderwalk state. Such action immediately angers Ran; we can hear the furious Enderman roar in the end.

Chinry, one of us, found out the relationships between the "lesson numbers", which is 14, 27, 53, 67, and 94. However, we are still organizing our informations, I'll probably post them later.

That's all! Thank you for reading this! I am not a native English speaker, so I apologize for any grammar/wording mistakes. Please, leave your ideas and thoughts below!

[jedimasterbailey]

A sneak preview of the next chapter of my fic “The Padawans” in which Vader thinks of Ahsoka and Luminara as he plans his fated rematch with Barriss. Includes a flashback to a conversation between Anakin and Luminara post “Brain Invaders” that we should have seen! Link to the fic below, enjoy and thank you for the support 💚💙❤️

Darth Vader stares out to the busy metropolis of Coruscant from his personal quarters in the Imperial Palace, lost in thought. Behind the bulbous black eyes that served as the Sith Lord’s window to the world were tired blue ones still hoping to catch a glimpse of the former residence of Padme Amidala, the deceased wife of Anakin Skywalker. It was moments like this where the former Jedi Knight missed the Senator deeply. For Vader was about to encounter another ghost from his past, Anakin’s past. Soon Vader will be face to face with Luminara Unduli in the very place she used to call home, a home he destroyed.

In the months after the rise of the Empire, Palpatine had the Jedi Temple renovated into his own personal palace. Although the bodies of the dead Jedi have been long excavated and the relics of the Jedi long destroyed, echoes of the past were everywhere. Vader could still see the destruction he caused and he could still hear the terrified screams of the younglings and Knights that were at his mercy. No amount of refurbishment could ever erase what he had done. It was because of this that Vader avoided the palace as much as he could. The Sith apprentice despised being in the place Anakin Skywalker and his Jedi family once resided in. However, if being here resulted in the reappearance of Barriss Offee, then Vader will do what must be done.

The plan was simple. Luminara will be the bait and once Barriss was right where the Dark Lord needed her, Luminara would be disposed of. Vader wanted the Mirialan to feel the same scorching pain he felt on Mustafar when Obi-wan left him for dead. If he couldn’t have his Master’s love, neither could she.

Victory was inevitable. Anakin may have been weak, but if Barriss couldn’t defeat him, then she didn’t stand a chance against Vader, especially with a broken heart. Vader will prove Sidious wrong; that the girl is unworthy of the title of Darth or worth the attention of Ahsoka Tano.

Yet despite his quest for vengeance, Vader was admittedly nervous to see Luminara again. For months he has avoided contact, leaving the Grand Inquisitor to handle the matter. Seeing the woman Anakin viewed as a mother figure beaten and bruised by his own henchman was the last thing Vader wanted to do. It was no different than the Sith avoiding Padme’s tomb on Naboo; he could not face what he has done. As hard as the Emperor had tried to snuff it out, Anakin’s spirit was still trapped inside the machine that was his body. Vader was going to have to kill the one person he knew was Luminara’s whole heart and the Anakin part of him hated him for it.

The cyborg then walks over to a bedside table, the very table Anakin used to hold such possessions, and opens the drawer that contained the last pieces of his Jedi past he refused to part with. In one hand he held one of Ahsoka’s lightsabers and in the other, her Padawan beads.

Vader did not believe for a moment that his former apprentice was gone. Ahsoka had managed to survive situations that would have killed more experienced Jedi. He had taught her how to outsmart the enemy and how to defy seemingly impossible odds. The lightsaber had merely been a decoy and the presence of Morai was confirmation. Somewhere out there, Ahsoka Tano was alive and one day, they would meet again. Vader was sure of it.

“Forgive me, for what I’m about to do.” Vader says to the items in his hands. He didn’t know who exactly he was talking to; Ahsoka or Luminara. Regardless, the Dark Lord thinks back to a time where both women were safe and within arms reach.

Feeling ecstatic that Ahsoka has woken up from her healing trance after her encounter with the Geonosian parasites, Anakin takes it upon himself to find food for his Padawan. Just before the mess hall was a small lounge where visitors could sit and wait while the healers worked on patients. Having been up for several hours on end between their mission on Geonosis and waiting for Ahsoka to wake up, Anakin wanted to grab a cup a caf before waiting in line for food. Upon entering the quiet room, the Jedi Knight was baffled to see a very miserable Luminara Unduli staring into her own beverage.

The Mirialan’s hands were shaking and her eyes were red and puffy, presumably from crying. Never in all his years of knowing the Jedi Master has Anakin seen her look so broken. He takes a seat beside Luminara and places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Master?”

Luminara raises her head up to meet the young man’s gaze, fresh tears streaming down her face, “Is Ahsoka alright?”

Anakin nods, “She just woke up. Physically, she’s on the mend, it’s her mind I’m worried about. Our Padawans have been through a lot, more than I’d like to think about.”

“Yes... our girls deserve so much more.” Luminara sighs, grabbing tissue to dry her eyes.

“Barriss is going to come through too, she’s strong and resilient like her Master.” Anakin says gently, earning a watery laugh from the woman.

“I’m not sure about that Skywalker... I’ve failed as a Master.” Luminara professes sadly.

Anakin would hear none of it, “Now hold on a second, you have not failed Barriss. None of this is your fault!”

Luminara shakes her head, “I’ve almost lost her twice within a day. It’s my job to protect her and I’ve failed. According to Master Fisto, Barriss’s head scans indicate that she may have suffered some head trauma between the worm and the extreme cold. First, she almost suffocates after blowing up a whole factory with herself still in it only to then get infected by a parasite hours later! Who knows how she’ll be when she wakes up!”

“Perhaps you were right all along. Maybe I should have accompanied Barriss inside the catacombs instead of endangering your student. Maybe I should have gone with the girls on that supply run. There were plenty of Jedi to interagate Poggle and Ahsoka would have been safer in your care. I’ve been a fool! I’m so sorry Anakin and I owe Ahsoka an apology too!”

Anakin then wraps an arm around the woman and pulls her close, “You're being way too hard on yourself, Luminara. You’re forgetting that there were a lot of factors that were beyond our control. Your plan on Geonosis was good! We probably would’ve been successful without it because Force knows I don’t think things through, I’m glad someone was doing the thinking!

“The assignment given to the Padawans was more than reasonable. I’m sure Ahsoka was thrilled to see Barriss’s photographic memory at work and I really do need to work on trusting her. You weren’t planning on those slimy bugs getting in the way nor were you counting on one of those nasty worms infecting the troops on that shuttle. I can’t believe I’m saying this to you of all people, but I think you should give yourself some grace!”

“If you’ve failed as a Master for things not according to plan, then I am a huge failure as well as Obi-wan and probably every other Jedi Master that’s ever lived. You saw how well his plan went when he thought he could talk sense into the Queen of bugs. You were just seconds away from being possessed!” Anakin argues, rolling his eyes at the memory of Obi-wan’s curiosity.

“Rest assured, I’ll be giving him plenty of grief for that!” Luminara smiles, her face brightening up a little, “But thank you Anakin... your kindness never fails to amaze me.”

“Let me know when you do because I’d love to see that. All things considered, he deserves a good beating.” Anakin winks with a playful nudge before getting serious again. “Did you want to see Barriss? I was going to grab something to eat for Ahsoka, but if you need the company, I’d walk with you.”

Luminara nods, “Yes, I wanted to give you and Ahsoka some time alone especially since it may be a while before Barriss wakes up given her injuries.”

Anakin beams at the Jedi Master. For as long as he’s known Luminara, she has always been considerate and gentle with his needs.

“I appreciate that, Master.”

“Can I ask you something?” Luminara says with a far off look on her face.

“Anything.”

“Did you really believe that I gave up on Barriss when the factory went down?” Luminara asks calmly, but Anakin could tell from her breathing that it was a facade.

“No.” Anakin admits allowing Luminara to exhale a sigh of relief, “I allowed my fear to get the better of me and I took it out on you. You were trying to console me and even when I didn’t deserve it, you never got upset with me. You were hurting just as much as I was and I was selfish. I know better than that! Of course you care about Barriss! I owe you an apology Master, I’m sorry.”

Luminara begins to cry again startling the Jedi Knight, “Did I say something wrong?”

Luminara shakes her head.

“No! I’m just so relieved!” Luminara sobs, putting her face in her hands.

“Oh, good! I’m sure Obi-wan would kill me if I upset you.” Anakin chuckles, rising to offer a hand to Luminara.

“Walk with me back to the girl’s room? I gotta stop and get Snips some food, but I’m sure she’d love your company. And who knows? Maybe Barriss will wake up! I’m sure your face is the first one she’d want to see.”

With a smile as bright as the twin suns of Tatooine, Luminara graciously accepts Anakin’s hand, “I’d love to.”

Gingerly placing the lightsaber and beads back where he found them, Vader turns to leave the room, sensing the Grand Inquisitor’s presence as well as a weakened Luminara. For the sake of his sanity, the Dark Lord prayed his true identity stayed a secret with the prisoner.

[seb-owns-these-tatas]

The Cure (Sebastian Stan x You) Pt. 1

Characters: Sebastian Stan x Fem!You

Summary: (Part 1) The Abstract wanted nothing but to change the ways on how the world was working. In their minds, it was people who needed correction and living in a chaotic world acquired them to take such actions, giving everybody the cure that would fix the world.

Warning: Cusses. That's all? Heehee.

Words: 1,400+ (It's short. Heehee.)

A/N: I've seen a video in Insta of Bucky being wiped, and y'all prolly are getting a hint of what's going to happen in this short oneshot series. Part 2's going to be uploaded soon once I finish writing it. (Still haven’t finished writing it but I will try and get some inspiration to it ASAP. I’m still sick with Chicken pox so I apologize, Tater tots.) 

PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO SEND ME SUPPORT BY REBLOGGING AND COMMENTING ON MY WORKS, TATERS! ALSO, MY WORKS AREN’T UP TO BE REPOSTED ON OTHER WEBSITES. The only websites I have are WATTPAD and TUMBLR and if my works are reposted in other sites, please do immediately tell me. 

Oneshot Taglists: @anxiousamandapanda​ @hopefulfangirlblr​ 

Disclaimer: GIF'S and pictures used are not mine. Only the edits are and the oneshot of course. 😉 Credits to the owners of the GIFS.

PLAGIARISM IS A CRIME. 

SOUNDS OF UNIDENTIFIED DEATH THROES AND LOUD WAILS OF UNKNOWN PEOPLE CAME FROM THE BLACK ROOM. Each person were dressed in white, those types of clothes that were used in mental hospitals which looked pure and untainted. However, the Abstract's manipulation towards each person weren't exactly pure as they had other intentions in mind.

Putative number 97 came out of the room looking disheveled and worn out. It was her third time that she was mended and whenever she does, she comes back out without remembering what her real name was. Not that she has told it to you and your lover. But, it was obvious.

The whole process was therapeutic to the eyes of the Abstract. Yet, the both of you could sense there was more to what has been said. Putative number 97 heavily sauntered in the middle of the tranquil, white hallway. All Putatives were waiting in line, back against the walls with their hearts anxious to what will be the result of being cured. If you were one gullible human, then you'll prolly not know what is happening behind that sketchy black metal door.

But, you were born to be curious and thinking in advance.

"97! Hey!" You whisper-yelled to the blonde, thin woman who wandered completely unsteady. She promptly gave you a glance, though her green eyes were soulless; in a lack-luster state which was not new to every person who came out of the black room. She gave you a look that left you breathless and full of dread to what's about to come as you were about to go next.

You don't know what the Abstract's do to them when they're inside. Though, you have your hunches and your hunches appears terrifying for the better of the world.

"Number 1985! You're next!" At the mention of the number, you were flabbergasted and tear-tied, in the midst of crying your heart was scared for the only person who weren't cured and the only one who had been with you till the Abstract came.

You were number 1986 and not 1985. Sebastian was.

"Sebastian, what did you do?!" You scream-yelled at him who had been smiling throughout the whole day. The latter shook his head, taking your cold hands in his. You begged hard enough and even pleaded that you should be taken and not him. You've even written things in bullet form so you could know how one could remember the other and you knew you were the person who's going to forget.

Nonetheless, his actions surprised you because only one person can be taken from a couple.

"It's gotta be me, Baby. It's gotta be me," he quickly took your face in his hands, trying to draw a smile that could reach the ends of his gunmetal blue eyes, but failed to do so. "It should be me, not you."

You grab his perfectly sculpted face, scanning every inch of his features in your head as you wanted nothing more but to keep it in mind and the same goes for him. Though, when he comes out of that door, he's already a ghost with no remorse running in his cured blood.

The Abstract's wearing unidentified masks came marching through your view. Two tall, thewy men came strolling through the end of the hallway with a plan to carry your lover with force.

"You're an idiot, Sea-bass! You're a fucking idiot!" You glared at the latter with puffy, red eyes. Tears streaming down your face, cascading in such a bittersweet manner that made the man inside the room smirk at what he was witnessing.

"No-no-no, That's never gonna happen, babe. Never." You emphasized and grabbed his cleft chin, slightly pinching as you stood up on your feet, desperately for a change at heart. The men finally ceased their walking as they eyed you up and down with their masks covering the expressions that they had. If they even have one.

"Take me! Take me instead!" You demanded with much desperation, hopeless of how weak they look at you. Both men peered down out you, feeling the intimidation surround them as you blinked and continued to beg. "I-I volunteer for you to take me instead!"

Both men decided to declare their words in tandem, "Putative number 1985 has requested that we never pick you," they replied rather nonchalantly, voice monotone as if they had no souls. "You are very sick," the other continued, voice deep and intimidating. "The Abstract is prohibited to take very sick people, you'll be sent off to warden and be checked,"

You gave them the stink eye, thoroughly in rage because of the lies that left their mouth. Pure lies. "What? I am certainly not sick you asshole!"

In the midst of your argument with the Abstract, another voice which was more lively and youthful came yelling through the speakers around the hallway. "Putative number 1985! Do not waste our time!"

Sebastian grabbed your cold, trembling hands as he stood before you. His stance completely weary and shaky as he was trying to be strong for you. He always did. He was like the lighthouse to your lost boat, entirely the only hope you were holding on as you proceed to a life that seemed to be uncertain and full of questions.

"I love you, Y/N." he whispered, leaning close to you as his lips landed straight on your ear. Sniffing one last of your scent that he never wanted to forget. "Promise me you're not gonna lose it when I'm finally cured," Sebastian whispered tenderly, voice sultry and rough, slightly shaking at the end of his note.

"Also promise me, and that you swear you'll follow everything that's written in our red book," he beseeched, there was another tremble which made you wrap your arms around his warm, clothed body.

The latter gave you one last kiss behind your ears, feeling his five o'clock shadow pricking your skin. A sensation in which you will overly miss. "Because you know I'll always remember you, Baby. You know I will," his gunmetal blue eyes fixated on yours once more, a tight lipped smile falling on his face as it fell once he was pulled and taken by force by the Abstract.

"Sebastian--" you sprinted towards the guards and clawed on their backs as you pleaded to leave your lover alone. "No! Take your filthy hands off him!" you yelled a lot more louder and tried taking the clips behind one's head to take it's mask off. As fast as a lightning, you were pushed on the ground with a loud thud, head falling on the floor making a loud 'bang'.

"I told you not to fucking hurt her!" Sebastian bellowed, struggling againsts their tight hold but they were shockingly stronger than him.

"Stop being a sore eye," the guards spat with ferocity, grinning beneath the abstract, weird mask he was wearing. "You'll forget about her anyway,"

"No! I won't!" Your lover spat back, trying to escape his hold as he was glancing back and forth between you who has fallen behind him. You moaned out the pain as the world began to fall into a kaleidoscope, yet you were still strong enough to stand on your feet with Sebastian in mind as you tried to run for him, tailing behind your lover who was screaming only nothing but your name.

"Love will never conquer all. Only the Abstract will,"

Hence, your name which left his mouth will subside as his screams will turn horrifying soon.

I DIDN’T KNOW WHY MY IMAGINATION TURNED OUT THIS WAY! HEHEHEHE. REBLOG AND COMMENT, TATER TOTS! FOLLOW MY ACCOUNT AND TURN ON THAT NOTIFICATION BUTTON EVERY TIME I UPDATE! 

OR IF YOU WANNA BE INCLUDED IN THE TAGLIST, PLEASE DO SEND ME AN ASK OR DM ME! 

[rangoatemybabynsfw]

Massage anon! I wanna say Lance but I’m gonna go with Keith for a change

So you want Keith as a massage therapist? For Lance? Hmmmm…hope you’re ready. It’s gonna be long and it’s gonna be ANGSTY. Hope you likey.

The patient he’s been assigned to is…Lance McClain. His file says something about a car accident. A bad one. Broke a few bones all over but the most damaging were his legs. Keith needs to get him walking for about 15-20 minutes a day for the first couple of weeks and then longer as they go.

His first impressions are…decidedly not good. It’s not that Lance is uncooperative or rude, he’s just not as responsive as he could be. Does his assigned therapy but seems a little out of it. Keith contributes it to the dozens of pain meds he’s probably on. If Keith doesn’t speak he’d doubts Lance would even know he was there.

Someone must have had an encouraging conversation with him because by the second week Lance is far more aware and determined to walk. And determined to talk. Keith doesn’t speak much other than to offer instruction but Lance talks about everything. Including a dear friend of his.

“Boy if she could see me now,” he smirks as he takes shaky steps. “She’d laugh to see me like this. I could outrun her any day–now I can barely hobble.”

“You’ll get your strength back before you know it,” Keith tells him. 

“Think so?” Lance smiles.

“You’ll be running circles around her in a month.” Keith encourages. 

“I doubt that,” Lance chuckles softly. “but thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Keith keeps helping him and they grow closer and closer. He talks about his friend a lot. Her name is Allura. They were as close as anyone could be. Drives her anywhere and everywhere she wants to go. The stories sound almost romantic from what Keith hears. 

Why isn’t this girl here, supporting Lance in his recovery? Keith doesn’t get it. As close as they sound she should be here and it kinda burns Keith up that someone as bright, friendly, and kind as Lance is isn’t being supported by his partner.

“So where is your girlfriend?” Keith finally asks at the tail end of their therapy session. 

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Lance tells him with a sad smile. “Not anymore.”

“You broke up?” Keith asks and Lance nods. “After the accident, huh?” he adds and Lance nods again, still with that sad smile.

“It’s my fault,” Lance says as he sits back in his wheelchair. “I…I wasn’t a very good boyfriend.”

“What? From what you’ve told me you’re great,” Keith says. “You’re funny. Thoughtful. Sweet. You did everything for her. She was so lucky to have you.”

Lance laughs but it’s the saddest laugh Keith’s ever heard. Like he’s trying too hard. And it’s confirmed when soon tears start to stream down Lance’s face. He grabs Keith’s sleeve and presses his face into it just before that laughter turns into pained sobs. Lance clutches him close to continue sobbing. Uncertain what to do Keith rubs his back, gently trying to calm him.

“N-No…she wasn’t…lucky t-to have me…at all,” Lance blubbers into his sleeve. “She’d have b-been…happier…if she n-never met…me.”

“Hey, no. Lance,” Keith says and goes to his knees to get eye to eye with Lance. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy. “You’re a great person. I’m happier for knowing you. I’m sure she was too. You were a great boyfriend, I’m sure.”

“But she’s gone and–!!”

“Shhh…” Keith says and embraces Lance to calm him down. “That’s not your fault–”

“I was driving!” Lance shouts, making the room go deathly silent.

Keith feels sympathy overwhelming for Lance as he devolves into more pathetic sobs as he hugs Keith back. Cries into his shoulder as Keith holds him.

“I w-was driving…I didn’t…I didn’t see the truck…I w-was looking at her…I didn’t see the truck,” Lance whimpers quietly. 

“Lance…”

“She pulled the w-wheel…we swerved…she p-pulled the wheel to save me…and n-now I’m here and she’s gone…And it’s my fault…” Lance cries. “It should have been…been me. I wish it had been me.”

Keith doesn’t know what to say to that. Maybe it’s one of those things where you’re not supposed to say anything. Instead, he holds Lance until he falls asleep in the wheelchair. He stays with him until his ride shows up. Talks to his friend Hunk about his break down and to keep an eye on him for the next couple days. 

The next time Keith sees Lance he’s looking more chipper. He even apologizes for burdening Keith with his little meltdown. Jokes that Keith’s not getting paid enough to deal with that nonsense and that it won’t happen again. Probably. 

They do their therapy session but when done Keith stands in front of his wheelchair. Lance quirks a brow in confusion but stops and waits.

“I’d…really appreciate it if you didn’t say things like that to me again,” Keith starts.

“You mean the crying thing? Don’t worry I won’t–”

“No the ‘I wish it had been me’ thing,” Keith interrupts with a frown. “You’re…a great person Lance. I mean that. And it sucks what happened but…I’m glad you’re alive. I’m glad I got to meet you. Got to know you.”

“Oh, well…th-thanks,” Lance smiles, embarrassed but such an earnest comment. 

“And when you’re walking again on your own and you don’t have to come here anymore…I’d like to take you take you out to dinner and…get to know you better,” Keith tells him with an awkward smile. “Deal?” he asks, extending a hand to shake. 

Lance looks at his hand, surprised at first but a sheepish smile creeping up on him. He chuckles a little to himself but shakes it.

“Deal.”

[mysticlanternlight]

Do I Need a Reason (To Make Sure You're Okay?)

Frans Week Day 3: Comfort

@franshaven​ @anorha-nono (finally got around to writing the story that comic was based on. I hope you like the final product, (early/belated) happy birthday!)

“Is there a reason you followed me?” Frisk asked. She didn’t need to see him to know he was there.

For a moment Sans wondered if that was a good thing or not. But that wasn’t important right now.

Shaking his head a bit he turned back to the young woman in front of him. She was seated on the wet grass a few feet in front of him, arms wrapped around her legs and forehead pressed against a stone slab.

His brow ridges furrowed, at the sight. She was already small by monster standards, though her attitude and harsh tongue more than made up the difference. But right now it seem like all of that had been stripped from her as she sat there, hunched over in a drenched sweater as wet hair stuck to her scalp. He had never seen anyone so look so tiny.

“You sure pick... interesting places to hang out.” Said Sans, his red gaze trailing over the endless rows of rocky figures jutting up from the ground like weeds. Strange statues of winged humans and intricate crosses stood scattered amongst the more common stele.

“I thought we agreed to keep a low profile.” She said quietly, sounding more defeated than patient.

“Yeah and we includes you. Guess we both suck at listening.” He shrugged, slipping his hand’s into his hoodie pockets. “Mind telling me why you’re out here getting soaked?”

“Don’t really see how it’s any of your goddamn business.”

Sans rolled his eye lights. “Cute. I’m being serious Sugarplum.”

She didn’t respond.

“You seemed upset.” He said honestly. Thinking back to her odd behavior that morning, how she’d run off the second both the king and ex-queen said she could.

“If that’s not an understatement…” Her voice shaky.

“Sugarplum… Frisk… what are you doing out here?” Asked Sans as he closed the distance between them.

Finally Frisk lifted her head and when she turned to face him, Sans felt his soul twist uncomfortably. Her normally bright hazel eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks shiny from dried tears.

“Do you know what this place is?”

He rubbed the back of his skull, his eye lights shifting back and forth from her to the surrounding trees. “Seeing as everythings’ got a name and a bunch of dates, I can guess this is a memorial for the fallen. Sound about right?”

She let out a small, humorless laugh. “Just about. Us humans tend to stick around even after we’re gone and places like this seem as good any to be laid down.”

“There sure are a lot of dead humans here.” Sans said quietly, more to himself than Frisk as he continued to observe the graves.

“Yeah we’re good at dying.”

He blinked, “And I thought I was the one with the dark sense of humor.”

“Guess I’ve developed an appreciation for the art,” she sighed resting her chin on her knees, arms folded over her ankles.

His gaze softened as he watched her stare at the slab with sad eyes. After a moment of thought he lowered himself to the cold ground, not caring if he got mud on his shorts as he sat cross-legged beside her.

“So, who were they to you?”

“See for yourself.” Frisk said, scooting over to give him full view of the headstone.

Lieutenant Jason Howlett

Beloved son, brother and father.

1976 - 201X

Fuck if that doesn’t hit close to home. “Seems like he meant a lot to you.”

“Yeah. Yeah he did and you wanna know what the worst part is?” Frisk asked, trembling as fresh tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “I wasn’t there.”

“I don’t think your old man woulda held it against you.”

“But I do.” Her tears spilling over, one then two until a steady stream was pouring from each eye. “He needed me and where was I? Falling into a goddamn mountain like a COMPLETE MORON! I saw them there, waiting for me. And in my terrified freaked out mind all I could think to do was to run away like a coward.” Her loud cry made him jump, stilling the hand he’d raised to offer her comfort.

“Sugarplum…”

“What a fucking stupid decision.” At that Sans pulled back, letting his hand fall back to his side.

“So you regret coming to the Underground.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You regret helping us get out.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!

“Then how did you mean it?” His growl made her flinch.

Sans knew he was pushing, he knew he shouldn’t take any offense to the careless words of someone in mourning, but a part of him did. Because after everything that had happened, everything they’d been through it seemed like she cared about them, even him. And damn if it didn’t hurt to hear her say that she might regret ever meeting them.

So he sat there, waiting for her to respond. Then ever so slowly Frisk pushed away from the grave, twisted her body until she was facing him completely and then crossed her legs to match his position. “Please listen to me when I say this. You, them, this whole weirdass adventure we’ve had together will never be a regret of mine. And I’m sorry if I made it sound like it was.”

Of all the things she could have said, he hadn’t expected that. Why the fuck was she so goddamn nice to him?

“Ah fuck Sugarplum… don’t, don’t fucking apologies for that.” With a deep sigh that was more of a groan Sans rubbed his eye sockets. ”Shit. You had a goddamn parent fall down and I made you apologies to me.”

She chuckled at that, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “It’s okay.”

He gave her a hard look. “No it ain’t, this is about you not me.”

“Still, I could have thought a bit more about what I was saying. Especially when you’re actually being rather sweet for once.”

“Was a real dick move on my part, I’m owning up it to so fuck you.” Said Sans as he used his thumbs to wipe away her remaining tears.

“Is that a threat or a promise?” Frisk asked with half lidded eyes.

“Heh, good to see you’re feeling better.” He let his hands cradle her face for another second before rising to his feet. “Come on, you’ve been out here long enough that you’re gunna have one hell of a cold later.”

“Yeah I’m not looking forward to that.” She said accepting his hand. Her smile a little strained as she anticipated the consequences of this afternoon’s activities.

Sans chuckled at her silliness, then much to her surprise removed his jacket. No sooner had he taken it off than it was around her shoulders, the thick black material engulfing her smaller frame.

“Thanks but you don’t need to—“ Frisk began before Sans pulled the hood over her face. “HEY!”

“Tsk-tsk Sugarplum, don’t want you getting any sicker now do we?”

“What was that about you not wanting to be a dick?” She huffed when he finally let go, but chose to adjust the hood so she could see rather than remove it.

“Ey I still gotta be me don’t I?” He smirked.

“Well it was nice while it lasted.”

The two shared a laugh at their own joke, enjoying the ease of their banter.

“So, think you’ll be ok?”

“Eventually. We both know I’ve been through worse right?”

“Atta girl,” he said pulling her closer as he prepared a shortcut.

“Oh and Sans,” said Frisk as he lead them to a nearby tree, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it Sugarplum.” Sans smiled as they disappeared.

[blayzez]

I like the idea of Lance losing a limb. It would fit well in his arc, I think, of him finding his own inner strength and self-confidence. Because, no matter how hard things get, no matter how often he's pushed down, he always finds a way to get back up and keep trying. He might take a while to get back up, but he always does.

So Lance loses his left leg. Keith is the one that finds him, missing limb nowhere in sight as Lance lays unconscious a pool of the blood dripping from the stump that is now his leg. Keith is the one that takes him away from the battlefield, telling the team that they're retreating for now and they'll come and infiltrate this base later -- they can't do it without Lance. So they all leave to a safer destination where Allura can heal Lance's leg. Unfortunately, she can't bring back lost limbs, so Shiro tells Hunk and Pidge to reform the prosthetic arm they'd been making for him and were almost finished with into a prosthetic leg for Lance. They agree and, with a lot of help from Coran and Allura, they manage to get a new leg for Lance and attach it before he's conscious again.

It's in the dead of night when Lance awakes; everyone is already asleep in their own areas, sans Keith who had stayed by Lance's side the entire time, never left once. Lance says his leg feels weird, and when he sees his leg is no longer a normal human leg, he goes into a shocked silence. Keith takes this time to explain everything that happened, including the fact that Shiro gave up this prosthetic for Lance. This only makes Lance feel worse, like he's always taking something away from the team, and he says as much. Keith stops him there because Lance is becoming hysterical, looking close to a breakdown, and Keith reminds him how integral to the team Lance is. The team needs him. Keith needs him. They wouldn't want anyone else on their team except Lance; Keith wouldn't want to be doing any of this if Lance was not by his side. Lance isn't convinced but keeps quiet as Keith leans over to hug him.

"You have nice hugs," Lance mumbles against Keith's shoulder. Keith chuckles, tightening his hold slightly.

They stay like that for a while until Keith realizes Lance is dozing. At that point, he pulls away and tells Lance he needs sleep. Unfortunately, Lance is not completely coordinated on his new limb just yet, so Keith helps him get back to his sleeping quarters. On the way there, Keith explains that they'll start physical therapy sessions tomorrow so that Lance can learn how to use his new leg. Lance seems daunted by this, so Keith encourages him by telling him that he knows Lance will pick up on it quick because that's what Lance does; he's adaptable, a Jack of All Trades. Lance got used to flying Red faster than Keith with Black and Allura with Blue, Lance can come up with mission-saving strategies on the fly, and Lance learned how to wield a sword with little trouble despite having never used a close-combat weapon before. Keith goes on to say that that's why the team needs him; the team needs someone who can easily adapt to any given situation, and Lance's ability to do that has saved their lives more than once. That is Lance's Thing. Lance is not completely reassured, but this certainly helps and he finds himself smiling a little at Keith's words.

They reach Lance's sleeping area and when Lance is sufficiently settled in, Keith goes to get food for Lance. When he comes back, however, he finds Lance in a worse state; Lance is trying to hold back sobs, but tears are streaming down his cheeks against his will. With a sympathetic sigh, Keith puts down the bowl of food and sits beside Lance, pulling him into a hug where Lance lets go and begins sobbing in earnest into Keith's shoulder. Keith can only rub soothing circles onto Lance's back and stroke Lance's hair in a comforting gesture.

Lance isn't upset for himself; he's upset for the state he'll put his mom in when she finds out he didn't return to her whole. He's upset that Shiro still doesn't have an arm because Lance needed a leg. He's upset because now some of their tougher missions will have to be put on hold while he recovers and learns to walk again. Most of all, he's upset that he's become even more of a liability to his team.

Upset as he is, he's unable to keep these thoughts to himself, speaking them brokenly in between sobs. Keith shushes him, soothes him, does everything he can to make sure Lance knows that he isn't a liability and that his team is more than happy to wait for him to adjust because they're a family and that's what family does. He even jokes that if the team doesn't show patience, he'll make them because he's the leader and they have to listen to him. Lance says that's abusing his power, but he still chuckles anyway so Keith counts it as a win.

They stay like that for a while. When Lance finally pulls away, face blotchy and eyes puffy from crying, Keith talks Lance into eating. Lance doesn't eat much, saying he's going to be sick if he eats anymore, but something is better than nothing, Keith figures. He helps Lance settle into his bed for sleep then stands to leave, only for Lance to reach out and grab his arm.

"Stay?" Lance requests softly. With a tender expression, Keith complies and instantly pulls Lance to his chest once he's laid down.

They fall asleep that way.

It's Shiro that first finds them, as everyone noticed Lance was no longer resting unconscious where they had left him previously and they all had set out to search for their blue paladin. Shiro finds him cuddled into Keith's chest, both looking peaceful and content. Shiro decides to let them sleep, and encourages everyone else to do the same and to not tease the two boys too much because this is obviously exactly what Lance needs. The team agrees, but it's hard not to tease Lance and Keith.

Because after that, Lance and Keith are hardly ever apart. Keith helps Lance reach the teams eating quarters and gets Lance's food for him. It's Keith who works Lance through his therapy sessions, encouraging him every so often to take breaks so he doesn't exhaust himself (Lance insists on continuing without breaks every time because he wants to get used to this new leg asap so that he'll be able to help the team again, but Keith always convinces him that working himself to exhaustion won't help anyone). When Keith trains, Lance sits nearby to watch. In their downtime, they spend their time either chatting with each other or doing their own thing while enjoying each other's silent presence.

On top of that, their cuddle session had not been a one-time thing. No, Keith and Lance began sleeping cuddled close to each other every night since the first incident. The team, especially Pidge, want so much to tease the boys for their suddenly-intimate behavior, but they stopped themselves because they realized that Keith's presence was helping Lance cope with his new disability. As great as these moments are for teasing fodder, it simply was not the time to be using that ammo. For Lance's sake, they all kept their mouths shut.

And Lance truly was in a much better mood since Keith began sticking to him. That first day, Lance had been depressed, snapping at the others and then apologizing profusely because he honestly didn't mean it. Losing his limb had hit him hard. It was only through Keith's encouragement and affection that Lance's mood lightened and he began enjoying life again. Nobody had the heart to tease him, not when he was so much happier.

Keith had also been right; Lance adapted to his prosthetic quickly, the therapy sessions taking no more than a week before he was, literally, back on his feet again. They got back to their missions soon after, though Keith kept a close eye on Lance, fearing that the worst was not yet over.

Once again, Keith was right. The first time the team ended up in a bad situation with the Galra, Lance froze as he began remembering the fight that took his leg. Luckily, Keith had stuck by his side like glue and was able to get them out of the sticky situation, but it was a close call. It was clearly too soon for Lance to be on the frontlines. Finding this out plummetted Lance's mood yet again.

But as before, Keith was there for him, a comforting and constant presence. The nights got worse, with Lance now being plagued by nightmares, but Keith was always there to get him through the aftermath -- rubbing his back, combing fingers through his hair, pressing gentle and soothing kisses to his temple.

Keith also was not alone this time. The rest of the team rallied around Lance to help him get through his tough time. Shiro was especially an MVP, having gone through Lance's situation almost exactly. Not only did he give Lance advice with how to cope, he also gave Keith advice with how to help. Lance improved greatly because of it, and psychological therapy sessions between just Lance and Shiro became a thing they did every other day.

Still, Keith did not part from Lance. They weren't joined at the hip, but they were still almost always together -- Keith did give him time to himself or quality time with everyone else on the team, but they were otherwise constant companions and their nightly cuddle sessions did not cease. It had become common knowledge among the team that the two were most definitely a couple. In fact, the only members of the group who didn't seem to get this memo were Lance and Keith themselves. Lance knew subconsciously, and Keith knew of his own feelings for Lance but didn't dare let himself believe Lance reciprocated. Keith also did not see this as the time to pursue a relationship with Lance, as doing so seemed like taking advantage of the vulnerable state Lance had been left in after the accident.

So the two let this thing between them fester, grow until it could no longer be ignored.

Keith and Lance are resting side-by-side after a sparring session between them and their bayards. Lance was in the middle of animatedly telling a story about his family, but Keith eventually gets lost in his own thoughts as he watches Lance affectionately.

He's really happy the Lance he knows, the Lance he loves -- his Lance -- is back. He remembers with a pang how low Lance had felt after the accident and the brimming well of confidence that Lance always carried had run completely dry. It had taken a lot of work, and a lot of reassurance from not only Keith but the rest of the team as well, for Lance to finally be himself again.

Lance catches on that Keith has stopped listening and nudged him playfully, teasing him for being a space cadet. Keith hugs his knees and keeps his eyes on Lance, letting the other see how fond his gaze is.

"I'm really glad you're okay, Lance." When Lance looks confused, Keith continues, "When the accident first happened, you were just so different and I just... I missed you. And you've come so far from where you were then, you're confident and happy again. You're you again, and I wish I had realized sooner how much that meant to me."

Lance stares at him in surprise, a blush quickly spreading across his cheeks. Then he ducks his head with a smile and nudges Keith's shoulder with his own, not moving away and allowing them to be pressed together.

"It's because of you, you know. You're the one that forced me to get off my butt and stop feeling so sorry for myself. So... you know, thank you. For giving me a sense of purpose and not letting me do nothing to help myself. I really needed that."

"You don't have to thank me for that, Lance. I would have done anything to get you back."

And Keith had never been more appreciative of Lance's confidence than in this moment because it's that confidence that gets Lance to move forward and press a kiss to Keith's lips. Keith presses back a moment later, once the initial shock has worn off, and they sit like that for a minute, enjoying the sensation of their joined lips.

When they pull away, it's not far, and Lance is smiling softly.

"Well, we do make a good team."

Keith grins at that and leans in for another kiss.

[stevesharrlngtons]

hey.

steve harrington x reader

summary: he was such a staple piece in your life, that as a child and young teen, you never saw your life without him. late night promises and pinky swears were made in blanket forts that you two would be friends until the day the sun burned out in the sky. it was just a given that’d he be there, that you never worried about the two of you drifting apart or being separated. he promised he’d always be there, and you had believed him. you now corrected yourself, foolishly believed him.

word count: 5.4k

a/n: holy shit? chapter nine! 38,000 words later and it’s done!!! this is such a sentimental piece for me. i started working on this in november, right after st2 was released, and was just writing it for myself to read. but as time went on, i was four chapters in and decided i wanted to share it with other people. posting your writing online is terrifying, even if you do it all the time. so posting this, which i consider my baby in a way, was super scary. but i’m really happy i did. i’m glad that the few people i reached with story, really really enjoyed it. everytime i get a message saying that someone loves this story it always brightens my mood. for those of you who have been there from the beginning or just found this story, thank you for all your love and support! i love you all.  i know i mainly write for billy now, but thank you for sticking around anyway! hopefully i can get some inspo for more steve in the future. my love for him and joe is not gone, so here’s hoping!  and if you are still here, thank you for your patience while i took the time to write this, i hope it is enjoyable and worth the wait. 

here is chapter nine, please let me know what you think! and thank you for letting me share this story with you!

chapter i / ii / iii / iv / v / vi / vii / viii / 

                                                   chapter xi

The next morning you woke to your pillowcase cemented to your cheek from died spit, and a splitting headache. Remnants of last night were coming to you in bits and pieces but nothing too concrete.

Shit. Concrete.

The pain from your skinned knees started to become prominent, and your eyes felt red and puffy. Fragments of conversations came and went in your head. You vaguely remembered a fight with Derek, then Jonathan tucking you in, but everything else was a blur. You glanced towards your alarm clock, the red numbers brighter than usual, reading 11:46 AM. You sighed and placed your head back on your pillow in a huff. As you did, you started to feel all the old makeup, sweat and blood that caked your skin. As much as you just wanted to lay in bed all day waiting for the screwdriver in your head to dislodge itself, a shower was definitely needed.

Peeling yourself up from your sheets, you trudged your fatigued legs towards the bathroom, and once you were inside, the mirror above the sink was anything but forgiving. Black smudges painted your face, forgotten tear tracks in their wake. Your hair was knotted and matted, and your eyes were bloodshot to hell.

Rolling your eyes and shrugging, you discarded your wrinkled clothes, got into the shower and turned the water on to a blistering heat. Standing under the stream, you ran your hands slowly over your face, breathing in the already accumulating steam. The water soothed your tense muscles and eased your headache, and you were starting to feel human again. But as you calmed, more memories came up. Derek’s harsh words, calling Jonathan, making up with Jonathan, telling him you were in love with Steve, weeping after Jonathan left your room. You tried to push the thoughts to the side, they were causing your stomach to ache and your head spin. Right now, you needed to focus on shedding the layer of grime you had accumulated over the past twenty-four hours.

When you were sufficiently clean, you turned off the faucet and climbed from the bathtub, taking the two towels from under the sink and wrapped one around your hair and the other around your torso. At your vanity, you wiped away some steam that clung to the mirror with your hand, revealing a window of your broken, tired self.

Your head was still throbbing and your skin felt like sandpaper, so in the fruitless effort to make yourself feel better, you put on a face mask. Wiping the green goopy substance on your face, you were officially turning into the Hulk for the next fifteen to twenty minutes.

With nothing but your mask and towels, you went downstairs to get a cup of much needed coffee and possibly a slice of toast if your mother had been to the store. Thankfully she had. So, with two pieces of bread in the toaster and coffee brewing, you debated calling Jonathan. Not to harass him to pick you up in the middle of nowhere, but to thank him for the night before. You could be a fun drunk or emotional one, there was no in between. And last night you had definitely been emotional. If anyone was best equipped to take care of you in that state, it was Jonathan. But you would always call the next day with a load of apologies and appreciations and promises of a donut and David Lynch at a later date.

As you buttered your toast, you wondered if donuts and Lynch were enough to mend this wound? Not only yours but Jonathan’s as well. You both had been sucked under the Harrington and Wheeler ray of false feelings, but you always had a thicker skin than him. Maybe not when it came to Steve, but you would still put on your best face when you would inevitably console Jonathan about this situation.

Just as you were crafting the words you were going to say to your best friend, the phone started to ring. Thinking that it was Jonathan with some newly achieved ESP, you paused eating your toast and went to answer the phone.

“Hello?”

“How’s it hanging?” The unexpected voice asked.

“Perry?” You furrowed your brows, surprised he was calling.

“Yeah, you expecting someone else or something?” He chuckled.

“Well, kind of. But this is a happy interference.” He laughed again.

“Dad ran out for the afternoon, so I thought I’d see how things have been.”

You laughed humorlessly under your breath, “Things have been things. How about you?”

“Things have been things?” Perry repeated with skepticism.

“Yeah, things have been things.” You sighed and shook your head.

“Fuck that cryptic shit, how have you really been?” His tone grew serious.

“Just drop it, okay? How are you?” You tried to push past his question.

“I asked for first. Now tell me, (Y/N/N).”

You leaned your head on the wall next to the phone and shut your eyes to have a brief moment of clarity before you told Perry what was happening. You couldn’t lie to him. You had that weird sibling connection that could always detect a lie.

“Remember Steve? Steve Harrington?” You said slowly.

“Yeah, last I heard he was dead to you.”

“Well a lot has happened since then.”

“Like?” Perry asked.

“Like, I sorta, kinda, maybe fell in love with him? And I thought he loved me, which he didn’t and it broke my heart. I don’t know…A lot can happen in a month…” You crinkled your forehead. You hated how naïve and young you sounded.

“How the hell did this happen?” Perry was trying to keep his anger at bay, but it was still peaking through.

“We ran into each other at a party, he had just broken up with his girlfriend and I guess I felt guilt or pity, I’m still not sure... He was sad and even though I hated him, I still cared about him, y’know? So, we ended up spending more time together after that and one thing led to another and I dumbly fell for him. He made it seem like he felt the same way. Trust me on that, he was very forward with saying how much he liked me. But I was scared. Scared because all the asshole men in my life, present company included, have screwed me over.” It was a low blow to Perry, but he knew how much his leaving hurt you. This wasn’t anything new. “So, I told him I needed the weekend to think about if I was really ready to be in a relationship, he was totally against it. Wanting me to stay and telling me all this shit, but I knew I needed some time. I thought about it a lot and talked with mom and realized that I really did want to be with him. When I went to tell him, I caught him with his ex, so…”

Perry was silent on the other end for a long moment.

“Steve Harrington did this? Are you sure?” He asked.

“Why the hell would I lie, Per?” You rolled your eyes.

“That just, I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like him.”

“A lot has changed around here. We aren’t playing superheroes in the backyard and drinking Yoohoo, anymore. It’s been years since you saw him.��� You toyed with the telephone chord as you spoke.

“Yeah but he was so into you when we were kids. I always thought something would happen with you guys. I always told him he had my blessing. He seemed really thankful for that.” Perry said nonchalantly.

“This is new fucking news to me.” You said straightening your posture.

“What? He was a nice kid and you two were attached at the hip! I told him when you were like ten that if he ever wanted to be with you, I was okay with it.”

“So, even through all the shit talking I’ve done for the past few years, you always thought that we would end up together?” You scoffed.

“Yeah, I always figured it was just hormones or something.” You could practically hear him shrugging on the other end.

“Hormones? Are you fucking kidding me?” You roared.

“See! Right there! Fucking hormones!” Perry said.

“I’m going to kick your ass, I swear.” You mumbled.

“Try me!” Perry laughed, but stopped when you didn’t join in.

And when you stayed silent on the other end, he knew he needed to step up his big brother duties.

“Whether it sounds like him or not, he’s a piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you. If I was there I’d beat the shit out of him and revoke my blessing! I would!” This earned a laugh from you and Perry knew he’d done his job.

“If you were here, I might have to take you up on that.” You sadly smiled.

“But I’m not. So what are you going to do, kid?”

“Mope, get over it. Move on.” You sighed.

“Fuck that!” Perry scoffed, “You need to tell that asshole off! Who does he think he is?”

He always knew how to work you up.

“He made you love him twice! Not once, but twice! Fool you once, shame on you, but fool you twice…”

“Shame on him.” You said tightly.

“Exactly. You need to make him feel like shit. You need some good old fashioned revenge.” Perry cursed.

“You know what? You are so right!” You nodded dramatically.

“Steve fucking Harrington doesn’t get to march into people’s lives just to destroy them! I need to tear him a new one!” Perry was putting you over an open flame, and the more he spoke, the more you bubbled over with anger.

“Now there’s the (Y/L/N) in you! Go tell that fucker off!” He cheered.

“I’m gonna!” You raged. “I’m going to go now before all this anger and hype wears off.”

“Yes! Call me when you’re home and describe his tears, okay?”

“Deal.”

-

Hastily, you had ran up the stairs, wiped off your mask and threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater. Your hair was still mostly damp and you looked an absolute hungover mess, but you had just enough momentum and energy to drive over to the Harrington residence. Thank God your mother had left her car this time she had gone out of town, because walking in the freezing weather would have no doubt made you turn back and sulk in your bedroom.

You had a lead foot on the gas pedal as you vibrated with anger. Your music loud enough to cover your insane rambles as you whipped around corners and California breaked at stop sighs. Soon, Steve’s house was coming into view, and your adrenaline was spiking.

The car lurched as you came to a quick stop. You yanked on your emergency break and took the keys from the ignition, the music cutting out and leaving you in a tizzy of silence. Upon exiting the car, your nerves began to set in. The cold attacked your damp hair and sent a chill through your bones. The cloudy Indiana sky was creating a grey mood that made you think that the universe was trying to warn you.

Turn back.

It isn’t worth it!

You don’t want to hurt him, you love him!

And yet, your legs did not stop as you stomped your way through the morning dew on the Harrington’s grass and approached his front steps. The large double doors seemed taunting and terrifying, but you paid no mind to this as you slammed your fist hard on the wood, your other hand relentlessly ringing the doorbell.

The surface for your fist to hit was ripped away so fast, you almost pounded Steve in the chest, but your arm stiffened when you saw him standing in front of you.

You did the best to ignore the flutter of your heart at the sight of his bed head and astonished gaze. This wasn’t the time to falter, this wasn’t the time for weakness.

“(Y/N)? What are you doing here? I was just about to come over and see you.” Steve said in a gentle voice.

This was half true. He had woken up at nine, gotten dressed, driven to your house, had a panic attack when he arrived, then came home and decided he needed more sleep before he confronted you. Even with being up all night trying to craft what he was going to say to you, nothing seemed good enough. Steve had wronged you before, and with you thinking he had again, that was how he was going to have to approach you. And it terrified him. It wasn’t going to be easy.

“I have some things to say to you, Steve Harrington!” You boomed, moving you arms down to your sides stiffly.

“I, um, me too.” Steve said, nodding.

“I want you to know that you are a two timing, pig! Who I hate by the way! You manipulative, piece of shit!” You screamed in his face, pointing an accusatory finger in his face.

Steve just stared at you and said nothing. These words were all expected. He was surprised you hadn’t called him anything much worse.

“You come back into my life and make yourself seem like I’m your savior! You make me let you in, you made forget all the rules I had set up- that you fucking made me set up in the first place! You make me fall in love with you and you fucking make me believe you loved me too! Just to see you feeling up Nancy Wheeler in the school parking lot? You are a Class A asshole, Harrington! I hope you rot!” Steve was sure by the decidable of your voice, that you had drawn attention from all of his neighbors by now.

After your speech, you stood on his doorstep, heaving with an enraged look on your face, your body slightly tilted forward. It must have happened sometime during your heated words and violent hand gestures.

“Can I speak now?” Steve asked calmly.

“No! I don’t- no! You can’t. I’m leaving. I have nothing left to say.” You said, going to turn around.

But ever the rule breaker, Steve spoke, “Nancy and I aren’t together. She saw us the night you left when she was coming to get some of her things. Monday we were just talking… mostly about how much I love you. I told her that we are soulmates and she agreed. We lost track of time and when I realized it, I freaked. She told me to wait for you, but you never showed.”

As Steve explained, he stepped closer to you. You were still fuming, but Steve could see the subtle changes in your face as he spoke. But he knew you wouldn’t let your guard down just yet, and he didn’t expect you too.

“I called your house and your mom cursed me to hell and back. I waited the rest of the day in the parking lot, hoping you would show but you never did. I thought, I don’t know… that you decided you didn’t love me after all. That’s why I stayed away. I thought you were avoiding me because you couldn’t face me after realizing that feelings were only on my end. It wasn’t until Jonathan showed up here last night to scream at me, that I connected all the dots.” He was in front of you now.

The information he was telling you was making your resolve of anger and revenge dissolve. Your mind felt like a static television screen, you couldn’t think or act- just listen.

“But that’s why I didn’t call or come to your window or bang on your door and fight off your mother. Because I couldn’t bear the idea of you telling me to my face you didn’t love me. It happened with Nancy and it broke my heart, but with you,” Steve placed a hand on your frozen cheek, “I would die. The pain would consume me, and I knew I would never be the same again. Because I love you, (Y/N). And you’ve got to believe me when I say that, and that I always have.”

Your jaw was tense as tears brimmed your eyes. You were hesitant and apprehensive to believe the sweet words he was crooning to you. It all seemed a little too good to be true. And you didn’t know what to think in this moment. Expect about how much you wanted everything Steve said to be the honest to God truth.

“How can I know? Because you have to understand my side of this too, Steve. You have to put yourself in my shoes.” You said sadly, a giant contrast from your tone just minutes earlier.

“You’re just going to have to trust me,” Steve’s other hand now made its home on your other cheek, “Trust me when I say that you are the only one for me. From now until forever. We will be the testament that movie love exists, our kids will know true love because we will be the example! And you will be my best friend from now until the end of time, because I will never let you go again, (Y/N) (Y/L/N). I love you. And I know its going to take time for us to rebuild, but it’ll be worth the wait.”

If you thought his words weren’t completely truthful, you knew by his eyes that he was. It was clique, but the eyes were the window to the soul, and Steve’s was screaming at you that this was real.

But that didn’t mean it scared you any less.

“Steve, I,” Your breath hitched.

Both of your eyes were glassy, Steve’s nose was inches from yours as he begged you silently to say everything he had been wanting to hear since childhood. He had just cut himself open to you, bleeding in front of you in the vain of forgiveness. He was in a vulnerable state and he needed your kiss for comfort and reassurance.

“I need a minute…” You gasped quietly, stepping out of Steve’s grip.

Before his hands felt like weights, keeping him grounded to the only thing that mattered to him, but when you stepped back, they fell from your skin like feathers. He felt like he could hear his heart breaking.

“But, I…” Steve choked out.

“So much has changed in just the past ten minutes, let alone the past month! I feel like I have whiplash.” You breathed heavily.

All of this was hard to digest. You had just been on the phone with your brother, plotting the best way to cut off Steve’s balls; but then this happened? Steve’s sincere words and heartfelt glances. It felt like you were spinning.

“I feel like I’m in a Twilight Zone episode or something…” You heaved, placing your hands in your hair, trying to find a way to ground yourself.

“Like, I came over here to tell you to never speak to me again and you just threw a huge wrench into that!” You rambled, Steve’s face was sullen as you did.

“This has to be more than a crazy misunderstanding, right? This has to be a sign or something?” You felt like your air way was going to close off as you spoke manically. You had never been this flustered in your life.

“Why can’t this be the sign? Why can’t Jonathan coming to me last night and you showing up here this morning be the sign? Or who cares if it is or if it isn’t! Because at this point, frankly, I don’t.” Steve said back to you.

“We have been in this round about for years, (Y/N). Getting close to our happily ever after, but always missing the exit. This,” He motioned between you two, “This is the exit. This is the moment where we decided to go out separate ways, or finally just be happy. To be in love with each other.”

You let a shaking breath and stared at the broken boy in front of you. He was right, this was the exit. This was one of the pivotal moments in your life that would set the course for everything. Drive off into the sunset or let your fears and haunted memories send you for the hills.

Steve was offering you a grand gesture, he was saying life is a fact, that people do fall in love. And you knew that was true, but you were still scared. A stupid feeling you were sick of always coming up.

“Steve, I’m such a mess… look at me today! And this past week. I just spiral and I just…” You shook your head as your throat choked up.

You wanted to give him one last out.

“I don’t care, I don’t care! When has it ever seemed like I did? I want you, all of you. I know you, every part, every chapter, every subsection and footnote. I have the PhD in you! I love you, nothing else matters. I know I hurt you. I know Jonathan and Perry and your dad have too. I know they fucked up. I know I did, too. But I am going to work every day for the rest of our lives showing you that I will never hurt you again. I can’t lose you, and I’ll do everything I can to prove that. You just have to let me.”

Steve’s words made your knees weak and your stomach flip. He really did love you. With tears peeking from your eyes and gracing your cheeks so said sweetly, “Really?”

“Yes,” Steve said with a small smile, “Really.”

And you believed him. You believed every word he was saying because your heart wouldn’t let you not. You loved him, and he loved you. You were ready to exit.

You took a stride towards him and slotted your lips with his. It took Steve no time at all to fall into your kiss, his hands flying to your waist as you gripped his neck. He was ready to stop wasting time and to make up for every kiss he was too afraid to give and every chance he had missed. The kiss made you feel electric, the cold fall air no longer affecting you. Steve was enough to keep you warm in this instant, and you guessed, for many times after this one. His lips felt like they were made for yours as you kissed him with passion and meaning. Steve pulled you as close as he could, wanting every section of his body to know you were there, that you were finally his. His heart had mended itself in no time and was working overtime beating out of his chest as he licked your lips and your nails grazed the nape of his neck.

Breaking apart briefly to catch your breath, you laid your forehead against Steve’s. His eyes were still shut as he stroked your sides and grinned wider than you had ever seen. You thought he looked so classically beautiful in this moment and smiled too.

“Steve,” You whispered, unable to hold back you words any longer.

He opened his eyes and separated just enough from you, so he could look you in the eyes.

“I love you, too.” You spoke softly.

You finally had said it. Not to Jonathan, your mother, or your mind. Finally, to the person who desperately needed to hear it. The second you said it, it felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulder. One that had settled itself there over years of repression and grief.

“Good.” Steve said, laughing lightly and you joined in.

You rested your forehead to his collarbone and he pulled you flush to his body. Steve couldn’t wipe the smile off his face if he tried, and he knew you couldn’t either. He was about to speak, when he felt something hit his head.

You pulled away and you both looked up and saw rain start to sprinkle down and hit your skin.

“This couldn’t get more cliché.” You shook your head playfully, looking back at Steve who was looking up at the sky with a happy expression.

“I told you,” He said, looking back down at you now as well, “Just like Holly and Paul.”

And as he kissed you again, rain falling all around you, you swore you could hear Moon River ringing in your ears.

It was cliché, perfect, and somehow, just like the movies.

It was all thanks to Steve Harrington.

-

                                                 Six Months Later

You stood outside the banquet hall, cigarette between your fingers as you watched the ash fall to your feet. You were leaning against a brink wall and listening distantly to the muffled pop music that was playing inside.

It was Dustin Henderson’s Bar Mitzvah, and you and Steve had been asked to be in attendance.

You had been his babysitter throughout your high school years, and always had a fondness for the curly headed kid. And when you were both roped into the police station on behalf of a giant monster and an evil lab, it caused you two to grow closer. You cultivated a protective nature over him, and even after his mom decided he was too old to be babysat, you would still drive him anywhere he needed if he called and asked. During some of these drives over the past six months, Steve had tagged along, and Dustin had grown to enjoy his company. Which earned you both not only an invite, but seats at the birthday boy’s table.

The night was a good time. Steve was in a great mood, chatting with Dustin and his friends, and even Nancy and Jonathan a bit- The four of you have reconciled nicely after you and Steve got together. Throughout the night, Steve’s hand was either around the back of your chair, fingers brushing over your bare arm, or planted on your thigh. You loved his soft lovely touches and how he always insisted on giving them to you in public.

After the kiss, that was now known as infamous to you, your mother, Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, and anyone else who desired to hear your story, you and Steve had started dating. Confessions of undying love and eternal happiness weren’t swept under the rug or forgotten after that night. Yet, they were choice reminders of how devoted you were to each other. You couldn’t imagine not being together after something like that.

And things were great, and every possible synonym of the word. It was strange at first, to be so happy with the person you had always wanted, but now it felt like second nature. It didn’t feel weird to plan your future to together or look into housing options for you two when you went off to college. It was an agreed upon thing, both verbally and nonverbally, that neither of you planned on losing the other anytime soon- if ever.

You had found the love of your life, your soulmate. Some people never had a great love, let alone found the person they were supposed to end up with. And you had gotten lucky on both fronts. For some, this all would seem far too soon, the two of you were only eighteen. But the road to you two still felt like an eternity. You both had had enough waiting in that regard, so no moment was gone unappreciated or taken for granted. You were both just excited to have a lifetime of memories to make with each other.

“I wondered where you slinked off, too.” A voice said a little ways away.

“Just needed a minute.” You said holding up the hand with your cigarette in it, turning to watch Steve approach you.

“I would have snuck out here with you, y’know?” He smiled, leaning his shoulder against the brick when he reached you.

“You were chatting, I didn’t want to pull you away.” You replied.

“I missed you,” You smiled and playfully rolled your eyes at his remark, “I did! When you’re not next to me, I feel like half a person.”

“You are so cheesy.” You shook your head, your grin widening.

“Yeah, but you love it.” Steve smirked, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah, I guess I do.” You sighed dreamily, turning to your adorable boyfriend.

You went to drop your cigarette, but Steve caught your wrist, taking the small smoke from your fingers and inhaling deeply before stomping it out himself. He blew the smoke over your shoulder before stepping closer.

You placed your hands on his chest and migrated one of them of his thin tie to smooth it.

“God, you’re so beautiful.” Steve said under his breath as he watched you.

In gentle moments like this, Steve could only stop and stare at you. And thank the universe and every God in existence that you were his. In these moments, sometimes his overloading thoughts of adoration would slip out.

You looked up at his through your lashes and blushed, moving forward to bury your face in his chest. Something you often did when Steve would swoon over you.

“Wait,” Steve said, catching your cheeks before you could nuzzle into him.

“What?” You asked.

Steve looked down at you, pink cheeks and small dainty smile. It felt like he needed to take a beat and memorize this quiet moment, music humming in the background and your happy, tranquil expression. He was a giant sap when it came to you and he made no effort to hide it, but sometimes, when your beauty astounded him in such a way that made his knees weak, he kept to himself. He didn’t let these thoughts slip out, he just wanted silent reminders for himself about how wonderful you really were.

“I love you.” He said, moving slowly to your lips.

“Mm, I love you, too.” You said, smiling growing as Steve placed a gentle kiss to your lips.

“Ready to go back in?” Steve whispered to your lips after he pulled away.

He silently hoped you would opt for a French exit so you two could fool around in the backseat of his car, but then you would both miss the little trick up his sleeve.

“For a bit longer, we haven’t seen the chair dance yet, and I know Dustin would kill me if he was up there and didn’t see us singing along and smiling.” You said, moving your hand up to your cheek to take Steve’s and hold it down by your side.

“Okay, let’s go back in.” Steve nodded.

He shifted your hands so he could lace his fingers between yours and you both headed back to the entrance. As you rounded the corner and got closer to the double doors, the music became clearer, and you noticed the song change to a familiar one.

“Oh my god! You are so cheesy.” You stopped in your tracks, laughing.

“What? This wasn’t me. Dustin loves this song.” Steve feigned innocence.

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure he loves the Carpenters.” You rolled your eyes playfully.

“Well, this sure is a coincidence. We better head in so we can appreciate it.” Steve said as you watched try to hide his knowing smile.

“Fine.” You said dramatically, and Steve began to pull you inside.

“Actually,” You stopped him, changing your mind, “Let’s appreciate it from here.”

You closed the small gap between you, setting your hands on Steve’s shoulders as his instinctively were placed on your waist.

He smirked, “Who’s cheesy now?”

“Still you, but I have my moments.”

“I guess I’m rubbing off on you.” Steve puffed out his chest as you two slowly swayed and you laughed.

“Yeah, I would say so.”

A comfortable silence fell after that, as you were pulled closer to Steve as you danced, swaying to the soft beat of Close To You. Steve knew that it may not been playing at your wedding, but for now, he knew it was enough.

Because obviously, he would make it up to you later. He was going to make sure that this song was the song you first danced after you both said I Do’s.

And like the silent language lovers have, you knew this too.

And you were looking forward to it.  

-

tags: @kaliforniacoastalteens @tanovic54321 @chels-nyc @hoebliss @remorsefuul @keejan-turtle @captaintightpants58 @fandomsfavorite @comefindmesomeday @random-ffandom @thingsweneverhave @nowvoyagerruinedme @rachrose8 @midgardiansworld @cats-on-the-beach @secillyj @kyaramaya 

[mc-slowwalker]

ahahaha it’s all g. and oh yeah paragraph breaks are 100% important I also will not read something without them tumblr was just adding like 5 line breaks between everything lol

yeah!! it’s cool too see how they will heal and get better (at least hopefully lol) with their current circumstances cause like they’ve all hurt other people in some way and of course forgiveness is not required at all and not everyone will be able to work together. there are fics that make the egg kind of like a common enemy for everyone on the server including c!dream which forces them to work together but I haven’t really seen one that does that concept well yet. in terms of redemption I think people tend to take it as including forgiveness which like the people hurt aren’t obligated to forgive everyone. it’s why I tend to dislike fics where c!tommy instantly forgives c!dream cause there’s more complexity to it than that which I think is fun to explore and like I think for any kind of positive change for those two characters will probably happen if they stay away from eachother.

also currently in the lore there’s just more conflict, even with c!puffy trying to help at least c!tommy we’ve got the egg (I’m an eggpire apologist what can I say) plus the las nevadas plot (I’m so excited for this) and the prison arc and it’s effects on c!dream, c!quackity and c!sam (god please cc!dream drop lore I beg TELL ME ABOUT THE COURTYARD) and the syndicate that had been pretty chill but now one of its members is locked in prison so that’s fun too (I hope I’m not forgetting any major plot point lol) This will definitely make the moving forward and healing a bit difficult

mmm yeah true age definitely makes a difference in how much flack people get but also how people handle it I’d say like for some younger people it’s 100% their first fandom and first online space so they’re pretty bad at handling themselves online. also while I dislike the “they’re a child” argument when it comes to the lore it’s interesting how much emphasis the fandom puts on the age of the characters

oohhh yes I find it sooo interesting how we determine the severity of crimes in our minds when it comes to media and real life!!!! I’ve been thinking about it for weeks in terms of fandom and real life cause I think it’s interesting and keep talking to people in my life about it completely randomly lmaooooo. like it’s intriguing (I got bored of the word interesting) how seriousness of crimes is determined in our minds and even in the law like it’s gotta do with its effect on other people I think that this would apply to the law as well. also yeah!! the whole “acceptable” crimes thing is super interesting to me cause when it comes to media murder is reduced in severity a lot and it’s cool to see the effect of that on character analysis cause like in real life murder is and should be deemed as a terrible crime. also when it comes to dsmp lore, especially cause of the minecraft mechanics applying real world rules such as criminal ones doesn’t always work. I would lowkey love to have that conversation about real world stuff adjkhsb

the povs 100% help. looking and c!techno for this I think is really interesting cause he definitely has his flaws too but the vast majority of cc!techno viewers would be considered c!techno apologists that can’t see his flaws. every other character too of course. this also why I think c!dream apologists tend to be better at character/lore analysis cause he doesn’t stream his pov. not always of course and I’ve definitely seen some c!dream apologist takes that I disagree with which just makes it all even more interesting honestly. main takeaway, cc!dream please drop lore it’s been months since that teaser

this is definitely the longest ask I’ve ever sent and I didn’t proof read it at all so sorry for that and any possible mistakes lol

honestly with the egg stuff and being the common enemy doesn’t really do it for me? I always joke that the author is c!dream ajdjkd because I think a common enemy wont fix things for the sever, they need to stop the cycle of revenge/abuse which is going to take a longass time because everyone is hurting so much. They syndacate has gotten closest to stopping that cycle out of everyone in the server which is fucking hilarious. I agree that forgiveness isn’t required but for both c!dream and c!tommy if one of them doesn’t walk away and/or apologize they’ll both keep ruminating on it forever. The fic that started this conversation was great because one of the part where c!tommy comes in and apologizes to c!dream. The closure and freedom it gave c!tommy to just fully walk away content with the last thing he said to c!dream is way way better than a future where c!dream just straight up dies. Here’s the thing, people are a lot more forgiving of the dead so while tommy might get freedom from that, he’d never get closure from it and I think it would continue to haunt him

Very excited for everyone and everything to go worse though keep it up dream smp make me hurt

I also feel like with fandoms there were a lot of unspoken rules that became cringe as the older fandoms grew up if that makes any sense. Like there were/are guidelines on how to be decent in fan spaces but a lot of them were unspoken and if you speak them, the people who would need it think it’s cringe. Sometimes I get secondhand embarrassment when I see those “fandom rules” posts but then I read it and it’s all really good advice?? It’s like hey don’t send death threats don’t harass people and just chillax we’re all here for fun

The “they’re a child” thing is interesting to me because while I also use it to excuse a lot of the dream smp minors, the age range I use “they’re just a kid” for is a lot more lenient than most. I add sap, niki, jack, and quackity to it as well as anyone in the 18 through 20 age range as well. Maybe this is because I’m 19 so I’m like “oh shit im still a kid the fuck”. Another side of this that I think is really funny is that in real life that’s 100% not how it works? Like there are jails for children minors aren’t just allowed to do whatever and let me tell you c!tommy would 1000% be in juvie right now. Minors on the dream smp have way more rights then minors in real life but sadly that also comes with way more responsibility and I think we should make c!tommy pay taxes

Murder in the dsmp vs real life is also really interesting because while they have more lives, we’ve seen with foolish & puffy that even taking away a first life is traumatic and cruel despite the apathy from everybody. And who it’s against is also a hige factor if someone makes w hige company’s life harder I’ll look away in the same way that people look away from c!tommy taking two of c!dream’s canon lives. The first life seems traumatic, and the second life is bad but more so because they now have to be careful. Taking a character’s last life would be one of the worst crimes in the universe I think. Instead of taking one life like how url stuff works, you’re taking 3 lives. A murderer killing one person vs killing multiple can dictate the sentence they get for sure, but also taking lives vs killing someone is also different on the dream smp so I dunno

C!Dream apologists certainly have to reach a lot more but it’s okay because I got long arms ig

Also despite me having time to proofread everything I am confident that I will have as many or more mistakes than you because Im jared 19 and also I somehow broke my autocorrect

[dont-doubt-dopple]

How You Fell In Love With Me - Chapter 3

A/N: Hey, look, I’m not dead! And neither is this story. Just, the original idea got changed. Drastically. It’s just, I’m a lot less comfortable writing Brohm and I know people are a lot less comfortable reading it as well. Just know that if you came for Brohm, I’m not so sure how much Brohm is going to be in this story anymore. So I’ve changed the plan in my head and I am more excited to write this. Oh, I’m going to break some hearts this time around. The angst is rubbing of on me, IM SORRY. The discord with the angst Nights is rubbing off on me. Enjoy. I’m also introducing BOLD text into the equation. So, as not to get confused:

Normal text=Real World

Italic Text=Bryce’s Story world

Bold Text=Flashback sequence

WARNING: This chapter contains very homophobic sequences, including the use of the slur f****t. Tread with caution.

~•~

Chapter 3 - Faces to Names

“They always like this?” I asked, watching the scene of chaos and bloody murder in front of me. Otherwise know as Mario Kart.

"Yeah." Delirious assured me. "You get used to them." I looked around the living room at all the men screaming their heads off over a game. For people that were in a gang, they seemed like one huge family. They had inside jokes and traditions and the ability to be themselves. I was just some outsider looking in.

“Fuck off you sweaty nerd.” One if the guys exclaimed, his words laced with an Irish accent.

“Sorry.” Another one giggled in response. His words also had the slightest touch of an Irish accent, but not as much as the other guy.

“Moo hasn’t said anything in a while.” Mini commented, the only of the mess of bodies I actually knew. The guy who I assumed was Moo spoke off next.

“I’m winning.” He explained, before becoming silent once more. That being soon interrupted by a Control slamming to the ground.

“9. Fucking. Boomerangs.” The man who slammed the controlled down said calmly, although extremely enraged. “In 2nd to last.” At moment, a red shell came up from behind him and hit his already still character. This caused his calm anger to turn into pure rage. “WHO DID THAT!!! WHICH ONE OF YOU WAS IS YOU FUCKING FAGGOTS!!”

I tensed up as always. Though it only got him madder. I knew the routine by now, so it wasn’t a surprise. I could picture the red on his face, smell the alcohol on his breath, hear the malice laced in his words.

“I won’t let some queer stand our level.” He growls. I close my eyes, not wanting to watch the enjoyment of all of this spread across his face like the madman he was.

“Bryce.” Del calls out to me, putting his hand on my shoulder. I step away on impulse. She should know better than to do that. She knows I don’t want a repeat of last time. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” I echoed back. I could feel the tears beginning to well up in my eyes. I rushed out the last part a little as I bolted. “I just need some fresh air.”

“Yeah. Run!” He screamed as I dashed away, tears streaming down my face and fresh bruises down my back. “I don’t want to see this poor excuse of a son in my house again.”

“Bryce.” I stopped, hand on the handle. My mom was standing there on the stairs. I could tell even if I didn’t turn around. “Come back when he’s sober. Your dad will change his mind.”

“He’s my father.” I spat, still enraged at him. It wasn’t fair to be unleashing it at my mother but all the pent up anger I’ve been restraining was coming out now and my brain had little time to filter. “To call him my dad would be to say he loved me. Clearly he doesn’t.” I glanced back at the man who helped bring me into this world. He was sunken back into the couch, yelling at some sports game on the TV.

“Just ...” Her voice faltered, as if the words in her tongue just couldn’t come out. “He’s the only dad you’ll ever have. Give him another chance.”

“I’ve given him too many to count. And if this is how he uses all of them, then I’d rather have no dad at all.” I didn’t stay to hear her response. I simply pulled the door open and left, standing on the stoop as it slammed behind me. I breathed.

And then I broke.

I collapsed, letting all the waterworks built up inside me flow down my face. I was attempting to cover my face with my hands, failing miserably. “He’s not here. He’s not here.” I kept muttering to myself, in a voice barely in a whisper. I curled into a ball then, letting my head fall into my knees.

“Hey.” I looked up to see an Asian guy staring at me with a kind smile. Slick black hair tossed to the side and an equally slick red jacket. He had kneeled down so he was at least closer to my level. “Anxiety?”

“More like PTSD.” I admitted. “Someone just ... said a slur accidentally and I got triggered.”

“Can’t say I relate.” He replied, sitting down next to me. “I’m Evan, by the way. Most of the guys will call me Vanoss, though.”

“So wait, your the ...” The Cat had finally got my tongue, but he seemed to know exactly what I was trying to say.

“Yeah. And that must make you the Bryce McQuaid Ohm has been telling me about. Incessantly.” Both of us laughed at this. I did wonder why Ohm would be preaching about me though. I haven’t really had a chance to talk to him that much. I didn’t voice this though. Maybe I’d get a one on one with Ohm later. “But the real question is, what was it that triggered you?”

“It was ...” I felt begin to choke, but I was at least able to push the first syllables out. “Fa ... Fa ...” Evan stopped me first though, holding his hand up to my face.

“I know what your trying to say. And that sounds like Tyler.” Jon said, sliding the rough draft back over to Mike. “Just email us a copy of the final thing later.”

“Sure thing.” Mike agreed, sliding the rough chapter into his bag. “Just promise me that you do not, under any circumstance, tell Bryce about this.”

“Really?”

“I’d have to agree with Mike on this.” Mark added. The group was in a local Starbucks, waiting for Bryce to exit the bathroom and Drac to get here. Mark had one of the single seats by Jon, while Mike sat on the loveseat. “Guy nearly had a full blown panic attack just giving me and Swag the first two chapters. Where is Drac, by the way?”

“He texted he was here like two minutes ago, but I don’t see him.” Mike pushed himself up using his arms, trying to see where his boyfriend was. He didn’t notice Jon rolling his eyes at Swag’s mention. “What’s taking Bryce so long in the bathroom, anyways?”

“No idea.” Jonathan said. “He’s been acting off since the day before yesterday. He was talking to Adam before, so I think it’s something he told him.”

“Oh god, that’s not good.” Mark commented, just as another guy hopped into the seat next to Mike.

“Sorry I’m late.” He apologized. “I had to work out some details with Ellie and John for a project. Who’s Adam?”

“The question I’m wondering is who are you?” Jonathan shot back. The guy, while subtlety slinging his arm across Mike, looked at Mark expectantly. The latter sighed.

“Jonathan, meet Swag Dracula. We usually call him Swag or Drac for short. Swag, Jon or H2O Delirious.” He introduced. Jonathan sat there, dumbfounded.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. H2O. Now back to my earlier question; who is this Adam guy?” Swag continued on. Jonathan was still in shock, the only movement indicating he was alive was the blinking of this eyes and the subtle rise and fall of his chest.

“You’re real.” He gasped softly, leaning back into his chair.

“Yeah he’s real.” Mike answered, planting a quick kiss on Swag’s cheek. “And Adam is basically the Cheryl Blossom of the campus. If you want a secret to stay a secret, you better pray to whatever deity you believe in that Adam doesn’t find out. If there’s trouble, there’s a 85% chance that Adam was the catalyst. He’s the one person that no matter what, you do not trust him.”

“Got it.” Swag said. “Now, are we getting drinks yet or ...”

“I’ll see what’s taking Bryce so long in the bathroom.” Mike volunteered, rising from his seat. He rolled his eyes as he passed Jonathan, who he saw mouth to Mark ‘He’s actually real?’ He headed to the back by the restrooms only to run into Bryce.

“Hey, You okay?” Mike asked upon seeing his friend. His blond hair was disheveled, and his eyes were red and puffy. He was quiet and when Mike cupped his cheek he could feel it was wet. “That’s a stupid question. Of course you’re not okay. What’s troubling you?”

“Nothing.” Bryce choked out, avoiding making eye contact with Mike.

“Bryce ...” Bryce grabbed Mike, pulling him into the restroom. “What ..?”

“Adam said ...” The blond paused, as if making sure nobody heard their conversation. “Adam said Ryan has a crush on Luke. He’s only ever see me as a friend.”

“Hey, this is Adam we’re talking about. He could be just stirring up trouble.”

“He may be a troublemaker, but he’s a reputable troublemaker. When is the last time Montoya was wrong?” This seemed to do the trick in shutting Mike up. “Exactly. Just ... don’t tell anyone. Okay?” Mike nodded, and was about to nod when Bryce grabbed his hand again. “And try not to intervene. Please?”

“I’ll do my best.” He replied, which seemed to satisfy Bryce enough. The two left the bathroom with uneasy thoughts and began to rejoin their friends. They were talking in hushed tones, like they didn’t want to risk anyone else hearing their secrets. Though a simple question lingered in Mike’s mind. Even with the coffee and knowledge of a nearly School wide bet (“We didn’t think Dracula was real. We were just wondering which one of you guys would crack first.”), it still lingered.

Was this accidental intervention really a good thing?

“Mike, sweetie, you okay?” Swag asked softly as Bryce, Jon, and Mark were laughing about something. Mike nodded, squeezing Drac’s arm in reassurance.

“I’ll tell you later.” He said.

“About Bryce?” Mike nodded. “Okay.” He leaned his head so it rested on Drac’s shoulder. Mike didn’t let go of Swag’s arm nor did either release their hands that were intertwined with each other.

“I love you.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less.”